Re-brand Us!

Proper 25B; Jer. 31:7-9; Mark 10:46-52; St. Paul’s, Smithfield, NC 10/25/15 – Jim Melnyk: “Re-brand Us”

Today is a special day in the life of the Church because this day [at the 11:00 service] we bring to the waters of Holy Baptism Mary Abigail Slusher.  It is also a day when we all renew our own baptismal vows.  In a prayer/poem titled “Re-brand Us,” Dr. Walter Brueggemann writes:

You mark us with your water,

You scar us with your name,

You brand us with your vision,

            And we ponder our baptism, your water,

                                                                        Your name,

                                                                        Your vision,

While we ponder, we are otherwise branded.

            Our imagination is consumed by other brands,

                                    - winning with Nike,

                                    - pausing with Coca-Cola,

                                    Knowing and controlling with Microsoft.

Re-brand us,

            Transform our minds, 

                                                Renew our imagination.

            That we may be more fully who we are marked

                        And hoped to be,

            We pray with candor and courage.  Amen.

(Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, Fortress Press, 2003. P. 88)

You, God, mark us with your water – with your name – with your vision – and we become wholly (with a “W”), and holy (with an “H”), yours.  Our poet/pray-er writes about being scarred with God’s name.  Through our baptism we share in Christ’s death and Christ’s resurrection – and so perhaps we share the scars of Christ when we take upon ourselves his name.  As Abby is sealed later this morning with the Holy Spirit in baptism she is marked – scarred – as Christ’s own forever – as are each of us.

           

But the poet/prophet Isaiah tells us there is more to our being marked as God’s own in the world.  Through the prophet God says to each of us, “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16).  As we bring Abby to the waters of Holy Baptism we note that not only is Abby changed in this mysterious encounter with the Holy, but we are changed as well – renewing our own baptismal covenants.  And God – the Holy One – is changed as well – engraving us on God’s own hands.  What an incredible image – what an incredible promise.

           

We might say that on this most special day, as we welcome Abby into the household of God, that she, we, and even God, become in some way re-branded – in some way we are all made new – in some way, from this point forward, none of us – including God – are ever exactly the same again!  Isn’t that breath-taking?

           

Throughout the scriptures we read and hear faith stories of those who encounter the Holy One – who encounter God – and are changed – transformed – re-branded forever.  From folks like Abraham and Jacob in the most ancient of our stories, to folks like Peter and Saul in the earliest of our Christian witnesses.  One cannot simply encounter the Holy and come away unchanged. 

The prophet Jeremiah, whom we meet in today’s lesson from the Old Testament, understood the reality of life-changing encounters with God.  Reluctantly he is pressed into service to offer a word of challenge to Judah in the midst of her brokenness – and offer a word of promise for those who turn and re-embrace the covenant.  And for a while it works!  Under the reign of King Josiah a copy of what we believe to be Deuteronomy is discovered – or written down for the first time – and a revival of faith takes place.  People’s hearts are transformed in that encounter with the Divine.  Exile is put on hold – for a time.

But people fall back into old habits and the covenant is quickly forgotten again.  Judah is sent into exile, and there in Babylon they weep for the fallen city of Jerusalem.  They weep for the Temple which was destroyed by Babylon’s armies.  And they cry out to God for deliverance.

Today’s lesson is just a portion of the promise God declares through Jeremiah – the promise that Judah will be restored – that Judah will once again be re-branded and renamed as God’s own beloved:

“See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,

and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,

among them the blind and the lame, those with child and

those in labor, together;

a great company, they shall return here.

With weeping they shall come,

and with consolations I will lead them back,

I will let them walk by brooks of water,

in a straight path in which they shall not stumble;

for I have become a father to Israel,

and Ephraim is my firstborn” (Jer. 31:8-9).

In our gospel today we experience another form of re-branding taking place outside the gates of Jericho.  Marginalized, minimized, and pushed to the side – having to beg at the gate of the city to survive – Bartimaeus has been branded by the world as worthless.  He has heard about Jesus and can’t believe his good fortune to realize this man of God is on the verge of passing by the little bit of space Bartimaeus has occupied day after day in order to eke out a living. Crying out to Jesus to have mercy on him, he is branded by the crowd around him as unworthy of attention – as someone who should not be seen or heard by someone as important as Jesus.

But Jesus has an agenda that goes beyond the brandings of this world.  Jesus calls Bartimaeus forward – and, as one commentator puts it, “Bartimaeus does in a flash what the ‘rich young ruler’ refused to do, verses before in the same chapter of Mark. Unlike the man with ‘many possessions,’ Bartimaeus flings his ‘security blanket’ to the wind and comes to Jesus” (H. King Oehmig).  He casts off his cloak – possibly his only possession in the whole world – and being given his sight Bartimaeus leaves his old life behind and follows Jesus. 

