Monthly Archives: July 2012
Year B — Proper 13 (The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)
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2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:13a
Two phrases from this poignant story resonate with me: “You are the man” and “I have sinned.” Boil it all down, and you have all one really needs to know about the gravity of sin and its resolution.
David is outraged and moved by the story of the defenseless lamb. Alas, it is always much easier for us to see sin in the lives of someone else; our own shortfalls are arguably “not so bad.” But, Nathan’s accusation is straight up and to the point. “You know you did it, David.”
When confronted with our sin, we can aver, justify, minimize, shift the blame or use any number of other strategies to avoid owning up. In the end, not a one of them will avail our need for cleansing and righteousness. There is only one way through to forgiveness — confession. “I did it; I was wrong.”
The cost for sin is great; confession does not take that away. But it does make restoration possible — it opens the door for hope from despair.
Psalm 51:1-12
The textual notes tell us that this is written by David after he has been confronted by Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba. The language speaks for itself; the depth of agony, sorrow, and penitence are as palpable here as any place in the scripture.
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
“Huh?”
Can you imagine that response to a miracle? The Israelites have been dreaming of bread and “fleshpots” back in Egypt, and Moses tells them God will send them food the next morning. “Just look for it when you open your tentflap and step out.”
So, they do — and they may have been a little underwhelmed at first. “What’s that?” Kind of like children confronted with a plate of spinach or stewed carrots, perhaps.
We aren’t always immediately thrilled with God’s answers to our prayers, are we? Sometimes, it takes some time to get acclimated and to catch up with the wisdom of what God is doing. Manna may not have been a four-course meal, but it sure did get them through some tough times in the wilderness!
God tends to come through in the clutch, even if it’s not the way we would have done it ourselves.
Psalm 78:23-29
The psalm text calls God’s manna from heaven, “the bread of angels.” Probably a little poetic license here — we don’t literally know if this is what angels eat for breakfast every morning.
But it is the symbol of abundance and provision. Good enough for angels, good enough for you and me!
Ephesians 4:1-16
The Apostle reminds us that we are definitely all very different parts of the same body. No two of us perform exactly the same functions (or see “eye to eye” on all things, necessarily!) But, we all definitely need each other in order to perform most effectively.
Besides, there is a powerful argument presented here for finding unity in the midst of our considerable diversity: we all share one hope, one calling, one one Lord, one faith, one baptism (even if I use more water than you do!) — there is one God who looks parentally upon each of us.
We are a family, after all, and though we may fuss and fight like one — in the end, we are here to stick up for one another, as well.
John 6:24-35
People are always hungry.
Things were no different for Jesus; after a couple of “feeding the five thousand” episodes, there are those who find themselves standing in line, coming back for more. He is hard-pressed to keep up with the demand, as he evidently did not come into the world “to save the people from their hunger.”
He tries really hard to point them to the bread of heaven — not exactly the same thing as the manna they had all heard about (see above) — and promises that their spiritual hunger and thirst will definitely be satisfied if they believe in him.
“Fine, but we’re still hungry here, Jesus. What are you going to do about that?”
As we will see in next week’s lesson, Jesus will tell them that eating his flesh is the answer– but he doesn’t get many takers.
Ministry sure is hard.
Sermon
by the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton
Year B — Proper 12 (the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost)
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Sermon
by the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton
We’re talking about fried chicken and country ham biscuits and pork barbecue and fresh boiled corn and creamed potatoes and field peas and cornbread and greens and squash and thick tomatoes the color of blood and sliced as thick as a hockey puck. And cakes and pies and fruit cobblers and . . . oh my; my cholesterol just went up a few points writing that Faulknerian sentence. (Oh yeah, the iced tea; thick and brown and cold and sweet enough to rot your teeth,)
There is something about a good church dinner that reminds us of what the Kingdom of God is supposed to be like. Everybody’s there, even the ones who aren’t there very often, or who don’t like the pastor, or who are at odds with others in the church about this, that or the other thing that is of vital importance right at this moment, but which will be forgotten in a year or two.
In the face of the “Fellowship Meal” in the “Fellowship Hall”; all of that seems to fade away and there we are together, sampling each other’s food and admiring each other’s children and asking after each other’s health and listening to each other’s stories and enjoying each other’s company.
In the southern evangelical churches of my youth, we didn’t really have Feasts or Festivals in the liturgical calendar sense, just Christmas and Easter really. But we had “Feast Days” anyway. We found many opportunities to celebrate with a feast. Homecoming with “dinner on the grounds;” numerous family reunions, held at the church after service and everyone invited (and would have come anyway, since we were all related by marriage or something); the first Sunday night of a revival, the last night of Vacation Bible School, etc. etc.
We knew instinctively that eating together in that way was something the church was supposed to do. And we knew that it was about more than food, it was about more than good fellowship and camaraderie and community spirit. Deep in an unarticulated part of our souls, we knew it was about God, and about growing in God’s grace and about growing as the Body of Christ, and about remembering that we were more than just some folk who liked to get together to sing hymns and listen to sermons; we were God’s children gathered around God’s table. We are a people of the feast.
