Blessed are the Pure in Heart

By The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton

August 30, 2009

Read: Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23 and James 1:17-27

So, this morning we hear Jesus calling the Pharisees and the scribes hypocrites. The word hypocrite originally comes from ancient Greek theatre. It meant to act a part in a play, to pretend, to display a mask. A good definition of a hypocrite is a person who is not, on the inside, what he or she is showing on the outside. In other words the person is incongruent. There's a noticeable inconsistency between what's on the inside and what people see on the outside. Jesus is calling the Pharisees and the scribes hypocrites. It seems a bit harsh, because they were serious about keeping or upholding the law. And it was God’s law – written in Leviticus. The point of being a Pharisee was to be faithful, as faithful as possible to the law of Moses. That wasn't a bad goal; it was a good one. So what’s up with Jesus? What is he saying?

Perhaps Jesus is saying that faith begins to die when it becomes nothing more than a set of rules. A faith that focuses only on rules gets in the way of the relationship that the rules were designed to protect; we can't hear God speaking to us in the present, because we are so absorbed in our efforts to embody perfectly what God has said to us in the past.

Jesus goes on to say that it is the “inside” of us that matters. That what comes from within us is the real problem, or perhaps is the real solution. To be congruent, or authentic, is what is important to living a life of faith, to being in relationship with others, to being in community. Mother Teresa has said that if you judge people, you have no time to love them. And there is that wisdom about point a finger at our brother or sister. When you point that finger, there are three others pointing right back you. Jesus is calling us all to self-reflection, self-observation. Jesus is calling us to be exactly who we are at this point in time. It is recognizing and accepting who we are as a human being that is the beginning of true life.

So let’s go back to that definition of hypocrisy – presenting ourselves one way to the rest of the world, while covering up who we really are and what is really going on in our life.

Suze Orman, financial planner and author of "The Courage to be Rich", tells of her successful career that went through a period when it was unsuccessful. During that time she struggled to save face, to maintain an image of success. She continued to entertain her friends at fine restaurants, and to drive her luxury car to keep up the image of a successful professional. The truth was that every dinner, every car payment, every tank of gas was taking her deeper into debt. When she developed the courage to talk about the harm that trying to maintain an image caused, she began to truly help other people and create success for herself and others.

And another, older example….On one occasion Stephen Douglas sneeringly referred to the fact that he once saw Abraham Lincoln retailing whiskey. "Yes," replied Lincoln, "it is true that the first time I saw Judge Douglas I was selling whiskey by the drink. I was on the inside of the bar, and the judge was on the outside; I busy selling, he busy buying."

The story is told of an old man who said, "When I was young, I wanted to change the world. I found I could not do that, so I tried to change my community. I found I could not do that, so I tried to change my family. I found I could not do that, so I decided to let God change me." The strange thing is, God did change that man, and as a result, the world was changed. It became a better place.

Jesus is offering us a deeper relationship with him. Jesus wants us to be who God created us to be. Jesus is changing hearts today, at the price of his cross. He waits for us there.

A young rabbi went to serve his first synagogue, and he noticed that on the first Sabbath, when he said the prayers, the congregation on the left side of the synagogue stood at the beginning of the prayers, and the congregation on the right side remained seated. The young rabbi thought this was a little odd, but continued to say the prayers. After the first couple of petitions, he noticed a murmuring, which intensified as he continued the prayers. Finally, it got loud enough that he was able to make out some of the words.

The murmuring in the congregation was a disagreement between the two halves of the congregation; the left half was saying that in this synagogue the tradition was that the congregation stood during the prayers, and the right half was saying that in this congregation the tradition was that they sat during the prayers.

As the prayers continued, the voices got louder, until finally the rabbi stopped because he was sure that God was the only one who could hear him anymore.

Hoping that this event was due to having a new rabbi (and attempting to influence him), the young rabbi did not discuss it with anyone, but the next Sabbath, it happened again. The argument once again got so loud that the young rabbi stopped before he had finished his prayers - people were actually yelling at each other. The tone had gotten rancorous, and each side of the congregation started to engage in accusations of heresy and other name-calling.

The young rabbi looked up the elderly rabbi who had served this congregation for years, and told him what was going on. The question he asked at the end of his story was, "So is it the tradition of the congregation to stand during the prayers?"

The older rabbi stroked his beard and replied, "No, that has never been the tradition of that congregation."

"So the tradition is that they remain sitting during the prayers?"

The older rabbi looked off into the distance, as if remembering the good years serving God as a rabbi and said, "No, that was never the tradition of that congregation either."

The young rabbi threw his hands in the air in exasperation, and said, "There must be some solution to this! The way things are now, they just end up screaming at each other during the prayers."

