All Saints' Sunday B
Listen to the Sermon for November 4, 2012
Read the Sermon for November 4, 2012
Tag: Liberation
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Eternal Life and Perfect Freedom
Each summer, Calvary Episcopal Church and First Christian Church of Ashland, Kentucky join together to offer a Vacation Bible School, open to children throughout the community. This year's theme is "Adventures on Promise Island: Where Children Discover God's Lifesaving Love." We will meet on the evenings of July 16-19 to assist the children in discovering some of God's promises:
• July 16 – The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – God's promise: I am with you.
• July 17 – The Story of the Raising of Lazarus – God's promise: I care about you.
• July 18 – The Story of Jesus' Resurrection – God's promise: I will save you.
• July 19 – The Story of Paul and Silas in Prison – God's promise: I will answer you.
Last night we had a meeting with the VBS teachers to review these four scriptures from an adult perspective in order to help them think about ways they will present them to the children. First Christian's Pastor Ike Nicholson and I took turns providing exegesis and commentary for the teachers.
In the course of our discussions, I was struck by how each of the four readings involves liberation. For example, King Nebuchadnezzar has the hands and feet of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego bound before they are thrown into the firey furnace. When he looks into the fire, he sees them (and a fourth figure who looks like a Son of God) walking around freely. They emerge from the firey furnace completely unsinged. Then, when Jesus calls Lazarus forth from his tomb, he instructs the bystanders to "Unbind him and let him go." Likewise, Jesus leaves tomb and the grave clothes behind when he is raised from the dead on the first Easter. During the earthquake, the chains the hold Paul and Silas are broken and the gates of their cell are opened so that they can go free. In each case, the miraculous liberation provides an opportunity for God's message to be shared – the message of a kind of freedom that can be found only in our relationship with the Living God.
It was an epiphany! God has been at work delivering people from one form of slavery or another for ever. When God reigns in our lives, we are completely liberated. Whatever binds us and holds us back is removed so that we can live with a freedom we can't find any other place.
Today is the feast day of St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea. Basil knew and boldly expressed that unfettered liberty when the emperor Valens passed through Caesarea in 371. Valens demanded Basil's theological submission and Basil flatly refused. The imperial prefect expressed astonishment at Basil's defiance, to which Basil replied, "Perhaps you have never met a real bishop before." His freedom was derived not from a temporal ruler, but from the Sovereign of the Universe.
This collect from the office of Morning Prayer expresses it very well:
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our children need to know that God gives them the freedom to be who God wants them to be and to follow God's leading in their lives no matter what happens. We need to impart that message to them in the words we say and the lives we live. God, liberate from whatever attachments may interfere with our ability to freely represent you to the children you have given into our care!
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Is the message of Christmas political?
On December 6, the music department of the University of Kansas presented the annual Vespers concert. Some people in the audience were disappointed and angered by projected images depicting figures who were assassinated and scenes of the past, particularly from the 1960's. One person wrote a letter to the Lawrence Journal World complaining that Vespers "used to be a fun and uplifting beginning to the Christmas season.
This year, someone felt the need to turn it into a political statement,
which was in extremely poor taste."I sort of understand her reaction, but it caused me to think about what a "fun and uplifting beginning to the Christmas season" we've been having during Advent: warnings from Jesus about the end times, a call to repentance by John the Baptizer, Zephaniah's message about restoration of those who are victims of oppression, and, finally, next Sunday, Mary's Song, with its images of scattering the proud, casting down the mighty, and sending the rich away empty-handed. Merry Christmas, indeed!
If the lady was "disappointed and angry" about the KU Vespers, I wonder how she feels about Advent?
Of course the message of Advent and Christmas is one of hope, light, joy, love, and peace. But all of that comes with a price. It is quite possibly the most revolutionary political message of history. I'm not sure the KU music department, with all due respect, could possibly cast a more political statement regarding Christ's birth than that which is found within the pages of the Holy Bible.
The late Roman Catholic activist Dorothy Day wrote the following message regarding the revolutionary and ever-contemporary reality of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God:
There is no use in saying that we've been born 2,000 years too late to welcome Christ. On the contrary, it is with the voices of our contemporaries that he speaks. With the eyes of store clerks and children, he looks at us. With the hands of slum dwellers and suburban housewives, he reaches out. He walks with the feet of the soldier and the tramp. With the heart of all in need, he longs for us to shelter him. And, the giving of shelter or food or welcome to anyone who asks or needs it, is giving to Christ and making room for his holiness to dwell within.
Have you seen any homeless, hungry people lately? Is there plenty of emergency shelter from the cold for people who are living on the street, or is there "no room at the inn?" Do all the children have warm clothes and plenty to eat? Are there political entities that are making matters worse instead of better for the most marginalized and vulnerable of our neighbors? If we make it harder on them, will they just go away?
According to the Herald Angel, the message of Christmas is supposed to be good news for "all the people." The way I read it, God's gracious intention is to bring about universal liberation, spiritual, emotional, and physical, and God's Church is the primary instrument of that liberation. Sometimes that means we have to use our material resources and at other times it means we have to speak a prophetic word.
Come, Lord Jesus! Liberate the liberators! Be born anew in us so that we can make your good news an incarnate reality for others – not just at Christmas, but every day.