Bartimaeus goes from someone not worthy to be heard, to one who ends up in a dialogue with the Son of God; from being blind to becoming one who sees;

from living as, and being branded as, a beggar, to one who has not only heard about Jesus, but one who becomes a disciple of the living Christ. 

We are a people who have been branded by this world – and we are a people who brand one another as well.  Dr. Brueggemann writes about being consumed with brands – Nike, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft – and perhaps we are.  But we brand one another as well: left-wing/right-wing, feminist/misogynist, old/young, smart/dumb, rich/poor, black/white – so many categories – so many names – so many brands.  We forget the one brand we carry from the moment we are created – Image and Likeness of God.  We forget the brand we carry the moment we leave the waters of Holy Baptism – fellow human beings sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. 

How different would this world be if instead of the world’s brandings we saw the image of God – the seal of the Holy Spirit – within each person we met?

My prayer is that Abby, whom we baptize this day, will remember and know that however the world – however the people she meets in this world – that however this world tries its best to brand her, that she remembers how she has been branded by God this day.  Abby, you are re-branded today.  Not with a Nike Swoosh, or with an Apple or a set of golden arches – not with names or titles devised by human beings to separate, categorize, or minimize – but with the cross of Christ – with a renewed vision of what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God – as are each of us as we renew our own baptismal covenant with God.  Re-branded – transformed – and renewed – that she – that we – may be more fully who we are marked and hoped in the heart of God to be.

Let's Make a Deal

Proper 24B; Mark 10:35-45; 

St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC; 10/18/2015

Jim Melnyk: “Let’s Make a Deal”

“Pssst.  Hey Jesus, C’m’ere.  We got a favor to ask of yas.  Me and my brudda, we want to sit at your right and left hands in the kingdom.  You cool wit dat?” 

           

A little “back room finagling” on the road to Jerusalem – with James and John seeming to have no idea what it was they were asking of Jesus, even though we may recall just a few weeks ago Jesus giving all the disciples a hard time for arguing among themselves about who would be the greatest in the kingdom.  They had been hanging out with the guy for quite some time by now – they should have had some sense of how Jesus viewed things like power, status, and authority absent from justice, compassion, mutuality, mercy and grace.  Does it ever change?

           

Now, to be fair, this was only the third time Jesus had told them what his ministry was all about in relation to where his life was headed, and what his teachings would ultimately cost him.  It was only the third time he had told them about going to Jerusalem to die.  And it was only more than a few times that Jesus talked about the first being last and the last being first – talked about being a servant of all. 

I think, perhaps, his disciples just couldn’t grasp what Jesus was trying to teach: that following him “requires surrendering ingrained ideas of honor and dishonor, power and weakness” (Pheme Perkins, The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII, p. 654).  I think, perhaps, Jesus had to keep saying these things because it just goes against the grain for us to let go of being in control – to let go of wanting or needing to be at the top of the heap.

To Jesus’ credit, rather than attacking his disciples or putting them down, he takes time to teach them what true discipleship and the ways of the kingdom are all about.  “…Whoever wishes to become first among you must be slave of all.  For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:44-45).

These are incredibly hard words to live by, my friends.  Being a servant sounds good and altruistic – something to be done if and when we can – on occasion, but how many of us want that as a hallmark of our life and faith?  

And yet…and yet they are words that we, as followers of Jesus, are called to live by if we truly wish to follow the Prince of Peace!  Why else would he keep coming back to those themes?  New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins writes, “We often undercut the exemplary side of the death of Jesus by overemphasizing its unique place in salvation history as an offering on behalf of sinful humanity.  This passage,” she claims, “insists upon the death of Jesus as a pattern in which his followers participate” (The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. VIII, p. 654-655). 

This is the foundation of what today’s church calls Servant Leadership.  It means that we find ways to willingly share the power, authority, means, and status we have with those who don’t.  And, it means that we covenant with one another not to demand an “obligation to service” from those who are the weakest or most oppressed; those who have nothing to give up, but rather who have had everything taken from them already (ibid).       

When I was a brand new Christian back in the fall of 1973 – well, brand new in Campus Crusade terms, not in baptismal covenant terms – I constantly heard stuff like, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!”  Or I’d hear, “Jesus said, ‘I came that they might have life, and might have it more abundantly’” (John 10:10).  All true.  All true.  We were all, as newly harvested Christians, promised something akin to a sweet smelling bed of roses as our reward for following Jesus.   We were told that as long as we loved Jesus with all our heart, and brought others to Jesus as well, we’d have our great reward in heaven when we walked the streets paved with gold and stood before the Lamb.

