2nd Sunday in Lent - Br. Luke

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Luke at Blaxland on Sunday 1st March 2015:

Second Sunday of Lent

Readings:

Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 ; psalms 22:24-32; Romans 4;13-25; Mark 8:31-38

There is so much to focus on in today’s readings.  But I’d like to begin in Genesis.  There is Abraham and Sarah in their old age, not having any children and there is God saying to them I will make you fruitful, you will… “I will make you multitudes of people from your descendants”

It’s not a surprise really that later in the scriptures we read that Sarah laughs. God says he will make many Nations from their descendants.  Menopause had well and truly come and gone for Sarah.  But there is God making this promise that from you will come a multitude of nations.  Oh my goodness, the power of God.

I am really partial to that story in Genesis, however I am going to be naughty and go straight to Romans.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is a very good one, it is full of Theology. Paul is writing very early Christian Theology. In all he says it is a Theology of Life, and he is teaching people how to live a Christian life. Remember he was a very very, We have to remember that Paul was a very Orthodox Jew, he was a Pharisee, highly experienced in the Jewish Law. He knew all about the scriptures, which is why we when read the scriptures they say he ‘opened the Scriptures and showed them. He could do that; he had an innate knowledge of the scriptures. So he draws the parallels and talks about Abraham and Sarah.

I want to talk about that passage from Mark because it is one of those passages where we may get a little bit alarmed if I can use that term. Now here is Peter, the premier disciple, the first disciple, the rock on which Jesus said he would build the church.  I have always had a very soft spot for Peter because Peter is always putting his foot in it, he is always doing probably what I would do. So I have a very soft spot for Peter.

But here he is where Jesus is saying the Son of Man is going to be crucified, Peter says ‘No! no; you’re the Messiah, that is not going to happen to you!’ What does Jesus do? He says get behind me Satan. He chastises Peter. He says to the Premier disciple, Get out of here! What you are saying is human. You are thinking as a person. You are not thinking about the Mission that I have been sent to do. The Mission is from God.

I have always loved the line from the film, The Blues Brothers. “I’m on a Mission from God”. And that’s what Jesus is on, a Mission from God. So Peter is distracting from that purpose, but he says no no no no; wait, you’re the Messiah – that can’t happen to you.

And then Jesus goes on and makes that very complicated and confusing statement “Those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:35) What, does that mean? And that equally complicated gospel passage “if any want to become my followers let them deny themselves take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

The cross is an instrument of torture, that’s how the Romans killed criminals, it wasn’t just Jesus.  Pilate was horrendous in terms of what he did. There were thousands of people of people he crucified. He was a particularly nasty bloke. Romans were a bloodthirsty people.  There was no forgiveness there.

So here is Jesus’s saying if you want to follow me, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.  To do what- after all the cross is a nasty way to die. And those who lose their life will save it”.  This is very complicated.  What is he saying to them? What he is saying them to is if you want to be a follower of mine you are going to have to focus now on the things of the world, but on the things that are divine. He is making a distinction between our physical lives and our spiritual lives.  Those who lose their lives will save it you will be saved in the Resurrection, in the life Everlasting. Right!

Remember, Jesus talks about life eternal, so he is taking that passage and saying if you lose your life in this life, you will gain your life in the future.  Does this make sense?  It’s the same words but he’s using a different context.

Take up your Cross. What is a cross? I’ve said before, it is an instrument of torture – but it is also a burden or an affliction of some description and that’s the cross that we carry.  That’s a burden that we carry.

Now we are in Lent, and traditionally Lent is about giving up things.  It’s about penance. Preparing ourselves for Easter.  And what is the major event of Easter?  It’s is not the crucifixion.  The major message of Easter is not his death, it’s his Resurrection. That the message of Easter.  It is the defeat of death.  You lose your life, Jesus dies on the cross, but he rose again and you will save your life. See how the message flows through the Scriptures.

And when we stop and say, well, what is our cross? It can be as simple as having to do something you don’t want to do.  Going to work every day, especially in a job you don’t like doing.  Or for some individuals it’s a disability or an addiction, or their mental health.  It’s a cross they carry.

Our cross is something we carry every day. Jesus tells us what will it profit us if we gain the whole world, but lose our life. That being a Christian is a cross we will carry. He tells us that being Christian will be difficult.  We know that by following him when our physical lives end, we will be with God in eternity. That’s what he means when he says to them you will save your life.