Year B — Proper 11 (The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost)
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2 Samuel 7:1-14a
David’s motivation for the temple project was most likely very sincere. But, God urged David to wait on that project. God just wanted David to do what God had set before him: be the king, lead the people.
Psalm 89:20-37
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Sermon
by the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton
“He Had Compassion”
I used to love watching the TV Show Evening Shade. It starred Burt Reynolds as a small town football coach in Arkansas. One night the coach’s two small children were leaning out the upstairs window, looking at the stars.
I think most of us know how he feels. The world can be a difficult and dangerous and lonely place. And as comforting as it is to believe in a God in Heaven who loves us and cares about us and has a plan for our lives; sometimes you just need somebody to talk to who will talk back.
That’s why people flocked to Jesus. Sure there were those who had heard about his miracles and just wanted to see a good show. And there were those who were there just because everybody else was there.
It’s like the Friday night high school football in the small-town south. When my son was in the band I used to sit in the stands and listen to women talk about church and teen-agers talk about who’s dating whom. One night the Methodist preacher told me where to sit. He said, “This is the section for the football fans. The other people are just here because everybody else in town is here.”
So there were the thrill seekers and the crowd seekers, but there were also the God seekers, those who had heard about Jesus; had heard about his words and his actions and had come to catch a glimpse of the Holy.
Jesus and the apostles had been really busy and really needed a break. So Jesus said, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
They were going on retreat, on vacation, on holiday.
But it was not to be. By the time they got where they were going, a crowd had gathered.
Jesus looked at them and weighed his own and his companions’ weariness against something he saw in the faces turned up at him, something in the crowd’s eyes.
What was it that swayed Jesus to give up the plan to rest? I think he looked at them and saw their hunger. Not a hunger for food, but a hunger for companionship, a hunger for community, a hunger for love, a hunger for God.
Verse 34 says, “he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Compassion literally means “to feel with.” Jesus felt compassion for them because he had felt what they were feeling.
After Jesus’ Baptism, the Spirit drove him into the Wilderness to be tempted by the Devil.
There he learned what it feels like to be abandoned, deserted, alone in the universe. He also learned what one does and does not need in a time like that.
One of his temptations was to feed the world by turning stone into bread. There in the wilderness, Jesus realized that fixing every human hurt was not to be his mission. People didn’t need a Superman jumping to their rescue. People needed to know that God was in the world with them, not off in heaven above and beyond them. People needed to know that God cared, and that God wanted them to care, and to act with caring as well.
So, there in the desert, Jesus came to a momentous decision; he would purposely withhold his power, restrain himself. Throughout his ministry opportunities for healings came to Jesus, but he didn’t go looking for them. Every time he worked a miracle it happened because of those three little words; he had compassion.
It’s interesting to me how many people don’t believe that; don’t believe that God is love, that God is forgiving and kind and merciful. Too many people in the world believe that God is anxious to send us all to Hell, that God has plans to send holy warriors to earth in to wipe out the evil doers in a grand final battle. And if you don’t think a lot of people believe that, check out the popularity of the Left Behind series of novels.
That he had compassion is the most important thing we can say about Jesus, and about God. In the midst of a world in which everyone is afraid of their own shadows, and, if they believe in God at all they believe God to be either remote and uncaring, or cruel and vindictive; we in the church have been called to witness to the fact that he had compassion.
Sisters and brothers, we live today in a world full of fear and war. We are afraid of rising gas prices, we are afraid of failing health care systems, we are afraid of immigration and disease and forest fires and drought and drugs, and, and, and . . .
It has been a long time since I have seen this country, and indeed the world, so depressed and sad and frightened and on edge about the future. And into this bog of sadness and sorrow, we the church are called to imitate our Lord and find ways to break into the cycle of fear and violence with words and acts of hope and assurance, words and acts of compassion and healing.
Now, that is a mighty tall order isn’t it? What can one little church do? What can one little Christian do? In the face of all this hurt and pain, who am I?
Those must have been the sorts of questions a little Albanian nun asked herself over 50 years ago when she found herself in Calcutta, one of the worst and most hopeless places in the world. And what she decided to do was to do what Jesus did in our story, she had compassion on the ones right in front of her. She dealt with the need she was given and did what she could.
She began to pick up the dying beggars off the streets of Calcutta and to give them a decent place to die. That was it. She washed their wounds and their bottoms, she cleaned their sheets and their latrines. She fed them, and bathed them and turned them on their pallets when no one else would touch them. She had compassion, one dying person at a time.
We are called to have compassion, to preach compassion, to teach compassion, to live compassion. We are called to break whatever rules and taboos and cultural barriers necessary to let the world know God is not harsh, God is not out to get them, God is not punishing them for their sins, God is love, God is steadfast, everlasting, never-ending love.
God is reaching out into the midst of our fear of death with an offer of life, of life eternal.
He had compassion. Jesus had compassion then, and God has compassion now. Open up your hearts and let God love you. Open up your arms and show God’s love to the world.
