Sermon on March 21, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Steve Ellis
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Old Testament Lesson
Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,
who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:
Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
The wild animals will honour me,
the jackals and the ostriches;
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm
1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, *
then were we like those who dream.
2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, *
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
3 Then they said among the nations, *
"The LORD has done great things for them."
4 The LORD has done great things for us, *
and we are glad indeed.
5 Restore our fortunes, O LORD, *
like the watercourses of the Negev.
6 Those who sowed with tears *
will reap with songs of joy.
7 Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.
Psalm 126 Page 782, BCP
New Testament Lesson
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:4b-14
Gospel
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."
John 12:1-8
Sermon: In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being
The gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that God wants us to enter the life of God. Jesus favorite phrase, the Kingdom of God, is better translated “the reign of God” means to live in the orbit of God, in the influence of God, but Jesus takes it so much further when he says “I in the Father and the Father in me, and you in me. . . ” We are meant to live in, really, in the life of God. To be a part of the vine, to join in the eternal interplay of the Holy Trinity. “In your infinite love you made us for yourself.” We were created to be caught up in the wonder of what God is doing in any time and place in which we find ourselves. There, with sorrow or joy as fits the occasion, to cooperate with God’s work, God’s hope for that place and those people.
God is meant to be the one in whom we live and have our being.
Saint Paul says, I used to trust in my credentials. I’ll list them for you so you know that they were impressive. I thought they’d take me to God, and now I think they are trash, because I’ve found the mother lode. I wanted to be right with God, and it turns out not to be something I earn, but a gift I’ve found in Christ, so now I consider the rest as distraction and I pursue a faith-stance toward Christ. If I can live in Christ’s life and death and resurrection, that is all I need, my joy and my prize.
In the gospel lesson something cryptic and symbolic is taking place. Do you remember when Martha complained to Jesus about Mary acting like a disciple instead of helping in the kitchen? No more. Today they throw a party in Jesus’ honor, celebrating while they can because the opposition to him is mounting on every side and his days are numbered. And part of their plan is that Mary brings an extravagant gift, a show of great love for him, of how they cherish him, and she takes this perfume and uses it to perfume Jesus’ feet, rubbing it in with her own hair. All this she does, ceremonially, at the dinner table so that everyone has to think of this as a most extraordinary occasion.
They love him and the life he has brought them. He has invited them into the life of God, and they want him to know how grateful they are. They want him to know that they choose that life, in God, moment by moment for the rest of their lives and all eternity.
As this story shows, what it means to love God in any moment isn’t a straight-line kind of question. Sometimes it means to give money to the poor. Sometimes it means to give an extravagant gift. Sometimes it means to name what is really going on in a moment of tension. Sometimes it means to show your gratitude in concrete action. Sometimes it means to throw a party and show someone how much you love them while you still have the chance. If the life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is full of love and playfulness and fierce joy and clarity, then it is likely to take us many different places according to our circumstances. Our job and our invitation and our glory is to be open to noticing what God is up to, and joining in.
We were made to share the life of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Jesus life and death and resurrection were for one reason only: he came to restore us to that life when we had lost our way. He did restore that possibility to humankind. Now it is up to us to choose it for our lives, which we do at baptism, and to choose to enter the dance day by day, the process of sanctification, learning to dance the life of God in our daily lives.
That is why we come again and again to Holy Communion where our life and the life of God are restored to one another. The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your heart, by faith, with thanksgiving.