Thirteen and a half billion years ago.

All was light and energy and matter and all were interchangeable.

Then, after a second, a mere moment in time, uncontainable energy burst forward. It filled the inchoate and rapidly expanding universe. It filled the cosmos.

But it did not remain alone. Over time, even as it expanded, its waves settled and congealed and some of it became matter.

Across this primeval span of hundreds of millions of years, the energy and the matter collided and changed form and combined.

Elements and atoms discovered that they needed each other. They formed new molecules and compounds. Stars were formed between volatile and inert gasses. Heat compounded their work. Galaxies organized.

And those stars with all their heat and violence offered up the things of which planets are made.

The things had no consciousness then, of course. Or even life. But as these forces and the energy and matter they offered combined and recombined, strange things happened. Complexity increased. And with it, so did fragility and interdependence.

It is not clear what happened so that some of this matter and energy transformed from non-life to life. But it happened.

First, prokaryotes come into existence. Of these most primitive life forms, some may even have combined in a beautiful symbiosis. Then, eukaryotes arose, and with them, multicellular organisms. Differentiation and adaptation did their work, making new life forms.

These new life forms became complex. Then, something still more curious happened. Among the life forms were those who began to “love” each other — perhaps in a self-interested way, in the sense that I am better off with you than without you. Not exactly agape, but still, a beginning.

Higher forms of life and of love appeared. The community of plants and animals interacted, both cooperatively and competitively. Types of animals came together in groups. Some learned to feed and protect each other – particularly, their young – and would sacrifice themselves, one for another.

Finally, the image of God was embodied in an erect species called homo sapiens. They were a place where God’s love could become incarnate.

We are tethered, then, not only to the life giving Spirit, but also to the matter and energy that make us up.

What shall we call the animating and creating force? How shall we describe its work? Who is the ground of being, bringing a universe into existence from a flash of light and energy and sustaining it, ever creating it, ever loving it?

Across this vast expanse of space and time, consider, then, the following:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Consider also this:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

Happy Ascension Sunday!

Let me first thank all of you for inviting me to come to Saint Luke’s on this warm August morning. We have a happy memory here of a much different occasion. It was the celebration of a new ministry. The Reverend Patty Mouer was being installed as Rector on a beautiful December night. When we emerged from the standing room only service we saw that the snow had begun falling from the sky. The charm of Saint Luke’s parish is apparent in all seasons.

The Mouers are among our oldest friends in Asheville. The Bleynat family started attending Trinity Church in the mid 1990′s when Patty was its Director of Christian Education and was working toward her ordination. Our eldest child, Web, was not even in school. Now, he is a 6’6″ rising high school senior. Jim Mouer and our daughter, Elizabeth, were both toddlers. Wade Mouer and Luke Bleynat had not yet appeared in all of our lives to introduce their own particular brands of chaos.

I think it is my daughter Elizabeth who gave your Rector what has become her official name, at least around the Bleynat house: Our Dear Miss Patty. You might envision it in capital letters, like a title.

Now, unlike Our Dear Miss Patty, even though I am giving a sermon this morning, preaching isn’t my day job. Lawyering is. So, when I look into my closet to pick out something to wear, I have plenty of gray suits, and plenty of blue suits; but no vestments. So I asked whether Saint Luke’s had any 48 extra long athletic cut robes. No luck. I then checked the closet at Trinity Friday. Still no luck. So I hope you will forgive this variation from typical preacher dress. I did try, after all!

Some of you are aware that I have published a couple books in a multi-volume series on the synoptic Gospels. Not sure when I will ever get to the next volume, but I do love the project!

Hmmm. As I look around, I wonder if some of you might be asking “What are the ‘synoptic’ Gospels?” Well, the word “gospel” means “good news of God’s saving action.” The word “synoptic ” means “to see together.”

So, when we talk about the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we are talking about good news of God’s saving action that can be seen together as we read these three books in relationship to each other.

There are academic questions about those relationships. For instance: which came first? And how is it that they came to be so similar, yet also to have such remarkable differences? The leading scholarly position is that Mark is the oldest of these three Gospels, and that Matthew and Luke incorporate Mark’s story of Jesus as the core narrative of their own Gospels.

But you will notice that Matthew and Luke are much longer than Mark. So, you might ask, “Where does the rest come from?”

When we look at them closely, we find Matthew and Luke have a lot in common with each other that Mark doesn’t share. These materials include many sayings of Jesus, such as what we find in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. Because the shared sayings do not come down to us in a single document today, scholars have tried to determine how they might once have been grouped. They have reconstructed a hypothetical book containing sayings of Jesus that they call “Q” — the first letter in the German word “quelle,” which means “source.”

