February 8, 2004 - Fifth Sunday After Epiphany

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February 8, 2004 - Fifth Sunday After Epiphany - Father Fred Myers

FIRST READING: Isaiah 6; 1-13

PSALM: 138

SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11

GOSPEL: Luke 5: 11

It is always good to hear good news. We hear so much bad news - all you have to do is turn on the TV or a radio or look in a newspaper or magazine, and you get all the bad news that you might want to hear. But good news is something that we really don't hear enough of - good news like the good news I got while I was sitting in a dentist's chair; and, after the technician gets through cleaning my teeth, the dentist comes in and says, "No cavities!" "Yes!".

Good news. This is what Jesus was bringing to the fishermen in a very real way. He starts out by teaching and preaching to the crowds around Him. I am reminded that He sounds like a rock star because He has to move back from the crowds because the crowds are moving in on Him, and, instead of telling them to move back, He gets into a boat and moves away from them. Smart! But He is teaching them, and Simon, who is later going to be called Peter, and James and John are there listening, too. When Jesus finishes, He says, "By the way, Simon. You didn't get much fish today, did you? Come on, get into the boat, and let's go out a little ways; and you can drop your nets over the side." I can imagine Simon thinking, "Oh sure! We have been out all night, and we didn't get anything. You're a carpenter. What do you know about fishing?" But he said, "O.K. If you say so, we will do it." And they went out, and they had the experience of gathering so many fish that they were ready to break the nets. They had to call in another boat to bring in all those fish. The point is that Simon and James and John had an experience with Jesus, and they were so amazed by it that Simon fell down on his knees and said, "I don't know who you are, but I am a sinner, and . . . ." And Jesus said to him, "You have seen what I have done here. I am telling you that you are going to go out, and you are going to be fishing for people." In other words, what He is saying is, "You are going to use the talents that you already have to proclaim the good news of God's love. You have just witnessed God's love for you."

Look at Paul in today's lesson. Paul is telling these people, "Because you have believed what we have told you - because you have understood and believed about Jesus, that He was crucified, that He was resurrected - because you have done that, you have come to know what the love of God is all about.

Isaiah - in some way, he heard God saying, "I need to do something; I need for these people to know about My love". And Isaiah was so taken with it, he had an experience, and he said, "Well, send me; I will go; I will proclaim Your Word".

I got a little joke over the Internet the other day. What happens when you cross a Jehovah's witness with an Episcopalian? You get someone who rings doorbells and knocks on doors, but doesn't know what to say. I don't believe that! I think we have a lot to say! As Episcopalians, we have much to say about our experience with God - our experience with God's love. We experience God's love with our connection with other people and our friends and, in our relationships with other people. We experience God's love. We experience God's love every time we gather around the altar and receive the Holy Communion. We experience God's love. We experience God's love in special ways in our lives - in things that happen to us. We can share those things. Do you realize that, if Simon and James and John had not shared what they experienced to somebody else, we wouldn't be here? But they did. They were sent out, and they told about their experiences.

Now, we don't have to go around telling people, "You know, well God loves you." We don't have to do that. We just share with other people the love that we experience from different situations and from different people, and, when we do that, we are sharing God's love.

Jesus showed them simply how to fish, and, out of that, they began to proclaim the love of God as they came to understand who this Jesus is. Paul had to get knocked off a horse and struck blind before he understood, but he did. And, once he did understand, he went forth and proclaimed God's love. That good news - sharing your lives, sharing your experience with God's love - is good news for someone else. I heard it said in Cursillo one time: You may be the only Gospel someone else hears. You may be the only Gospel, which is good news, that someone else hears. The good news is that God loves us. God accepts us for who we are. God accepts us as children of His. God accepts us, through Jesus Christ, as heirs with Christ. This is the good news, and this is what we need to proclaim and give thanks to God.

AMEN
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March 21, 2004 - Fourth Sunday in Lent

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March 21, 2004 - Fourth Sunday in Lent - Father Fred Myers

FIRST READING: Joshua 5: 9-12

PSALM: 32

SECOND READING: Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians 5: 16-21

GOSPEL: Luke 15: 1-3, 11b

The prodigal son, or the prodigal father, as this story has often been called. I looked at it and thought how it could be a prodigal son and prodigal father - they are two different things - and I found out that the word, "prodigal", actually has two meanings. Well, it has three meanings, but two of which apply to this story.