And finally “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38). So that’s the sting in tail isn’t it? If you are ashamed of me, if you don’t really want anyone to know that you profess to be Christian, then you’re being ashamed of me.  You know what’s going to happen.  When I come back, then I’m going to be ashamed of you.  Because you’re not being true to the message.  You’re not being true to what you are called to do.

And you hear me say this all the time: what’s the message of the Gospel?  The message of the gospel is love.  John right in the beginning of his gospel.  What did he write? “God so loved the world.”  “God is love.”  Jesus says when asked, “What is the greatest commandment?”  Love the Lord your God will all your heart; with all soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. As a second is like it, love your neighbour and yourself, on this hang all the law and the prophets. The first is very hard. Make no mistake about it.  And loving your neighbour as yourself? That is the biggest cross that Christians have.  If we stop and think about loving our neighbour, because there are times when we say to ourselves: “I really don’t like that person!”  Or we say to ourselves about the other person, “why don’t you just go away?”  The Christian message says no, we have to love the lot.

Amen.

Recorded and transcribed –  at Maroubra by br. Andrew

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year B-Br Luke

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Luke at Blaxland on Sunday 8th February 2015: 

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year B

Readings:

Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-11; I Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

" As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them."(Mark 1:29-31 NRSV)

And then they came from everywhere to be healed by him

Jesus cured many people of various diseases and cast out many daemons, and remember what we said at Bible Study last Thursday about Jesus silencing the daemons, he silenced them and cast them out. Mark says again “He would not permit the daemons to speak” and every time he cast a daemon out, he said to the daemon “be quiet, and go! He always said that, when the daemons spoke, he would not let them say who he was, people might think – well, why won't he let them speak? Was he frightened of them, no of course not, what he doesn't want is for them to start telling people who he is because at this point in time he is beginning his ministry and later on he doesn't want the events that unfold to be brought forth more quickly, which is obviously what Satan wants, so they cannot interfere and disrupt his plans, his mission, so he said ‘be silent’! And when God says ‘be silent!’ what do you do? Be Silent.

I won’t speak about Isaiah, this morning because we will do that along with the Psalm at our Parish Bible Study on Thursday.

(Holy Redeemer Christian Community does Bible Study by Skype at 7.30pm AEST each Thursday)

I am going to go to someone many people don't like very much– our friend Paul

“If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel!

What is he saying? It’s no good me going look at me aren't I wonderful I’m proclaiming the gospel! No! Just because he does it doesn’t mean he can boast about it, and say how good I am. You can't puff yourself up and make yourself important:

‘I am such a good Christian for preaching the gospel’- because you have an obligation to do that as a Christian- so you can't run around saying ‘I’m such a good Christian, look at me I'm preaching the gospel’. No, being a Christian is about doing.

We have the obligation to preach the gospel, St Francis of Assisi said how do you proclaim the gospel, you can do it in the way you live, you don’t necessarily have to use words, he didn't actually say it in those words, did he Andrew?

The intention behind whatever the words he did say was– “Preach everywhere, if necessary use words” In other words what Paul said is that ‘I have an obligation on me to proclaim the gospel’ so I am doing it. If I do it for my own will I have a reward, but it is not for his own will because he had been subject to the commission. He is following the command given to him by Christ. 

Later in the gospel, in what comes to be known as the Great Commission Jesus says to the disciples go out and make converts of the whole world In other words go out there and spread the Message, spread the Good News, and we all know what the Good News is, the message of the gospel in its fundamental form, God is Love, as John said in his Gospel, he couldn't have made it any plainer, God is Love! 

The whole message of the Christian Gospel is Love and Reconciliation to God.

We are reconciled back to God through the action of Christ.

Paul then says this really complicated thing:

“To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law.” [1 Corinthians 9:20b NRSV]

He is not under the Law! What is he talking about? He has these lovely convoluted arguments, he does that all the time, what he is simply saying is that he is not under the Law, but what law is he referring to here? He is referring to the Mosaic Law, he is referring to the Jewish Law, he is not under the Jewish Law anymore he is not under the Mosaic Law, why not?  Because he is under the Law of Christ and we know that the church in Jerusalem decided that Christians were not bound to follow the Mosaic Law, which is why many Christians are not circumcised.

If we had to follow the Law of Moses every Christian male would be have to be circumcised; because we do not follow the Jewish Law there is no obligation on us to be circumcised which is one of the things discussed by the church in Jerusalem where it was decided that Christians were not bound by the Mosaic Law.

