Looking ahead to Exodus 20 (commentary by Ray Webster)

St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai
The first reading is Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Moses led the people of Israel in the wilderness to the mountain where Moses had encountered God in the Burning Bush.

A word about Mount Sinai and St. Catherine’s Monastery

We do not know which mountain was the Mount Sinai in the Book of Exodus. Tradition identifies it as Mount Sinai in the Sinai peninsula, pictured below (in a photo from Wikipedia). Whether or not this was the actual mountain climbed by Moses, it is typical of the region.

And I note that at the bottom of the photo you will see the ancient Greek Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine’s. St. Catherine’s was so very much out in the middle of nowhere, that it was by-passed by wars and internal church disputes, with the result that it is a major treasure house of Byzantine art and manuscripts. St. Catherine’s web site is: www.sinaimonastery.com/en/index.php?lid=1

One of the most ancient manuscripts of the Bible came from St. Catherine’s, and is known as the Codex Sinaticus, or Sinai edition as it were, and it too has its own web site: http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/

Well, whether or not the mountain which today bears the name Mount Sinai was the actual one Moses climbed – what the Greek Orthodox tradition calls by the wonderful phrase the God trodden mountain – it is certainly typical of the region.

God gives Moses the Ten Commandments

In chapter 19 of the Book of Exodus, God called Moses up the mountain. A thick cloud descended on the mountain, that great image of the presence of God – an image I find especially appropriate for God who exists and is with us, is unseen, as though within the cloud. And in today’s lesson we have the Ten Commandments given by God. All ten are in the lesson, although the passage has been abbreviated. has been pointed out over the centuries, the first four of the Ten Commandments have to do with God, and the next six to do with our ethics.

The first

The first commandment is that the God who brought us out of slavery, who delivered us is to be our only God. No other gods. This one only. Not even number one – but the only one.

The second

Number two is that we are not to make any idols or worship any. Only God, and that God is not seen.

Whether or not this commandment meant or means for Christians to not make art showing Biblical characters or Christ has been a hot topic of controversy over the centuries. In the church we have a copy of an icon of St. John Chrysostom from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The reason it came from the 9^th century when he lived at the beginning of the 5^th is that in between there were the iconoclasts, the icon breakers. A reason St. Catherine’s in Sinai is such a treasure trove is that it was so off the beaten track the iconoclasts apparently forgot about it. But then the Greek Orthodox decided that because Christ took on human flesh and blood – was incarnate – it was OK to make representations of him.

At the top of this post is a great icon of Christ from St. Catherine’s, which I deeply love:

The third

We are not to misuse the Name of God. Take the Name in vain, swearing. (The Quaker hesitation to take an oath is based on another quote from Jesus, let your yes be a yes and your no be a no – two American presidents affirmed rather than swore).

The fourth

We are to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. In Exodus the explanation is given that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. In the explanation in Deuteronomy 5 there is the interesting statement that it is because you were slaves in Egypt and God brought you out and therefore told you to keep this. It is to be a day of Sabbath, a day of rest, a day remembering God the deliverer. Sabbath is to be time with God – a key part of a spiritual life, a life of discipleship.

The fifth

Honor your father and your mother.

The sixth

You shall not murder. (A very good example that translation involves interpretation, for the King James Version is famously Thou shalt not kill.)

The seventh

You shall not commit adultery.

The eighth

You shall not steal.

The ninth

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

The tenth

You shall not covet what is your neighbor’s.

Here is the great foundation of the Law – the ethics of Israel.

The summary of the Law

Jesus summed up it with two quotes from Deuteronomy in Matthew, that you shall love the love your God and your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets of Israel. There is a very familiar quotation of this in the Book of Common Prayer on page 324:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

(Ray Webster)

Poured Out

Sept. 25 sermon on Philippians 2:1-13

Susan is a mother of four.  Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she piles a table with food, corrals her kids in one room, wrangles them into seats, and loads their plates.  Once everybody is served, she wanders around the table with a milk jug in her hand, filling empty glasses, topping off half-full glasses, cutting everybody off at thirds because milk is expensive, and these kids drink it like water.  Susan never sits.  When all is done and the children run away, she clears the table and gets down to dishes.  She eats leftovers as she works.  If you knew her, you would see that she is tired.  You'd be able to tell that something is missing, something is too much, some piece of Susan is getting lost in the shuffle of her life.  She tells herself, "This is just how it is - I've got a lot of kids, I've got a lot to do," but she knows other mothers, other fathers who seem to take it all in stride - or, at least they laugh a little more than she does.  All around her the world grinds on, and Susan feels as though she's being poured out, day by day, like that gallon of milk. 

