Pentecost 21C 2019
Fr. Dale Matson
My homily today is based on our opening
Collect.
“Grant
us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly;
and even now, as we live among things that are passing away, to hold fast to
those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Last
Saturday I attended a memorial service for Fred Fitchhorn. Among other things,
he was a fellow member of the Fresno Joggers. At age 75, I think first about people
when I consider the phrase, “…as we live among things that are passing away.” It
is kind of a misnomer to even call the Fresno Joggers “Joggers” since most of
us are now limited to walking. Additionally, all of us are members of
AARP. After two surgeries one week apart, I’m certain the surgeon’s scalpel cannot
keep up with my aging process. But, not only are people passing away,
institutions are passing away.
Fr.
Carlos once offered us a statement “No church has a future unless their dreams
are greater than their memories.” I would agree with that but add however, that
memories are what anchor those dreams and keeps us from repeating mistakes of
the past. Our memories are what make us human. Memories don’t have to be
limiting factors. I am the king of closure yet recently not buying the
property was fine with me.
I
want to say first that for many of us this is still a time for mourning. We
have been displaced and like our Lord, we have no place to lay our head. Yes,
we are currently guests in this place but we know and our hosts know that we
will be moving on with God’s help. This place is a temporary port in a storm.
Sharon
and I already know what it is like to mourn the loss of a church and faith
community. We left Holy Family Episcopal Church 11 years ago. Since that time
many of the saints at Holy Family have passed on or left. My closest friend
there, the former senior warden Joe no longer attends Holy Family Church. Another
senior warden Andy has passed on. His wife Linda, because of her infirmities,
was no longer able to serve as clergy and gave me her Pix at my ordination. Another
senior warden Gary no longer attends church there. I remember Sharon and I
leaving Holy Family after 11 years there and turning my key over to the rector,
a priest who had betrayed bishop Schofield by joining a lawsuit against him. My
last memory of Holy Family Church was seeing the verse above the exit door as
we departed that quoted Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the
Lord.” If only. If only this was still true at Holy Family. My alb that I am
wearing came from the late rector Steven Mills. It was this history that I hold
fondly that has not held me back. It has served to remind me that a false
gospel is destructive and cannot be tolerated. Sharon and I came to Saint James
where the Gospel was and is preached in truth in purity and where the faith
once handed down is preserved.
With
God’s people, in order to move forward, there must first be a recounting… a
remembering… a time for reflection and in some cases a time to mourn. We cannot move forward until we recount the
past and understand the present. Often in the Old Testament the Israelites
were reminded of where they came from before their next step. Every Eucharist
we celebrate is done in remembrance of Christ.
People, institutions are passing away, but The Kingdom of God has never been about
bricks, stones, mortar, wood and steel. I believe the Jews of the Old
Testament confused God’s presence among them with the Temple in Jerusalem. Much
of their pride and identity was centered on the temple rather than God Himself.
Seeing the Dome of the Rock sitting on the very ruins of the Temple should be
evidence enough that God has left an historical reminder that the Temple and
the land of Israel are not as important as the God who gave both to Israel. It
was the loss of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, which contributed to the
great dispersion where Jewish Christians spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While it is what they are fighting each other
about, who owns the land and the buildings is really not the central issue for
the Arabs and Israelis nor should it be the central issue for us either. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but
you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Yet a time is coming and has now come when
the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are
the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” (John 4:20, 23).
With
each crisis in our personal lives and in the life of our faith community, we
are faced with understandable initial human responses of anxiety, fear, anger
or self-righteousness. I am reminded of the man who put his faith in his
possessions. "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life
will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for
yourself?” (Luke 12:20) My brothers and sisters, we are the Body of Christ and
the Temple of the Holy Spirit. The property and the buildings belong to God and
Him alone.” Someday there will no longer be an Episcopal Church because it will
evolve into an activist Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
Like
so many colleges that were begun by Christian denominations, TEC too, is now becoming
secular. The leadership has become human focused to the extent that there are
no barriers to inclusion. Baptism is “ancient” and “normative” but not
necessary for inclusion in the body of Christ. They are, in fact, ashamed of
Christ and willing to see Him as only an
avenue to a liberated life of self-affirmation in the here and now. They no
longer see him as the way to
salvation and eternal life. They have even outgrown their contemporary I’m OK
and Your OK. It is now the “I am special” church, yet the members no longer see
themselves as what St. Paul referred to as a “peculiar people” who are called
out of a worldly life as witnesses to the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
They are no longer called to holy living and they are not in search of Christ.
