St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church
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Homily Highlights for March 15 – The 4thSunday of Lent
FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD
KEYNOTE SCRIPTURES
“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endures forever.” (Psalm 107:1)
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16)
WHAT IS THIS ETERNAL LIFE? WHEN DOES IT BEGIN?
John’s gospel maintains that a decision for or against faith in Jesus Christ is a life and death decision for this world and the next. The two merge into one in John’s vision of the life of faith. Eternal life refers not only to resurrection life (note John 11:26 in which Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me even though they die, will live”) but also to having intimate communion with God in Christ in this life. (John 15:9) “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.” ETERNAL LIFE CAN BEGIN NOW WHEN WE ABIDE IN THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST and God’s love in Christ does not let go when we cross the frontier of death into God’s presence. All of this is possible because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” and continues to give life in Jesus Christ.
A LOOK BACK AT ST. PATRICK: THE MYSTIC’S VISION - A MERGING OF WORLDS
This week, many around the world will celebrate the feast of St. Patrick (March 17). His profound spirituality probably gets lost in most of the celebrations, but I believe it can be a key to understanding the Gospel of John’s vision of eternal life. Patrick, in his autobiographical Confessions, says that he really didn’t pray much or very deeply growing up in northwest Britain, but after he was sold into slavery in Ireland he spent long hours in the work of a shepherd. In these many hours, often in isolation, he developed a life of prayer that embraced the entire day. As each day was increasingly consecrated to God, he developed what is sometimes called the “mystic’s vision” in which the life of this world and the next become one. Though profound, it is as simple as the prayer Jesus taught us: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Eternal life begins now, living in communion with the will of God.
This communion with God will not detach us from the concerns of this world—indeed the passion for God’s love and justice will grow stronger and engage us even more deeply in the struggles of all God’s children. Yet there is a new perspective that sees beyond the pain and struggles into the embrace of God’s light. Our compassion and faithfulness deepen in faith for we are connected to a power of love that cannot be defeated because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. And so we give praise and thanks that “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for March 1 – The 2ndSunday of Lent
THE FOUR COVENANTS OF THE BIBLE – PART 2
Last Sunday we noted that there are four major covenants between God and God’s people in the Bible.
1) God’s Covenant with Noah in the sign of the rainbow. A covenant with all creation promising the gift of continuing life. “As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” (Genesis 8:22)
2) The Covenant with Abraham that we read about today in the Old Testament lesson. Abraham will be the father of many nations. Today, Jews, Muslims, and Christians are a part of the spiritual family of Abraham.
3) The Covenant with Moses that becomes our own as we promise to follow the 10 Commandments at the beginning of every Sunday service in Lent.
4) The New Covenant in Jesus Christ that we celebrate with every service of Holy Communion.A Covenant that calls us to follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross and Resurrection as our way of life.
A CROSS WITH A DOVE AND A RAINBOW
Many years ago my wife Berney made for my office a cross with a needle point rainbow and dove at its center. It is a reminder of both the covenant with Noah and all creation and the New Covenant (or New Testament) with its sign of the cross of Jesus Christ. (There is something unique about the dove that indicates that it is a sign of both covenants.)
In God’s unfolding purpose in salvation history more and more people are brought into the relationship/covenant with God starting with individuals such as Adam and Eve growing into families and tribes and the nation of Israel. Finally the covenant community is not limited by any of these and becomes an ALL INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY.
The three fundamental questions in each Covenant are:
Who is God?
Who am I?
Who are we together?
(Rueben Job, THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS)
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for February 22 – The 1st Sunday of Lent
THE FOUR COVENANTS OF THE BIBLE – PART 1
There are four covenants between God and his people in the Bible. They are highlighted in various ways during in our readings and liturgy for the first three Sundays in Lent.
1) God’s covenant with Noah in the sign of the rainbow. This is, in a sense, a covenant with all the earth: God’s promise not to cleanse the earth again with a flood that destroys. There will still be a need for cleansing, but God has other plans for how to accomplish it.
2) God’s covenant with Abraham to make of his lineage a people who will be God’s people. This comes to pass when Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, has sons whose descendants become the 12 tribes of Israel.
