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Living
With Jesus First Reading: I Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 Who remembers the last time we heard about Elijah? What was he doing? (He was running for his life!) Surprisingly, today, this fellow Elisha says to him, “I’d like to do what YOU do.” Elijah looks at him and smiles and says, “Why don’t you follow me around for a while and be sure?” This is an invitation to explore being Elijah’s “disciple”, and the kind of “discipline” this discipleship takes. University of Memphis basketball star and point guard Antonio Burks is on his way to the Memphis Grizzlies. There are lots of good stories around about how hard he has worked to get where he is today. He has had lots of good coaching and encouragement along the way and he has been single-minded in the pursuit of his goal – a chance to play in the NBA. For the past two years, I have taken a yoga class early on Friday mornings, except on the Fridays when I was out of town, or too sleepy, or had something else going on. I have liked yoga, because it connects with the highly-embodied contemplative prayer I have practiced for thirty years. But it is also pretty difficult for me because I have long limbs and stiff joints, not given to flexibility. So it has occurred to me recently that I probably need to work at this yoga thing a lot more consistently -- or forget it and spare myself the pain. I really need to go to a class twice a week – and I need to do my own daily practice if I am going to make any progress. I know some people right in this congregation who once or twice a day, year-in and year-out, check the stock market reports. They do this with incredible dedication, either because they inherited the responsibility or because they committed themselves to it. Some specialize, others just want to learn as much as they can, but many reach a level of understanding and competence that leaves me in awe. I have some friends whose ten-year-old showed remarkable skill in tennis. They thought to themselves, “He could be the next John McEnroe.” And they began to get him better lessons, send him to tennis camp, and so on. The more they did, the better he got. Then came the crunch, the best of his coaches said, “If you want young Tim to have a shot at world-class tennis, he needs to be playing full-time in a tennis school.” So, to my amazement, that family sold their home to finance tennis school. Mom and the two kids moved to Florida while Dad stayed in Virginia, where he continued his job, living in a rented room. Clearly, people are capable of radical choices and intense dedication. But we scarcely expect to give this kind of devotion in our Christianity. In fact, I certainly grew up in a culture where to say that someone was a “good Christian gentleman” (or lady) had little to do with spiritual discipline but referred mostly to the things they did NOT do, like cuss in mixed company, cheat their clients, or run around on their wife. Such a vision of discipleship, as not causing pain and not getting in trouble, simply does not square with the kind of relationship Jesus had with his disciples, who—after already getting them to leave behind their jobs, their elderly parents, and follow him—he still keeps reminding and explaining that following him involves great costs and great discipline. One potential new disciple says to Jesus enthusiastically: “I will follow you WHEREVER you go.” And just to be sure this fellow (or gal) understands what they are signing up for, Jesus says, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” The privilege of sharing Jesus’ lot in life is as terrible as it is wonderful. Does this fellow know that he may sleep in a ditch tonight? Another says, “I will follow you, but first let me go and bury my father.” And although this duty is the most basic and crucial duty for a faithful Jew to perform, Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” and he goes on to suggest that by becoming Jesus follower, this person is ALIVE in a new way, alive and given a job to do, specifically to “go and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.” This reminder about the job each Christian is given to do is helpful,
because Paul talks to the Christians of Galatia today about the Freedom given us in Christ Jesus. Because we are clear that we don’t labor under a yoke of law, working our whole lives to justify ourselves and make ourselves right with God, because Jesus has taught us that we have this relationship by grace, it is tempting to settle back and let this become an “opportunity for self-indulgence” as Paul calls it. On the contrary, he says, if we have been given the Spirit of God as gift, why not let that Spirit WORK in us, little by little transforming the “anger, quarrels, dissension, envy, carousing” and so on… into “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,” and so forth? Paul knows this takes years of living with Jesus, something he got to do only in the way we get to do it, through the practice of a Christian life.
To become people who can serve others in Jesus’ name, we practice a rich, ancient rhythm of prayer, study, fellowship, and worship. Wherever you are in your spiritual journey—seeker, skeptic, or longtime disciple—we invite you to live these practices with us. We are grateful for your presence. The part I am confident about is that I know we want to be a people of Action and I know we are clear that our action is not likely to be effective (and may even be destructive) if it is grounded only in our own efforts to do the right thing. The part that may only partly be true is to say that “we practice a rich, ancient rhythm of prayer, study, fellowship, and worship.” It’s rich and it’s ancient, but I don’t know how many of us are really committed to a daily and weekly practice of it, a discipline that God can use to turn us into people who truly serve God effectively. And do we do this well enough that we dare say to newcomers, “Want to learn the practices that help us grow as Christians? Come watch us and then join in!” If you are not sure you are up to being someone else’s model, I am right with you. (But how else would they learn?) Some days, I do not feel like saying my prayers or reading the Bible passage I am working on that week. In some cases, it’s not just that we aren’t using the spiritual practices we have, but that we need to learn NEW ONES. Sometimes, we let all the demands of daily life crowd out our disciplines. I fantasize that in a different time and place, where the pace of life might be slower and simpler, that I would have far more time for prayer, for worship, for study, for my brothers and sisters in Christ. But that really IS fantasy. It has never been easy. In fact, a case can be made that in our pressured times the church’s spiritual practices become more important because they are the one hope we have that the rest of our lives will be ordered in a holy, healthy fashion. During the long summer days I spent in an Alaskan village some years ago, there were not that many things that had to be done and, since the sun dipped below the horizon for just a few hours, there seemed to be no hurry about doing them, and no great discipline seemed to be needed. Our lives are just the opposite. The Prayer Book Outline of the Faith asks what is expected of Christians. This is not a question about who belongs to the club but about what we must do to let the Spirit work on us and in us. It says: “to come together week by week for corporate worship; and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the Kingdom of God.” I so much want this to be easy, but I know that it is hard work, and I know that it will sometimes get me into difficult places! We celebrate the life tomorrow of a parishioner named Robert McRae. Judge McRae was far from a perfect human being, as he would have been quick to admit. But he let himself get immersed in the Law, through his training and what lawyers still call their “practice.” He also got immersed enough in following Jesus through his spiritual “practice” that when he had to make decisions that were tough and potentially costly, like the Memphis desegregation case, he had the courage to do what was right. If Judge McRae had not done his practice and not been prepared to do his job as well as he did, we believe God would have loved him anyway. And God will love you, whether you do your job or not. But if you want to do the work of following in Jesus’ way, and if the work is as difficult as I think it is, coming to be with you, my brothers and sisters, once a month or so, is not going to be enough. Knowing that I have a Bible around the house somewhere is not going to nourish me. Worshiping God only when none of the other things I worship gets in the way will not be sufficient. I need training camp. I need daily hikes with a 40-pound pack on my back. I love the blessing with which we end our worship so often, the one that begins “The peace of God, which passeth understanding.” We hear it so often that we fail to remember we are asking for the peace that comes from following a Lord who is headed for the cross! It is the peace of God which looks like work, like discipline, like challenge, like no path to peace that we or the world has ever seen before. This hymn text by William Alexander Percy of Mississippi is for our friend Renée Miller who has taught us that sometimes sermons can be sung:
Copyright 2004 Calvary Episcopal Church First
Reading: 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 Second
Reading: Galations 5:1, 13-25 Gospel: Luke
9:51-62 |
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