An Account Of the Hope That Is In Me

                                                             Easter 6 Year A 2014

Acts 17:22-31; Ps 66;1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15:21

Father Adam Trambley

May 25, 2014 St.John’s Sharon

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you. 

Peter is continuing his letter this week to Christians who were scattered and isolated across the Roman Empire.  Last week we heard how we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.  This week he addresses those undergoing suffering and persecution, encouraging them to do good, not to be afraid and have Jesus Christ as Lord in their hearts.  Then he says:

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

Peter wants those facing Roman officials at their trials to be ready, and he wants us in our trials of life, to be ready as well.  He wants us to hold our hope at the forefront of our minds, so that we can give an account to anyone who wants to know why we are Christians.  He wants us to hold our hope at the forefront of our minds so that, with gentleness and reverence, we might provide a convincing and winsome account of the ways that God has blessed us so that others might accept the good news of the gospel, as well.  But most of all, Peter wants us to hold our hope at the forefront of our minds so that when we are faced with the choice to struggle towards our Christian hope or to succumb to the temptations of safety, security, status or convenience, we stare laser-eyed on the prize, taking up our cross and following into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who embodies all our hope. 

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

We need to hear Peter’s instruction, because I think we have allowed our hope to become hazy.  We have gotten a better at thinking about why we love St. John’s and how we can invite others to join us as we worship God, care for people and grow as Christians.  Some of us have even worked on elevator speeches for our parish or the Episcopal Church, preparing ourselves to share what we are doing with others.  All of these pieces are important, but they have to flow out of the deep hope in Jesus Christ that grounds everything else.  And, judging from the number of dying churches out there, most contemporary Christians are unprepared to given an articulate accounting of our hope to those who do not have any hope.  When we meet people with a hope that has faded or been forgotten, we can bring them into our church family to rekindle that failing flame of faith.  But we are too often tongue-tied when talking to people who were never taught anything about God and whose hearts have a hole where hope should reside.  Then again, we also need to hold clearly such a compelling hope that we could continue as Christians should kings seek to kill us for following our crucified Lord.  Peter wants us to give an account of a hope held at that deep a level in our hearts.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

  

As best as I can explain it, here is an account of the hope within me.  I offer it to spark your own hopes, as well as to remind myself of it, since sharing our hope does indeed strengthen it.

My hope is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I will abide in it forever.  But just saying that sentence, as important as it is, merely scratches the surface.  Allow me to expand.

My hope is that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and my Father in heaven, created me and the rest of the universe out of love just because he wanted to.

My hope is that when God created me, he meant it when he said that “It is very good,” and that he loves me unconditionally for who I am, not for what I do or don’t do, especially at those times when I can’t believe that I am good or loveable at all.

My hope is that we were not made for sin or death, but to worship and glorify God in a great fellowship of love with all our human brothers and sisters, the full angelic choirs, and all creation, that we had such a life in the Garden of Eden, and that God wants to restore us to that life of the Kingdom of God.  

My hope is that God has been actively at work in his creation from the beginning of time and throughout human history, calling to us whenever we have fallen so that we could grope after him and sometimes find him.

My hope is that God never wants the death of sinners, but that he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in great kindness, and that there is great rejoicing in heaven anytime a sinner repents and returns to God, even when it is me.

My hope is that God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son, the eternal Word of God by whom all things were made, in whom we live and move and have our being, to become flesh and hang out with us as a human being, so that we might not die, but have eternal life.

My hope is that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human so that his life and teaching provide the example and instruction of how to live a godly Kingdom life on earth and that everywhere he went, God goes also.

My hope is that Jesus suffered and died so that nowhere is now separated from God’s love, since God in Jesus Christ had voluntarily gone into every place where human beings had cut themselves off from God, and that now God can be found in the midst of every human suffering, every human trial and every human death, supporting and walking alongside of us.

My hope is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, breaking the chains and gates of death so that they can no longer hold anyone who wants to leave and follow Jesus out.

My hope is that through Jesus’ resurrection, all sin, even mine, can be forgiven, because nothing we do, no matter how horrific, is ultimately beyond the redemption of Jesus who calls sinners to repentance, heals the broken, and brings the dead back to life.

