June 9, 2024: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
I love our Mass on the Grass…With Brass! Of course this year, we are missing “the grass.” Still, we do this each year, not only because we can be surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation, but because when we move outside our doors into our community – together – to offer our thanksgiving to God, we are literally surrounded by the gifts of God – the sounds and sights of creation, and the many people we serve in Christ’s name. And by that, we are reminded that going to church isn’t about a specific place, but about getting strength for the journey of being the church in the world.
But, to the sermon now…
Homiletic professors will rightly tell you not to try to preach on all the text of the day – just too much unless you want to go on for an hour and we know that no one, in the Episcopal Church at least, wants a sermon longer than 20 minutes. So, buckle your seatbelts, because this might get a bit bumpy.
In the Hebrew text, our boy Samuel is now really old. I mean, just last week we heard the story of his call as a young boy serving in the temple, and now suddenly he’s an old guy? Dang…you can’t even go grab some popcorn with this narrative.
Truth is, there were some chapters between (all about the Philistines, the stolen Ark, and a crazy story about a God named Dagon – cool stuff, but nothing about our prophet Sam). We next here about him in the verses just prior to this that tell us that Sam has been the judge of Israel for many years.
Now to today’s episode, Samuel listens to the people saying “You know what, we want to be like everyone else – we want a King to rule over us!” Sam isn’t happy and tells God about it. God says., “Look Sam, they didn’t reject you, they rejected me. Go warn them to be careful what they ask for.” So Sam tells the people everything a King or any autocrat will do: You know, like take your stuff, take your children, enslave the people, tax the hell out of you, and utterly oppress everyone…. And you know what the people said “Hell Yea! That’s just what we want!”
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
Now, let’s pause there and head over to St. Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. This is part of a longer passage that is one of the most beautiful in our scriptures. It is a favorite choice for funerals, and with good reason. St. Paul writes “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
“…what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” Park that for a minute…
And then you have the gospel of Mark, where Jesus is casting out demons. Jesus’ own blood relatives were trying to scurry him away from the crowds for fear of all that crazy stuff he was saying and doing, because to most folks, it seemed impossible to cast out demons unless he was possessed. The scribes said he had to be filled with the spirit of the devil himself. It’s like they were all the Church Lady of Saturday Night Live pointing at Jesus and saying “Can you say Satan?”
Now, I am sure Jesus’ relatives are not the first or the last to think someone in their family was just about “two fries short of a happy meal.” I suspect there are several of you here today that have relatives that leave you wondering if they are possessed, …or perhaps vice versa.
But, rather than answering his critics, both family and scribe, with a Billy Joel like “You may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for…” Jesus responded with righteous indignation, asking How can evil cast out evil? He tells them, “…if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” And yeah…Abraham Lincoln (and everybody else) was quoting Jesus you’all, despite all the social media memes that tell you otherwise.
Now what on earth or heaven could these three texts have to do with one another and why do we care?
Good questions. Here’s the thing…
Many houses these days are divided – across the country and around the world – leaving lots of people thinking their family members are crazy – and…perhaps they are! Seriously though, especially here in this country, the divides are deep and destructive – across political lines, race, gender, ways of being and loving, age, physical ability and more. This is what drives people to a level of despair and fear that destroys not only them, but anyone around them.
The downward spiral starts simply enough – people feel threatened, they despair the world around them, they fear change or what is not known to them – as crazy as that sounds, this is what is happening right now. Talk about temporary insanity!
The thing is democracy, like faith, can sometimes feel too dang hard for some folks, because it asks people to live within the tension of difficult choices, of not knowing what may be, of being open to things, to people, to ideas that feel foreign to them. It means be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who disagree with you and love them anyway (or at least listen to them).
