8 PENTECOST, PROPER 12, YEAR B
SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE
THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY
26 JULY 2009
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2 Samuel 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21
There are kings, and then there are kings.
There’s, David, second King of Israel and Judah after Saul. The king who reminds us, perhaps, of some latter day kings or would-be kings. People in positions of power who from time to time get careless or malicious or both and abuse their power for their own purposes. It took King David only a moment out of his life on that one fateful day with Bathsheba, but a lifetime afterwards of consequences. David appropriated someone else’s wife and didn’t stop there, as he figured out a way to get rid of the woman’s husband. We’ll hear about the consequences of David’s actions in next week’s first reading. As someone has written, “King David was powerful, but he never walked on water.” (Daniel Harrell, Christian Century 14 July, 2009)
Then there is Jesus, a thousand years later. We sometimes refer to Jesus as a “king,” but that’s not what Jesus thought about himself. At least not in the way most people use the word. “King” was the last thing Jesus wanted to be. After he had healed many who were sick and then managed to feed the huge crowd from two little fish and five loaves of bread, the people wanted to grab Jesus and make him their king. “This is the prophet we’ve been waiting for,” they said. But Jesus would have none of it and hurried away instead to be by himself on the mountain. He would not be a king. Jesus’ power was different. The people didn’t understand it.
And when he later was seen walking on top of the water in a storm, still the people didn’t get it.
Jesus was no good luck charm, you see. He was no rabbit’s foot. He had not come to fix all the problems of the world with a magic wand. But he had come to begin the process of helping people live in a new way.
Leap forward another 2000 years. Part of the work of our church’s General Convention just finished in Anaheim was the development and passage of a budget for the next three years. I didn’t talk much about that in my report, part one, which I gave you last Sunday. This is part two. It was a tough thing, doing this budget. There have been huge financial losses during the past year and more may come in the next year. Most of the losses come from the stressed economy, as we all know. Less, but still there, are the losses resulting from those dioceses who pay only part of their annual assessment (Maine is good about ours) or who have decided to align themselves with churches in other parts of the Anglican Communion, like Rwanda or Nigeria, and so off they have gone, taking their money with them.
The hardest part of the budget trimming has been the elimination of support staff at Church Headquarters in New York and the cutting of some programs altogether.
Those are real and dedicated people who have suddenly had to pack up their offices and walk out of jobs they were devoted to. And the programs lost have represented powerful work of the Episcopal Church. Like the Office of Mission and the Office of Evangelism and their people.
Mission and Evangelism? When we were presented with the budget, we Deputies shook our heads, as the Bishops did in their own House. Mission? Evangelism? That’s our heartbeat! Our mission is God’s mission. And telling the Good News is what “evangelism” means. Sharing the Good News is our job! How can those very things be eradicated?
Then we remembered something. “In every crisis,” our Presiding Bishop had told us a few days earlier, “in every crisis lies an opportunity.” In EVERY crisis……
Opportunity………
If we truly realize that WE are the church, we people in our congregations throughout the Episcopal Church, with its 100 or so domestic dioceses and eleven overseas dioceses, if we are the church, then the work of evangelism begins with us. And God’s mission is the mission belonging to each one of us.
We can do mission and evangelism. We have what it takes.
And we don’t do this alone. Jesus’ death and his resurrection and his ascension allowed him, finally, to fill the whole universe. We are filled with Jesus’ presence. As he fed the crowds that day until they were satisfied and as he feeds us again and again with his Body and Blood at this Altar, so he through his ascension also fills us and all things with the power that far transcends the temporal, feel good power that earthly kings might take to themselves for themselves. As King David did in his great moment of weakness, which he mistook for strength.
Things happen in the church to jolt us into some new reality, like the belt-tightening of a budget during a lean time, or in our lives to jolt us into realizing our human frailty or frighten us or remind us of the fleeting passage of the time. Things happen---you know about them and so do I. You can name some and so can I.
But Jesus’ power can permeate and overcome everything we can know. And trust in Jesus’ power can give us what we need for now, not to fret overly about what has already happened but to deal with what we have to deal with right now. Today. Jesus lived and died in a most un-kingly way for us in order to release us into true oneness with God in the family of God, otherwise known as the kingdom of God. So through Jesus’ living and dying and rising he gives us the power we need, to help us live in a new way, now. And if that isn’t Good News, I don’t know what is!
An old, I think, and anonymous prayer---
“Be present with me, O Christ, in all the events and encounters of this day.
Bless those who will cross my path,
and be with me especially as I (do the hard things I have to do).
Grant that all I say and do may flow from your Spirit
who prays within me.
Keep me safe from all dangers, and in moments of frustration
or failure let me not despair
of your ever-present mercy and enfolding love.”