Pentecost 12
By Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Year C, Proper 15 (Track Two)
The Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton
15 August 2010
The Gospel today isn’t easy. You heard the Lord say, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Pretty strong stuff. “Five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.” Not the standard hoochypap you usually hear from preachers. Preachers, I know, like to give people good news. We don’t like to remind people of the things Christ seeks to memorialize in the Gospel today. We like to tell people, “Do the best you can; God will understand.” But that pablum doesn’t nourish every occasion and every development. And, it doesn’t fit the True and Living God.
What Christ is telling us in the Gospel today is something we would rather put off. We would rather put it out of mind. Like the roasting pan, we’d rather scrub it later. Or the big credit card bill, we’d rather think about how to pay it later. What’s the minimum amount due?
By Archdeacon Howard Stringfellow
Year C, Proper 15 (Track Two)
The Church of the Good Shepherd in Scranton
15 August 2010
The Gospel today isn’t easy. You heard the Lord say, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Pretty strong stuff. “Five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.” Not the standard hoochypap you usually hear from preachers. Preachers, I know, like to give people good news. We don’t like to remind people of the things Christ seeks to memorialize in the Gospel today. We like to tell people, “Do the best you can; God will understand.” But that pablum doesn’t nourish every occasion and every development. And, it doesn’t fit the True and Living God.
What Christ is telling us in the Gospel today is something we would rather put off. We would rather put it out of mind. Like the roasting pan, we’d rather scrub it later. Or the big credit card bill, we’d rather think about how to pay it later. What’s the minimum amount due?
But what Christ is saying is that putting
things off works for a time: procrastination works until, well, it
doesn’t work. And one of the things we cannot put off forever is making
up our minds about God. We come to church on Sundays, yes. We listen
politely, yes, to the preacher. And we go about our lives, yes, the way
we want to go about them. We do what we do because it’s what we do.
If we think of God, we think that God will understand. We think we can
do what we do as we normally do it—business as usual—and we think God
will understand.
What Christ chillingly and dramatically says to each of us today is that a point of decision awaits us. We cannot separate Sundays from the other days, we cannot live this way, forever. The time will come when what we say with our lips will have to match what we do with our mouths, and our legs, and our arms, and our hearts. The separation of Sunday from the other six days of the week is nice trick for as long as we can pull it off. But it cannot go on forever. In the terms Christ gives us today, a cloud will arise in the west, and a wind will blow in the south.
These are signs. One sign declares that it will rain, and one declares that the scorching heat is on its way. But when it rains, we will not have the sun to keep us dry. And when the heat scorches, we will not have the rain to keep us cool.
We will have either one or the other, but we will not have both. We shall have to decide. And Jesus brings us to the point of decision. And that decision will be for Him or not for Him. We will not be able, it is not possible, to have it both ways.
The Old Testament Lesson from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah is really helpful here. Read it carefully. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully” says Jeremiah prophesying for the Lord. The prophet’s dream and the word of the Lord are not the same thing. Ultimately, the people of Israel will have to choose one or the other. As the prophet asks, “What has straw in common with wheat?” It will not be possible for them to worship Baal and the Lord, whom their ancestors conveniently forgot.
And so it is with us. I have suggested that we all are doing the right thing by being here and by worshipping Sunday by Sunday. It’s on the other six days where we possibly rely on God’s slack. I think the best example for Good Shepherd is the slack or the tension between our worship and our mission. Our worship is once weekly, but our mission is all day every day. There is something we can do, there is a witness we can make, every day of our lives, and we need to do that. We have the opportunity to bring our mission into conformity with our worship. We have the opportunity to make our arms move as our lips say they move. We have the opportunity to be the people we say we are by worshipping; somehow, I think, that being is necessary before we become what God calls us to be.
It will be hard. You heard the Lord say, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” But I tell you this: though it will be hard, the Lord has decided that it is worth it—and He practices what He preaches.
St Luke 12:49.
St Luke 12:52.
Jeremiah 23:28.
What Christ chillingly and dramatically says to each of us today is that a point of decision awaits us. We cannot separate Sundays from the other days, we cannot live this way, forever. The time will come when what we say with our lips will have to match what we do with our mouths, and our legs, and our arms, and our hearts. The separation of Sunday from the other six days of the week is nice trick for as long as we can pull it off. But it cannot go on forever. In the terms Christ gives us today, a cloud will arise in the west, and a wind will blow in the south.
These are signs. One sign declares that it will rain, and one declares that the scorching heat is on its way. But when it rains, we will not have the sun to keep us dry. And when the heat scorches, we will not have the rain to keep us cool.
We will have either one or the other, but we will not have both. We shall have to decide. And Jesus brings us to the point of decision. And that decision will be for Him or not for Him. We will not be able, it is not possible, to have it both ways.
The Old Testament Lesson from the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah is really helpful here. Read it carefully. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully” says Jeremiah prophesying for the Lord. The prophet’s dream and the word of the Lord are not the same thing. Ultimately, the people of Israel will have to choose one or the other. As the prophet asks, “What has straw in common with wheat?” It will not be possible for them to worship Baal and the Lord, whom their ancestors conveniently forgot.
And so it is with us. I have suggested that we all are doing the right thing by being here and by worshipping Sunday by Sunday. It’s on the other six days where we possibly rely on God’s slack. I think the best example for Good Shepherd is the slack or the tension between our worship and our mission. Our worship is once weekly, but our mission is all day every day. There is something we can do, there is a witness we can make, every day of our lives, and we need to do that. We have the opportunity to bring our mission into conformity with our worship. We have the opportunity to make our arms move as our lips say they move. We have the opportunity to be the people we say we are by worshipping; somehow, I think, that being is necessary before we become what God calls us to be.
It will be hard. You heard the Lord say, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” But I tell you this: though it will be hard, the Lord has decided that it is worth it—and He practices what He preaches.
St Luke 12:49.
St Luke 12:52.
Jeremiah 23:28.
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