They are not sinners seeking God’s mercy; they are victims in search of
justice. They are called to “live into” their natural selves, whatever that
might be. In short, TEC lost the pearl of great price; Jesus Christ Who is our
true and authentic self. He is also the identity and head of the corporate and
mystical body, the church. He is the Logos and the emotion driven leadership is
not interested in God informed reason any longer. They are too busy tithing
their dill of diversity, radical inclusion, social justice and planet
sustainability. They don’t see the need to repent individually for personal sin
but they do repent organizationally for failures to discover the blessed
uniqueness of each kind of new personhood; for the insensitivity to other cultures.
Whom did they fail to include this time around? We will see next time around.
I was
thinking recently about Kanye West who President Obama had referred to as a
“Jackass” because he had gone up on stage and stolen the spotlight from Taylor
Swift when she was given the award for the best female video in 2009. I watched
in amazement as he did this.
“So
where do the two stand in 2019? Taylor, of course, has embraced the latest
rites of “perfectly nice” people. Since becoming overtly political in 2018, she
regularly airs her demands for gender equality and LGBTQ rights, and calls for
more people to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. “Why are you mad, when you could be
GLAAD?” she chides in the recent “You Need to Calm Down.” Although Kanye first
burst onto the scene with “Jesus Walks” and constantly drops references to God,
Jesus Is King, released on Friday, is
his first explicitly Christian album. It calls into question his role as the
nation’s resident jackass.” https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/10/yeezus-follows-jesus
Things can change so
dramatically “…as we live among things that are passing away.”
We are bloodied but unbowed. Like our Lord
they have divided our belongings among themselves in the name of saving the
legacy of TEC. How sad and ironic that my former congregation moved to the St.
James campus and took our name also. We are gone from the campus but our
memories are there and must be brought with us. We have brothers and sisters,
parents and children who have passed on while we were there. We celebrated
their lives and their passing on the cathedral campus on Dakota and Cedar. I
was ordained and priested by Bishop John David Mercer Schofield. He passed on
this month six years ago. He was a man of joy, courage and prayer. John and
Cathy Downing and I recorded an interview with him in 2010. It is important
that we carry his memory with us to our next location. When Sharon and I
traveled to Ireland, I brought back dirt from the graves of my relatives and
put it in our garden.
Why
am I remembering? I am remembering the reasons why we are here now. To put this
in modern terms, we had a lot of skin in the game so to speak. We didn’t phone
it in. We have paid a price and we have suffered. Like Watchmen Nee we SAT with
Christ, we WALKED in Christ and we STOOD against Satan. Satan is never
satisfied with just a pound of flesh and he is not done with us yet. This is
not over by any means. Lord have mercy.
The
first book I read after my Christian renewal was by Watchmen Nee. He was a
Christian pastor in China. As I read his book “The Normal Christian Life” I
thought to myself, “I’m not sure I can do this.” Mao Tse Tung imprisoned him
and the other Christian pastors. After 20 years in prison Watchman Nee died. He
left a note on his pillow. “Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world
who was resurrected on the third day.” Are we willing to suffer a little longer
for this eternal truth?
Finally,
I want to assure those who are mature in the faith, those who yet weep and
mourn that they must remember and NOT forget.
You will also have a place at the table. There will be new opportunities
to contribute and participate. "'In the last days, God says, I will pour
out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young
men will see visions; your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17). After a
period of mourning, we will dream again. Amen.
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