Author: Fr. John

I confess to being a fan of the movie.  I’ll give just about any movie one chance, but if I find one that I really like, then like some three-year-old, I will watch it over and over.  Keeping the Faith.  Harry Potter.  The Matrix.  Even, The Devil Wears Prada.  However, when I need a little humor and a bit of action, I will reach for A Knight’s Tale.  There’s jousting and sword play.  A beautiful princess and an evil Count.  Our hero, William Thatcher – who goes by the fake name Ulrich, grew up very poor, but decides to follow the advice of his father and changes his stars.  Although illegal, he takes on the role of a knight and has his grand adventure.  He even has a herald and it turns out to be none other than an aspiring young author – Geoffrey Chaucer.

Chaucer’s primary role is to introduce William Thatcher at the jousting tournaments.  As you can imagine, they are quite extravagant.  Concluding one particular introduction he states, “And so without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give to you, the seeker of serenity, the protector of Italian virginity, the enforcer of our Lord God, the one, the only, Sir Ulllrrrich von Lichtenstein!”

So, what does this have to do with anything today?  At one of the final jousting matches, Chaucer once again introduces Ulrich and he begins by saying, “My lords, my ladies, and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion!”  …and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion.  All you common people who most won’t remember.  Faces in the crowd.

Think about it for a second.  When you consider Queen Elizabeth I, you know her father, Henry VIII and perhaps her brother and sister, but do you know who it was that brought up her breakfast each morning?  No and you never will, but that doesn’t mean that this person was of so little insignificance as to be forgotten.  And, in the eyes of God, this server of breakfast is an equal to the Queen of England.  The Apostle Paul states, “there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”  Or, as Chaucer said in A Knight’s Tale, we “are all equally blessed.”

A few weeks ago we celebrated the life of that great Saint, Bartholomew.  He was the one who was martyred by being flayed alive.  I like to refer to Saints like this as Capital “S” Saints.  Saint Bartholomew.  St. Luke.  Etc.  Today, however, we do not celebrate one of those capital “S” saints, instead the ones we celebrate today are known simply as the Martyrs of New Guinea, which consisted of eight missionaries and two natives – no names given, who were put to death because of their faith during World War II.  Common people.  Faces in the crowd.  Yet Jesus says, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  Of those eight nameless missionaries and common natives, “not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.”  “Christ is all, and is in all.”  They are as equally blessed as those Saints we know by name and who are depicted in stained glassed windows.

The word “saint,” with a capital “S” may never appear before our names.  We may never  even have a day set aside for us like the Martyrs of New Guinea, but we also are as equally blessed as they, for as Christ was in them, He is in us.

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Little Johnny was having a tough day in his fourth grade math class which ended with him standing toe-to-toe with his teacher who did not look at all pleased.  Behind them was the blackboard covered with math problems that Johnny hadn’t been able to finish. With rare perception Johnny said, “I’m not an underachiever, you’re an overexpecter!” 

Little Johnny is almost always a wisenheimer.  He is an expert at turning any situation to his own advantage; however, he may have been onto something here, because there are overexpecters in the world and often they turn their own expectations on others.  Take for example the parent who vicariously lives through their child and tirelessly pushes them to succeed even when there is no enjoyment in the exercise for the child.  Or the employer who demands everything, but instead of assisting an employee to succeed they set them up to fail—these are overexpecters.

We can also be overexpecters of ourselves.  Take for example some of those poor folks on America’s Got Talent – have you seen this one?  My goodness, my silly dog can sing and dance better than some of those folks.  I will give then credit for courage though.

Our Gospel reading today also speaks of overexpecters, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.”  It’s a bit like when James and John requested to sit at the right and left hand side of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom.  They were overexpecters of themselves, which falls into our discussion a few weeks ago about how humility is truth – the truth about who we are and who God is.

Today, Jesus teaches us how to avoid such situations, “when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.”  It is a good lesson that can be applied to many aspects of our lives.  However, when it comes to our relationship with God, I don’t know that many are actually overexpecters of themselves.  When I was considering our text, I wasn’t really struck by the seating order.  What resinated with me was the wedding banquet and more specifically the invitation to the wedding banquet.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not so concerned about where I’ll be seated.  More often, my concern is whether or not I’ll even get invited!