So when some folks can’t take all of that, they start to think life would be easier if some kind of control could be imposed, and to be clear – control over OTHER people, not them, of course. Insert whomever one considers to be other in this scenario. It is then that, like the people of Israel in the story of Samuel, there will always be those who scream for a king (or in today’s parlance – an autocrat, a dictator, or a president without any accountability). And into these times of distress will come those who will take advantage by telling everyone that they alone can make that all go away – they can take care of all the problems.
This is when, as followers of Jesus, we need most to remember the words of St. Paul “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. …what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
While that sounds like things will be fine after we die, even if things really stink here on earth, and that is true, what St. Paul was also trying to say is that, in the midst of hardship, there is hope. And hope will be what allows us to keep going as the world seems to be spinning out of control.
In this crazy world, where strife and divisions threaten to tear asunder, where some are turning their hearts over to wanna be dictators to be their savior, where injustice abounds and creation groans under the weight of our abuse, the words of St. Paul can help us. For in that hope we are grounded once again in the knowledge of the eternal – of God, and we remember who we are and whose we are, because the truth is, we sometimes forget.
In her book “Penguins and Golden Calves,” Madeleine L’Engle tells a true story about a family who has a 2 1/2-year-old daughter and a newborn baby. They do all they can to soften the displacement their older daughter might feel, encouraging her to hold and help change the baby. Everything is fine until they try to put the daughter to bed one night. She says, rather frantically, “I want to see baby.”
“Well, of course, darling, well take you to see the baby.”
“No, just me.”
“No, Mummy or Daddy will go with you.”
“No! I want to see baby alone!”
Seeing she was getting upset, they finally, they let her go. As they stood back in the doorway, the little girl bent over the cradle and said, “Tell me about God. I’m forgetting.”
See, we are all born with the knowledge of God. And now, more than ever, we need to try to reach back to the eternal – to remember the things we knew as children – the joy of life without boundaries, of believing in things not seen. And, we also need to remember that, like children, we are dependent on God to guide us, to stand beside us, to work through us, and to love us.
If we can do that, if we can remember who we are, and whose we are, then we will have our hearts open to the power of the Holy Spirit to do as St. Paul said, “renew our inner nature day by day.” We won’t run out of gas, even as we enter into the insanity of an election year. And that, my friends, will just allow us to do what we are called to do as followers of Jesus.
To break the chains of oppression.
To be a voice for the voiceless.
To be stand for the helpless.
To be a light for those who live in darkness.
To bring about God’s dream for us of that beloved community where all are welcome, all are loved, all are filled with hope.
And you know what – folks are gonna call that crazy!
They are gonna say we are out of our freakin’ minds if we think we can do all that!
They are gonna want us to shut up too!
They will want some authority or other to put us away!
Well, let ‘em. Let ‘em try.
Because we know the meaning of unconditional love – as we have been loved by Christ Jesus and nothing that any human can throw at us will ever stop us.
We know, that their fear, their hate, is temporary, but God’s love is eternal.
We know, that there is nothing crazier in this dang world than believing that some human is going to save us. We already have a savior, and he isn’t running for President, or Govrenor, or the local Council!
So, let ‘em. Let ‘em tell us we’re crazy. Heck, they may even be right.
That is… if it’s crazy to hope.
Crazy to care.
Crazy to love.
But we know different.
We know it ain’t crazy at all.
What’s crazy is a world that would think so.
But right now, we can’t worry about that, can we!
We are the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement, and we will follow him – be him in the world – casting out the demons of despair, hate, fear, and violence – because we know about a “crazy little thing called love” – God’s love – and there is nothing that can stand in the way of that.
There are no tyrants that are more powerful, nor armies that are stronger.
There is not any hate that can defeat it, nor fear that it cannot overcome.
These are temporary afflictions, and we who follow Jesus will draw on our inner nature – the one renewed day by day in Him – to change the world – one crazy act of love and grace at a time.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
June 9, 2024
The Third Sunday After Pentecost
1st Reading – Genesis 3:8-15
2nd Reading – 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Gospel – Mark 3:20-35