The old rabbi's face lit up in a smile as he lifted an admonishing finger to the sky and said, "Yes! That was our tradition!"

God is more concerned with who we are on the inside than the outward ceremonies we observe. You can pray standing up or you can pray sitting down and still never really pray. You can wash your hands a thousand times and still have sin in your heart. You can sing every song in any hymnal and still not know God. You can worship on red carpet all your life and never really experience holy ground. It's not the outward form of the tradition that matters; it's what lies in our hearts that counts. It’s the Why are you doing it question. The Bible tells us that God's concern is with the inward self, not the outward appearance. If you look up the word "heart" in a concordance, you'll find passages like these: "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." "He knows the secrets of our hearts." "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." "Blessed are the pure in heart." And so on.

God wants to do a new thing today, and we need to be open to it. What worked yesterday may not have power for today. We live in a new day with new challenges, and we need to hear the word of the Lord for today. Let’s be open to the newness of God’s mercy, grace, love.

Paul said in Philippians 3:13, "Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Let's be open for God to do a new thing in our lives. Amen.

The Whole Armor of God

By The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton

August 23, 2009

Read: Ephesians 6:10-20 and John 6:56-69

Once again we hear Jesus speaking about eating his flesh and blood, which we understand in a spiritual sense. In today’s gospel, Jesus says that the words he has spoken are spirit and life. Spirit and life. Key words to living a life that is truly alive in Christ.

We also hear today in Ephesians, Paul giving us an example of what it might look like to prepare or pray or be in relationship with God in a way that helps us to live that Christian life. Paul says, “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

I’m the first to admit that I don’t particularly like war language, or thinking of the Spirit, the Word of God, as a sword. When I hear this language it makes me think of all the holy wars of the past as well as the holy wars that are still being waged by major religions today. Holy wars can be one of the biggest arguments against organized religion. Finding a passage that could be and probably has been used to justify them is not what I am looking for in the Bible. So, I have to ask, is that what this passage is doing? Is that what God intended us to understand? Because whether or not I like it, I have to deal with this stuff if I am a serious follower of Christ.

You may not be surprised to hear me conclude that I don't think it is. In fact I think it is an anti-violence passage. It is the armor of God we are to wear instead of the armor of human institutions. This passage was not written to a military superpower. It was written largely to the persecuted of Paul’s time. It was written to those without much human power letting them know that they had an even greater power than did their foes. It was written during a time of great human violence. People could relate to this language.

Let’s also remember that this passage instructs us that our enemies are not those of flesh and blood. That is not whom we are to fight. Instead, we are to recognize a cosmic struggle of the heavenly powers and principalities. In this struggle, it is our moral choices, our willingness to speak truth and our telling of the way of peace that will matter. It is our realization that God has saved us from a pointless existence of violence and meanness and called us to the beauty of love that will give us the strength to endure and not become consumed by the evil around us.
But Paul’s real focus in this passage in Ephesians is not actually the identity or nature of the opposition, it is on how we should prepare ourselves so that we will be able to hold our ground in the struggle. And this is where the rubber really hits the road for us. We all know that the easiest way to live is to just conform with the norms and expectations of the society we live in. The more we try to model our lives on Jesus Christ, the more we are going to be seriously out of step and it is going to be tough. Just holding our ground is going to come at a cost, let alone making significant progress. In a world where deception, negativity, meanness, stepping on someone else to get ahead, I could go on…when those seem to be the norm, it can be tough and downright painful to stand firm in kindness, gentleness, truth, justice, righteousness, all of those attributes of a spiritual life.

So, the image Paul uses to describe how we should prepare ourselves is the image of a patrol of peacekeepers getting dressed and armed for dangerous duty. He says we are going to need all the arms God gives us, but the armor and weapons he describes are truth, justice and righteousness, a passion for peace, faith, salvation, and a knowledge of the Word of God.

Paul describes each of them in turn, but then he says that the most important part of our preparation is prayer. It is no use having all the armory if you’ve never been in training and have no idea how to use it. You’ll just panic at the first outbreak of trouble and turn and run. And you may not have noticed, but Paul didn’t describe any protection for your back. If you turn to run, you’ll be totally defenseless. Like Jesus himself, we are called to be Christ-like while remaining engaged with the world, not to run away and create a Utopia in isolation from the world. So pray. Pray long and pray hard, because when all hell breaks loose, nothing else will enable you to stand firm.

Kobutsu, from The Engaged Zen Foundation (Heron Dance Interview (Issue 13, February 1997) had this to say about “practice”, as in practicing a spiritual life, in an interview.

