Previous Weeks' Homilies
2002 2003
Questions about war,
questions about cloning, questions about immigration
questions about the right to life and the right to die,
and questions about the right to marry
are all around us.
And folks on all sides of these issues
are quick to quote the scriptures in defense of their positions.
What’s a preacher to do?
As a preacher, I envy Ezra the priest in today’s first reading:
-he stands up in the midst of the people;
-he reads from the word of the Lord;
- and he interprets the word so well that everyone understands it
to the point where they are moved to weep healing tears.
Of course, I think preaching in Ezra’s time may have been a little easier.
These were people so hungry to hear the Lord’s word
that they stayed and “listened attentively from daybreak to midday.”
Such an audience I should have!
And of course, the people who listened to Ezra preach
were neither blessed nor cursed by things such as
scientific knowledge or psychology
or post-Enlightenement philosophy.
The story of Ezra in the book of Nehemiah, our first scripture today,
took place about 2,500 years ago.
Isn’t it amazing that you and I still listen to that same word,
the word Ezra preached to Israel?
Of course the scriptures address the human experience,
and the human experience of Israel
was not unlike our own experience
-- but neither was it exactly the same.
When we hear the word of God today,
we hear it with all the blessings and the curses
of millennia of human history.
This does not make the reading and preaching of scripture
an impossible task - but it does make it more complex.
When I prepare a homily,
I regularly consult anywhere from 4 to 7 commentaries
just to insure that I have a decent understanding
of the texts I’m going to preach.
Understanding and preaching the scriptures can be a complex task,
but some would like to make it easier.
Fundamentalists who take the bible literally will say:
“If it says it in the bible then it must be true!”
Truth in the bible is not relative
but the language in which the bible’s truth is expressed is,
as might be expected, heavily culturally conditioned,
dripping in the custom and culture of its own times
while simultaneously bearing truth
that is valid in every age, in every culture.
Very often, the real truth in the scriptures is found
“below the surface” of the story
which is the vehicle for that truth.
So, for instance,
while our faith helps us understand the meaning and intent and truth
of the story of creation in the book of Genesis
our scientific knowledge of the universe leads us to see
that the world was not created in six days,
even though - “it says in the bible” - that creation took six
days.
The problem comes when we confuse the truth with the context
and make them equal.
So, when the scriptures assert that it is the solemn duty of a man
to marry his brother’s widow - “it says so in the bible!”
- we pause, consider the circumstances, customs and culture
in which this scriptural injunction is embedded,
and dispense ourselves from the obligation it imposes.
One does this, of course,
only with the assistance of the church community
which has as one of its major responsibilities
the interpretation of scripture for the life of God’s people.
Questions about war, questions about cloning,
questions about immigration,
questions about the right to life and the right to die,
and questions about the right to marry
are all around us.
And folks on all sides of these issues
are quick to quote the scriptures in defense of their positions.
The scriptures are often used -and abused-
in pushing a particular point of view for political purposes.
Respect for God’s word should lead the church, especially,
to be scrupulous in its use of scripture in defense of its stands.
There is no excuse for twisting or distorting the scriptures
no matter how deeply one believes in the truth of one’s position.
The word of God, by its own definition, is designed to set us free.
That freedom is not without its duties and obligations,
freedom never comes freely - it always comes at a cost.
But the cost of freedom can never be paid at the price of truth.
Recently I found myself in a discussion with a Catholic bishop
regards the debate on the definition of marriage.
The bishop said to me,
“Well, or course, we can’t rewrite the 10 commandments.”
I couldn’t agree with him more.
The church’s business is not to edit the scriptures
but rather to interpret them anew in every age:
to mine their truth for a particular people and their times.
I have no desire for the church to rewrite the 10 commandments.
My purpose here is not to endorse on or another position
on one or another topic.
I only expect the church and me as a preacher to be scrupulously honest
in our use of scripture
and to work tirelessly in interpreting the scriptures
for the particular questions our own age raises.
Does truth change? No: only our understanding of it and how we live it changes
as the Spirit of God so directs us.
In the gospel Jesus, the preacher, not only explains the text of Isaiah the
prophet -
he identifies himself as the one whom Isaiah promises!
Jesus is the word of God made flesh:
in him the word, its preacher and promise, and its fulfillment are all one!
And even as Ezra invited the people to a feast after his preaching,
so does the Lord invite us to his table.
Having feasted on his word
he invites us to be nourished with the gift of his life.
May the sacrament we receive give us a hunger for the Lord’s word
and for the truth it brings us.
Rev. Austin Fleming
Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - C January 18, 2004
Isaiah 62:1-5 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 John 2:1-11
In some ways we are so familiar with the scriptures,
and in other ways so distanced from them,
that we can easily entirely miss the depth and breadth and sensuality
of the word of the Lord.
And that’s a shame.
