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2011 Sermons

Lent 4 April 3, 2011

This was one of our periodic “Come with Joy” Sundays, in which the children are with the rest of the congregation for the entire service and we incorporate elements like the following drama into the worship.  This is a dramatization of the story of the healing of the man born blind in John 9:1-41.

WHO IS THIS WHO OPENS THE EYES OF THE BLIND?

 The Narrator takes her place on a chair before the Altar, her market basket (concealing the script) on her lap. She is clad in a shawl that covers her hair.

Narrator  Well, I’m here to tell you! I don’t know what to think. I’m still trying to sort it out. What I do know is that, for myself, well . . . I’ll never be the same again. You see, I was there in the marketplace, just minding my own business. And there was this man – I’d heard of him – the one called Jesus, who’s been causing all this talk and commotion around. He’d he was standing in front of the blind man who always sits there begging. His disciples were with him, and they’d asked him, “Teacher, is this man blind because he sinned himself or is he blind because his parents sinned?” Well, a crowd was gathering. We all wanted to know what this famous Teacher would answer. Who’s to blame for all that’s wrong in the world? It’s an important question.

Gong is struck and tableau players take their places: Blind Man seated on the floor, his eyes shut; Jesus in white robe standing next to him; Crowd on either side, peering curiously at the two of them.

Jesus I tell you, neither this man nor his parents sinned. You are all quite blind yourselves — always trying to blame someone or something for what’s wrong in life. But there’s another way. This man was born blind so that God’s mighty works might be revealed in him. You and I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

Narrator  (while Jesus pantomimes action she describes) After Jesus said this, he did something amazing. He spat on the ground and made mud with his saliva and spread the mud on the blind man’s eyes.

Jesus Go, wash in the pool called Sent Forth!

Gong is struck and tableau players return to their seats.

Narrator  Well, I tell you I didn’t know what to think. I mean, spitting: we all know saliva is unclean. But here Jesus was using it to make healing mud for the man’s eyes. And using the dust of the earth to do so: well, it made me think of the Lord God creating Humankind from the dust of the earth. And it wasn’t just me. Everyone was quite awestruck. But while they were still talking and wondering about it all, the blind man returned from washing and now he could see.

Blind Man stands in center, his eyes wide open and his arms stretched up to heaven. As singing begins, he returns to his seat.

 Verse One of “Amazing Grace”

Narrator  Well, as you can imagine this wasn’t the end of things. Oh, no! It was more like the beginning. There was a grand commotion, I’m here to tell you.

Gong is struck and tableau players take their places: Blind Man standing, his eyes wide open; Crowd around him, gesticulating with excitement and disagreement.

Narrator There were some who were saying this wasn’t the man who had been blind, just someone who looked like him. After all, who ever heard of a blind person being healed – especially the way Jesus had done. But the man himself kept saying, “I am the man. The one called Jesus healed my sight. He made mud, put it on my eyes, I went and washed in the pool called Sent Forth, and suddenly I received my sight.”

 Verse Two of “Amazing Grace”

 As singing begins, tableau players return to their seats.

Gong is struck and Blind Man and Pharisees take their places: Blind Man standing as before; Pharisees pointing accusingly at him.

Narrator  So they did what they always do in these situations. They called in the experts, the holy authorities: the Pharisees. And the man explained all over again what Jesus had done with the mud and how he’d been healed. But the Pharisees scowled and shook their heads. “This is impossible,” they decreed. “This man Jesus could not have healed you because he is a sinner himself. He does not observe the Sabbath. A sinner could not have performed such signs.” They confronted the man with this: “So what do you have to say about this Jesus now?” But the man responded, “He is a prophet.”

Narrator  Well, that about did it! The Pharisees flew into a rage. They called the man’s parents, but the parents were frightened and wouldn’t take sides. All they’d say is that the man was their son and, yes, he had been born blind. Yet the man who’d been healed was insistent: Jesus had healed him and now he could see. So the Pharisees began attacking the man himself, saying that he must be a sinner too. And it all ended with the Pharisees driving the man out of town.

Pharisees pantomime driving the Blind Man out of town.

Gong is struck and all return to their seats.

Narrator Well, that was enough for me. I headed for home, like everyone else. You don’t want to be around when those religious people get riled up like that. You could be the next one they attack when they’re in that self-righteous mood of theirs. But as I was nearing home, there on the road ahead of me was the man who’d been healed. Jesus had found him and was speaking to him.

Gong is struck and the Blind Man and Jesus take their places.

Jesus Do you believe in the Son of Man?

Blind Man And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.

Jesus You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.

Blind Man Lord, I believe.

 Verse Three of “Amazing Grace”

 Blind Man returns to his seat. Narrator exits. Jesus remains, standing in the center.

Jesus I came into the world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind. (He too retires as the singing begins.)

 Verses Four and Five of “Amazing Grace”

 At conclusion of the verses, the cast stands and acknowledges applause.

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2011 Sermons

Lent 3 March 27, 2011

Exodus 17:1-7                                                                     

John 4:5-42                                                                            

Once there lived a great master of the Zen tradition of Buddhism. He was called, as was the practice with such masters, by the name of the village in which he lived, Joshu. In this village there was by legend a great stone bridge, the greatest in all of China. Now this master lived to the age of 120 and was renowned as a teacher. Monks travelled from all over to meet and train with him.

