Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Sermon at the Eucharist, June 13, 1998
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
127th Convention of the Diocese of BethlehemIsaiah 55:1-13 2
Corinthians 4:1-11
John 15:1-12Someone posted a story on Ecunet this week that went more or less like this: Once upon a time a young woman was walking in the woods, and came to a pond. There she encountered a frog jumping up and down, apparently trying to get her attention. She bent over to take a look, and heard, of all things, a talking frog. She held out a hand, and the frog jumped up, and as he was raised to the level of her face, he said, "O please, fair maiden, help me. I am really a handsome and rich prince. If you will only give me a kiss, I will return to that handsome and rich state, and you can marry me, and cook and clean for me and have my children, all under the direction of my mother." Later that day, the young woman was very glad that she hadn't taken up that frog on his rather one-sided offer, and remarked to herself how much indeed the frog's legs did taste like chicken.
That's the trap of human life. The woman was right to be thoroughly outraged by the frog prince's offer. She would certainly have been within her rights to give him an angry lecture on what a marriage between equals should be. I confess that I wouldn't complain if she dropped him right back in the middle of the pond scum to make her point. But to kill and eat him?
But that's the way it is, isn't it? Each of us has our list of grievances, some of them very real, unjust, and outrageous things we have suffered; others are imagined (it doesn't matter). It's too easy to believe that our list justifies our doing physical or emotional harm to others. I'm no better than anyone else in this regard. I've had my deposition taken, on and off, over the past two years in a lawsuit to which I am not even a party, just a witness, and I confess to you that I have had moments when I have felt that the outrageous and dehumanizing behavior of the person taking my deposition would just this once, just this tiny little once, justify my inquiring into how a bishop quietly and discreetly takes out a contract on somebody. As Monty Python reminds us, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
I'm in no way denying the need for change in a very untidy and unjust world. I am, however, hearing these lesson that the Prayer Book provides "For A Church Convention" as speaking to us about a few basic human problems.
Isaiah writes, "WHY do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" Another way to put that is, why keep banging our heads against walls, holding grudges for outrages real or imagined, grudges that consume us. We've all seen people so obsessed with outrage that they are perpetually miserable, unable to enjoy normal human relations on a day-to-day basis. And the worst part is, they believe that their anger is proof that they are right to be miserable and to make others so. But let's be careful here, too, for we also know, and sometimes are, people who have blinders on about how we offend or oppress, and how we profit by systems that crush others.
Isaiah continues, "Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." In the midst of the human peevishness that flares into feuds, in the midst of human willingness to exploit and oppress, in the midst of human willingness to think that justice implies or excuses revenge - in the very middle of it all, God set up the cross of Jesus Christ. That was business as unusual as it gets. God has said that the world's destiny revolves around a person with no power in the ordinary way, no real estate, no money. You see, Jesus never once identified with the poor: he was poor, and there is a difference. He couldn't drive his Volvo home after a day of identifying with the poor and relax. As a poor person, his only power could be the truth of his words, his power came from the integrity of his life, the compassion of his signs and miracles, and from that base of moral power, Jesus invited people to new life. In the earliest gospel, Mark, Jesus' first sermon was simply, "Repent and believe the gospel." Turn from what destroys you and others, and live. The life available under those simple terms of repentance and faith is a life where all are valued but none are privileged, a life where giving is more valued than receiving, a life where a Syro-Phoenician woman, an Ethiopian eunuch, a Roman centurion, and even that little oppressing treefrog Zacchaeus come from the east and the west to sit at table together under the reign of God.
In the book and movie, "The Last Temptation of Christ," Jesus is trying to explain to Pilate that he wants to change things only by love. Pilate's answer is simple, we don't care whether you want to change things by love or by war, WE DON'T' WANT THEM CHANGED. WE WANT THINGS TO STAY AS THEY ARE. Pilate adds with dispassionately, "I suppose you know what has to happen now." And that is why those two powerful symbols of human life, religion and government, combine to put him on that Cross. Jesus bears the sins of the world in the most unmetaphorical way imaginable.