Depending on where she goes looking for it, Susan might not find a lot of help in the Christian tradition where "pouring out" is concerned.  The idea that self-effacement, self-erasure, or self-abnegation is required to be a disciple is one that's been taught and preached in many times and places.  There are popular understandings of the idea: the lyrics to a catchy devotional song repeat, "Less of me and more of him."  A famous hymn gets at this idea some with the chorus, "Have thine own way" and the image of a person being like malleable clay.  The apostle Paul wrote of himself, more than once, "I am being poured out like a drink offering.” 

It's often around Paul's letters that issues about self-sacrifice come up.  Paul writes to a lot of people that are being persecuted, so that accounts for some of it.   But Paul's christology - his teaching about who Jesus is and how Jesus works - can be hard to understand.  Today, he writes to a small church in Greece, and recites his own hymn that describes what it's like to have the mind of Christ:  "he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness ..."  Paul continues, "he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross." 

For many people who first heard Paul’s words this song wasn't just telling a story about Jesus.  It solved a huge theological problem.  The very earliest Christians may have known people who actually knew Jesus, but they didn't have any sort of a developed way of thinking about how it was that he was God.  They relied on people like Paul, on the stories about Jesus that became our Gospels, and on their experiences of the Holy Spirit in worship to help them understand who this man was and what he meant for them.  So here, in this song, was a clue: Jesus emptied himself and took on human form.  He purged himself of all divine attributes like knowing everything, seeing everything, or having all power, and took on the limitations of human knowledge, human sight, and human power.  In doing so, he suffered.  He poured himself out.  He became something other than what he was and gave up what he had a right to in order to save us.  If you follow this - and, quite frankly, we're diving in to some deep stuff here - it means that Jesus didn't simply die once on the cross to release us from our sins ... he sacrificed his essential self at his birth by being incarnated and becoming a person.

So that's a very clever way to solve a metaphysical quandary.  You pour out the God, fill up on human, and you've got a God-man.  It explained how two such opposite things as divine and human being could be united in one person.  It explained confusing things, like how Jesus didn't save himself from being killed. 

But it sends you down a tricky road if you're looking to be a disciple - because Paul is telling us to be like this, right?  Paul wants us to have the same mind in us that was in Christ.  So here begins not only a theological tradition - a particular way of thinking about how Jesus is God - but an attitude tradition.  Here begins a way of thinking about how Christians should regard themselves and their suffering that has hard consequences.  For it suggests to be like Jesus we have to empty ourselves - we have to pour ourselves out.  And if, for Jesus, that meant that he sacrificed his identity, giving up his divine self in order to live for us, then how can we be concerned with maintaining our selves?  How can you count yourself as a person worth preservation or protection if self-emptying, being poured out, is the defining pattern of life in Christ?  

This is a critique that feminist and liberation theologians who write about poor or oppressed groups of people have leveled against the idea of Jesus' self-emptying because it's been used in the past to keep people "in their place."  You want to fight for freedom and equality?  Well Jesus took the form of a servant.  You want to think more highly of yourself?  Jesus humbled himself.  You can even set the big issues of marginalized groups of people aside, and we all know somebody whose personal faith tells them that it's ok if they suffer because Jesus suffered; or they won't stick up for themselves because Jesus was lowly and meek.  There are Susan’s in this world who brush aside this horrifying feeling that they are losing themselves because nothing has convinced them that they are worth finding. 

It may not seem like this is something a gathering of people like us would have such trouble with.  Mainline Christians - people who are not Roman Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant Fundamentalists - don't really go in for self-abnegation or self-obliteration these days.  A lot of us may even be here this morning because of that.  I, for one, was drawn to a tradition like ours because I hated feeling like I was such a lump of clay, needing to be molded into another shape.  I hated being guilty all of the time and having the sense that I should be poured out and something else should be poured into me.

But here, this gathering of friends and neighbors, this larger community outside these walls?  We just do self-emptying a little differently.  We pour ourselves out every day like drink offerings on all kinds of altars.  Ask the attorney crouched over a brief at 3:00 AM whether she knows about self-emptying.  Ask the parent for whom "stay-at-home" means board meetings and sports and fundraisers and committees and rarely setting foot inside the four walls of a house.  Ask the analyst and trader as their stomachs plummet with the economy.  Ask the person who worries that she has to perform well enough at work or at parties or who worries that he has to look good enough and have good enough things in order to be loved whether they know what it feels like to have self pouring out of you like milk, or to feel self draining out of you like water. 