Matthew and Luke have unique materials as well, shared with no one. In Matthew, we might think of the parable of the sheep and the goats. We might also think of Luke’s parable of the prodigal son. The sources that provided these separate materials are called “M” for Matthew and “L” for Luke, respectively. They may have been oral or written. We simply don’t know, as they, like Q, are lost to us.

With all this talk about who’s on first and what’s on second, I think it is fair to say that I have been wearing a teacher hat for the last few minutes. Now, it is time to take off that hat and put on another one. But don’t worry—it’s not the lawyer hat. There will be no cross examinations today. It’s the preacher hat I need to put on.

So to make the transition from teaching to preaching in a most familiar way, I will ask you to join in.
“May the Lord be with you”
“And also with you”
Let us pray:
May the words of our mouths
and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable in thy sight,
oh Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

Amen.

The gospel before us today is taken from Luke 12. Jesus has already “set his face toward Jerusalem” in the words of the evangelist Luke. We are not in the beauty of the Galilean lakeside, but on the way to a crowded and tense Passover week in Jerusalem.

As Jesus gets physically closer to his destination – and to his destiny – friction increases. We are told that the Scribes and Pharisees have been lying in wait for him, ready to cross examine Jesus. It seems that I am not the only lawyer in the house this morning!

If we were to peruse Luke before coming to our text for the day, we would see that Jesus has just been speaking to the crowds. Then, something happens that is a little more personal. Jesus turns away from the crowd, and toward his disciples. “Do not be afraid, little flock” he says. “Do not be afraid.”

In this remarkable moment, Jesus shifts from preacher to pastor, from proclaiming a message to seeing how important it is to reassure the people closest to him. The life with him that they have chosen has taken them out of the home waters around the Sea of Galilee and into the hustle and bustle of travel and encounters with many people, not all of them pleasant. In fact, some are downright unpleasant – like the Scribes and Pharisees.

What is it that these classes of people represent? Might it be order? That is required for any civilization. But might it be something more? Hierarchy? Legalism and doctrine? The placement of burdens on the people?

Those who follow Jesus and lay these burdens down are then left without the strong ties of property and place that define so many of our lives. To cast them off is to receive a blessing. Jesus has set them free.

But free from what? And free for what?

Let’s think about that a little. Jesus has been counseling “the people” – a term Luke often uses to describe a fairly large, but usually friendly group – not to worry about tomorrow.

This is sound advice. But his call to the “little flock” is qualitatively different. He has asked them to take a portion of the father’s kingdom. He has asked them to sell their possessions, give alms, and lay away unfailing treasure in Heaven where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

There is such truth and beauty in what Jesus tells the little flock that it flows over us and holds us in a bit of wonder as we consider what we relinquish and what we gain. The words resist being cluttered with commentary and rationalization. And yet, if we are to respond to the call; if it is to remake our lives, then we MUST talk about it.

We must start where we are in order to see where we might go. But we are so tethered to this world, that a different way only breaks in around us when we let our defenses down and embrace the image of the new person we are being called to become.

Think of our own lives. We are shackled by business expenses, rent or mortgage payments, insurance payments, providing for utilities, clothes and food, recreation, education, retirement, and every conceivable thing. And that includes feeding teenagers! Our time is spent seeking ways to fund these lifestyle requirements. In acquiring the means to secure goods and services we have gained not freedom, nor even true security; but bondage.

The servitude is more visible at some stages of our lives than at others. Last year, for instance, I heard that the age at which the average man confronts his highest level of annual expenditure is 46. Now, I do not know the methodology that led to this conclusion, but would make the educated guess that it has a lot to do with costs I described a few moments ago ramping up or peaking in these years. Not to mention feeding teenagers. And, with that said, I will let you good people just take a wild guess about how old I am right now!

So, it is VERY difficult to see where we are to go when directed to sell all our possessions, give alms, and move on.

And even if we can’t take this passage literally, we must still take it seriously. And that fills us both with a hint of possibility, and with more than a touch of dread. There is a conflict between what our Lord tells us, and what our experience tells us, and so we are placed in that little box where God likes to put us so that we may become true men and women: Paradox.

Now paradox is not petty contradiction, but a tension between two great truths that seem to conflict. It is not like arguing who had the green light with a fender bender at an intersection. No, it is more like coming to grips both with God’s sovereignty and with our free will. And it is our obligation, if we are to live authentic lives, to sort out what all of that means.

For example, our experience tells us we must prepare for the future, lest we be victimized and marginalized and left without security or meaning and see not only ourselves, but also our loved ones, suffer from whatever the world has to offer, whether loss of job or health or relationships.