“Practice has been described by a Tibetan teacher as the wearing out of a old pair of shoes. Wearing the soles thin. Wearing through ego and delusion. You may approach Zen thinking that you are going to become enlightened, become a great teacher and have fantastic powers that people will respect. Doing the practice, you come to realize that you don’t give a damn whether people respect you or not. You really don’t want to be a great teacher. What you want is to be helpful. To be of assistance – a benevolent entity.”

I love that – a benevolent entity. It is what Paul is describing in putting on the whole armor of God. Finding the power and strength of God’s Spirit, through prayer, to keep us alive in our spiritual lives - in our journey toward God.

Benevolent people stand firm in their Christian identity. There is a difference between being stubborn and standing firm. Paul is not asking us to be stubborn, wedded to an opinion, rooted in prejudice, or close-minded. But he is asking us to stand in something that is not transient, something that is transcendent and renewing. This means being willing to be humble and to risk being unpopular. A stubborn person will not listen to ideas that differ from her own. A stubborn posture rejects alternatives out of hand and refuses, regardless of the situation, to change one’s position. Stubbornness is not self-or-other discerning – it is not benevolent. It is not informed and it does not grow. It is enshrined in a closed circle of certainty and becomes fearful, boisterous and one-dimensional. The stubborn heart and mind are impervious to reason and may constitute one way to hide insecurity.

Standing firm is different. Standing firm means that one is willing to debate, listen, and consider alternatives in order to reach a beneficial goal, while at the same time not sacrificing basic principles. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood firm on nonviolence. Margaret Sanger, the twentieth-century suffragette, stood firm on women’s rights. Nelson Mandela stood firm and resolute against apartheid. Robert Sobukwe stood firm as he faced the evils of imprisonment under apartheid. All stood firm against injustice.

Standing firm gives the struggle purpose and us meaning. So, in the midst of controversy we might ask, “is the price to be paid worth the struggle?” Sometimes, in the midst of struggle and fatigue, we may find our strength renewed. We may find ourselves assessing and reassessing our situations and coming to new resolve. Surely, during the twenty-seven years of his imprisonment, Nelson Mandela became discouraged. But he found strength to hope. He stood firm in his convictions. Such spiritual struggle requires discipline. Preparing ourselves inwardly and prayerfully for the outer struggle. The outer struggle, the struggle against the principalities and powers will test our inner resolve again and again . So, dear friends, let’s put on the whole armor of God and live a life that is alive in the spirit of Christ.

M23 U.S. Army Cartridge Belt - $100.00
Bullet proof vest - $399.00
Ballistic Entry Shield - $424.99
Combat Assault Helmet - $399.00
Seal Combat Knife - $161.95
The Whole Armor of God – Priceless.

The good news is that God never ceases to offer fresh opportunities to assess our situation, to grow and deepen our spiritual lives. Amen.

The Spiritual Life is a Process

By The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton

August 16, 2009

Read: John 6:51-48 and Ephesians 5:15-20

Our gospel reading from John for today is a little disturbing. And it’s meant to be. The idea of eating Jesus’ flesh and blood conjures up thoughts of cannibalism. His words would have been equally offensive to the Jewish people that he was addressing at the time. So, we can be relatively sure that Jesus’ intent was to disturb us, to cause us to think much more deeply about the meaning of his words.

We can surmise now that Jesus was speaking metaphorically about his death, about the sacrifice of his very life for all the world. He was speaking about the spiritual nature of his life and his death and his glorious resurrection. And what that means for all of us.

There is an ancient legend of a man with a scarred face who, in trying to hide his scars, had a mask made to cover his face. The mask appeared as a saint. He winds up falling in love in the legend. Years later his past is revealed, and in an attempt to reveal what he really looked his mask was ripped away. What they saw was a face, his face that had taken on the form of the saint's face.

We become what we habitually imitate. We become what we make ours just as the bread we eat. The thoughts that fill our minds, the loves that fill our souls--these are creating who we are. If we fill our hearts and minds with the trivial, the faddish, the debase, we're making ourselves a smaller person. That is why it's so important what role models we choose for ourselves and our children. We will become the patterns by which we live. If we fill our hearts and minds with God's Word and attempt to love as he loves and to care as he cares, we are creating a soul for eternity. We are becoming imitators of God.

There is the old story of the farmer and his mule. In order to save money, he tried mixing in sawdust with oats. About one-fourth seemed to work. Then he tried half. That seemed to work, so then he tried three-quarters, which seemingly had no effect. The farmer went to all sawdust. Two days later the mule died. The farmer commented, "That mule ate himself to death."