In August, I attended a conference where a presenter told the story of sitting with a group of leaders of huge churches, all of whom confessed that their personal lives were falling apart.  They found it hard to pray, they worked all the time, and they couldn't remember why they had gotten into ministry in the first place.  They were depleted, completely drained.  These men and women had vision, direction, talent, prestige, money - and they were totally bereft. 

At the same conference, an international aid worker told the story of a pastor in Ethiopia during a time of state persecution of the church.  Like the apostle Paul, he had no family but wandered the countryside tending to these little churches, taking whatever food or money was given to him.  He was captured one day while preaching and thrown in prison.  Three times he was scheduled to be executed, and each time the electrical apparatus failed, so finally he was released and banished from the village.  On his way out of town, this aid worker met him, and knowing that the man had just escaped death, asked where he was going.  "I'm on my way to preach a funeral," the pastor nodded, and locked arms with another friend as they took off over the hill.  This pastor was wounded, threatened, probably physically hungry - but he was full. 

And that's the thing.  He was full.  The Ethiopian pastor was living in an immediate and perspective-enhancing situation and was being spiritually fed in a way that allowed him to go out, day by day, and offer himself to the world without losing himself.  He was a character - he was full and vibrant, not erased or effaced, and yet he gave of himself, he donated his spirit freely.  He could pour himself out because he was constantly drinking something in.

That's the thing about Jesus' self-emptying, too.  The idea that Jesus sacrificed a part of himself to be like us results in a tidy theological package, but shies away from the bold claim of our faith that Jesus offered his whole self on behalf of humanity.  His self-emptying was a giving of his whole self, God giving everything for us.  Jesus didn't empty himself of God; he poured all of himself out in love and service for us because he was drinking freely from his Father all of the time. 

So then there's us, and our self-emptying.  We may not always feel like Jesus calls us to self-abnegation, but our lives often look like we're in a race to pour ourselves out.  We work hard, we meet all sorts of obligations, we keep up the pace and give time, money, and energy to all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.  But we can't pour ourselves out without drinking something in.  To be sure, God always gives us the grace we need to keep going - but that's manna for the day, which you can't store up.  That's water from the rock, which is a miracle - a temporary solution to the problem of thirst.  We're come here, to places like this, because we're thirsty, and because we're hungry, and we need something that lasts.  Week after week we come back because we believe that in these books and these prayers and this music and this food and this fellowship we will find living water and bread from heaven.  And we must.  We must find it here.  God has brought us together to feed us, and being a disciple doesn't mean starving yourself to emptiness - it means eating God's food while your appetite for it grows and grows and grows. 

God doesn’t want you to hoard yourself or measure yourself out sparingly.  God does want all of you – but God wants you to give yourself for the things that give you life; and God wants you, not the husk of you that’s left after you’ve been emptied out.  And many of us probably want that too: we want to give ourselves to God, or at least we want to start to understand what that look likes.  But it’s our selves we give to God, standing up like the resurrection people we are.  There is a message of comfort for everybody who feels like Susan, that even when you lose yourself you’re never lost by God.  But there’s a message of hope that is stronger: there is food and drink that will keep you full, and when you find it, you can give as freely as you receive. 

(The Rev. Danielle Thompson, preacher)

Kenosis, anyone?

Normally, Ray and I spend a lot of time digging around in the Gospels.  Then this past summer, we decided to focus on the Old Testament readings about Creation, Abraham’s family, and Moses.  So what about those poor Epistles (“letters”)?  What about those twisty-turny passages of Scripture snuck in-between the two big readings that are sometimes so theologically opaque and sometimes so amazingly on-point? 

This Sunday is the perfect opportunity to let the Epistle shine.  Paul’s Letter to the Philippians (members of a church in Philippi – today Filippoi, Greece).  Philippians is actually a sort of love story: in Paul’s words you can detect the depth of friendship between him and the church, despite some conflict.  But you can also read about the depth of love that Jesus has for the world in the portion of Chapter 2 that we read this week, which is sometimes called “The Kenotic Hymn.”

Excerpt from Philippians 2:1-13:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death--

even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Why is this called a Hymn?