Once, late in his life, perhaps after 70 years of honing his knowledge and skill, a young monk came to meet him: The young monk said, “I have long heard of the great stone bridge of Joshu, but now I am here and I don’t see the stone bridge, I see only a single-log bridge.” The young monk was thinking, you see,  that he had heard all his life of this great spiritual master Joshu, and here he had come this long way and found only a frail old man.

Joshu looked at the young man and replied, “You don’t see the stone bridge; you see only a single-log bridge.” The young monk repeated, “What is the great stone bridge of Joshu?” And Joshu answered, “Horses cross, donkeys cross.”

Zen Buddhism is full of such stories, the point of which is to shake loose people’s ways of thinking, their ways of looking at life, so that they may achieve spiritual insight. There is a legend that Jesus and the Buddha met, and while historically there is certainly nothing to that, the Jesus we meet in St. John’s gospel can remind us of Zen stories like that of the great stone bridge of Joshu. The story of Nicodemus that we heard last week: Jesus talking about being “born from above.” The story this morning of the Samaritan woman at the well: Jesus offering her living water. These are like Zen stories, offered to shake us loose so that we may attain deeper spiritual insight.

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2011 Sermons

Lent 2 March 20, 2011

Genesis 12:1-4a                                                                  

John 3:1-17                                                                            

Yesterday I was back in Illinois to preach at the funeral of a lady named Elizabeth Carpenter, who died at the age of 98. Liz was the last of the founding members of St. Charles’ Episcopal Church. That I be the preacher for her funeral was one of the things she requested. It was a significant request, because Liz Carpenter had a difficult time accepting me as her new rector. You see, I came on the heels of the beloved Fr. Ludtke, founding rector of the St. Charles’ parish, who had served it for 33 years and then retired. There was one interim Sunday and then I arrived: my first parish. I was the new guy, full of seminary learnings, and I liked to make changes. Fr. Ludtke was the old guy, who had liked things to stay the same.

But Liz was a serious Christian. She believed in that Benedictine vow of stability which we talked about last week in the adult forum. This was her church and she was going nowhere. So she’d come to my office, sit herself down, produce a list from her purse, and we’d go through it item by item: why did I change this, why did I change that? And what happened was that Liz Carpenter learned to accept change, indeed to change herself. The present rector of St. Charles’ told me a story. A few weeks before she died, Liz was in church, sitting in her wheelchair at coffee hour. She was looking around at the coffee hour crowd and she said to Fr. Nesbit, “I don’t know all these people any more.” And then, after a pause, she added, “But I guess that’s a good thing.” A good thing for her church to grow and change.

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Lent 1 March 13, 2011

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7                                                      

Romans 5:12-19                                                                  

Matthew 4:1-11

I’ve told the story before, but it’s worth repeating. A rich man came to see me in the church I served back in St. Charles, Illinois, about a wedding for his daughter. They were nominal members of the more fashionable parish in the next town down the river, but they never attended church so the priest there had refused to do the wedding. Would I? The father would “make it worth my while.” What did my church need?

Well, I thought to myself: think boldly here, John. So, looking out the window of my study to the vacant expanse of lawn we owned, I said, “Well, we very much need to expand our education wing.” My visitor made a choking sound, so I quickly laughed said that I was only kidding; we’d be glad to do his daughter’s wedding and he could make whatever contribution he felt called to out of gratitude.

Needless to say, my relations with that man were never very good. He got my back up; I got his. We were operating, you see, out of completely different paradigms. He came from a successful corporate career, the world of commerce and power, where I offer something to you if you will do something in return. I will build you a ship (this had been this rich man’s most recent business) if you pay me so many hundreds of millions of dollars. The Church, however, operates (or is supposed to operate!) differently. For example, each Sunday we offer you a wonderful breakfast, a beautiful worship service, a helpful (we hope) message for your week, and the Body and Blood of Christ. And it’s entirely up to you what you do in response – moneywise or anything-wise. It’s all free gift.

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Ash Wednesday March 9, 2011

2 Corinthians 5:20b-21, 6:1-10                                       

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21                                                          

I’ve stuck in your bulletins this evening a copy of a little cartoon that Bishop Walmsley gave me on Sunday. It’s entitled, “The Rector responds to concern that Lent is a downer.” A priest is marking the cross of ashes on a kneeling parishioner’s forehead – as we will do in just a few minutes. She recites the words that I will recite, “Remember that you are dust,” but then she adds, “but a very high quality sort of dust.”

 This is funny, of course, because it points exactly to what Ash Wednesday reminds us of: we are dust and to dust we shall return, but not a higher or better or different kind of dust from any other dust. Just dust. That’s the point. Dust like all dust; dust like all matter.

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Last Epiphany March 6, 2011

2 Peter 1:16-21                                                                   

Matthew 17:1-9                                                                    

I don’t know about you, but as I go along through life there are little things people say to me or little things that happen – almost incidentally at the time – that I come back to again and again, that are so much more important than all the hours I spent in school or all my attempts to learn big truths.

