Blessed are You!

Blessed are You!

You are Blessed in Boston!
You are NOT Banned in Boston!

Jesus began his ministry by recruiting some ordinary working people; like fisherfolk as you may remember from last week. Folks like us and he said plain as day; “Let’s go fishing.” 

Mind you he wants us to go fishing for people. After all, we’re spending way too much time walking in the Darkness. It is time for us to proclaim the Gospel of Light!  You will remember how we put it last week; 

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

In the darkness there is much too much violence, bigotry and hatred. In the light we die to sin and rise to newness of life.

We are forgiven

We receive the gift of eternal life

We are filled with the unbounded joy of Jesus

This Gospel message then gives us the kernel of a Gospel life

Love God

Love one another

Love yourself.

No need to complicate the Gospel. Jesus didn’t; neither need we.

So then, he called his working folk to him, his fisherfolk and then Jesus went public with his ministry. 

He began healing the sick. Jesus wanted to make sure that everybody had access to Universal Health Care through his sacred and holy touch. This is first and foremost. He gave us power and commandment to heal the sick. Why then is this matter of Universal Health Care so controversial? For Jesus, the was of the highest priority.

Of course the crowds followed him wherever he went. They longed for his healing touch. And there they were today gathered with him up on the mountain. He begins his first campaign speech; the one we call “The Sermon on the Mount”.

He begins with a blessing. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”. Jesus knew what it was to be exhausted and oppressed by the burdens of his life. He had sense to withdraw in moments when he was spiritually spent. We may not think of Jesus as “spiritually spent” but the scripture tells us exactly that; 

“But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.” ~Luke 5:15,16

In the Lucan version of this sermon, the one the biblical scholars call the "Sermon on the Plain", Jesus says "Blessed are the poor." Period. 

"Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now,

for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh." ~Luke 6:20-21

Jesus goes on to say this of the rich and powerful

"But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now,

for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now,

for you will mourn and weep." Luke 6:24,25

Notice how Jesus comforted the afflicted; but afflicted the comfortable. 

In both sermons Jesus begins with a blessing. In fact, he begins with many blessings: A blessing on the poor and those whose hearts are torn with grief. He blesses the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  The merciful and the pure in heart; these folks obtain mercy and they shall see God. Blessed too are the peacemakers, they are God children. And then there is this. Don’t forget those of you who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed are you too! When they revile you and utter all kinds of evil against you Jesus wants you to rejoice and be glad because this is how they have always treated the prophets in times gone by.

Oh my God!

How prophetic are these words. Its still the same now! What kinds of things do we hear now in public about all the above? Where are the blessings from our public leadership at the very top of our nation’s Capitol? Rather than blessings, we hear bullying at the very least, and at worst nothing less than persecution.

How tragic that in these United States of America among those persecuted are folks singled out because of their religion. Just because you are Muslim! In our history, you might be persecuted because of the color of your skin, you may be discriminated against because of your gender, you may face violence, rejection and hatred just because of your orientation. This is not to be among Christian folk. 

Jesus begins with blessings on the people. All the people. So much so, he seeks out those the rich and powerful reject; you know who they are; sinners, the despised, the rejected and the outcast. Jesus blesses those banned by the rich and powerful.

In the person of Jesus, God’s love extends well beyond those accepted in polite social circles. He goes to the sick in body, mind and spirit. He seeks out the sinners; the prostitutes and the unclean lepers, the despised tax collectors, the foreign born Samaritan; Jesus loved them, forgave them. Jesus blessed them!

Contrast these blessings with the language we hear now from the halls of power and the extremist managed media. Jesus tells us that the truth shall make us free. Now we have well funded executive leadership that makes up the truth as it goes along particularly about voter fraud. This is an attack on our very democracy. 

Ah but calm yourself Fr Paul! There I go. I too can get so easily caught up in all the negative talk! We can easily fall prey to the darkness these days if we focus too much on all the hateful speech.

Rather, let us begin our ministry as Jesus began his; with the blessings of God. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word for blessed is “makarios” which means 

“You are the ones who are supremely blessed and holy in God’s eyes”

“You are the fortunate one”

“You are the well off in God’s eyes!”