In certain passages of Scripture, notably in Paul’s letters and in the Gospel of Luke, it’s possible to pick up on sayings, phrases, and repeated statements that have a different ring to them.  People who study the history and effect of worship (liturgical scholars) can identify some of these passages as hymns, liturgical responses or statements, doxologies (formal expressions of praise), etc.  Though we don’t know for sure whether Philippians 2:5-11 was actually a hymn, it may be an example of a component of early Christian worship buried in our Scripture. 

What is “Kenotic”?

Kenotic refers to kenosis, a Greek word that denotes emptying.  The classic idea here is that Jesus emptied himself of divine attributes in order to assume human form.  It’s a way to describe the Incarnation, or how God became human.  A modified version of kenosis – and one that I think is more helpful – suggests that Jesus didn’t actually shed himself of divinity, but had an attitude of complete humility.  Humility here has more to do with regarding others as great rather than regarding yourself as insufficient.  Jesus emptied himself of self-regard and self-seeking, pouring himself out in love and service to others.

The opposite of kenosis is pleroma, which means “fullness.”  Having emptied himself in service to others, Jesus was nevertheless full of God’s grace. 

Why does it matter?

Philippians is about patterns.  Paul in general is about patterns.  Jesus is a template and we pattern our life on him not by looking at what he did and imitating it, but by joining ourselves to him and becoming one body with him.  Baptism is the way we begin to do this and the Eucharist sustains us in it.  But the pattern of that life is emptying and filling; kenosis and pleroma; death and resurrection.  We begin to see Jesus’ life laid over everything and we begin to feel our own lives taking its shape: emptying and filling; kenosis and pleroma; death and resurrection. 

(Danielle Thompson)

 

The Bible text of the Gospel lesson is from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

Bread that the Lord has given (September 18 sermon by Raymond Webster)

Exodus 16The people are free. In our first reading today (Exodus 16:2-15), we find the Hebrew people on the other side of the Red Sea. Free.

We have been reading these past Sundays the stories of how God acted in history to deliver the Jewish people, to save them slavery. It is the Passover story, the formative story of Judaism. We have been remembering these stories, and they echo in all sorts of ways in the stories of Jesus, which we also remember. And as we remember, God draws near to us and speaks God’s Word.

We have remembered how God spoke from the Burning Bush and sent Moses to stand before Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go” – those words of such importance in the history of Chicago and Illinois and our country -- biblical words fundamental to the abolition of slavery. In classic Christian theology, we believe God has created each human being and each is of infinite value – and the church is called to be a voice for the value and God given rights – “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” As Moses spoke God’s Word “Let my people go” the church in our time is to speak that Word, God’s Word of the value and dignity of each one.

And then how Pharaoh refused to let the people go, and God sent the ten plagues on Egypt.

And then how God had them sacrifice a lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorposts so the angel would pass over the houses of the Hebrew slaves the night of that most terrible of the ten plagues, the last and most terrible, the killing of the first born in Egypt. And then Pharaoh let them go.

And then changed his mind, and went after them, and the Hebrews found themselves at the shore of the Red Sea – trapped, stuck – and God parted the waters and they walked through on dry land. The Egyptian horsemen followed, and the waters closed over them.

And the people stood on the further shore, free. God had delivered the people. We read this story last Sunday, the great passage we read every year at the Easter Vigil (the one lesson we are required to read at the Easter Vigil) for it looks to how God acted in history in Jesus Christ to save us from sin and death. And last Sunday we also read the great song of thankfulness of Moses and Miriam – I love the detail that Miriam took up her tambourine to sing -- God has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea.

And today we come to the very next story. The people are free. Saved by God. Safe. Free. And what happens?

They wake up to the fact that they are out in the middle of nowhere, totally ill equipped to live in the wilderness, unprepared for this survival exercise they find themselves on.

And they complained. OK, they were hungry. Always good to begin with our real needs and who we really are and what we really need. They were human beings who were hungry, and had no food and not a clue as to how to get any.

They would learn how to get food. Over the next forty years wandering in the wilderness they would learn. A whole new generation or two would be raised up who learned how to survive. Their parents had learned how to survive as slaves. Never downplay the skills and sacrifices needed to survive in what must have been often degrading and terrifying situations. But now they were embarking on a whole new training course as a people.

For the moment, where they honestly were was scared and angry and clueless and they complained.