My hope is that when I die, or when anyone else dies, they travel, if they want to, through the broken doors of death and walk into a place of paradise and rest with those who have gone before and await the final resurrection.

My hope is that at the last day the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth and that all the dead are raised to life in a physical, imperishable body that is somehow akin to the ones we have now, but without the sickness, pain and death.

My hope is that on that last day, Jesus Christ will judge the living and the dead, as that as I encounter Jesus at the judgment in my resurrected body, every sinful part of me that keeps me from fully loving God and my neighbor the way I want to is healed, burned away or otherwise removed, so that I can have eternal life as the person God made me to be and not as the feeble blob of fears, insecurities, and selfish desires that control way too much of my current, mortal life.

My hope is that everyone else who has ever lived will encounter Jesus Christ in the same way so that I will spend eternity with billions of loving, dynamic, creative, fully-alive human beings showing forth the image and likeness of God in all we do.

My hope is that I will spend an eternity in the presence and glory of God, experiencing the joy of being with him at a level beyond my wildest imaginations.

My hope is that I will spend eternity with the communion of saints so that I can come to love and be loved by each and every child of God who has ever lived at a depth and intimacy that we can only catch fleeting glimpses of today in our deepest relationships.

My hope is that this life occurs in a new and eternal Jerusalem, as city of surpassing beauty with the glory and splendor of every people and race, every tribe and tongue, every culture and civilization being a part of it, with the Lamb as its light and center and temple.

My hope is that this life in the eternal Kingdom of God is brought to fulfillment at the last day, but that we can get glimpses of that life today because, as Jesus taught, the Kingdom of God is at hand.

My hope is that we can be forgiven of sins today, through Jesus Christ who died and rose for us, and that we can begin anew every time we fail.

My hope is that through the power of the Spirit of Jesus that he sent to be with us, we are able to build the Body of Christ, the Church of God, and help one another to live in ways that more and more resemble the lives we will live in the great city of God for all eternity.

My hope is that as I struggle to love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind and to love my neighbor as myself, I help myself and those around me to live more fully as citizens of the Kingdom of God and to come to share the hope that is within me.

That’s an account of the hope that is within me.  Yours is probably similar, but with be some differences, based on your own particular experiences with God.  Whatever particular emphases your own account might have, I, like Peter, encourage you to think about it.  You might want to write it down, or even share it.  I’d love to hear some this summer, and would gladly cede sermon time to others willing to give an account of hope in them with this rather sympathetic congregation.  This church is good place to practice before you may be called for a defense of it before kings, governors or any local lost folks in your neighborhood.  But however you do it, hold that hope at the forefront of your minds so that you are able to do good, not to be afraid and have Jesus Christ as Lord in your hearts.

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.

You Are a Chosen Race, A Royal Priesthood, A Holy Nation, God's Own People

                                                             Easter 5 Year A 2014

Acts 7:55-60; Ps 31; 1Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14

Father Adam Trambley

May 18, 2014 St.John’s Sharon

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.

This morning’s Epistle is the first letter of Peter.  Peter addresses the letter to the exiles of the Dispersion.  He is talking to Christians who are scattered in different places and because they are Christians, where they are is not really a home to them.  Some of the Christians Peter addresses  might have been important, might have been wealthy, or might have had influence, but most were probably poor, or prisoners, or pretty needy, or even enslaved, and all of them would no longer have fit in.  They didn’t like the public parties with their idol worship, their Gluttonous excess, and their drunken debauchery.  They didn’t enjoy watching gladiators die in the arena. They weren’t buying into  the religious practices around them even when it meant not buying  the locally made statues that others thought brought prosperity. The Christian exiles of the Dispersion would sometimes have felt alone, and rarely have had it easy.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.

Peter writes that these exiles, a smattering of scattered stones stuck standing by themselves, are made for something sacred. Peter calls them to come to Christ, to hear to his word, to listen to his teachings, to follow the way, the truth and the life, and to hold as precious the rejected and crucified Son of God.

