Isaiah 28:14-22
Hebrews 12:18-19,22-29
Luke 13:22-30
Psalm 46
Cedar and I have always found comfort in many of the spiritual traditions of our Native American sisters and brothers. The inter-relatedness of all of life is so clearly embraced in their tradition. We often begin our morning devotions with the Gathering Prayer frequently used by many of the Ojibwe people who have chosen to blend their traditions with those of the Episcopal tradition.
The Gathering Prayer is on the card you received when you came in this morning. Please join me as we pray together:
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Creator, we give you thanks for all you are and all you bring to us for our visit within your creation. In Jesus, you place the Gospel in the Center of this Sacred Circle through which all of creation is related. You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life. Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your spirit, for you are God, now and forever. Amen. |
Many Native peoples who have accepted Jesus Christ as the bearer of the Good News, regularly engage in Gospel-based Discipleship. That is the name which the Department of Indian Works has given to its work of implementing the ministry of all the baptized.
In Gospel-based Discipleship, the Gospel is placed at the very center of their worship. And they engage it directly by inviting every person in the Sacred Circle of worship to reflect on the Gospel of the day. No one stands up, as I am this morning, and tells anyone else what Jesus is saying. In their profound respect for all life and traditions, they come together in the Sacred Circle and each person shares what the Spirit is saying to them in the Gospel. They share and talk about the words, ideas, and phrases that stand out for them; they share what they hear Jesus saying to them; and they identify what Jesus is calling each one of them to do.
Now when I first read it, I didn't find this morning's Gospel particularly comforting or hopeful. And I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to put this particular Gospel in the center of the Sacred Circle. I thought maybe I could just avoid it by preaching on the Old Testament reading or the Epistle instead - but after reading them, they didn't seem all that comforting either. In fact, all the readings for today seemed to be saying that most of us are in for very rough waters - and a good many of us are probably going to drown.
Isaiah reminds us that if we keep trying to build our lives on the self-deception that all we need is to rely on our own resources, rather than relying on God - well, we're going to find that our bed is too short and our covers are too narrow - sounds like, "you've made your bed, now lie in it" to me...and frankly, I've always hated that phrase.
Paul says that if we don't listen to the Word of God through Jesus Christ, our fate will be even worse than that of the ancient Israelites who were defeated and scattered to the four corners of the earth. He says that God's going to shake up everything in heaven and on earth... God's going to clean house and get rid of all the historical and religious junk so that just the unshakable truth will stand clear and uncluttered. Paul reminds us that our God is all consuming fire - that God will torch all that needs to be burned. Now that sounds way too much like the Inquisition of the middle ages - you know, where those who didn't agree with the prevailing beliefs of the time were burned at the stake.
And then when some poor soul who is worried about his eternal salvation asks Jesus how many will be saved - it seems like Jesus is saying that most of us will never get in the door of God's Kingdom... And that when we knock at that door, God'll say to us - "who are you? I don't know you... I don't even know where you're from..
and when we say, "but God, we've sat at your table Sunday after Sunday, and on the special holy days; we've read your word - we've known you all our lives," God will say, "don't assume that you'll get into my Kingdom just because you've been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. You don't know the first thing about me." And then outsiders will stream in from all over the earth and sit down at the table of God's kingdom - and most of us are going to be outside looking in - wondering what happened.
So where's the Good News? If this is good news, I don't think I'll stick around for the bad news.
So after reviewing my options for sermon material (I even read the collect, thinking maybe I could latch onto something there - and just skip all this hellfire and brimstone stuff altogether) - I found myself pulled back to the first guiding principle of Gospel Based Discipleship which says: to regularly engage the Gospel.
So with a large sigh and some secret comfort in the thought that if I couldn't get anywhere with the Gospel this time, there were some good lines in the Psalm at least.
I read our passage from Luke again asking myself - What are the words and ideas that jump out at me? And this time something did leap out at me - and what stood out crystal clear was: The owner of the house (or God) saying, "I don't know where you come from."
Just where have I come from? Where do we all come from? Who am I? Who are you? We are male and female; old and young; red, black and white; literate and illiterate; rich and poor; gay and straight... But WHO are we? And just where have we come from?
What have I to put in the center of the Sacred Circle? My spouse? My children? My church? My career? All vitally important, all related and interrelated... But is it what Jesus is telling me to put in the middle of the circle? What is it that makes everything interrelated? What is it that makes all of life sacred? How do we find our way back home so that our creator will recognize us and know from where we've come?
I think the Ojibwe people are on to something - something so simple, so clear, so uncluttered - stripped of all the unnecessary baggage that has accompanied us through out history - like where to put the alter, or who gets to receive the host and who doesn't, or which hymns will be allowed to stay in the official hymnal - and so on, and so on... They have brushed all of that away - and they have put the Good News of Jesus Christ at the center of their world - and in doing that, they remind us that when Jesus is truly at the center of our lives, then we know who we are and where we have come from... we know that we are all sisters and brothers - we know that the sun is our Grandfather, and the moon is our Grandmother....we know that the four-leggeds are our aunts and uncles, and the creatures of the air and the fishes of the sea are our cousins...
And when we know all of that, then God will know that we know from where we've come - and the kingdom will have come on earth as is in heaven...
Amen.
Much of this sermon is based on Eugene H. Peterson's The Message: the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in Contemporary Language