And God who saved them, provided food. I have no idea how God did this – I know what quails are, and they appeared all over the place at night, but the manna is a mysterious substance. Well, what manna was, this was not the way God was going to do it over the long run. This was a miracle of feeding just for the moment. There is a detail in the story that I love -- the detail that if they tried to keep the manna – take a doggy bag home for the next day – it would go bad. I love the earthy King James Version that someone kept and it bred worms and stank. (Exodus 16:20) This was not something to store into barns, there weren’t any barns, this wasn’t for the long run, this was not how it was going to be.

The miracle for the long run would be the people learning how to feed themselves, how to be free and feed themselves. God would inspire them to do that, inspire their leaders to learn how to do that – maybe Moses’ long time as a shepherd precisely out in the middle of nowhere gave him knowledge and skills for teaching the people how to get food, how to take care of animals who would provide food.

And God who provided food in the wilderness would also provide the deepest feeding we need – the rich bread of the Word we find in all the ensuing stories and poetry and hymns of the Scriptures. God would feed. And form God’s people by God’s Word, by feeding them, feeding us, feeding us today.

God who had acted in history to free them and save them, would now form them.

God will form us as disciples of Jesus

Just so, God who has acted in history in Jesus Christ to save us, will form us as disciples of Jesus.

You may well say, whoa, wait a minute. Did you just say I am a disciple of Jesus? I thought that was Peter and John and Matthew, two thousand years ago.

Yes, it was. They were the first disciples. Jesus called them to follow him.

And I believe deeply God calls you to follow Jesus just as truly.

God calls us to follow Jesus day by day on his way of self-giving love, as his disciples.

By the Holy Spirit dwelling in each one of us, God gives each one rich gifts for discipleship. Gives you rich gifts.

I always remember that in Thomas Aquinas the first gift of the Holy Spirit is wisdom, the wisdom to know we are loved by God, the wisdom to know how to love.

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?

I am trying to make a list of what makes a disciple. Perhaps it is my French Cartesian side.

There is a whole movement in parishes of our diocese at this time to make a simple list of the basics of being an Anglican. I am a big fan of this movement and the clergy and parishes involved and of the Rev. Clarence Langdon is who is sort of godfather of this movement! And this list is my contribution, although I am quick to add that what is on the list is from the Bible – the Bible is on the list! – and from the Prayer Book and our tradition.

Making a list, checking it more than twice, in order to invite you to the discipleship God call you to embrace. The mission of our parish is to make disciples. So what does discipleship mean?

Being a disciple means listening to the Word of God. Listening to the Bible read here in church, listening to what the preacher hears, listening to what you hear within you. I believe the Holy Spirit dwelling inside you (that inner place within your mind and heart is the Temple of the Spirit) will light up images and words and passages. Or give you things to wrestle with, like Jacob wrestling through the night with God.

One of the great principles of the Reformation was to put the Bible in the hands of the laity, to read and meditate on and pray about, and listen for God’s Word to you of how much God loves you. May the Holy Spirit give you light and wisdom to glimpse that and trust it. And offer God thanks and love in return.

Being a disciple means coming regularly to Holy Communion. Here God feeds us, both in the bread, and in the entire liturgy – music and prayers and word. Here the bread is placed in our hands as a tangible sign that God is with us, present with us, loving us with the love we see in Jesus – the love that is the bread of my life.

Being a disciple means regularly asking God’s forgiveness which we do in the prayer of confession and being forgiven.

On this day we remember the Hebrew people out in the wilderness without a clue as to how to feed themselves, we remember the great theme running through the Hebrew Bible and into the Gospel teachings of Jesus and the New Testament, the consistent theme of helping those who are hungry, feeding the widow and orphan, feeding the helpless. An essential part of being a disciple of Jesus is helping others – serving Christ as we serve those in need (Matthew 25). May we have wisdom and vision to broaden that to the myriad ways human beings can be helped, from shelters to hospices to hospitals to schools.

One of the mysteries of human life is that when we help others we are fed ourselves.

Discipleship means our ethical and political choices. In our tradition we value freedom to make those choices as a positive spiritual value – we are called to be mature free disciples, with consciences formed by worship and prayer and reading the Word of God. The Holy Spirit living within us will guide our consciences. In a modern democracy, it is not for the church organization to tell people who to vote for, but it is for the preacher to say that these decisions are part of our discipleship. Part of our responsibility. And our tradition tells us we are free to make those decisions. This obviously opens us to diversity of opinion in the church which I believe is healthy in a free society and church.

Being a disciple means discerning, listening for, looking for what God wants us to do and to be. How am I obedient to the call to follow Jesus on his way of self-giving love as a free and mature person?