But our Lord tells us something different. He tells us to let go. Because, you see, we can’t hold on anyway. We see lives disrupted by oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico or by the earth heaving in Haiti or by power struggles in the mountains of Afghanistan. If destructive forces can sweep down on these people, they can sweep down on us as well. We can all be disrupted, dislocated, and destroyed.

Is there no security? Is there nothing upon which we can rely?

Jesus seems to suggest that we have been looking for security or perhaps even meaning in all the wrong places. So he challenges us. By selling possessions and giving alms, we let go of the shackles of the world. We also come into possession of an unfailing treasure that we receive when we reset our sights on God and where he is calling us to go. It is the treasure of the heart and soul in right relationship with God and each other.

If we take these steps, if we walk in faith into the place where God is calling us to go, what happens to us? What do we experience in the place left open when we lay our burdens down? Knowing the hearts of men, Jesus moves from talking about letting go, to talking about – of all things – PREPARATION!

Look out guys because we are once again put in the little box called Paradox. Isn’t preparation what he has just tried to get us to QUIT doing? Weren’t we just being asked to give up security, and contingency plans, and all sorts of “prudent” things? And here, the little flock is being told to be dressed for action and to keep their lamps lit.

And what is the nature of this new preparation? Is it trading one house for another, one job for another? But that would just alter the forms of our lives, leaving the substance intact, wouldn’t it? So the change must involve something else.

Maybe it requires a core change. When we set down all the clutter, and take hold of the heavenly treasure, we witness the image of the beloved master returning from the wedding banquet. It is a festive occasion. He has been away, but his servants are still dressed for action with their lamps lit. They are going about the daily work the master has assigned.

It is the servant who unburdens herself of her own daily anxieties and reorients herself to the values of the kingdom – who gives alms to the poor; who follows her master’s directions – that receives the kingdom of love and delight now being offered. And, to make it even stranger, when the beloved master comes home, it will be HE who is serving the servants. The world is turned upside down.

As with so many of the things Jesus teaches us, we find ourselves struggling between meaning and practicality. The call to give all away, and yet to prepare, creates conflict. It is that paradox of two great truths in tension. It is up to us to sort out how to live them.

And with that in mind, I ask this of you, Our Dear Miss Patty’s little flock:

How can this be?

Can we come to know what Jesus means simply by thinking about it?

Or is it possible that we can only understand it by living it out, at least a little?

By giving something away, by unburdening ourselves, are we preparing our lives a little bit better for the master to come home?

And if we can take a first baby step, what might the second step look like? Or the third?

Might we find that, by trusting Jesus and following his words, we lose the half lives we have come to know?

Might we gain authentic lives, servants of the master, unburdened by the worries of the day, sitting down with our beloved companions at the feast he has provided?

So may it be with us.

The Feast of the Epiphany offers an annual taste of one of the richest, most poignant stories in the New Testament. It celebrates the visitation to the Holy Family by wise men from the East. While they are not identified as royalty in the biblical story itself, they are nonetheless the Three Kings of the Orient celebrated in hymn and carol.

The term “epiphany” means spiritual revelation. On this occasion, the term commemorates the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. Here, at the beginning of Matthew, we see the Hebrew Messiah draw unto himself those who, though far away, possess a profound insight that enables them to realize that something of singular importance is happening in faraway Bethlehem.

In the Journey text, we explore this story from wide and varying angles. We ask, “why Bethlehem?” “Why these men?” “Why this trip to see a baby?”

We also examine how the religious traditions of the wise men prior to the time of their trek to Bethlehem informed their understanding. Where are they from? In what or whom do they place their faith?

We look at the signs given to them, the strange gifts they bear, and the future they imagine.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Matthew 2:1-12. The text is located at pages 116-127.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

John 1:1-18
The gospel offering is John 1:1-18. Though John is not among the synoptic Gospels, it does occasionally receive some commentary in the Journey series. In fact, it was a subject of our blog entry of Monday, December 24, 2007, as Christmas selection III.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about John 1:1-18. The text is located at pages 208-212.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

Galatians 3:23-35; 5:4-7
The First Sunday after Christmas features an important reading from one of the letters of Paul. The Letter to the Galatians contains his most powerful declaration about how freedom in Christ liberates the people of the way from what Paul by now considers to be the shackles of Judaic law. Paul focuses on faith working through love, rather than obedience to ritual requirements, as the center of one’s relationship with God.

Paul’s view about the relationship of the Christian believer to the Hebrew law was far from unanimous. Other early Christian leaders, including James the brother of Jesus, adhered to the notion that the law was still operative, and that gentile converts to even this Christian expression of Judaism were required to accept all the burdens of the law, including circumcision and dietary restrictions.