I am not under the Law but for those Jews who are under the Law I will act as though I am under the Law  so that I don’t frighten them, don’t scare them away and I can convert them to the Message of Christ by them understanding that I understand the message of the Law. Which is why he said “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some 

(1 Corinthians 9:22 NRSV)

In other words Paul is saying he will do anything that is required for him to preach the gospel to convert people to the Faith; what is conversion to the Faith? Bringing them the knowledge of God’s love and the gift of Reconciliation… So it is not really that complicated when you start to unpick him; and you don’t worry about he argues this and then he argues that etc. that is his rhetorician style, the way he was taught to argue.

I want to go back briefly to Mark and then we will stop.

All night Jesus had been healing and casting out daemons so he must have been somewhat tired, I know I would be very tired, wouldn't you?  

”In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35 NRSV)

Now that is the other pattern that Jesus followed, you remember that on many, many, occasions after Jesus had preached, after he had done a lot of work like this he retreated to a cave, to a mountain top, a deserted place to a boat to wherever and he prayed. Going to reconnect himself with the Divine, to recharge his batteries, as it were… not that he needs to from the divine perspective but in his humanity, his human body he did. That’s why we find that in the early church the earliest monks went to the desert, we now call them the Desert Mothers and Fathers, they went and they lived, literally, in the desert but they didn't live in Monasteries’ as we know them they lived very much like the Carthusians do, they each had their own cell and came together for meetings. 

That is the pattern of the Desert Mothers and Fathers:-the very earliest type of religious communities would go to the desert, mimicking what Jesus did, he had gone into the desert, stayed in the desert prayed in the desert, where it is different is that the monks and the nuns don’t come back, once they had gone into the monastery in the desert they didn’t come back out again. We Franciscans do come back.

And then Simon Peter says we’ve been looking for you, where have you been, everyone’s gone, what have you been doing? 

Jesus says come on let’s go to the next town, he doesn't even answer them, he doesn't say, “Well this is what I have been doing” …My job is to preach the gospel, proclaim the message, to visit the Synagogues and cast out daemons, come on, let’s go, and off he goes and on to the next town.

Paul is mimicking Jesus, isn't he? Preach Convert, next town. Preach Convert, next town.

I am often asked what is the difference between a friar and a monk. It is Very simple a monk takes a vow of stability and obedience to a Community, the same for a nun, and goes to the Community and lives there and doesn't leave. They go to that Monastery, wherever that might be and that is where they spend the rest of their life. They may move occasionally from monastery to monastery or from place to place but by and large it is to the one Community and one Monastery and that is where they stay.

Dominicans and Franciscans are called Friars and that is because they are mendicants and what we mean by mendicants is that the vows we take are to the Order and so we can be sent anywhere in order to do the Work of the Order, so in some ways a friar is more like Paul who goes from town to town and place to place preaching, converting, next town and so on and so forth and that’s what Francis wanted brothers, who were out and about.(Sisters couldn't go out in those days, for their own protection they had to remain in the monastery otherwise they would be raped and all sorts of things, so they remained inside and are Enclosed Orders.) The Brothers were out and about because that was what Francis wanted.

Francis was following Paul, who Paul was following? Jesus, who was Francis Following? Jesus.

Recorded and transcribed by Br Andrew

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost -Br Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br Andrew, at Winmalee on Sunday 29th June: 

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, Third Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel John 21:15-22

Men of Faith,

Abraham, Peter and Paul

Our forefathers and mothers in the faith bear witness to the grace of a Faith filled life, faith  trusts and goes where God leads, unquestioningly despite the idiocy and insanity of the request:- because 11 Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1 NIVR)

In today’s readings we have three men separated by some 3,000 + years who in exercising phenomenal faith made it possible for the world to be blessed through salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

You noticed that I said faith is trusting despite the idiocy and insanity of the request. It surely must have appeared insane to Abraham to be told by God to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering when he was to be the only ancestor of the Congregation of Judaism; nevertheless he took his son to the foothills of Mount Moriah, piled the wood on the altar and laid his much beloved son upon it. In his faith Abraham reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead and with the sacrifice of the substituted Ram, so he did. Unspoken echoes of that perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?

At the other end of the line there are Sts. Peter and Paul who are considered to be the Fathers of the Church, men of great faith, truly human, both sacrificed for their Faith in Christ. 