3) God’s covenant with Moses after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. God’s people are called to serve him through observing the Torah, the Law of Moses. The Torah includes the first five books of the Bible. The part of the law we know best is the Ten Commandments. The prophet Jeremiah looks ahead to a new covenant of the heart which we will call The New Testament or The New Covenant. (Jer. 31:31-34) A messianic hope begins because of God’s promise to King David to establish the throne of his kingdom forever. (2 Samuel 7)
4) In Jesus Christ “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mk. 1:15) We hear the words of Jesus each Sunday proclaiming the New Covenant: “This is my blood of the new Covenant which is shed for you and many for the forgiveness of sins.”
One Covenant builds upon another in an unfolding drama of Redemption in the Covenant Story of the Bible. We hear the story over and over again even as we live it, often in the storms that come before the rainbow, looking to Jesus to lead us through the storms. In today’s Gospel, Jesus comes up out of the waters of Baptism anointed by God.
Jesus enters a wilderness world inhabited by Satan, wild beasts and the angels, for God’s Word has no illusions but always leads us to bread in the wilderness and ministering angels among us. We cannot always see that in the first steps. Jesus enters the wilderness, bids us to follow him in faith and the journey of Lent begins.
The three fundamental questions in each Covenant are:
Who is God?
Who am I?
Who are we together?
(Rueben Job, THREE SIMPLE QUESTIONS)
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for February 18 – Ash Wednesday
HUMANITY-DUST AND SPIRIT IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
KEYNOTE SCRIPTURES
Genesis 1:27 “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Genesis 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
Genesis 3:19 “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
BELOVED DUST
The Book of Genesis in the Bible tells us that we are created from the dust of the earth and the breath of God. (The Hebrew and Greek words for breath can also mean spirit.) Together they are defining of what it means to be a human being in the image and likeness of God. God declared the earth at creation to be good. (Gen. 1:31) So to be made from its elements and to be united to all life is not demeaning, it is ennobling, and should lead us to a respect for God’s earth and good Creation care. (Gen. 2:15) We are also to be ever mindful of the Creator, and God’s spirit within us makes us long for this. Life without God becomes empty now and unto God’s eternity. Dust we are and unto dust we return. That part of us which is of the earth is mortal and destructible; that part of us which is of the breath and spirit of God can live in communion with God in eternal life. We live in the midst of things that are passing away, but God’s love is eternal—love we may experience in the blessings of this life but not bound to the dust. Adam is told by God “you are dust and to dust you shall return” when communion with God is broken. (Gen. 3) In the communion of faith in Christ our spirit remains bound to God’s spirit beyond the passing of “dust to dust.” (Jn. 3:16)
LENT AS A CALL TO HUMILITY
Humility is simply to live in wise perspective and know our place and call. United with life on earth and called to respect it and, born of the breath of God, we are called to live in faith, hope and love, worshipping the Creator and not making empty gods from the dust. Lent calls us to sacrifice so the things of the dust have less control of us and those in need find that God’s providence sometimes works through our giving. Lent also calls us to deepen our life of prayer and charity, to deepen our communion with God and love of God’s people. All of these things will empower us to live with greater hope. We can experience greater freedom from our addictions and the creative power of love that moves us closer to the Creator. Lent is a journey to rediscover the image of God in ourselves and others.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for February 15 – The Last Sunday after Epiphany
TO SEE IN A NEW LIGHT
“Jesus was transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.” (Mark 9:2-4)
ORIGINAL MEANING
Just before ascending the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is teaching his disciples that He, as Messiah, must suffer, be rejected and killed; but, he will rise again. (Mark 8:31) They only seem to hear the first part of his teaching and Peter, greatly alarmed, rebuked Jesus saying “God forbid Lord! This shall never happen to you.” (Matthew 16:22) Jesus tells Peter that his fears are a tool of Satan’s obstruction of his mission (Mark 8:33) and that all disciples will find their true life walking with him on the way of the cross. (Mark 8:34-35) This is not an attractive message to either the original disciples or we who would seek to be his disciples now. Only seeing with eyes of faith that the way of the cross leads to Easter and life renewed enables us to see Jesus in the new light in which we can follow him with a genuine joy and steadfast faith. This is the new light of Transfiguration in which Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of the journey of the past in the Law and the Prophets represented by Moses and Elijah in this Gospel, and a new light, a new vision in which to live now and in the future.
