| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
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| THE 15TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 28 August, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
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It’s been some time since we took much note of our Lessons. Some of those we’ve
overlooked have been wonderful – both in themselves and as subjects for preaching –
but we’ve had other things on our agenda.
Our lessons, in recent weeks, have been what I call “hard” lessons. When I refer to our
readings as “hard” or “tough,” I mean it in two ways.
Like so much of scripture, our lessons can, of course, be flat out difficult to understand.
They don’t always mean what they seem to mean, and we have always to look at them in
context – in their context, not ours. If we’re going to make sense of them, we have to
hear them in the context of the relatively primitive cultures of the land of Palestine
across the 15 centuries, or so, from the earliest written fragments of the Hebrew
Scriptures through the period of the New Testament Epistles.
And it’s hard to do that! It’s so hard not to project our own world – which is, after all, the
only world we can ever really know – backwards to biblical times, as if the biblical world
were just like ours, except that the people wore funny clothes.
Very often, half of sermon preparation is, first, discerning and then, somehow,
describing that context, trying to open the story or message to modern understanding,
depending a great deal, of course, on what the scholars have learned about the culture
in which the scriptures were written, and applying it to the lessons of the day.
For instance, the gospel of two Sundays ago, when the gentile woman of syrophoenicia
asks Jesus to heal her child, won’t have a whole lot of impact unless we know
something about the extremely negative attitude, even hatred, of First Century Jews
toward gentiles, and particularly toward local gentiles – the Canaanites. We have to
know that background in order to realize that when Jesus tells the young mother, “It is
not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he’s not just quoting
some old adage, but is, in fact, calling the Canaanites dogs, and saying they are not
worthy of the concern and the blessing of God! Once we understand that, though, the
profound importance of that moment when the woman breaks through his resistance,
breaks into his consciousness, and our Lord realizes his mission is to all people
becomes clear and emerges as one of the great moments in Christian history – indeed,
in religious history! Context and the history that lie behinds the stories are so important!
But sometimes the lessons are hard, not because of the context, but because the
message they contain is just so hard to hear, so hard to accept. Sometimes the lessons
are hard because we don’t want to hear them; don’t want to know what they mean.
We don’t want to know because we’re aware that if we really hear them, really
understand them, they’ll make demands on us! They’ll call for a response!
Hard lessons. Hard to understand. Tough to take. Like today’s lessons.
These aren’t so hard in the first sense. There’s not much in the way of cultural obscurity
– at least, not such as to obscure meaning.
But, oh, how hard they are in the second sense. How hard to hear.
How different they are from the message we want to hear. What a different Christianity
from the one we like to embrace. The Christianity that’s so warm and comforting. So
“comfortable.”
Like that same word as it was in the Eucharist. You old-time Episcopalians will
remember, I’m sure, the invitation following the Confession and Absolution in our old,
1928 Prayerbook service: “Hear what comfortable words our savior Christ saith unto all
who truly turn to him. ‘Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you’”, etc. You’ve noticed, I hope, that we don’t say that any more. The section
has been dropped completely from our Rite II, Service, and in Rite I we now we say,
“Hear the word of God to all who truly turn to him…” Just a small change. But so
important. No more “comfortable words!”
The change was made for a very simple and very important reason. It was made because
the word, “comfort” – or “comfortable” – doesn’t mean, to us, what it originally meant.
“Comfort,” to us, means to be at one’s ease. To “be comfortable” speaks to us of a kind
of warm, fuzzy state, and to be comforted means to be reassured, to be put at ease, to
be “made comfortable” in that same sense.
But that’s not what the “comfortable words,” were intended to do; not what the words,
comfort and comfortable meant.
The word, comfort, comes to us as a simple combination of the Latin words, com,
meaning “with,” and fortiori, meaning “to strengthen.” And so, comfort meant, originally
– and in our worship – “with strength,” or more properly, “to strengthen.”
“Hear what words of strength and power our Lord Jesus Christ saith unto all who truly
turn to him,” is what the words really meant! But they didn’t say that to us, any more! So
they had to change.
And why do we need strengthening? Why do we need empowerment? Because, as I’ve
been reminding you, of late, we have jobs to do. Because If the life, death and
resurrection, if the message and meaning of Jesus Christ are real are, meaningful, they
call for a response; they demand a response! Because our Lord, himself, tells us, as in
today’s Gospel, that If we want to become his followers, we must take up our cross.
And because those whose salvation has been won by Jesus Christ no longer own their
lives.
“If any want to become my followers. Let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their
life for my sake will find it.”
There is nothing warm and fuzzy about Christianity. Nothing “comfortable,” in our
understanding of the word of God. But a faith that demands no less than everything we
have and all that we are.
Tough words to hear; hard words to accept.
Our Faith can and does comfort us in that new, misunderstood sense, when that’s
appropriate, and that’s good. But that’s not what the Faith is about. What it’s about is
strengthening and empowering. Strengthening us, in the words of our Postcommunion
Prayer, to “do all such good works as have been prepared for us to walk in”;
empowering us to be the persons we have been given the grace and the call to be.
Our faith is not warm and fuzzy. It’s not easy or undemanding. It is not about making us
feel good, feel comfortable.
It’s about giving us the strength to present ourselves as “a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God.”
A “living sacrifice” is not “comfortable.” Taking up one’s cross is not comfortable. But
our Lord deserves – requires – nothing less in response to the Good News he’s given
us.