Then Christ, the stone rejected by the builders will become the cornerstone of a living temple, a spiritual house built with the living stones of those who believe.  Those who seem scattered and separated will link themselves together in their Lord and become something of great power and purpose.  Their very lives, dedicated to God, are a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to him through his Son Jesus Christ.   They are not separated; they are not weak; they are not powerless over the principalities and powers surrounding them in their perverted pagan provinces.  Instead, every act of love, every expression of grace, every witness to the truth, every just deed, and every good work is an fragrant offering wafting like incense to the throne room of the Almighty, spreading sweet perfume throughout the entire temple composed of the living stones of Christian brothers and sisters and built on the rock of Christ, and calling forth the power and presence of God’s glory in every corner of creation. 

Or, as Peter expands on their calling,

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.

What Peter says for the first century Christians scattered through the Roman Empire, he also says to us gathered together in Sharon this morning.  We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. 

You are a chosen race.

A race usually means a group descended from the same person or people, even those forebears were from ages past.  On the broadest scale, race here can mean race in our modern sense of white, Asian, or African-American.  But this word can also talk about clan or tribe or even extended family.  All of these identity groups play a role here.  Peter is saying that in Jesus Christ, none of those other groups matter, because you are now part of a race that is chosen by God.  Your membership card has been transferred from whoever you were to the group of people whose parent is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you are his adopted children. You may have been from the disadvantaged group, but you have made it to the eternally “in” crowd.

Being part of the chosen race is important.  Many of us come from less than ideal backgrounds.  Groups have so many ways not to chosen.  A poor family.  An alcoholic family.  An abusive family.  A family without one, or even any, parents.  A family from the wrong side of the tracks.  A family with no connections.  A family with members in jail.  A family that talked funny.  A family overwhelmed by illness.  A family that didn’t go to church.  A family that’s the wrong color or the wrong nationality or the wrong class or that’s “not from around here.”  Pretty much everybody could point to some such family failing.

The good news, however, is that when we come to Christ, we become part of a chosen race, a favored family.  Those of us together today are brought into a new family regardless of where we’ve come from.  Occasionally this combining causes tension, but more often we derive strength from our diversity.  Importantly, being a chosen race made up of so many offers opportunities for others to enter in among us.  Any baggage being carried can be set down as a new life in Christ’s family is accepted.  Our evangelism is a pre-approved application to join us as member of God’s chosen race.

You are a chosen race, royal priesthood.

Being a royal priesthood does not necessarily mean running the King of England’s church.  A priest, especially in the Biblical context, is one who connects the people with God.  In the old, old days, the priests made the sacrifices on the altar that atoned for sins or asked for God’s favor or brought people together in celebration of God’s goodness.   Priests still carry out those basic duties to absolve from sin, to bless and to bring together the Body of Christ.  While ordained priests undertake these actions in particular ways, the entire church is called to this priesthood, as well. 

All of us know people who are broken and hurting because of their sins and failings.  We are all called to reach out to those people and share the grace and mercy of God with them. Every Christian can assure others of God’s forgiveness to those who turn away from their wrongdoing and seek Him.

Similarly, all of us encounter situations where people are struggling to succeed in good endeavors, or where positive possibilities seem stymied.  Everyone can pray for God’s blessing to be on the important efforts around us, sometimes offering those prayers silently, but often engaging others in prayer with us so that they can know the power of God they are experiencing.

Then, while not all of us will lead a Eucharistic service, we can all gather part of the body of Christ together to offer praise and thanksgiving.  Maybe we lead our family in grace before meals.  Maybe we call together some co-workers after a good week.  Maybe we host the parties that let family and friends celebrate some aspect of God’s goodness.

We are not just any priesthood, but a royal priesthood.  We are not a mayoral or a gubernatorial or even a presidential priesthood.  The scope of our priesthood extends to the height and breath of our great king, the creator of heaven and earth.  We go out to proclaim forgiveness and to bless and to build the body of Christ everywhere, not just in our church or even in our own cities.  The possibilities of our ministry are as vast as the purview of the Almighty, and some part of the royal priesthood of Christians has to extend to every place.

You are a  royal priesthood, a holy nation.