One afternoon back when I was in seminary – this was in rural Wisconsin, country a lot like here – I was out on a walk with an old man who was a visiting teacher. He happened to be the retired Archbishop of Canterbury, but that isn’t really important to the story. It was mud season, which they have in Wisconsin like we have here. We were walking along this muddy road, looking up at the willow trees that were beginning to turn gold and some migrating geese honking their way north, and the beautiful spring sky. And all of a sudden, old Bishop Ramsay stumbled in a muddy spot, catching hold of my arm before he fell.

“This is a lesson, John,” he said. “In life you have to keep your eyes on the sky, but your feet in the dirt.” He was actually talking about life in the Church, but it’s true about all life: eyes on the sky, feet in the dirt. To live a happy and productive life, we need vision, goals, dreams, a horizon, hopes. But we also need to keep our feet on the ground, in the mud and the dust. Life is a lot of plodding along, one foot in front of another.

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Epiphany 8 February 27, 2011

Isaiah 49:8-16a                                                                    

Matthew 6:24-34                                                                  

I do the grocery shopping in our household, and that requires me about once a month to go into Petco to buy cat food and litter. The cat food and litter department requires me to walk past the birds and small rodents in their glassed cages: parakeets, canaries, parrots, mice, rats, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets. They’re all there each time I walk past them, doing their caged animal things: eating, sleeping, running on treadmills, hopping about, looking out at me as I look in at them. There’s something very sad about them: all these creatures have been bred and raised in captivity. They’ve never known anything other than the lives they’re living, safe but confined, in those glass cages. And I think what does that say about me? About all of us?

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Epiphany 6 February 13, 2011

This sermon was preached by Bishop Arthur Walmsley.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Matthew 5:21-37

“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.”  — Deut. 30:19

Let me tell you about a young man named Ahmed.  We went with our daughter and a couple of friends in the fall of 2007 for a tour of the North African country of Morocco.  We had arranged the trip ourselves, and for the entire time we were in the country Ahmed was our guide and our driver.  As the trip went on, we got to know his story.  His father, whom we met along the way, was a lifelong tour guide.  Ahmed was ambitious, worked hard, went to university, got an undergraduate degree in economics, and later a master’s in computer science.  

But for him and literally hundreds of thousands of young people in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East there are no jobs commensurate with their education. As events have been unfolding in Egypt in the past three weeks, I have thought a good deal about Ahmed. We found out one day why he declined to have lunch with us; he would go off, roll out his prayer rug, and say noonday prayers because he was a faithful Muslim.  And so it appears as well that the energy in Egypt for the demonstrations in Tahrir Square has not been generated by violent Islamic fundamentalism but by the frustration of young people like Ahmed for whom their governments and their economies have no place for them.  That story is echoed by the countless journalists and others who have talked to the throngs of the young people who have been the energizing force of this non-violent revolution.  In Egypt, in Jordan, in Tunisia, in Yemen, there is a cry for change by the poor and the marginalized. In southern Sudan where our Anglican Church is very strong, upwards of 95% of the people last month voted to secede from an oppressive regime in Khartoum.  As Moses invites, Choose life and you and your descendants may live.

What does the Bible offer us as a way of responding to the global economic and social crises?

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Epiphany 7 February 20, 2011

This was one of our periodic “Come with Joy” Sundays. The readings were incorporated into a little skit, which follows. The skit served in lieu of a homily, with the congregation responding with comments afterwards.

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

Matthew 5:38-48

Builders of Holy Lives

 

The Lord God enters, dressed in white, and proclaims the reading from Leviticus:

Hear this, my people: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not gather everything for yourself, but you shall leave something there in the fields for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God. You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another: I am the LORD.

You shall not cheat your neighbor and you shall not hold back fair wages for those who work for you. You shall not make fun of the handicapped or make life difficult for those who struggle; you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.

You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood of your neighbor: I am the LORD.

You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Hear, my people: I give you these blocks that you may follow my commandments and build yourselves lives that are holy, a just and peaceful world for all my people.

The Lord God departs, leaving a box of building blocks.

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Epiphany 5 February 6, 2011

This sermon was preached by Bishop Arthur Walmsley. The occasion was “Scout Sunday” and a number of scouts and leaders were present.

Isaiah 58:9b-12

Matthew 6:24-34

Once upon a time, an eleven year old boy thought he had lost his father.  There was a war on, and his dad who was in the army had been sent overseas.  With his mother and a younger brother, he had to move to a distant city know where they crowded into his grandparents’ apartment.  Going to an unfamiliar school was a real challenge; he was a scrawny kid, he was small for his age, he wore glasses, and he quickly became the butt of a gang of bullies which controlled his fifth grade classroom.  Luckily he could run faster than them, and mostly he paid no attention to the bullying.  Except that he was very lonely.

Someone suggested he might find friends at a boy scout troop located in a church up the street from his grandparents’ house.  He swallowed hard and went to a meeting, and to his surprise he found himself hooked.  He joined the troop, the scoutmaster took a real interest in him, and he discovered a world he had not known in the family or in school before then.  He belonged.

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