Prodigal can mean exceedingly or recklessly wasteful. That is the first meaning. The second meaning is that prodigal can mean extremely generous or lavish. Those are the two meanings for the word, prodigal, and that is from Webster's dictionary. And the focus seems to be on the prodigal son - the one who has gone out and made certain decisions about his life. Whether they were good or bad, he made decisions that were different from his brother, and the focus seems to be on that. But my understanding of what Jesus was doing here is that that is not where the focus is. The focus is on the older brother - the older son.

Let me ask you a question. How many in here are the oldest sibling? All right. How many of you in here are the younger or youngest sibling? They are the brats! I was an older sibling, yeah! I had one sister, and she was a brat when I was growing up. She got away with everything - everything that I could not do. I had to be successful. I had to be right. I had to be . . . well, you know how that goes. She got away with everything. Her room could be a mess. Mine had to be neat and clean. And every time we got to squabbling, who got yelled at? Yes! "Leave your sister alone!"

But the older son . . . Here this young man had gone out and had made decisions. His father had given him his part of his inheritance and sent him out, and the younger son had made certain decisions about his life, different from what the older son had made. And then he comes home after he is penniless and can't do any more. The younger son says, "Well, if I could just go home and work for my father and just be a slave like the rest of the hired hands, that would be better than what is happening to me now". And he does, and the father sets up a celebration for him! Sounds like my parents with my sister! (I love my sister!). So the older son becomes angry about this. "Why do you do that? Don't you see what this younger son has done? Don't you see that he has squandered away his part of the inheritance? Don't you see that he has been out with prostitutes? I don't even want to go to that party! The son is not worth it! He is your son, but he is not my brother." Did you notice that? He said, "He is your son." He did not say "my brother". "He is your son." He is angry with him. He is upset. It's not fair! The younger son didn't live by the same rules that the older son did. It isn't fair!

Now, the point of this parable, as I see it, is that Jesus is pointing to the older son, because who is He talking to? He is talking to those Pharisees and those law-keepers who said to others around them, "Do you see what Jesus is doing? Do you see what He is doing? He is eating, and He is drinking, and He is conniving with these sinners - these tax collectors, these people who are taking our money and are profiting by it. He is with them! He is not with the holy people. He is not with the righteous people. He is not with those who keep the law. How can He be a Messiah? How can He be anything religious? He isn't going by the rules. He isn't living by the rules." And so Jesus tells this story. He says, "Oh yeah. You remind me of the older son. You live by the rules, and you become resentful if somebody turns to God and expects to find God's love - expects to find forgiveness." But they don't live by the rules, so how can Jesus do this, if he is supposed to be so holy?

You know, there is a little bit of the older son in all of us, isn't there? Don't we sometimes get resentful when we see things that we don't think are fair? It is not fair! Why should somebody else get ahead? They didn't work for it. It was given to them. It is not fair! I have worked all my life. I have done all these things, and I am not where they are. It is not fair! You know, this tells us something about God's love. It tells us something about God's love. God's love - God's Grace - for every one of us is not fair. God's love - God's Grace - is amazing. It is amazing, because God cares for us for who we are, not for what we might be - not because we live according to a certain set of rules - but God loves us for who we are. We may make wrong decisions about our lives. We may make wrong decisions about anything, but that doesn't change God's love for you and for me. And Jesus was trying to teach this to those around Him. He was trying to teach this that this is what God's Grace is all about - that you are reconciled. Paul understood it in his letter this morning. He said, "You are called to be reconciled." You are called to let people know what God's Grace is all about. God's Grace isn't fair, it is amazing! God's Grace is amazing! Can't we do that, too? Can't we somehow reconcile that other people's lives are different from ours? The younger son's life was different from the older son's life, but it didn't make it any worse or any better. And the father said, "This son of mine - he left us, but now he has come back, and I want to celebrate that, because he is now among us and with us".

God does that for you and me. Can we do any less for others?

AMEN
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May 9, 2004 - Fifth Sunday of Easter

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May 9, 2004 - Fifth Sunday of Easter - Father Fred Myers

FIRST READING: Acts 11: 1-18

PSALM: 148

SECOND READING: Revelation 21:1-6

GOSPEL: John 13: 31-35

"As I have loved you, so you should love one another."