A nation is a group of people that has its own way of doing things.  A nation makes its own laws and has its own regulations.  God calls us as the entire people of God to be a holy nation.  This concept of Holy Nation gets thrown around a lot, but Peter is not writing his letter to have America pass laws that we think God would like, although good laws are certainly preferable to bad ones.  Instead he is talking about Christians setting up their life with a different focus from the lives of those around them. 

Being holy does not mean being holier-than-thou.  Holiness means being set apart for God.  Holiness means that everything we do is about God or for God or according to God’s plan and purpose.  Holiness means that what we want is less important to us than what God wants.  Everyone else can go about their business, but holy people are set apart to go about God’s business.  A holy nation is a group of people, probably within one or more other nations of the world, who structure their common life according to God’s plan and purpose, so that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  A holy nation continues in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.  A holy nation uses its resources rightly for God, calling forth tithes and offerings, caring for the poor and those in any need.  A holy nation values all people, and helps them identify and live out their gifts to serve God and his people.  A holy nations lifts up its children, supporting their families and bringing them up to know and love the Lord.  A holy nation makes its people accountable to each other so that when they sin, they turn and seek God’s forgiveness.    A holy nation can support its citizens in living differently from those around them so that they can focus on God’s will.  And a holy nation shares its way of life with all those willing to come to new life in Christ Jesus.

 

You are a holy nation, God’s own people.

You are God’s own people.  In many ways, this is not much different from saying we are a chosen race, but saying we are God’s own people looks both backwards and forwards more explicitly.  In the Old Testament, God’s own people were the children of Israel, whom he led out of Egypt into the Promised Land.  We who have come to Christ have been grafted into that same people of God.  All the promises, as well as the responsibilities, of God’s own people Israel also apply to us.  At the same time, this calling looks forward to being God’s possession for all time.  Being God’s own implies a promise to remain with God as long as he is.  We are not just incorporated into Old Israel.  We are also to be part of New Jerusalem, descending from heaven at the end of time for us to be part of God’s own people forever.  What God has called us into is bigger and longer-lasting than anything else. 

You are God’s own people.

God has called us to come to Christ and be part of something that is vitally important now, and a will be an incredible blessing for us for all time.  So go out and proclaim the mighty acts of this God who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.

       

Mother's Day Prayers

                                                             Easter 4 Year A 2014

Acts 2:42-47; Ps 23; 1Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

Father Adam Trambley

May 11, 2014 St.John’s Sharon

Happy Mother’s Day.  Since the closest the church comes to a liturgical “Mother’s Day” is August 15 for the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our readings today focus on Jesus, our Good Shepherd, not necessarily mothering.  Looking for something that spoke about motherhood in today’s reading, I was drawn immediately to First Peter: “If you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”  Maybe not the most optimistic assessment of the joys of parenting, but if mothering was one long series of flowery cards and family brunches cooked by someone else, no one would have needed to create a dedicated “Mother’s Day.”

I think, from what I’ve seen, that the second most difficult piece of being a parent is the suffering that comes from doing what is right.  From the physical act of giving birth or the particular trials of adoption, to the seemingly endless financial requirements, to sleepless nights (for different reasons at different ages), to school, sports and activities, to saying “no” to an unappreciative audience, to picking up the pieces when children are stretching, growing and unknowingly hurting themselves and others, various levels of suffering for doing what is right occur when we love our children, and we should know that in all of those struggles we have God’s approval.  Love requires sacrifices, and our sacrifices are pleasing to God, who also strengthens us to make such sacrifices.

The most difficult piece of parenting, however, is when we know we have not been able to do what we would want to do, or to make the sacrifices we wish we had made.  We let our own issues, our own egos, our own need for control, or just our own selfishness get in the way of how we would like to love our children.  At some point, all parents make mistakes, even the Blessed Virgin Mary who lost her thirteen-year old in the big city for three days.  Yet, we know that some of our mistakes can be pretty costly.  