We must be cautious on what is filling our lives. At first it may not seem to matter, but what we are filled with will be what we are.

Jesus is offering his life to fill our souls. His bread, his body, his blood, his drink. And the one who eats this bread from heaven will live forever.

I have a friend, Rod, who loves to paddle down rivers in his canoe. And he recently wrote about how the currents in wild rivers are similar to the currents in our spiritual lives, in our creative lives, in our relationships. The currents are often stronger than we are, we cannot outpower them. All we can do is tune in to them and exercise leverage at the crucial points on the journey.

He writes, “There is usually more than one water path through a rapids, but usually one is deeper than others and requires fewer turns. Streams of water move through rapids at different speeds. Rocks, the bend of the river, the different depths across the breadth of a river, all affect the speeds of the water paths. If part of the canoe is in one water path, and part in another, the current will exert conflicting pressures on the canoe’s hull. In harmony with the river’s flow, the paddler uses the differing currents as part of the turning strokes. Out of harmony, the river turns the paddler. That’s rarely good”.

It’s rarely good when we make a choice to fill our lives with sawdust. We all have scars that we wish we could hide. We need the true bread of life that God offers us through Jesus Christ.

We are welcoming Aiden Palmer Brown into the community of faith today through baptism. We will give thanks for the gift of water and all that that water represents – the promise of new life. And we will renew our own Baptismal Convenant. Seeking the choice to look for God in our lives. Seeking choices that fill our souls with the bread of heaven. Seeking choices that heal our wounds. Seeking choices that contribute positively to the world in which we live.

My friend also writes, “to connect with the currents moving through your life, or with the currents moving through a rapids, you need to move slower than the energy flows. There are just too many haphazard rocks around to move faster than the current. If you go with the flow and leave your speed up to the river, the river will determine where your canoe goes and it will go into rocks. In life too, I don’t want circumstances to determine my path. I want to get a lot out of life, and that takes vision, effort and courage.”

We are faced with choices every day. May we be granted the grace to put our paddles into the deep water path that is the force and movement of God in this world. May we tap into that strength and stand firm knowing that a decision made for the Kingdom of God, is a decision that we will not regret. May we continue to feed on the bread from heaven that keeps us strong and sure of our current in life. May we make that melody referred to in Ephesians, that melody to the Lord in our hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The spiritual life is a process, not an event. It takes time and love and help and care. It takes our patient presence. It takes our energy and commitment.

God loves us so deeply, so completely, that he gave his Son, Jesus Christ to the world. Thank God! Amen.

Remember Whose Child You Are

By The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton

August 9, 2009

Read: John 6:34, 41-51

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. Bread and water. The basics for sustaining life – physical life. But we know that Jesus is referring to something deeper than a physical life, he is referring to our spiritual lives. That to taste of Jesus is to know life – true life – vibrant life.

He says this about himself, “I am the bread that came down from heaven” and what happens? They began to complain. The Israelites were famous complainers, but they are hardly alone. We are all tempted to feel abandoned when life becomes difficult -- and to challenge the scriptures and historical Christian beliefs when they run counter to popular culture -- and to complain, to complain, when God fails to meet our expectations. When life becomes difficult, we complain.

In his book, Growing Spiritually, E. Stanley Jones tells of a guide taking his group through a grand cavern. There were many beautiful stalactites hanging from the roof and stalagmites growing up from the floor. The stalactites and stalagmites are formed by water dripping from the ceiling. Each drop of water, having percolated through layers of rock, had a tiny amount of minerals dissolved within. As those drops of water dripped from the stalactites (the ones that hang from the roof), each one deposited a molecule or two of mineral on the stalactite or the stalagmite. Over the years, those little bits of dissolved mineral formed those beautiful stalactites and stalagmites -- some of them many feet in length.

But the guide told them that the water traveled through the center of the stalactites -- not on the outer surface. He said that when that channel becomes clogged, that stalactite stops growing.

Stanley Jones commented that we are like that. Many people "are spiritual stalactites with channels clogged." He went on to say, "We need perpetually to get rid of the things that clog mind and spirit."

Our center, the bread and water that feeds our center, comes from God. Jesus is the bread of life and whoever believes in him will never by thirsty.

The influence that this food can have on us appears in a Chinese story originally told by Linda Fang. [She presented this story at the Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1988.]

At the foot of a great mountain in China lived a father and his three sons. They were a simple and loving family. The father noticed that travelers came from afar eager to climb the dangerous mountain. But not one of them ever returned!

The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made all of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father's warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain.

Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons did not speak to him or give him anything. They ignored him.