What if you received an invitation?  Let’s say that it was miraculously delivered to you by an angel and the invitation was to join Jesus at a banquet.  Not only that, but you were going to receive the seat of honor at his right hand, just like James and John had requested.  Do you take it?  Do you feel worthy to sit at the right hand of God?  Are you someone deserving of such an honor?

In our relationship with God most of us are not overexpecters.  If that invitation arrived, we wouldn’t go prancing around the post office declaring that Jesus has finally recognized what we had known all along.  Instead, only an arrogant few would think they deserved that seat of honor, a few more might think they could at least get in and sit at the kids’ table, but most… most would believe that they were unworthy to have even been invited.  Everyone always talks about that mansion in the sky, pearly gates and the golden streets, but there are days that I think that if I can just get a cot in some dark room in the basement, I’ll be happy.  But that is not how it works, because we are all invited.  Yes, we must have humility so that we can recognize our need for God’s grace, but there must also be a willingness to accept that grace. 

George Herbert, the Caroline divine and great Anglican poet, felt this same unworthiness and wrote a poem with the simple title “Love” where he expressed it.  In the poem, “Love” is the name Herbert gives to Jesus. 

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
     Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
     From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
     If I lack’d any thing.
“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
     Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? ah my dear,
     I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
     “Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
     Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
     “My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
     So I did sit and eat.

Jesus invites him into the banquet, yet in his perceived unworthiness he believes that he cannot accept, “I am so unworthy that I cannot even look at you.”  Jesus asked, “Who made your eyes?”  “You Lord, but I have tainted them with my sin.  Send me where I deserve.”  “I could,” says Jesus, “but I have redeemed you.  I have made you worthy to enter into the joy of the Lord.  Come and eat.”  And so he did.  He accepted the Lord’s invitation.  He accepted the Lord’s grace.

Think of the parable of the prodigal son: The young man decides he wants to live on his own, so he asked and received from his father his inheritance.  He goes off to a distant land and squanders it all.  With nothing left he was starving, so he goes to work for a landowner feeding pigs and wishes that he could at least eat some of the food that he was feeding the pigs.  So he says to himself, “I will go home to my father, because there even the hired hands eat well.”  As he draws closer to his father’s house, his father sees him.  He rushes out to greet his son, but the son declares, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”  How does the father respond?  “You’re right!  Get out of my sight you miserable ingrate.”  No.  He ordered that the finest robe be put on his son.. and a ring.. and shoes.  He ordered a feast with music and dancing.  Why?  “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.  He was lost and is found.”

The son had to humble himself and return to his father, but not only that, he also had to receive the grace his father was extending to him in order to return – not as a slave – but as a son.  If he had persisted in his insistence of unworthiness he could not have returned as a son, but not only that, can you imagine the sadness the father would have experienced had he not been able to love his son as he so desired?

We are like the son.  We are not worthy to sit at the table with Jesus, yet he invites us all, because through his redeeming work on the Cross, we are made worthy.  Worthy to be called the sons and daughters of the Living God.

In his poem “Love,” George Herbert says, “Love took my hand.”  Jesus took his hand desiring to lead him into the feast, into the joy of the Lord, and Herbert allowed him.  Today, love has taken your hand and his greatest desire is to lead you also into the feast and the joy of the Lord.  You have been made worthy.  Accept it.  Accept the invitation.

Our gospel reading today ended at Luke 14:14.  I was a bit disappointed when I saw verse 15, because I thought it should have been included.  It says, “When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, ‘Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.’” — You are the ones being spoken of.  You are the ones that are blessed.  God’s grace is extended to you.  All you must do is accept it and enter into the joy prepared for you by your Father in Heaven.

Luke 13:10-17

• Annunciation
• The nativity and the visitation of the Magi
• At the dedication with Simeon and Anna
• Found Jesus in the temple
• Present at the first miracle
• At the foot of the Cross with John

Colossians 2:6-19

As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.

Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

This Sunday we Baptize Gabrielle.