“In fact, you are the ones God admires!”

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

We order our lives with a blessing first and foremost. Make it a rule in your families. Make it a rule in your church. In fact, lets make it a rule of heart to bless God the Holy Trinity. We can get too easily caught up in finding fault, God knows there is much to find fault with.

But Jesus knows that's a trap. This is the darkness of the world in which we live and we are way too much caught up in it. In our politics, God knows. There is so much to find fault with in our church or in our diocese. Good Lord we can find fault with each other, without so much as taking a sober look at ourselves.

Jesus pointed that one out very clearly, remember? In the same Sermon on the Mount that begins with today's, Jesus said;

“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” ~Matthew 7

Jesus began his every waking moment with a blessing. Good lord, there is so much to be grateful for. You have your life, your family, your friends, your work. We have God at the center of our lives, and an indelible picture of who God is in the person of Jesus. By God’s grace and through the generosity of so many we have this church. 

Oh yes, blessed are you for your generosity and your pledges for without them we could not prepare this year’s budget, which, by the way, we will be doing directly following this service. I’m sure you have all pledged. You have, haven't you?

Which brings us back to where we began; “Blessed are the poor”. I’m confident in saying none of you is rich. If you were, then I’d know somebody’s holding out on God’s work in this place.

Let me will tell you this. The biblical standard for giving is the tithe. That means we are called to give 10% of what God gives us. Everyone has some income. This is God's gift to you.  And this is God’s church and we want to be certain that we make provision for the ministry of God’s church in and from this place. Don’t we?

Let me ask you, do you give 10%, 5%, 4%, 2.5% or some other proportion your income? If any of you have difficulty with decimals or percentages, I know somebody here can help you.figure it out. Oh yes, I know about the poor widow who only gave a few copper coins in the Temple Treasury out of gratitude for something God had done for her. But let me ask you, what percentage of what she had did this poor woman give, according to God? 10%? No! She gave much more than that my friends, she gave everything she had. That’s 100% folks! ~Mark 12:41-44.

Finally, “Blessed are you” you are God’s blessed people. You have been blessed. 

“You are the ones who are supremely blessed and holy in God’s eyes”

“You are the fortunate one”

“You are the ones well off in God’s eyes!”

“In fact, you are the ones God admires!”

Now, you are to go forward to bless. 

So then in our first two weeks together; what is it that Jesus is teaching us?

1. Let’s go fishing!
2. Let's go blessing!

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Blessed and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

Gone Fishing!

Third Sunday After the Epiphany

January 22, 2017

In the Name of God the Holy Trinity.

This is the very name in which you have dedicated yourselves and this church. You have dedicated and consecrated this place to the strong name of the Trinity.

God 

Jesus

The Holy Spirit.

God as our Creator.

Jesus as our Savior.

The Holy Spirit, the Hagia Sophia, she who is our Holy Wisdom from on High. You do know that the word Spirit is “Sophia” in the Greek language and means “Wisdom”. She is a beautiful name and reflects the feminine side of God. Yes, of course you do.

And so you have dedicated yourselves and your church to all that is creative within and among you, all that saves yourselves and others, all that grants us wisdom, the holy wisdom from on high.

It is within the context of this very Holy Name that we begin our ministry together; 

In the Name of God; The Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity.

Cindy and I thank you for your welcome and are grateful to be in your midst here at Trinity Church. We are grateful for all those who have come before us, whose generosity and dedication have built this place. We thank God for all of them, for all of the Clergy who have dedicated themselves here including Fr. Phil, for all the laity who have given so selflessly to build this holy place. And I thank God for each and every one of you. It now falls to us to continue building up the body of Christ.

So lets get right down to it. 

Lets go fishing!

That’s how Jesus puts in today's Gospel to Simon Peter and Andrew; to James and John the fishermen. They cast their nets in Galilee as the old hymn sings it. Now, we are to go fishing for people. 

