Sermon on June 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.
O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament Lesson
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, "Here I am, here I am,"
to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and offering incense on bricks;
who sit inside tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat swine's flesh,
with broth of abominable things in their vessels;
who say, "Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you."
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all day long.
See, it is written before me:
I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their laps
their iniquities and their ancestors' iniquities together,
says the LORD;
because they offered incense on the mountains
and reviled me on the hills,
I will measure into their laps
full payment for their actions.
Thus says the LORD:
As the wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, "Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,"
so I will do for my servants' sake,
and not destroy them all.
I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
and from Judah inheritors of my mountains;
my chosen shall inherit it,
and my servants shall settle there.
Isaiah 65:1-9
Psalm
Psalm 22:18-27 Page 611, BCP
New Testament Lesson
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 3:23-29
Gospel
Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
Luke 8:26-39
Sermon
Happy Father’s Day, for all the worry and joy and love that means. Today is Father’s Day, and it is also something special for St. John’s.
One hundred twenty-one years ago today, claiming the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, families gathered in a living room on Depot Hill in a summer -only community called Camp Capitola to have Sunday School and Morning Prayer. In subsequent weeks and months they kept meeting, and had Communion when a priest could be found. Their dream, and their foundations led to what we are today, and in the past decade we’ve been laying foundations in ministry and in a new campus, for generations to come. Clearly they wanted the Gospel of Christ to touch the lives of their children and their community, even at a summer resort. They participated in God’s dream.
This morning we hear the trumpet-call of one of St. Paul’s most quoted claims: “there is no longer slave nor free, woman or man, Jew nor Gentile, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.” A new humanity united in the love of Christ is God’s dream. Even in the fast-changing world of today, that is God’s dream. Even in the very partisan world of today, where people don’t listen to understand one another, our being one is still God’s dream. And God means to make it a reality.
Someone reminded me recently of a lovely comment made about us a few years ago. A visiting parent said of St. John’s that we were like the early church. This was from a person who doesn’t like churches as a rule. The early church was pretty simple in its faith. Christ rose, they felt risen, renewed, forgiven, and began to encounter the harsh world around them with hope and faith. Slaves and outcasts, rich and poor, sick and healthy, Jews and converts from many faiths and no faith began to meet together, to know one another, to understand one another, to celebrate Holy Eucharist together as one, though their lives were very different.
What happens when someone who owns slaves begins to see things from the point of view of slaves who are also members, and sometimes leaders of a congregation? What happens when these people get home? What happens when people who have been suspicious of one another for always begin to know and understand one another as members of Christ’s Body: Jews who lived carefully apart and Gentiles who were suspicious of them?
When they become friends and fellow-worshipers, how do their views change? The things they cherish remain cherished, but are seen in a new light also, the world grows richer, some inner conflicts are stirred up, and a chance to grow in grace and wisdom is introduced. This is part of the genius of God’s dream: no slave, no free, no woman, no man, no Jew no Greek. No gay no straight, no woman no man, no immigrant no citizen, no well-off no bankrupt. It doesn’t tell you what to do about the values, about the situations, about the laws. It does make the people real, so that the valuing is about real people, and the principles aren’t discussed in a vacuum. And it means that the principles are discussed, can’t be ignored, because they affect people we know, people we care about.
I think St. John’s future relevance, our ability to carry the gospel to future generations, depends largely on the degree to which we weave the web of relationships between us, and between us and the world around us, in Jesus’ Name and for Jesus’ sake. We need to know people as the first step toward community, toward the common good, toward our being a sign and a vehicle of the gospel.
Now this is a morning to bask in the wonder of the journey by which God has brought us to this point. Today is an ebenezer, “hither, by God’s help, we’ve come.” And what I’d like us to do, right now, practicing this weaving together in a tiny way, a way just for today, is to talk a little. Shortly we are going to have prayers of Thanksgiving for a Church, just as we did when we consecrated this place. That thanksgiving is not just for a building, but for a people who belong to God in Christ, a people fashioned by 121 years together. Some of us are new to St. John’s and some have been here all your lives, but we all stand in that heritage, and it is a heritage that goes back to Christ, and to Moses, and to Abraham.
Yet we each have our own cherished values and point of view. I invite you to think about what it is that you value most in the gospel of Christ, in the life of this parish. If you were the one writing the prayer of thanksgiving, what would you put in it? For what, in Christ and the Church are you grateful at your core?