One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food, the second to a house of fine wine, the third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire and forgot his home. Meanwhile, their father became heartsick. He missed them terribly. "Danger aside," he said, "I must find my sons."

Once he scaled the mountain, the father found that indeed the rocks were gold, the streams silver. But he hardly noticed. He only wanted to reach his sons, to help them remember the life of love they once knew. On the way down, having failed to find them, the father noticed the beggar under the tree and asked for his advice.

"The mountain will give your sons back," said the beggar, "only if you bring something from home to cause them to remember the love of their family."

The father raced home, brought back a bowl full of rice, and gave the beggar some as a thank-you for his wisdom. He then found his sons, one at a time, and carefully placed a grain of rice on the tongue of each of them. At that moment, the sons recognized their foolhardiness. Their real life was now apparent to them. They returned home with their father, and as one loving family lived happily ever after.

Today we gather in this church to receive a reminder of home, a taste of food that will help us remember who we are. I mean the bread of life, our Father's gift to us. This is the food of God's kingdom, and reminds us that this kingdom is our true home.

We need this reminder of heaven because we are like the sons in the story. We have left home to climb a fascinating mountain. We are unwilling -- or unable -- to return home. And so our Father grieves for us. Our absence fills his heart with sadness.

What is the mountain we have climbed? It is the mountain of illusion. We know that many have lost their way there, yet we insist on exploring it.

Jesus finds us where we are, and places on our tongue a particle of that food from home. We recognize our foolishness, how we have left home and come to a lifeless place. At the same time, we remember our true home. Once again we can smell it, taste it, see it.

The heavenly bread we receive in the Eucharist helps us come to our senses. We recognize both our disorientation and our Father's invitation to return home.

It would seem like a nice ending if we then left the mountain and went to live forever in a loving family. But while we still draw breath, the time to do so has not yet come.

What happens instead is that we realize our Father is with us right here on the mountain. Because he is present, we are home already. No longer is this mountain simply a place of darkness and danger. Once we eat what he gives us and open our eyes, we discover that even this mountain shimmers with the light of heaven.

Home is where the Father is, and since he is with us, we are home already. Again and again we eat the bread of life, lest our eyes grow dim and we fail to see his splendor, lest our minds grow dark and we forget the joys of home.

The kingdom of heaven is here and now. What does that mean?

Thich Nhat Hahn writes - Many years ago, I met a young American named Jim Forest. Jim is an intelligent man, and he asked me to teach him about the practice of mindfulness. One time when we were together, I offered him a tangerine. Jim accepted the tangerine, but continued talking about the many projects he was involved in -- his work for peace, social justice, and so on. He was eating, but, at the same time, he was thinking and talking. I was there with him. I was really there; that is why I was aware of what was going on. He peeled the tangerine and tossed the sections of it into his mouth, quickly chewing and swallowing.

I said to him, "Jim, stop!" He looked at me, and I said, "Eat your tangerine." He understood. So he stopped talking, and began to eat much more slowly and mindfully. He separated each of the remaining sections of the tangerine carefully, smelled their beautiful fragrance, put one section at a time into his mouth, and felt the juices surrounding his tongue. Tasting and eating the tangerine that way took several minutes, but he knew that we had time for that. We he finished eating, I said, "Good." I knew that the tangerine had become real, the eater of the tangerine had become real, and life also had become real at that moment. What is the purpose of eating a tangerine? It is just for eating the tangerine. During the time you eat a tangerine, eating the tangerine is the most important thing in your life.

The next time you have a tangerine to eat, please put it in the palm of your hand and look at it in a way that makes the tangerine real. "You do not need a lot of time to do it, just two or three seconds. Looking at it, you can see a beautiful blossom with sunshine and rain, and the transformation of the baby fruit into the fully developed tangerine in your hand. You can see the color change from green to orange, and you can see the tangerine sweetening. Looking at the tangerine in this way, you will see that everything in the cosmos is in it: sunshine, rain, clouds, trees, leaves -- everything. Peeling the tangerine, smelling it, and tasting it, you can be very happy....

One day, an American scholar told me, "Don't waste your time gardening, growing lettuce. Write more poems instead. Not many people can write poems the way you do, but anyone can grow lettuce." That is not my way of thinking. I know very well that, if I do not grow lettuce, I cannot write poems. For me, eating a tangerine, washing dishes, and growing lettuce in mindfulness are essential to writing poetry. The way someone washes the dishes reveals the quality of his or her poetry. - Thich Nhat Hanh, Mindfulness and Meaningful Work: Explorations of Right Livelihood

Jesus is the bread of life. Remember whose child you are. You belong to God and God loves you so deeply that He sent his Son so that we might have life and not just life, but abundant life. Amen.