Our reading from Hosea began, When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”  I read that for our first reading and thought, “I could preach from that,” but then decided that maybe I couldn’t.  I wouldn’t know where to start.  So…

The young son of a Baptist minister was in church one morning when he saw for the first time baptism by immersion. He was greatly interested in it, and the next morning proceeded to baptize his three cats in the bathtub.

The youngest kitten bore it very well, and so did the younger cat, but the old family tomcat rebelled.

The old feline struggled with the boy, clawed and tore his skin, and finally got away. With considerable effort the boy caught the old tom again and proceeded with the “ceremony.”

But the cat acted worse than ever, clawing and spitting, and scratching the boy’s face.

Finally, after barely getting the cat splattered with water, he dropped him on the floor in disgust and said: “Fine, be an Episcopalian if you want to!”

Folks have been arguing about baptism since day one.  At first they argued about who baptized who. Later, came all the arguments about “how” a person was to be baptized: full immersion, in a tub, in a river or just a sprinkling.  And then they argued over whether a person should be baptized as an adult or baby.  On and on the arguments have gone.

Several years ago a church member wrote, “the church I belong to is torn in a fierce dispute.  One section says that baptism is IN the name of the Father and the other that it is INTO the name of the Father.”  He says, “I belong to one of these parties.  I feel most strongly about it.  I would die for it in fact, but I forget which it is!”

We all have a tendency to make things a lot more complicated than they need to be, but the truth is, it’s not about what we think.  It’s about God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and it is about what He is doing.

So, what is God doing in Baptism?  There are three things that St. Paul in his writings makes very clear.  First, God through our Baptism is cleansing us from the defilement of sin.  Second, He is creating a mystical union between the baptized and Christ.  And third, He is incorporating the baptized into the Church, the body of Christ.  I can assure you that not even the raging waters of the Mississippi river could accomplish any of this unless God Himself is involved.

Archbishop Michael Ramsey wrote, “Baptism is the first significant fact about a Christian.  It declares that the beginning of a man’s Christianity is not what he feels and experiences, but what God in Christ had done for him.”  Which, as we said, includes forgiveness of sins, mystical union with Christ and incorporation into the Church.  Paul summarized those points in his letter to the Colossians which we read, “When you were buried with Christ in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.”  When we are baptized, when we go under the water, it is symbolizing our death – death to the old self.  When we rise back out of the water, it is symbolizing our rising again to new life – the new life in Christ Jesus.  The water is a symbol and it is pointing to the reality which God is accomplishing in us – new birth – a resurrected life  in Jesus Christ.

Paul confirms this all in his letter to the Romans, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

The only specific instruction we have with regard to baptism comes from Jesus himself.  He says, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  As long as we follow the instructions of Jesus, I honestly don’t think God cares about “How” we go about it, immersion or sprinkling, child or adult.  I believe God’s primary concern is that we are obedient and to fail to be baptized, in whichever form, is to fail to be obedient to God.

God does not care about the “How” of our baptism as long as it is in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but he does care that we as his children, through our Baptism or the renewal of our Baptismal Covenant, publicly acknowledge Him as our Lord.  He cares about the fact that we as adults solemnly vow, that with his help, we will assist in the raising up all children in our charge into the knowledge and love of Him.  And, finally, he cares that we keep all other aspects of the covenant that are there to draw us and others closer to Him.

With regards to all the arguments, in the words of St. Paul to Timothy, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.”  Which means that we are to focus on what it is we are saying or have said in the Baptismal Covenant.  They are not empty words; therefore, we should not be making empty promises as we say them.  We must focus on what God is doing in our life and in the life of the one baptized.  At that point, maybe.. MAYBE.. when we get all this right we can then turn our attention to the foolish and stupid arguments, but for now, we have a long ways to go, so let us keep our focus where it belongs.

Luke 7:36-8:3 

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him– that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “Speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Brennan Manning – a Roman Catholic priest – tells the story of the time during the 70’s that he was living in a monastery in New York.  It seems that while living there he had numerous millionaire friends who enjoyed his company and would invite him out.  He recalls on one occasion being invited to a swank restaurant and a Broadway play.  During the intermission, he and his friends went out for some fresh air and engaged in a rather highbrow conversation regarding the play.