In fact, the experience of the early church coming to grips with a mission that embraced gentile converts was among the most important developments in first-century Christianity. It opened the richness of life in relationship to the God if Israel to those who were previously outside that fellowship.

Among the Gospels, Matthew is the one most focused on connections between Jewish tradition and the growing church. For that reason, we considered the text from Galatians in light of statements that Matthew’s Jesus makes about the law in the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon itself receives the lion’s share of our attention in Volume II of the Journey.

Click here to view what Volume II of the Journey has to say about Galatians 3:23-25 and 5:4-7. The text is located at pages 255-264.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume II in a PDF format.

The Christmas season lectionary takes us quickly from the joy of Jesus’ birth to the brutality of King Herod’s Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, remembered annually on 28 December. This passage reminds us how, even as we bask in the warm light of God among us, darkness and depravity of the worst sort remain.

Our Journey commentary on this passage begins with a consideration of life under King Herod. Despite considerable deeds benefiting his people as a younger man, the aging Herod has become so consumed by the desire to preserve his power that he is willing to kill the weakest among his people to hold onto his might.

The commentary also considers how this passage fits into Matthew’s theological and literary patterns of connecting Old Testament prophecy with New Covenant fulfillment. Matthew’s skill is not found so much in making concrete connections between prophecy and fulfillment, as in remembering the communal history of Israel and hearing it echo in his own time. He also does this indirectly, as the story of the flight into Egypt echoes Moses being delivered from Pharaoh’s grasp.

Perhaps most importantly, we grapple with theological problems that the story presents as we consider how the innocent die even as one among their number is spared through divine guidance.

Finally, our text considers the role of dreams in scripture. How do we experience dreams today?

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Matthew 2:13-18. The text is located at pages 139-149.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a PDF format.

Luke 2:15-21

The gospel for today is spread across two segments of commentary in the Journey series. The first portion contains Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus. Luke places the Holy Family in its long trek from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea, an eighty-mile stretch of often difficult and dangerous terrain. At the beginning of this passage, Joseph and Mary have found temporary shelter among the animals because there was no room in the inn.

Yet, the family is not alone. The birth of Jesus is heralded by angels. One would think that heavenly messengers making a monumental announcement would appear to the priestly classes, or to the highborn, wealthy, and powerful. Instead, the message is delivered to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. God’s ways are not the world’s ways.

It is tempting to view this pastoral scene as a biblical affirmation of God’s special affinity for the solid peasantry, the people of the land who work with crops and herds. But if we were to think this way, we would be wrong. Shepherds worked out in the elements. Their tasks often required them to be ceremonially unclean, as they had to protect the flocks from whatever risks arose, regardless of where that led them. Moreover, with easy “confusion” among flocks and animals, shepherds were often regarded as thieves. The result: in first-century Judaism, shepherds were virtual outcasts.

So it is to the ruffians—not the kings or the priests or even the solid, law-abiding peasant stock—that the announcement of the birth of the Savior is made. What might that mean for the way we think about conventional morality and piety?

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Luke 2:5–20. The text is located at pages 111–115.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Luke 2:21–24. The text is located at pages 130–133.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

Romans 1:1-7 (BCP)

The BCP and RCL readings from the epistles diverge for the Feast of the Holy Name. Since we provided commentary on the BCP’s epistle in the Journey series, we will include that here as well.

The introductory material to Paul’s Letter to the Romans states that the ancestry of Jesus “according to the flesh” follows the Davidic line. It reports God’s declaration that Jesus is his son “according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead.”

The concept of how Jesus stands in sonship toward God is easily glossed over, as if its meaning were readily apparent. In fact, it is not. We considered this idea in Volume I of the Journey when studying Luke’s version of the baptism of Jesus. That event served as a springboard to address the broader questions of what we mean when we say that Jesus is the Son of God.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Romans 1:1–7. The text is located at pages 208–212.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a PDF format.

Mark 1:1–8 and Isaiah 40:1–11

The Gospel and Old Testament lessons today contain two interesting features. The first is that the gospel text contains a paraphrase of the Old Testament lesson. Consequently, the pages from the Journey, which comment on one reading also comment on the other. The second feature is that the Journey breaks down today’s gospel reading into two parts, with intervening parallels and separate segments from Matthew and Luke falling between the book’s study of Mark. Of course, that is why the books themselves offer more than this blog! But we should still be able to make something worthwhile out of this format.

Mark 1:1–6 contains the powerful opening of the oldest gospel. It proclaims the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The opening goes on to quote Old Testament prophecy and to declare the arrival of John the Baptist on the banks of the River Jordan.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Mark 1:1–6 and Isaiah 40:1–11.  The text is located at pages 172–176.