Let’s go see if we can “catch” some people for God. Each and every one of you, Jesus says; “You, I want you to go fishing for people!” Obviously Jesus wants us to bring the Gospel to the people. So, what do you suppose that means?

Let me put this very simply. The prophet Isaiah says: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”.

What is this deep darkness?

What is this great light?

It is very simple. You know the darkness of sin. Crime, violence, drugs, hatred, prejudice, oppression, inequality. In short; the darkness of our time is that so many of us live without purpose or hope.

This present darkness in which we live and the great light that has dawned upon us are reflected in the events of the past week. We celebrated Martin Luther King Day, then there was the Inauguration of the President of the Untied States of America, and following that yesterday there were marches in Washington, DC; Boston and all throughout this great land of ours. It is in the interplay of darkness and light that a divided nation now takes a sober look at the realities in front of us. I will leave it to you to figure out which of these events has to do with the Light and which with the Darkness. God help us! 

Similarly, as I look around this church and take a sober look at the work that lies ahead of us, I must confess all I can say is the same thing; God help us!

It is in the context of these realities; the reality of my country, and the one of my church that I look to God for help. That's when Jesus speaks to us through the Scriptures and the Sacraments. Jesus invites us to ministry.

Jesus wants us to bring purpose and hope to the people who are walking through the darkness.

The Gospel proclamation is simple.

“Christ has died 

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.”

In the very heart of today’s Eucharistic prayer we will say the same thing  with a slightly different turn of phrase;

“We remember his death,
We proclaim his resurrection,
We await his coming in glory”

That’s it in a nutshell

In our Baptism, we believe that not only has Jesus died, but we have died with him in a death like his, in order that we might rise with him in a resurrection like his.

Throughout our lives we are broken by sin, defeat and by many moments of death like disappointment. But with Jesus at our side and with God in our hearts, and with friends and family around us, we rise again.

It is our experience that no matter how many dreadful moments there are in our lives, we rise again, again and again.

In the darkest days of the Blitz in London, when the Nazis bombed the people, innocent people, unarmed people, Winston Churchill the old English Bulldog stood by their side to say. “When you are going through hell, remember, keep going!”

“Christ has died,

Christ is risen

Christ will come again, and again, and again”.

We never loose hope.

If this is the Gospel what then shall we do about it? This too is pure simplicity;

Love God

Love one another

Love yourself.

Yes I want you to go fishing. Jesus wants you to go fishing. 

Do you have any idea of how dark this world is? 

Of course you do. 

You know how desperate life is for so many. 

How dangerous life is when it is not filled with the fullness of God.

This is why you are here.

You are to show the world how much you love God, love one another and above all, love yourself.

Do not forget to love yourself.

Jesus did not say; “Love your neighbor instead of yourself”.

He said “Love your neighbor as you love yourself”.

If you have ever gone flying you know that the crew teaches us that if there is a loss in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop down from above. So whose face do you put that mask on first? You or your baby? If you said; “your baby” you are tragically mistaken. 

You have precious little time in an emergency to save your life first and then your baby’s life. For if you minister to your baby first you may loose both the baby’s life as well as your own.

First save your own life and then you will have the wherewithal to save the lives of those around you.

This is how the Gospel works. First, be forgiven. That’s why Jesus died for you. This is the great news of the Gospel. You are forgiven. Now, live as though you are forgiven. This may take a while. It may take a lifetime but as you grow into your forgiveness, at the same time, forgive so that all may know of the power of God and the Gospel of Christ for yourselves well as for others.

Daily we die to sin, daily we rise to new life in Christ. This is how we are to live Baptized lives. You see, in the Gospel context we are the forgiven forgivers. This is the first sign we have hold of eternal life.

By the way, when you go fishing you may sit there hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and you won’t get so much as a nibble. When the warmer weather comes back and I take my evening walk, all the fisherfolk are down by Red Rock Park in Lynn where I live, and there they are hour after hour, day after day. To me, this is utterly boring, but not to the fisherfolk. One day I found out why. Suddenly there it was; “Fish on!”. It took three big men to haul this huge codfish in, and what excitement it caused. It was all worthwhile!