Being a disciples mean taking our share in building the community of the church – gathered by God here around Jesus’ table and altar. Sharing joys and sorrows, welcoming the newcomer.

Being a disciple means our giving.

It means building a home, whether single or with four kids – a place of refuge and renewal, a place of hospitality. (When I say that, I am using “home” in its widest sense – many urban people practice hospitality within their residence, others elsewhere – that is simply a personal choice). May the place we live be sometimes a place of prayer. Remember that in the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew Jesus said when you pray go into your room and shut the door.

Being a disciple means finding places to be still and quiet and pray. It can be anywhere. God will be there with you, hidden as though within the cloud, yes. And truly there.

Being a disciples means taking care of oneself – discipleship can be a long distance run (and I pray it will be for you). Discipleship may mean laying down our life, as Bonhoeffer did, like a fire fighter. If that hour comes may God give us courage and strength. God may also call us to the long distance run. On the way we need to find the things that feed us – the things we have a sense God makes use of to feed us. The beauty of the world – art, music, poetry – sport, running along the lakefront in the early morning. You are free to make your own list, find your own things, free to be open to the Spirit leading you to what feeds, to things that feed you, to things by which God feeds you.

How much God loves you. Loves you and me and invites us to a way of life – our mission is to extend the invitation to this way of life. To follow Jesus as his disciple day by day. And to trust at the very center of who we are – faith at the center -- God’s love for us in him, love which nothing can break.

(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, September 18, 2011, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost.)

image found at http://fineartamerica.com/featured/3-bread-from-heaven-nigel-wynter.html)

How does God feed us? (Sermon prep for Sept. 18 by Ray Webster)

The first reading is Exodus 16:2-15

I always like to step back and look at the setting of Bible stories. We come in today on the people of Israel after the Exodus.

God has acted in history to set them free. The great formative foundational action by God has taken place. The Hebrew people are no longer slaves in Egypt. They are free people on the other side of the Red Sea and you would think wow, they should be dancing in the desert, and singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Wrong.

They were not happy. They were mad. They were complaining.

What they were remembering was not what God did but the good old days back in Egypt, when they were taken care of or at least thought they were being taken care of.

And their complaining is clearly directed at Moses and his brother Aaron, who led them out here into the middle of nowhere. Where they were hungry.

Of course the “good old days” back in Egypt were under the conditions of slavery, which did mean one got minimal food to survive – as long as one’s master wanted one to survive.

This very human complaining would characterize the people of Israel for good deal of there early freedom.

What the people of Israel did NOT say was OK we are free, what does God want us to do and to be? It would take forty years in the wilderness to sort that out.

God had acted to free them – but the people are strikingly hazy about who God is and where God is and what God might be doing, let alone wanting them to do.

But now the writer tells us God fed them in the wilderness. God sent meat in the evening (quails in the New Revised Standard Version) and bread in the morning – the mysterious manna in the wilderness.

God gave bread to the people to eat.

How does God feed us, here in Chicago today? What is the bread we are given?

There is the Bible. By means of the Scriptures God speaks to us the Word God has for us – always, at its center, the word of God’s love for each person. Each one. No one left out.

God feeds us in the Eucharist in which the bread and wine are the great signs of God’s presence with us and love for us in Jesus Christ.

God feeds us when we go to God in times of quiet prayer, as Jesus did throughout his ministry.

When we think and pray about a decision or an opinion, I believe God by the Holy Spirit dwelling within us (I love the Quaker image of the Inner Light) guides our consciences. I also believe God gives us the strength and courage and wisdom and love to carry what we are given to carry and do what we are given to do.

In Thomas Aquinas wisdom is the first of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and I believe God gives us the wisdom to love.

These are all ways God feeds us on our journey in Chicago today.

The second reading is from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians 1:21-30

We begin today reading from Paul’s letter to the Christian church in Philippi. Paul calls them to live in a manner of life worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and to face persecution as Paul has faced persecution.

The Gospel reading is from Matthew 20:1-16.

The setting of these stories of Jesus teaching his disciples is his journey from the north of Israel down to the city of Jerusalem.

Last week Jesus spoke strongly about forgiving. From the cross Jesus would pray, “Father, forgive them” – giving us in those words, and in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, that prayer to make our own.

Today he gives us this earthy teaching – relevant to any of his communities – that the newcomer is loved and welcomed by God just as much as the old timer who has borne the burden of the day.

For the wages given to each disciple is the friendship and love of God in Jesus Christ and God does not ration that out.