It wasn’t until much later – as I began to delve into the mysteries of my newly reborn faith – that I began hearing the somewhat discordant notes of Jesus’ teaching.  Do you remember this one from a few weeks ago? “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…” (Mark 9:43), or, perhaps, this one from Luke:  “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:25-27)?  Or, from Matthew: “…I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven…” (Matthew 5:44).  “…whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

           

Ah, sweet Jesus, your definition of a wonderful life and abundant living are just a wee bit different from mine – just a wee bit different from the party line most of us have been fed for most of our lives.  Whatever happened to rugged individualism and looking out for number one?  What do you mean, neither are hallmarks of the gospel?  Ouch! 

Hey Jesus, hey boss, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you…grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”  But they just didn’t get it.  Not yet.  If we’re doing this whole discipleship thing right – if we’re really getting down with what Jesus calls us each to in the gospels – then the cross may well be our ultimate reward.  The abundant life Jesus talks about isn’t about fancy cars, bigger houses, successful business lives, political power, or even loving families.  It may well be a sweet-smelling bed of roses – but don’t forget, a bed pf roses comes with a bunch of thorns!  The abundant life Jesus talks about is about becoming like Christ – and therefore finding ourselves transformed more and more into the image and likeness of our God who creates us to live together in this world as beacons of God’s love. 

 James and John come to Jesus looking for a sweet deal giving them status and power in the kingdom that is unfolding in their midst.  Jesus reminds them that with great power comes great responsibility.  Will they be able to live into that which God expects of those who sit on either side of Jesus in the kingdom?  Are we able to live into that which God expects of us when we proclaim ourselves to be followers of Jesus?

Hey, I realize that it’s hard hearing about this servant stuff so often – and hearing about how the first shall be last and the last first so much.  It’s hard preaching it, too.  But I figure if Jesus says something once, it’s important.  If he says it three times, or half a dozen times, perhaps we should start paying attention – perhaps it really is important. 

The gospel teaches us that love is a living, active thing – it’s a verb rather than a noun – otherwise at the end of John’s gospel Jesus would have told Peter to simply think good things about his sheep, rather than feed them – rather than serve them.

We are invited to participate with God in loving this world – invited to participate in sharing the loving, liberating, life-changing presence of God.  The disciples didn’t always get it along the way, but they came to understand it in the end.  We don’t always get it along the way, but it’s the journey – it’s the challenge and the struggle to be faithful – that transforms us, and in the end, that transformation is what the journey is all about.

Go Down, Moses

Proper 23B; Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Mark 10:17-31; St. Paul’s, Smithfield

October 11, 2015Jim Melnyk: “Go Down, Moses”

When Israel was in Egypt land,
Let My people go;
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.

Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land;
Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go (LEVAS II, 228).

Thus began Bishop Michael Bruce Curry’s final sermon to the clergy of our Diocese at our final Clergy Conference together.  The powerful words of “Go down Moses,” joined in by all the clergy of the Diocese, reverberated throughout the nave of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, and echoed the words of our Old Testament lesson for that day – God’s call of Moses by the burning bush – the call for Moses to go back to Egypt, the call for Moses to challenge Pharaoh, and lead God’s people to freedom.  “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land; tell old Pharaoh to let my people go.”

           

If we were challenged to come up with a list of Top Ten things you might hear in a Michael Curry sermon the number one thing would probably be “GO!”  As we heard last week – we are a journeying people – we are a pilgrim people.  We are called into relationship with God and then we are sent out to proclaim the life-changing, liberating, message of the God who loves us and gives us life. 

Moses tries just about every trick in the book to get out of following God’s call – a clarion call of freedom for the Hebrews held so long in slavery.  God sends Moses to stand against the power of Egypt and lead an oppressed, captive, people free.

           

That same call by God is heard centuries later by the prophet Amos, who watches as the political-religious leadership of the nation does their best to imitate Pharaoh at his worst.  “Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground! They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine” (Amos 5:7, 10-11).  

Amos isn’t talking to Egypt’s Pharaoh, but rather to the Northern Kingdom’s latest incarnation of Empire.  But make no mistake; it is as dangerous for Amos to proclaim a Word of God against King Jeroboam II as it was for Moses to stand against Pharaoh – and speaking a word of prophecy to Jeroboam certainly isn’t something Amos aspires to if we read further in the book that bears his name.  When challenged by one of the priests of Bethel Amos proclaims, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’” (7:14-15).  But Lord, I have a job.  I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamores – and I’m rather good at it!  I hear what you’re saying, Amos.  Now go!