“Everybody’s coming over to my place for dinner tonight", said the fisherman.  "Everybody’s coming over to my place for the next week. There is enough fish here to feed everybody as much as they want for days on end!”

This is how it is with the Gospel. It may take days, weeks, months, years before you get a nibble, but when you finally hook one for Jesus, and by that, I mean when you save somebody from the brink of disaster, what joy there is in heaven and on earth. Then we summon everybody to Gods table. There is plenty for us all to eat and we feast on the power of Jesus’s resurrection. This is what makes it all worthwhile!

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again

Love God

Love one another

Love yourself.

And finally, what does God give you in the Gospel life?

Forgiveness

Eternal life

And joy without measure.

Depression, the pandemic disease of our time is gone. All the darkness is gone now when we take the Gospel into our own lives and when we bring others into the knowledge and love of God and one another. 

So now, I want you to go fishing.

Jesus wants you to go fishing. 

All the fish in the sea, by the way! The Baptismal Covenant requires of us that we respect the dignity of every human being. All the folk on the planet without regard to race,, class, gender, orientation, or national origin.

This above all rejoices the heart of God. This is eternal life as God would have us live it.

This above all brings joy to all our hearts that you bring yourself and someone else to the knowledge and love of God.

Lets go fishing!

In the Name of God the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul.

What Must I do to inherit eternal life?

The following is the first in a series of three sermons that I plan to preach at St. Andrew's Church in Marblehead MA. "Living the Gospel: A Meditation on three great Gospel words; Love, Reconciliation and Forgiveness." 

Living the Gospel I

Love

Good morning my dear friends. My name is Paul Bresnahan and I am an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church. I live in Lynn just off Lynn Shore Drive where I have a commanding view of the ocean from my front porch. The dog and I enjoy watching the tide come and go.

I was ordained to the Diaconate in 1972 by Bishop John Melville Burgess at The Church of the Epiphany in Winchester, and ordained later that year at St Luke’s Church in Linden Square Malden. Alas that church is no longer with us. I served at Christ Church in Hyde Park, Boston for eight years during the integration crisis. From there I went to Euclid, Ohio during yet another integration conflict on Cleveland’s east side. After another eight years there, I went to Pawley’s Island in South Carolina where I served two tiny black congregations in the wake of the ravages of Hurricane Hugo. That didn’t last long at all given my advocacy for the poor and the Bishop’s reluctance to confront a fellow Episcopalian who was buying land at auction from the cash poor residents of the place. The practice made the poor much poorer and to do such a thing offended my sense of justice. During the ensuing conflict with the then Bishop of South Carolina, I lost, he won.

I returned to Massachusetts to serve another St. Andrew’s Church in Methuen for four years. From there I went to St. Mark’s Church in Saint Albans West Virginia where I expanded the ministries of a soup kitchen a food pantry, transitional housing for battered women and their children and went on to build a homeless shelter. This ministry satisfied me a great deal. I stayed there for almost twelve years. I retired from there to return to Salem, where I served historic St. Peter’s part-time, so to speak, for five years during which time we expanded our ministry to include a Spanish speaking congregation. I retired a second time and before long was invited to go to Douglassville, PA to serve a marvelous congregation as an interim priest for about 15 months. I retired a third time just a few weeks ago after taking half a dozen teenagers to France on an amazing Pilgrimage to places like Rouen, Lisieux, Caen, Mont St Michel and of course Paris. 

They say three’s the charm, but the phone rang when we were in Paris at our last supper there and as a result of that phone call I have an appointment with Bishop Paul Marshall in Bethlehem, PA to explore the possibility of yet another interim position. I shall ponder all these things and keep them in my heart as scripture says Mary did after the Annunciation. After all, the majesty of life; all that we’ve lived and all that we have yet to live requires us to ponder these things in our heart.

If you do the math, I’ve been ordained for 41 years. I must confess to you how much I love the church. Yes, it can be maddening, frustrating, and it can drive you to distraction at times, but the pure majesty of it; the worship of God and the love and care of God’s people and the service we share among rich and poor, among black and white and Spanish speaking and so forth, among male and female and yes among the gay and the straight alike; all this ministry is about nothing less than the love of God and the love of our neighbor. God knows, working out the particulars of our salvations takes a lifetime. 