Peter was born in Bethsaida in Galilee into a family of fishermen, about the same age as Jesus, called by Jesus to the cryptic vocation of fishing for men, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law at Capernaum  and later Ordained him in the rock of the church dialogue in Matt.16:18, he was one of the witnesses to the Transfiguration, denied Christ three times, was forgiven three times, his most famous sermon given at Pentecost, Peter was sacrificed for Christ in the year 67 AD in Rome during the  reign of Nero, he was crucified upside down considering himself not worthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus.

As we read in our Gospel today Jesus tells Peter cryptically of the manner of his death saying “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you, and carry you where you don’t want to go.”[Matt 10:42]

Prior to our Gospel Peter has denied knowing Christ three times and after the third time “when the Lord turned, and looked at him. He remembered his Lord’s word, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times.” 62 Peter went out, and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61, 62).

That was the turning point in his life; much earlier Peter had asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus had replied, “you cannot follow now, but you will follow later." (John 13:36). Peter had not been in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not reached the bottom of his barrel. He did not know his own depths, and therefore could not follow Christ. But when he went out and wept bitterly, then came the great change. Christ had already said to him: "When you are converted, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). 
Here is the point Where Peter was converted from self to Christ – finally he knew himself for what he was, one whose Ego made grandiose claims his unsupported spirit could not achieve. He yet belonged to himself.

Now Christ reigned supreme and he no longer relied upon himself to achieve anything save in Christ alone.

Throughout his ministry Peter stressed the importance of dying to self and living for Christ, he had learned that many of us share the bottom of his barrel and for the same reasons, inordinate love of self.

He always referred to himself as Elder or servant and kept his promise to tend the Lambs and to feed and tend the sheep; he fed them with the Word of God and urged them to seek it out. In the last paragraph of his second Epistle he mentions the letters Paul had written to them saying 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him;[2 Peter 3:15]

St Paul was a Roman Turk by nationality and a Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, anywhere between 6BC and 10CE, and first known to us as Saul.  He referred to himself as “a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees” [Acts 23:6], he was brought up in Jerusalem and studied under Gamaliel, [Acts 22:3] – we first come across him at the stoning of Stephen the proto-martyr [Acts 8:1]. 

Saul was a zealot for Judaism and the Torah and confesses to the Galatians“13 you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how forcefully I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was progressing in Judaism ahead of many of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my forefathers. [Gal. 1:13-14 paraphrased] (NIV) 

Paul's conversion can be dated to 31–36 by his reference to it in his letter to the Galatians. Luke provides three versions of this in the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 9:1-31, 22:1-22, and 26:9-24. 

This took place on the road to Damascus, while on his way to arrest more followers of the way and take them captive to Jerusalem. He reported having experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus which occurred as he neared Damascus when, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”[Acts 9:4-6 paraphrased] In the kJV the end of verse 5 reads “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Paul spent three days with Ananias during which he spent time in mystical union with Christ himself. As he later told the Galatians “15[…] God, set me apart from my mother’s womb has called me by his grace, (and) was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, [Galatians 1:15,16 paraphrased]

According to the wording in the kJV it rather seems that Paul’s zeal may partially have stemmed from self-doubt, and notice- to persecute a Christian is to persecute Christ, for whatever  you do to the least of these, my little ones you do unto me [matt.25:40]

When St. Paul became a little one he preferred to be known as the Apostle to the Gentiles and preached to them that Faith is a free gift given by the Grace of God, salvation came through Faith in Christ and his death and resurrection which dispensed with the Torah – (which Christ had fulfilled through his life death and resurrection Matt.5:17) Thinking, perhaps of the manner of his coming to Christ he taught that Faith had primacy over works.

Christian tradition holds that Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero around the mid-60s at Tre Fontane Abbey (English: Three Fountains Abbey) In 2009 pope Benedict XVI announced excavation results of the probing of a sarcophagus at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls – the remains were carbon dated to the mid first to second century and declared to be those of St Paul.

When we through the Grace of God accept the free gift of Faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the remission of our sins we then can die to ourselves and live in Christ. Until we do this we are like Peter full of ourselves and a danger to ourselves in spiritual matters. Like Paul we may knowingly or unknowingly feel the jabs and the pricks of the calling of the risen Christ until the pain brings us to our knees and we are emptied of ourselves and free to believe in him who first loved us.

And never forget that Faith in Christ is illogical and if we expect it to be we are in the wrong religion.