I doubt there has ever been a time when those in power – especially those who abuse the power they have – when those in power welcome a word that challenges their status and the actions of their lives.

And what a word Amos speaks!  “Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you…. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate…” (Amos 5:14-15).

Hate evil…love good…establish justice.  Amos goes where he is sent and speaks a word of challenge to a world of power – with a hope that the leadership of the Northern Kingdom might change their way of being – might change the way they treat their people – while the armies of Assyria sit brooding to the east.  Jeroboam and those who follow him ignore what Amos proclaims and the Northern Kingdom falls.  “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate….”  Something as simple as caring for all God’s people; and the leaders of the Northern Kingdom fail the test.

The Word of God spoken by Amos was a challenge in the eighth century before Christ – and it’s no less challenging today.  His words are words of discomfort spoken in a modern day world of affluence – and I daresay most of us, if we are paying close attention to the words, feel very comfortable saying “Thanks be to God” as the lesson comes to a close.

Enter Jesus and the man with many possessions and we find the lectionary framers continuing the challenge begun with Amos.  “Good teacher,” he asks Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  I find the response by Jesus quite interesting.  Jesus responds with the portion of the Ten Commandments focused on how the people of God are to relate to one another – with commentary on how human beings are to order our common lives.  We can only conclude that the first section of the Ten Commandments – the section that deals with our absolute love for God – was simply presupposed – a given.  We find that the questioner is a good man. 

He has kept these commandments of God – he has kept this Torah teaching ever since his youth.

Mark tells us that Jesus looks at the man, and loves him – and these are powerful words because we don’t come across such a reaction by Jesus very often in the gospels.    Then comes the kicker – then comes the challenge to “go!”  “Sell all you have and give the money to the poor – you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, and follow me,” says Jesus (Mark 10:21).  Oh, how the command of God – how the command of Jesus – to go can be so difficult for us!  Our story tells us that the man went away grieving, for he had many possessions.  And we cannot help but wonder how much the struggling man’s response grieved Jesus. 

So, this is where the preacher makes the obligatory statement about how Jesus doesn’t demand that we all sell everything that we own and give it to the poor, and that Jesus doesn’t have anything against those of us who have so many possessions in our lives. 

But Jesus does say to his disciples “how difficult it is for those with many possessions, with wealth, to enter the kingdom of God. [Not because we are wealthy, but because of the way] wealth and its trappings can obscure our view – [can obscure] our understanding of God’s kingdom and how the challenge to overcome our possessions can become a reality for us and for those around us. Possessions have such great power in Jesus’ time and certainly, certainly have power in ours” (Lorraine Ljunggren).

What gets in our way of living out the relationships in this world that God calls us to honor?  It might very well be our possessions – it might very well be our wealth that gets in the way.  It might be our attitudes towards those who differ most from us – whatever that perceived difference may be – that gets in the way.  It might be our need to feel comfortable and safe.  It might be our need to feel in control – to be in control – of our lives.  Where are you challenged?

“The wealthy man in the Gospel story asks about life beyond this one, but Jesus turns the focus to life in the here and now. It is in the here and now that we first experience the kingdom of God which is eternal in some way we can’t yet comprehend. God will take care of the eternal piece. We’re to take care of the temporal piece.

Amos wants the people of the Northern Kingdom to hate evil – to love that which is good – and to establish justice in the here and now. The Prophet’s voice rings across time calling us to the same transformative work” in our present time (Lorraine Ljunggren).  And God’s call to both – to Amos and to the man who approaches Jesus – each begins with the challenging command to “go!”

The current Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, wrote recently, “The Jesus movement is one with social and cosmic implications. What Jesus is up to tells us something about the beating heart of the universe.

The kind of love and justice and compassion we see both in and around Jesus show us the final truths about God and us. Signing on to follow Jesus means committing oneself to heal and bless and change not only [one’s self] but the world” (Gary R. Hall, “Following Jesus will always be a minority enterprise,” 8/23/15). 

Some seventy years earlier Anne Frank, a young woman forced into hiding and eventually killed by the Nazis, wrote: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world” (Synthesis Today, October 8).

As God went with Moses and Amos, and as God went with Jesus and I believe went with his struggling, would-be follower, God will go with us.

When Israel was in Egypt land,
Let My people go;
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go.

Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt land;Tell old Pharaoh to let my people go (LEVAS II, 228).