It strikes me that in our first reading about God feeding the people in the wilderness, and the Gospel reading about the wages paid to God’s servants by God, the great fundamental accent is on what God is doing.

Good to step back periodically in the life of the church to ask what God is up to? God is up to a whole lot – loving each person. The newcomer. The old timer. The outsider (how Jesus went to such effort to reach the outsider). The people on the “in” (Saul of Tarsus was educated on the “in”) and the people of the “outs” (like a tax collector named Levi who took the new name Matthew, which is the name given to this Gospel from which we are reading). And you and me.

(Ray Webster)

Freedom and Forgiveness (sermon prep for Sept. 11 by Ray Webster)

The first reading is Exodus 14:19-31

To set the scene once again in the Book of Exodus: the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. God sent Moses to stand before Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let the people go.

When Pharaoh finally did let the people go, they headed east, toward home, back in Israel.

We come in on the story today at the dramatic moment when Pharoah had changed his mind, and decided to go after the Hebrews with his army, to bring them back into slavery or kill them.

The people of Israel are led by a pillar of cloud during the day, which burned at night to light up the sky. The cloud is one of the great images of the presence of God in the Hebrew Bible. A reminder that in this story God was acting in history to set the people free and on their journey into freedom – and here at this dramatic moment – God was with the people. 

When the people came to the sea, Moses stretched out his hand over the water, and the water parted, and the people went through on dry land.

Then Pharaoh and his chariots came through the same way, and the water closed over them.

And the people were free.

In place of the Psalm for Sunday, we can read together Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21 The Songs of Moses and of Miriam, a song or canticle of praise to God for setting the people free.

We give thanks for freedom. For me, freedom is an important theological idea. God is the creator of all human beings, and because of that, every human life is of infinite value before God, and belongs ultimately to God, and has certain basic human rights.

Freedom of thought and inquiry and speech are not only civic virtues, they are important in the life of the church.  

We remember the legacy of the story of Moses and of the Exodus in the modern search for human freedom. Moses standing before Pharaoh to say, Let my people go, has echoed profoundly in the history of Chicago and Illinois and America, in the fight to end slavery, in the Civil War, in the modern civil rights movement.

Today’s first reading is a substantive part of a reading which the Book of Common Prayer requires us to read at the Easter Vigil.

For the story of God acting in history to save the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt looks to the Easter story – the story of how God acted in history to set all people free from sin and death, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God who brought the people of Israel through the Red Sea waters on dry land, has brought us in Christ through death into the new life. We have the promise and hope of new life with Jesus in heaven, at our end – the promise that our end will be with him.

And here on our journey through life, we enter the new life loved by God in Jesus Christ, all gift, all grace.

We remember today’s reading from Exodus vividly at Easter in the opening verse of the Easter hymn, Hymn 199:   

Come ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness!

God hath brought his Israel into joy from sadness:

loosed from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke Jacob’s sons and daughters,

led them with unmoistened foot through the Red Sea waters.

The profound connection of this first reading with Easter is singularly appropriate, as by chance this Sunday will be the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

The second reading is from the Letter of Paul to the Romans 14:1-12.

Also by chance, our second reading from the Letter of Paul to the Romans 14:1-12 contains a great passage quoted in the opening words of the funeral service in the Book of Common Prayer:

For none of us has life in himself,
and none becomes his own master when he dies.
For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
and if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord's possession.  (Book of Common Prayer, page 491)

The Gospel reading is Matthew 18:21-35.

Then in Matthew 18:21-35 there is Jesus’ great call to us to forgive, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.    

(Raymond Webster)

A Moving Talk (August 28 sermon by Ray Webster)

Rabbi Herman Schaalman is the dean of rabbis in the city of Chicago, rabbi emeritus of Emanuel Congregation up on Sheridan Road. Rabbi was a Lenten speaker several times here in St. Chrysostom’s, and on a memorable occasion he spoke in the church about how he was speaking as a rabbi – not as a convert – but as a guest who we respected for who he was.

I am glad and proud that could be said of St. Chrysostom’s Chicago, although it can also be said of other of our neighbors at this time in history. Rabbi Schaalman led a Jewish service for Cardinal Bernardin in Holy Name Cathedral.

It is important to me that we respect and honor Jewish people. I think it is being true to the best of who we are – to try to understand and listen to and respect people of different Christian communities and also people of other faiths, Jewish and Muslim and Buddhist. The best of who we are is tolerant and understanding.