EXPLORING WHAT IT MEANS TODAY
Jesus did not have to die because suffering itself is somehow good. Jesus died because the powers of evil sought to destroy his witness to sacrificial love, justice and truth. Commentator Rodney Hunter writes, “His passion revealed not only the ‘evilness of evil’ - its intrinsic deadly violence - but THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF DIVINE LOVE.” This is the Resurrection. This is the Easter Faith. This is the new light of Transfiguration that we all need in trying to make sense of our own stories with all the struggles we carry. Carry them to the mountaintop, to the light of Christ, to a new clarity in God’s Wisdom, to a new courage in God’s Hope and a life lived with new vitality in God’s Love. Though we cannot live on the mountaintop, we carry within us the Easter Faith renewed in every Sunday Holy Eucharist and relived every year that leads us to Easter. May you know the transforming power of God’s love, wherever and whenever you need it. Easter is meant to live forever in our hearts the power to see in a new light everything in our lives that has been wounded, and to be raised up and begin again in the light of grace and blessing.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for February 1 – The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
WHAT SPIRIT INHABITS US?
“Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?’” (Mark 1:23-24)
“Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?” (Service of Holy Baptism—BCP p. 302)
THE SPIRITUAL FORCES THAT DETERMINE HUMAN EXISTENCE
The power of love and faith and the power of hate and fear are in many ways visible in our world but the spiritual powers that animate them may be seen or unseen. Satan delights in a materialistic age that denies the existence of spiritual evil, for Satan is even more powerful when working in the darkness of spiritual blindness—waging a guerilla war from the unconscious on human love and goodness, with weapons that are sometimes ugly and apparent as in ordinary crime but other times lying beneath a smooth veneer of self-deception in which we do harm in the name of what seems good to us—as in all religious violence done in the name of God. It may be as evident as terrorism or as subtle as the oppressive self-righteous judgment we all must be cautious of, that would keep others from the healing power of God’s love; these are precisely the powers that Jesus was opposing in his ministry in challenging both the violent rebellion of the Zealots against the Romans and the oppressive legalism of the Scribes and Pharisees. It is dramatically on display in today’s Gospel as Jesus does the first of many unlawful healings in the synagogue on the Sabbath. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?” asks the unclean spirit. (Mark 1:24) Yes!
WHAT SPIRIT INHABITS US?
I was so heartened to see during the Advent and Christmas season that even though the economic times are difficult and the air filled with fear that there was such a loving response of outreach in many ways in our parish. Even the fears about our own parish budget were met with faith as we ended the year in good balance. “Seek first the Kingdom of God,” Jesus teaches, “and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) The economic news is still tinged with fear. Yet, are we learning that when fear is greatest our loving outreach is needed the most and not just for physical needs.
How great is the need for our steady prayer support and witness to the strengthening love and guiding wisdom of Jesus Christ. In these times what spirit inhabits us? The spirit of love and faith - the Holy Spirit- always struggles against the demons of hate and fear. In this holy house of God we come to discern this struggle which may be unseen and unnamed outside communities of faith and to strengthen ourselves again and again with ministries of prayer, God’s Word, and sacrament and the loving service in Christ’s name and power that are joined with millions of others to be his healing witness in a broken world. May this always be the Spirit that inhabits us.
Father Hagerman
Homily Highlights for January 18 – The Second Sunday after Epiphany
LORD, YOU HAVE SEARCHED ME OUT AND KNOWN ME
“Lord you have searched me out and known me: You know my sitting down and my rising up; You discern my thoughts from afar.” (Psalm 139:1)
“Nathanael asked Jesus, ‘Where did you get to know me?’” (John 1:48)
ORIGINAL MEANING
It is remarkable how a deeply personal God is revealed to us in Scripture. From the intimate encounters with Adam and Eve to the call and direction given to the Prophets beginning with Moses, God is deeply and personally involved with the lives of his people. This is experienced by the people of Israel as both something comforting in times of need and challenging in times of accountability. God’s gift of life draws forth praise, thanksgiving, “I will thank you because I am marvelously made.” (Psalm 139:13) and awe as the wonders of creation are seen as “the thoughts of God.” “How deep I find your thoughts, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (v. 16) This awesome God of creation becomes human in Jesus Christ and draws even closer to us, calling us to walk closely with him in the life of discipleship. “Where did you get to know me?” asks Nathanael in the Gospel with a sense of wonder. God’s Word speaking through the Psalm says, From the beginning I knew you… “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (v. 12) writes David.