AMEN AND AMEN
Year B — Proper 10 (Seventh Sunday after Pentecost)
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2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
The reading, as assigned, feels a little disorienting, in that there is a three-month break in the action between verse 5 and verse 12. The quizzical and tragic incident involving Uzzah — who was probably just doing what he thought was best — is omitted, as is the aforementioned 90-day hiatus of the ark in the house of Obed-edom, as David was “afraid of the Lord.”
But, once it became clear that the ark was a source of blessing and not of curse (as long as you kept your hands off of it,) David proceeds with the processional. And, I mean, proceed he does!
The former shepherd boy does the Holy City Hoedown, as it were, and his wife — Michal, Saul’s daughter — is ashamed of him. (Maybe she was still ticked off that David had won her in the Goliath contest…who knows?)
Whatever the source of her bitterness, it didn’t serve her well; she remains barren for the rest of her life, a symbol in Israel of the withdrawal of God’s blessing. (But you don’t get that part of the story in today’s reading, either — look to v. 23)
Worth noting: the blessing by David of God’s people took a very tangible form. He distributed food to every household. Might be a good reminder for us of just how the blessing of God is intended for every one of God’s people, everywhere.
Psalm 24
A fitting psalm for the processional. Lift the gates, open the doors; the celebration is for the LORD, who is strong and mighty. As we learned from David’s earlier encounter with Goliath, “the battle is the Lord’s.”
Amos 7:7-15
To whom are we ultimately accountable for our lives? Against whom are we measured? Ever and always, it is God’s measurement (judgment) that counts. God’s will is the rule of life.
Psalm 85:8-13
When we are quiet long enough to hear God speak, what we will often hear is God’s message of peace. Love, faithfulness, righteousness, and peace — these are “the good” that God desires to give.
Ephesians 1:3-14
We are, indeed, blessed with a number of “spiritual blessings” in Christ:
- we are chosen before the foundation of the world (God works way ahead of the curve!)
- we were destined to be adopted into God’s family
- grace is freely bestowed on us, as are redemption and forgiveness
- we have an inheritance (who wouldn’t like to get one of those?)
- we have heard the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and we live for Christ’s glory
- we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit — a “down payment” of sorts on the life we will live forever with God
Mark 6:14-29
Some days, it just doesn’t pay to be a preacher!
John has famously and steadfastly proclaimed the message from God: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” For Herod, that repentance involved not marrying his brother’s wife — but, he just couldn’t help himself!
While Herod is uncomfortable with John, he also respects him and is intrigued by him. But, with his blood all riled up after watching his niece/daughter dancing after dinner, Herod pretty much traps himself into killing a man he really wanted to protect.
Rather than let his pride suffer (not to mention the hell he would have to pay for refusing his wife,) Herod lops off John’s head and serves it up on a platter.
Oh, be careful little mouth what you say!
Sermon
by the Rev. Dr. Delmer L. Chilton
King Herod here is not the same King Herod who was around when Jesus was born. That was his Daddy, Herod the Great. This is Herod Antipas.
He was, by all accounts, not much of a man or a ruler. And this royal family’s bedding and marrying habits were unconventional and messy to say the least. It really was a soap opera.
Herod Antipas had married his brother’s wife. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except that his brother was still living and Herod forced him to divorce Herodias so he could marry her.
And the daughter who does the dancing? Jewish historian Josephus tells us her name was Salome. She was the Herod’s niece and his wife’s daughter and she ended up marrying his brother, her uncle. Sounds like a bad redneck joke, doesn’t it?
Into the midst of this came John the Baptist. He surveyed the whole mess and called Herod out on issues of morality and leadership. He pointed out to Herod where he had failed to be a good leader to the people, both politically and in his personal life.
Herod’s reaction is interesting. On the one hand, he has John arrested and put in jail; but on the other he protects John from his wife’s revenge. She is really angry and wants John dead, but, for now, Herod is a more afraid of John then he is his wife.
What if he is Elijah? What if Herod does need to repent? What if God is displeased with the way Herod is leading his life?
Herod is a perplexed seeker, a dabbler in the mysteries of God. He believes just enough to keep him awake at night but not enough to change his way of living.
All too often, we too are like Herod. We keep holy things hidden away in the basement of our lives. We’re not willing to throw them out, but we’re not really sure what to do with them. We live our lives without paying much attention to the holy, to the call of God on our lives, because we are perplexed as to how taking that stuff seriously might challenge us to be different.
And truth be told, most of us are happy with the way we are and don’t want to change; if we really wanted to, we would.
Look at Amos and King Jeroboam in our first lesson. Amos spoke the truth and nobody wanted to hear it. So the priest told Amos to go way, and then, in verse 13 said this,
“never again prophecy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is the temple of the kingdom.”When pastors are ordained and then later when they are installed in various ministries, they are asked to promise to preach and teach according to the scriptures and the theological tradition of the church. And the congregation is asked to hold them to that promise and to question them when it’s not clear they’re doing that.
But we are also to remember it is not the preacher’s calling to “tickle our ears” with pleasant things we want to hear; it is her calling to rightly divide the word of truth and challenge us to grow in our faith and godly actions.