Our epistle warns that when we tell the world that it is the suffering servant Lord, the Christ who was poor but who nonetheless judges the cosmos, when we tell the world of the late twentieth century to consider following a man who says that the deepest secrets of the universe are to be found by bearing one's cross and following him, we need to expect rejection, we need to expect that people will do something worse than reject us, they will write us off as irrelevant or stupid, or they will mark our names down as enemies of the revolution.
Face it, in the ordinary sense, there is no percentage in being a moderate (even in the Church!), no percentage in being nonviolent, no percentage in giving your money and time so that others can be fed or educated. The world knows this, and so when we are doing it right, we need to expect a reaction that will have us, as the epistle puts it, walking around "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus."
But the epistle doesn't stop there. We carry the death of Jesus "so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our flesh." Visible in our flesh, the resurrected Christ, visible in our flesh. Dying leads to rising.
The gospel passage has Jesus reminding us that each of us is connected directly to him, no intermediaries, connected to him like a branch to a vine. Because he nourishes us his branches with the redeeming truth of the gospel, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Word, and the mystery of the sacraments, he assumes that something will come of it, and reminds us that he is looking for Fruit, that God the Father is looking for fruit, and that apart from him there will be no fruit. Oh, and then he adds, that by living life his way, by pointing the world to him, by loving one another, our joy will be complete, as his is.
Well, as Margaret Sipple used to ask when staff meetings were coming to closure, are we complete? Are we possessed by complete joy? I know about duty, I know about shoulder-to-the-wheel religious, I know about seriousness and devotion - do I know about joy?
What is the joy of which Jesus speaks? As I've listened to people over the years, some factors seem to distill out. Joy involves being so centered on a good thing that the usual stuff that weighs us down isn't even on the screen. Joy is being so energized and that our feet are weightless and we might skip or dance (if nobody is looking). Joy is being so aware of a good thing, person, or event, that we don't want anything else.
There is a bit more that take's us closer to Jesus' use of the word. I have a picture of Diana with our newborn son coming out of the delivery room. There is a joy on her face that comes to mind when I here the word joy: it is the awe, the satisfaction, the fulfillment of laboring to bring life, life that is a piece of yourself, and yet not you.
So altogether I think "complete" joy is something focussed, free, happy, satisfied, and tinged with awe at the coming of life. To me Jesus is promising that if we give ourselves in love as he did, the joy of seeing life come from that self-giving will fill us right up.
Jesus' joy is full because of, not in spite of holes in his hands, feet, and sides: through them he gave life to the world. Do you remember the passage speaks of Jesus "for the JOY that was set before him," enduring the cross, despising the shame? The shame and agony of being crucified, like the indignities and struggle of childbirth, were nothing to Jesus when compared to the bringing of life.
Isn't that what we know and come to this table to celebrate? We know that when we give ourselves for the good of others we feel very different feelings. He know that when our words and deeds are connected to Christ's own words and deeds, we feel free, focussed, satisfied-joyful.
My own joy at the Sharing the Bread Festival was not so much about seeing an idea I was connected to do so well. The came at seeing so many people happy to be together, enjoying their identify and fellowship in Jesus Christ, enjoying time spent praising God. My joy, and the joy of the many who labored over the festival for a year was in seeing so many people fed in so many ways by brothers and sisters, and by God. The power of that day was greater than the sum of its parts because so many gave themselves so freely. Joy came when we took a big risk to bring life.
And there is the carrot. Our fulfillment, our complete joy, comes as we single-mindedly set the cross of Christ in the middle of every settlement in NE PA. Our joy in the freedom of the gospel comes as we single-mindedly work for the freedom and healing of Christ's poor, of Christ's oppressed and suffering. Our joy in the peace of the Lord will is full as we realize that every workplace, home, and public square is the altar on which we offer ourselves for the life of the world.
This New Testament paradox about living through dying was never better expressed than in the prayer said to come from St. Francis. I found myself drawn to it recently at the institution of a rector, and invite you to say it with me as we imagine together what it is that we are called to bring to all the people we encounter, what our diocesan family is to be like, and what our witness is to be in the world. It is on page 833 of your prayer book. Let's gear our imaginations to pray our way into the paradox for the sake of the frog that is still in each of us yearning to be free and beautiful, for the sake of those who need to throw off oppression with killing and eating the oppressors, for the sake of the world God loves.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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