The good news in those situations is that Jesus has taken away ours sins and is able to overcome whatever damage we have done.  Again, Peter says: by his wounds you have been healed.  We do go astray like sheep, but we can return again to the shepherd and guardian of our souls, and not only of our souls, but the souls of our children and grandchildren, as well. Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He knows each and every one of us by name, and he knows all our family members by name, too.  Whatever mistakes we make are not too much for him to correct, although his solutions will occur in his good time and not necessarily in ours.  The pastures he leads our children and grandchildren in may not be the same pastures he leads us in, but we know they will be green pastures near still waters.  Whether we have been the best parents or the worst parents, whether our children follow us when they hear our voice or not (and we know that sometimes children of good parents don’t listen and sometimes children of bad parents do), whether having children has been our greatest source of fulfillment or a constant struggle, our children and our children’s children are in God’s hands and he will care for them. 

God, in fact, makes promises in scripture about the descendants of his servants.  We can pray those verses in our times of anxiety to remind God of his word to us, to reassure ourselves, and to ensure that our children have no chance to stray beyond reach of the rod and staff of our Good Shepherd.  Here are some scriptures that we can pray:

From Exodus 34: 6-7: The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation.

From Psalm 103:17: The merciful goodness of the Lord endures forever on those who fear him, and his righteousness on children’s children.

From Psalm 22:29: My soul shall live for him; my descendants shall serve him; they shall be known as the LORD’s for ever.

From Psalm 112:1-2 Happy are they who fear the Lord and have great delight in his commandments! Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.

From Isaiah 59:20-21 And he will come to Zion as Redeemer, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from now on and forever.

Of course, on a day when the joys and struggles of motherhood are lifted up, we also know that there are many who would like to be mothers but have not been able to.  God has things to say to them in scripture, as well.   Some of the scriptures that can be prayed for God to grant children include:

Psalm 113:8 He makes the woman of a childless house to be a joyful mother of children.

Or Isaiah 54:1 Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the Lord.

We also know the stories of Hannah, who was barren and prayed with tears in the temple and was given a son Samuel, or the stories of Sarah and Elizabeth who were given children in their old age, or even the story of Rachel, as bizarre as it sounds to us today, who asked God to open her womb to compete with her husband’s other wife, Leah.   

But like anytime we ask for God to step in and fix something or to give us something, we don’t always get the answer we want at the time we want the way we want.  Sometimes what we want, like children, is very good, and we still don’t receive it.  I have no easy answers as to why this is the case, except that we know that God is not absent or unconcerned. 

When we are suffering, God is surrounding us.  When we are crying, God is comforting us.  When our hearts are breaking, God is working to put them back together.  When we are walking through the valleys of our own shadows, our Good Shepherd is with us.

Our wounds about family issues are some of our most painful, because they affect us most deeply.  God knows the depth of our grief, and he gives us a church, his body, to provide care, comfort and companionship as we walk through our sufferings.  We gather today and talk about mothers not just because Hallmark told us to.  We talk about mothers today because whether or not we have children, we need the body of Christ surrounding us.  As a body we need to pray for one another, for parents, for the children in our midst, and for the children we are longing to have born or adopted into our midst.  As a body, we need to be a safe place to talk about our challenges and struggles so we can lift each other up and help one another have the good and holy family lives God wants for us.  And, as a body, we need to be a true church family where children can be welcomed and loved, where parents can receive support (and the occasional breather), and where the mothering gifts of those without children can be used to their fullest.  During communion, we will give the women of the congregation devotional booklets, but the real way we celebrate Mother’s Day is by living into being a church family that blesses, cares for, and supports all the mothers, all the women and all the families among us.

I’d like to close by praying the following prayer by Rev. Leslie Nipps*.  Let us pray.

We give thanks to God

for the divine gift of motherhood

in all its diverse forms.

Let us pray for all the mothers among us today;

for our own mothers,

those living and those who have passed away;

for the mothers who loved us

and for those who fell short of loving us fully;

for all who hope to be mothers someday

and for those whose hope to have children

has been frustrated;

for all mothers who have lost children;

for all women and men who have mothered others in any way –

those who have been our substitute mothers

and we who have done so for those in need;

and for the earth that bore us

and provides us with our sustenance.

We pray this all in the name of God,

our great and loving Mother.

Amen.
 

*From Women's Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated, eds. Elizabeth Rankin Geitz, Marjorie A. Burke, Ann Smith, (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000), 364. Posted on-line in A Job Like No Other by Rev. Dr. Scott Stoner.