These are words, I think, that the Church really needs to hear, now more than ever. We have all the news media telling us how Churches are trying to separate over different issues, some over the same issue, and how people are disagreeing with one another, saying, "Well, you go your way, and I'll go my way; and that will make us all happy." But Jesus said something else. He said, "They will know that you are My disciples by your love for one another." Isn't it sad that we haven't heard those words? We really haven't heard those words.

We have trouble with that word, love. We try to define it in our own ways. C. S. Lewis, the great writer and theologian, defined four different kinds of love, using the Greek words for love. He defined four different ways of looking at love, and, yet, we know, deep in our hearts, what love really means. What did Jesus mean? We heard the words right at the beginning of the service - Love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind; love your neighbor as yourself. That word, love - and yet, we skirt around it - we skirt around it so that we can make it mean what we want it to mean, and not what Jesus meant when He used the word, love. Did He care whether or not it was going to be translated into Greek as agape love, as filial love, as erotic love? No, He didn't care. The word He used was to "love one another as I have loved you - use Me as an example".

And how did Jesus love? How did Jesus love? He accepted everyone into His circle of friends. He accepted fishermen. He accepted tax collectors. He accepted anyone who would come to Him, and He would teach them about God's redeeming Grace, God's Love. And this is who Jesus is, and this is what Jesus is commanding us to do - to love one another. We even divide that word into tolerance and acceptance - the same word, the same word of love. "I can tolerate that person, but I can't accept them." Or, "I can accept that person, but I can't tolerate other people". Isn't it sad? Isn't it sad, that, in this day and age, we have not come to really understand what Jesus meant when he said, "Love one another; love your neighbor as yourself"? Even the writers of the Gospel had problems with that. He had to tell them a parable, because they wanted to break down that word, love, into saying, "Who is my neighbor?" In other words, I can make choices of whom I am going to love and whom I am not going to love. Is this person my neighbor? I can love them. Is this person not my neighbor? I don't have to love them. That is not what Jesus meant. He said, "Love your neighbor as yourself". And anyone is your neighbor - anyone near you. We are all neighbors, one to another.

This lesson this morning, I think, is really dynamic. Look at Peter. He even struggled with it. He couldn't decide whether or not those who were outside the law - those who were not Jews - could be accepted for baptism. Could they be loved? And Jesus says, "Yes; they can be". And Peter had a vision that proved to him that all things that are made by God are good. God said that they were good, and they are clean. It is we who make those kinds of decisions of who is and who is not good or clean, or who can belong and who cannot belong. We even do that in our own families, from time to time. We decide, "O.K. That person is fine; I like them; I love them; but that other person - No, they did something very bad to me, and I can't talk to them anymore, and I will not talk to them anymore; they are outside the family now; they are not part of me." This is Mother's day, and I thank God that my mother didn't reject me. Isn't that wonderful? This is what Jesus means when He says, "Love one another as I have loved you - as I have accepted you, as I have brought you into the fold". Can we love one another like that?

Love is both a noun and a verb. We talk about love, what love is, and then we talk about loving, doing love. What does it mean? Love is an active verb. It means to be assertive in your love, to care about other people, to meet a stranger and immediately love them and accept them. It's tough - it's tough for me to do. I am one of those people who like to put people in nice little categories: "O.K., I love this category, but I am not so sure about this category; I love these people in this category, but some of them I don't like - another definition of love; you know, I don't have to like them, but I love them". I don't think that's true, but that is the way we do it. That is what we do with that word, love. We don't bring it into our hearts and into our minds and really understand what Jesus was telling us. The kind of love that Jesus has for the world - for you and me, my brothers and sisters, for the Church - the kind of love that Jesus has is that saving and redeeming love, the kind of love that says, "You are O.K.; you are a good person; you are accepted by God." Is that the kind of love that we can have for one another? Can we have that assertive, affirming love for one another? Can we say to the other person, "Yes, I love you; you are an acceptable person; you are God's child; you are worthy of love." That, my friends, and my brothers and sisters in Christ, is a redeeming, saving kind of love, because it says to the other person, "You are worthy; you are worthy of God's love; you are worthy of my love; you are worthy."

So, I think our lesson today is a tough lesson, but it is one that we need to hear. It is a blessing upon us, because it tells us that Jesus loves us and God loves us through Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are redeemed; we are saved by the love that Jesus has and had. He was willing to give His life that we might have life. Greater love - there is none than this. Jesus said, "No greater love is this than to give one's life for one's friends."

Tough lesson, but one I need to hear, and I hope one that you can hear and take into your hearts and act on it.

AMEN
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