Rabbi’s talk left our community deeply moved, sitting in the church in silence. Complete silence. I have heard about that happening at musical concerts although I am not sure I have ever experienced it. At concerts enthuasiasts normally are ready to applaud and shout the instant the final note sounds. But this was an authentic moment of being deeply moved, and there was simply silence. I thought to myself, well, let it just be for a while, and then I suggested we read the 23^rd Psalm together.

The students took off their shoes

Before his talk, when I introduced Rabbi Schaalman, I remembered the story that when James Muilenburg the great teacher of the Hebrew Bible, of the Okld Testament, gave his last lecture at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, the students from Hebnrew Union across Broadway who came took off their shoes at the door, for where the Word of God was being read and studied and commented on and listened to was – and always is – holy ground.

That comes of course from today’s story of God telling Moses to take off his shoes before the Burning Bush, for where he was standing, on the mountain, on Mount Sinai, was holy ground: the place of encounter with God, the place of hearing the voice of God, the word of God.

Where we read the Bible, where we tell the stories of Jesus – it can be here in church, it can be at a service in the lobby of a senior residence, it can be by a hospital bed, it can be in our living room, we are on holy ground. And we listen for God speaking to us. The United Church of Christ has a motto, God is still speaking. God is. Not normally, I believe, in an audible voice. But normally by means of the ancient words of Scripture. Not all of them, not always, but by means of the words and images of Scripture.

When we hear how valued we are, how loved by God, it is holy ground.

When we hear how each person, each human being, each human life is valued by God, it is holy ground.

When we break human dividing lines – when we say let my people go, let this person go, let me go, it is holy ground.

When we see a human need and try to help it is holy ground. I believe God the Holy Spirit dwelling in us lights up our understanding to enable to see a need, and then to look for ways to help.

When we go to the quiet place of prayer, which can be anywhere, it is holy ground.

When we love someone, it is holy ground. When we love God and trust God loves us, it is holy ground.

The encounter with God can be anywhere. Moses was out in the middle of nowhere when God encountered him in the Burning Bush. This long unfolding story of the Old Testament and into our New is about God’s presence with human beings and love given to us – to everyone, no one left out.

The message God had for Moses was that God was sending him back to Egypt to stand before Pharaoh and him to let the people go.

It is to Moses’ credit, that when Moses heard this, he stayed put in his bare feet before the Burning Bush . When Jonah got a similar message – to go to Ninevah – Jonah promptly bought a ticket on a boat headed in the opposite direction.

Moses asked a question

Moses asked a question. The Bible is full of questions – it is never wrong to ask questions, to seek and inquire. Indeed the place of inquiry and learning and discovery can well be holy ground, where something beautiful or something that will help people is found.

OK, if I go back to Egypt to the Hebrew people and say God has sent me to lead you into freedom -- what , God, is your Name? Who shall I say is, er, calling?

God answered with the majestic mysterious words “I AM who I AM”, “I AM.” There is a vast literature of study about these words over the centuries.

It is important to be who we are, not to try to be somebody else. It is important to remember where we came from, ands also important to be true to the rich gifts God has given each one of us. For oh yes, God has indeed given you those gift. .

If we are true to the gifts we are given, of course we may end up somewhere quite different from where we started. That is the American way!

When I was a teenager I picked up an Anglican devotional book, a book of prayers. It had advice about preparing for saying one’s confession, and one of the sins listed was moving above or thinking about moving above one’s station in life. Very Victorian English. Not American at all (not modern British either for that matter).

Bishop Wylie – my rector who some of you knew later as Bishop of Northern Michigan – asked to see it. He said most of these things including that one were not sins and more or less told me to get rid of the book, which I did, and stick to St. Francis de Sales. .

It is important to be true to who we are. And what each person is, is greatly loved by God – for that is who God is by God’s eternal nature.

Jesus had to be true to who he was

Jesus told his disciples that he must go south to the city of Jerusalem. He could not run away from his mission. He had to be true to who he was, his very nature – for both nas Son of God and as a human being, he could not run away, he had to face what came in self-giving love, trusting in the love of the Father holding him, sending him, receiving him back.

Just so we who are so loved, are to face what comes in self-giving love. That is who we are.

The decision Jesus had to make was a real decision – a deeply human decision. Today’s Gospel crackles with the tension of the decision and when Simon Peter tried to talk Jesus out of it, he got a famous and very humanly angry response from Jesus not to tempt him. Not to tempt him to run away.

(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, August 28, 2011, the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost.)