The Journey commentary on today’s gospel continues later in Volume I. John the Baptist describes the coming One, with a promise of baptism by the Holy Spirit exceeding John’s own baptism by water. In this preaching, John connects back to the Old Testament and foresees that all will be fulfilled.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Mark 1:6–8. The text is located at pages 193–196.

This passage contains one of the many important scriptural lenses through which to view Jesus’ relationship with God as son to father. It offers a different perspective from what we typically see in the Synoptics.

Below is the link to the section from Volume I of the Journey which includes a discussion of John 1:1-14. The core Journey text is Luke 3:21-22, where the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in bodily form like a dove, and a heavenly voice proclaims him to be the Son, the beloved.

On Christmas day, we celebrate Jesus’ sonship to God. The heavenly voice proclaims that relationship in Luke. The prologue serves a similar function in John.

The linked text draws on these and other sources. They include Mark’s Gospel and Paul’s letter to the Romans. We offer all of this as food for your Christmas thoughts.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about John 1:1-14. The text is located at pages 208-212.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in PDF format.

Christmas Day offers three selections for lectionary reading. Because the selections are the same each year, we depart for now from the specific Year B path tethered to the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, and immerse ourselves in Luke’s historical, literary, theological, and communal world.

Selections I and II, from both the RCL and the BCP lectionaries, have Luke 2:1–20 as their gospel readings. The two selections break the text out into standard and optional parts at different verses. Selection II divides the material into Luke 2:1–7 (standard) and Luke 2:8–20 (optional). This division compares closely to our own division in the Journey series.

Luke 2:1–20 is the heart of the Christmas story. The first seven verses speak of the universal census, requiring Mary and Joseph to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled. Our Journey commentary on this passage considers the historical circumstances around Jesus’ birth. What Luke tells us about it differs from what we know of the precise chronology of Roman rule and administration. It also differs from what Matthew tells us. Even so, Luke places the reader in a world where a Roman decree can impose hardship on struggling young people who find themselves on a long and difficult journey, with all the risks attendant to pregnancy and ancient travel assumed in order to comply with the imperial demand. At the end of the trip, our pair is met, not with welcome, but with disinterest and were shuffled aside to a place fit for animals. The experience of Mary and Joseph at Christmas prefigures the encounter between the mature Jesus and the Roman power structure at Holy Week.

Verses 8–20 describe how the birth of God’s anointed is announced by heavenly visitors. Ironically, it is proclaimed not to the high and mighty, but to the meek and lowly. As our Journey commentary describes, the shepherds of first-century Judea are not to be considered among the solid, salt of the earth peasantry. They exist at the fringe of society, considered unclean because of the requirements of their trade. At best, they were low-class workers. At worst, they were like petty criminals, often accused of grazing their sheep on other people’s land.

It is to these ruffians that the arrival of the Messiah is announced. They go to behold him on the occasion of his birth, and soon tell others about him. By their actions they become the first witnesses, and the first evangelists, of the Christ.

Click here to view what Volume I of the Journey has to say about Luke 2:1–20. The text is located at pages 105–115.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume I in a PDF format.

Isaiah 9:2–7

We also receive a little bonus from the Old Testament with the Christmas lectionary. Selection I—from both the RCL and the BCP—contains excerpts from Isaiah 9:2–7. The OT passage offers a familiar promise that Christians associate with the coming of Jesus. To us a child is born and a son is given, upon whose shoulders the government will rest (see Isa. 9:6).

We studied a few words from this passage in Volume II of the Journey as we explored how Matthew 4:12–17 considers the onset of Jesus’ ministry as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Isaiah promises that those dwelling in the Galilean lands of gentile darkness will see a great light. Matthew considers the prophecy fulfilled with the commencement of Jesus’ ministry. It begins in darkest Galilee—which, in truth, was an incredibly vital land by the time that Jesus walked; a place where cross-cultural currents carried forward, even to this day, the first words that Jesus preached.

Click here to view what Volume II of the Journey has to say about Isaiah 9:1–2. The text is located at pages 90–95.

Click here to download the actual page excerpts from Volume II in a PDF format.

We are, on November 30, starting Year B with the first Sunday in Advent, the year we focus of the Gospel According to St. Mark. While I have not yet published on the gospel for the day, I have preached on it. Following please find a link to the sermon I delivered three years ago to the congregation of Grace Episcopal Church, Chattanooga TN.

Wishing you and yours a blessed, rich, and meaningful Advent season.

Sermon on Mark 13:24-37