In Isaiah, the Lord is speaking here to Israel, his people,
as a lover speaks to the beloved.
He says, “I’m going to call you by a new name...”
- in the same way lovers have special, even secret names for each other.
“No more,” says the Lord “no more will you be called ‘Forsaken.’
I have a new name for you. I will call you, ‘My delight.’
“Because you make me happy. You satisfy me.
You are my pleasure, my dream, my reverie.
“I delight in you as a bridegroom is pleased by his bride,
as a bride is pleased by her groom.
“As a spouses delight in each other on their wedding night,
so do I delight in you, my people, my chosen, my beloved, Israel.”
So the Lord spoke to Israel in ancient times,
and so the Lord speaks to us this morning in Concord.
Without exception, the Lord delights in each of us.
Whether we are short or tall, fat or slim,
whatever our color, whatever our race, whatever our creed,
whatever our failings, whatever our gifts, “whatever our whatever”
- the Lord loves us and delights in us.
“Whatever our gifts...” - that’s Paul’s word to us
today.
The Lord delights in the gifts each of us has
as the lover delights in the beauty of the beloved.
But maybe you listened to the list in Corinthians and felt left out:
Paul mentions gifts of healing, of mighty deeds, of prophecy,
and discernment, the gift of speaking in the Spirit...
But Paul says that ALL gifts, different gifts, come from the Spirit!
The gifts named in first Corinthians are only a partial listing.
Some have the gift of faith and others the gift of doubt
that leads us to question and grow in our faith.
Some have the gift of healing
and others the gift of naming what needs to be healed.
Some have the gift of mighty deeds
while most have the gift of small deeds, here and there, now and then,
but deeds that make a difference nonetheless.
Some have the simple gifts of a warm smile, a listening heart,
a hand on a shoulder, a kind word, a shoulder to lean on,
a helping hand...
Some have the gift of saying the hard saying
and others the gift of speaking a word of comfort.
Some have the gift of tongues and others the gift of silence.
Some have the gift of tears, others the gift of laughter.
Some have the gift of doing many things,
others the gift of sitting still.
Some have the gift of leading the way
and others the gift of being faithful followers.
Some have the gift of great learning
and others the gift of common sense.
Some have the gift of great love
and others the gift of allowing themselves to be loved.
“But,” Paul writes,
“one and the same Spirit produces ALL these gifts
distributing them among us the Spirit wishes.
“There are different kinds of gifts but only one Spirit;
there are different works but the same God
who produces all of them in everyone.”
The Lord delights in our gifts, great and small,
as a lover delights in the beauty of the beloved.
The Lord first revealed his glory at a feast of love
- at the wedding celebration in Cana.
Consider all the miracles by which Jesus might have chosen
to reveal his glory as God’s Anointed One:
he might have solved a great mystery;
he might have cured the sick;
he might have raised someone from the dead!
But none of this. What is his first sign, his first miracle?
After the booze runs out at a party,
he produces about 150 more gallons of wine.
Imagine receiving a delivery of 150 gallons of wine
just at the end of your daughter’s wedding reception!
Why does Jesus do this?
Because he wants so much to show how lavish and generous is his help;
how literally overflowing is his kindness;
how much he wants to enliven our spirits;
how much he wants to inebriate us in his love.
What a shame it is that we have, over the centuries,
reduced, shrunk and minimalized
our notions of the love God has for us.
In so many ways we have sterilized God’s love,
and covered up its intimate, sensuous beauty.
We have reduced it to a set of abstractions and dry rules that leave us wondering
- if God loves us at all, and
wary - of the delight we take in each other.
What a shame that we have become blind to our own gifts -
that the gifts of so many are denied, ignored, and banned
by policies that wither the body of Christ
- excluding gifts that have as their only origin
the very Spirit of God.
What a shame that we have become so accustomed to,
or distanced from the word of scripture
that many of you may think I’m simply exaggerating
the meaning of these passages.
I assure you I am not.
If we really took apart the imagery in Isaiah this morning
we’d probably need to ask the children to leave the room!
The intimacy and intensity of God’s love for us
is nothing short of the intimacy and intensity
of the relationship of lovers.
God has prepared for all his people a feast of word and wine and wisdom
but too often, too many leave the Lord’s table thirsty and hungry.
The doors to the Lord’s feast must always remain open.
Those who try to shut and lock those doors
simply do not understand the lavish love of God.
None should be turned away
for the Lord has prepared a seat for each of us, without exception,
at the table of his gifts.
Because the Lord is the host of this banquet,
there is always enough to set another place
and enough to fill another cup
because the Lord has saved the best wine until now.
Pray with me,
as the Lord feeds us here with the intimate and lavish gift
of his body and blood -
pray that we find at this table
the Lord who delights in us
and who calls us to delight in one another.
-Rev. Austin Fleming
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