What must I do to inherit eternal life? I suspect I have been doing it all my life. I suspect you have too. After all, eternal life begins with our baptism, not at the point of death. It won’t do us much good when we’re dead. The time to live like Jesus is here and now!

Look how Jesus responds to the lawyer who stood up to test him in today’s Gospel. He too wanted to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus was careful to repeat the “Shema” the ancient first law of the congregation of Israel.

Hear O Israel, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind."

This is the first and great commandment. The word “hear” in Hebrew is the word “Shema”, hence the name of the foundational commandment of the whole Law and the Prophets. This must have pleased the lawyer. This is what Jesus was supposed to have said.

But Jesus did something else with his reading of the Law. Something I find stunning. His heart and mind searched the entire scripture in the twinkling of an eye. He landed upon a somewhat obscure half verse in the Law of Leviticus, one not terribly well emphasized in regulation by the Levitical tradition. 

Of all the laws that come to us from the entire Rabbinical tradition, and there are 613 of them, 247 come from Leviticus, this particular commandment comes to us from Leviticus 19, versus 17 & 18. The law represents a “summary” if you will of many injunctions found in the first 19 chapter of Leviticus. And that law says quite directly “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. 

Jesus clearly ties the two laws together and in Matthew’s version he says specifically that the second law is exactly like the first. It is, if you will, “congruent” with the “Shema”.

Thus the Law and the Prophets is summed up in these two commandments. You shall love God and you shall love one another.

The Gospel of God is  love. This is the Good News. Fill your life with it.

Sound easy. Ha! Just think of your familial relationships; parents to children, siblings and their rivalries. Nation to nation. Republicans and Democrats, Israelis and Arabs, Sunnis and Shia. Good God, love your neighbor!

And worse yet, he said “Love your enemies”.

How in the world can such a thing be? I’ll tell you how. This is how you and I are to inherit eternal life. A new commandment I give you, Jesus said; “Love one another”.

Look, I have a confession to make. My brother drives me to distraction. He is as conservative as I am liberal. He is always trying to convert me to Christianity. I maintain that I’ve already done that. We have an interesting if strained relationship and have done since childhood. But he is my brother. I must therefore do everything in my power to maintain a loving relationship with him. As you and I must do everything in our power to maintain loving relationships with all in our families.

The Gospel love of which Jesus speaks and of which God requires goes much beyond familial bond. The Samaritans claimed they were the true Judaism untainted by the Babylonian exile. After all this portion of Judaism remained in the land and maintained the Torah in a Hebrew that actually predates the Hebrew of Jesus time. The Samaritans were loathed by many Jews of the day. 

So when Jesus pointedly tells the story of the Good Samaritan to this particular lawyer, I’m sure lots of ears were raised, many eyes looked askance. This Jesus obviously had a new take on the “Shema”. In the case of Jesus we were talking about a love that pierced through the classifications that we humans like to make as we organize ourselves into various ethnicities, races, classes, genders, and yes, orientation.

The Gospel is love. It is hard work. It will take a lifetime. But it leads to eternal life. The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus said, is within you. As you live into the truth of your own heart, you increase the chances of living into the heart of God. That’s worth doing because as you live into the heart of God, you in fact learn to live eternal life.

If ever the world needed to hear such a message, this is the time. While we are entitled to all our opinions, ideologies, patriotic ethnocentricity and so forth, we are not entitled to anything other than love. For God is love.

For the next few weeks, I would like to invite you to explore with me several great words of Gospel life. Today we explore the majestic but often overworked word “love”. Yet if lived as Jesus preaches it and as God requires it, the power of the word builds a life that shall never end. 

Next week, I will ask you to explore the word reconciliation and finally during my third and last Sunday with you, I will ask you to work with me on the word forgiveness. These three words are at the core of living a Gospel life. This is a life worth living. It is pure joy. It is nothing less than eternal life.

Blessings on you one and all,

Fr Paul