In Christ’s name. Amen.
overlooked have been wonderful – both in themselves and as subjects for preaching –
but we’ve had other things on our agenda.
Our lessons, in recent weeks, have been what I call “hard” lessons. When I refer to our
readings as “hard” or “tough,” I mean it in two ways.
Like so much of scripture, our lessons can, of course, be flat out difficult to understand.
They don’t always mean what they seem to mean, and we have always to look at them in
context – in their context, not ours. If we’re going to make sense of them, we have to
hear them in the context of the relatively primitive cultures of the land of Palestine
across the 15 centuries, or so, from the earliest written fragments of the Hebrew
Scriptures through the period of the New Testament Epistles.
And it’s hard to do that! It’s so hard not to project our own world – which is, after all, the
only world we can ever really know – backwards to biblical times, as if the biblical world
were just like ours, except that the people wore funny clothes.
Very often, half of sermon preparation is, first, discerning and then, somehow,
describing that context, trying to open the story or message to modern understanding,
depending a great deal, of course, on what the scholars have learned about the culture
in which the scriptures were written, and applying it to the lessons of the day.
For instance, the gospel of two Sundays ago, when the gentile woman of syrophoenicia
asks Jesus to heal her child, won’t have a whole lot of impact unless we know
something about the extremely negative attitude, even hatred, of First Century Jews
toward gentiles, and particularly toward local gentiles – the Canaanites. We have to
know that background in order to realize that when Jesus tells the young mother, “It is
not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he’s not just quoting
some old adage, but is, in fact, calling the Canaanites dogs, and saying they are not
worthy of the concern and the blessing of God! Once we understand that, though, the
profound importance of that moment when the woman breaks through his resistance,
breaks into his consciousness, and our Lord realizes his mission is to all people
becomes clear and emerges as one of the great moments in Christian history – indeed,
in religious history! Context and the history that lie behinds the stories are so important!
But sometimes the lessons are hard, not because of the context, but because the
message they contain is just so hard to hear, so hard to accept. Sometimes the lessons
are hard because we don’t want to hear them; don’t want to know what they mean.
We don’t want to know because we’re aware that if we really hear them, really
understand them, they’ll make demands on us! They’ll call for a response!
Hard lessons. Hard to understand. Tough to take. Like today’s lessons.
These aren’t so hard in the first sense. There’s not much in the way of cultural obscurity
– at least, not such as to obscure meaning.
But, oh, how hard they are in the second sense. How hard to hear.
How different they are from the message we want to hear. What a different Christianity
from the one we like to embrace. The Christianity that’s so warm and comforting. So
“comfortable.”
Like that same word as it was in the Eucharist. You old-time Episcopalians will
remember, I’m sure, the invitation following the Confession and Absolution in our old,
1928 Prayerbook service: “Hear what comfortable words our savior Christ saith unto all
who truly turn to him. ‘Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will
refresh you’”, etc. You’ve noticed, I hope, that we don’t say that any more. The section
has been dropped completely from our Rite II, Service, and in Rite I we now we say,
“Hear the word of God to all who truly turn to him…” Just a small change. But so
important. No more “comfortable words!”
The change was made for a very simple and very important reason. It was made because
the word, “comfort” – or “comfortable” – doesn’t mean, to us, what it originally meant.
“Comfort,” to us, means to be at one’s ease. To “be comfortable” speaks to us of a kind
of warm, fuzzy state, and to be comforted means to be reassured, to be put at ease, to
be “made comfortable” in that same sense.
But that’s not what the “comfortable words,” were intended to do; not what the words,
comfort and comfortable meant.
The word, comfort, comes to us as a simple combination of the Latin words, com,
meaning “with,” and fortiori, meaning “to strengthen.” And so, comfort meant, originally
– and in our worship – “with strength,” or more properly, “to strengthen.”
“Hear what words of strength and power our Lord Jesus Christ saith unto all who truly
turn to him,” is what the words really meant! But they didn’t say that to us, any more! So
they had to change.
And why do we need strengthening? Why do we need empowerment? Because, as I’ve
been reminding you, of late, we have jobs to do. Because If the life, death and
resurrection, if the message and meaning of Jesus Christ are real are, meaningful, they
call for a response; they demand a response! Because our Lord, himself, tells us, as in
today’s Gospel, that If we want to become his followers, we must take up our cross.
And because those whose salvation has been won by Jesus Christ no longer own their
lives.
“If any want to become my followers. Let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their
life for my sake will find it.”
There is nothing warm and fuzzy about Christianity. Nothing “comfortable,” in our
understanding of the word of God. But a faith that demands no less than everything we
have and all that we are.
Tough words to hear; hard words to accept.
Our Faith can and does comfort us in that new, misunderstood sense, when that’s
appropriate, and that’s good. But that’s not what the Faith is about. What it’s about is
strengthening and empowering. Strengthening us, in the words of our Postcommunion
Prayer, to “do all such good works as have been prepared for us to walk in”;
empowering us to be the persons we have been given the grace and the call to be.
Our faith is not warm and fuzzy. It’s not easy or undemanding. It is not about making us
feel good, feel comfortable.
It’s about giving us the strength to present ourselves as “a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God.”
A “living sacrifice” is not “comfortable.” Taking up one’s cross is not comfortable. But
our Lord deserves – requires – nothing less in response to the Good News he’s given
us.
In Christ’s name. Amen.
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