Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
Rev. Doug Floyd
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Advent 3C – Good News in the Wilderness
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
12/16/24 • -1 min
Advent 3C 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Luke 3:7-20
They’ve come to see him. They’ve come to hear this voice crying in the wilderness.
Some have come to mock or to criticize. Some are spying on his words and actions. And some are desperate for the Word of the Lord. The sounding Word reverberates into the vast silence of the wilderness.
Israel has suffered...under the rule of Rome, under the rule of Herod. As they struggled and grieved through centuries of oppression, the voice of God was silent. Though the people had returned from exile in Babylon, they felt stuck in the wilderness.
I’ve spent many months in the wilderness. God seems to be silent. No word of hope or encouragement. Just waiting and watching and hope that God has not forsaken me.
Into this vast space of abandonment, a voice cries out. A voice of authority, a voice resounding God’s Word from on high, a voice crying “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” [1]
As we meet the crowds in the Gospel of Luke, at first, we’re taken aback. John the Baptist does not sound like a comforting voice. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”[2] Standing alongside God’s desperate pilgrims are vipers: religious ones. They seek to crush the move of God or anything that might threaten their power.
Then the pilgrims cry out, “What are we to do?”
“Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” [3] This sounds a bit like Jesus in the “Sermon on the Mount.”
As we listen to John’s voice, we realize these people are outsiders, marginalized, those whom the city frowns upon. There are tax collectors. “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”[4] Soldiers. “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages.” [5]
While John the Baptist is inviting them into the way of repentance, he is primarily pointing beyond himself to the One to Come. Even today, he is pointing beyond himself to the One to Come.
“I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” [6]
This sounds a little intimidating, and yet, Luke reminds us that “with many other exhortations John preached good news to the people.”[7]
As I was rereading and reflecting on this Gospel text, I also reread “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. Each year, I encourage my students to read this Gospel-shaped story. In Stave Two, Scrooge comes face to face with his past. He realizes his own brokenness and bitterness.
In Stave Three, he sees a world rejoicing in the gift of Christmas. All through the story, Dickens weaves in Scriptural references and images. Scrooge longs to join in the joy he sees all around him. But these people cannot see or hear him. He is like a ghost. And he has lived his whole adult life like a ghost wandering isolated through the middle of humanity.
He wants to change. He wants to be the man who can truly repent and share his cloak with one in need. But first he must face his true condition. You must remember that when Scrooge meet the Ghost of Christmas Future, he expects to see himself in the future. He keeps looking for himself. Though the reader may realize that Scrooge is dead, Scrooge thinks he is still alive. He sees the way people disrespect the humanity of a dead man, but he does not realize that he is the dead man. When we come to the end of the scene, Scrooge sees his name on the tombstone, and he realizes that he is the dead man.
Scrooge must come face to face with his own hopelessness before he can discover the true gift of grace. This makes me think of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands if an Angry God.” Or Zephaniah’s opening salvo.
The book of the prophet Zephaniah opens with one of the most terrifying images in Scripture.
The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.
2 “I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.
3 “I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away th...
Advent One – The Fruitful Tree
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
12/04/24 • -1 min
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Advent One
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Luke 21:25-33
When all this begins to happen, stand upright and hold your heads high, because your liberation is near. – Luke 21:28, REB
+ In the name of the living God: the Father , the Son , and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today, we observe the first Sunday of Advent, the season in which we anticipate the coming of Christ. First, we look to the end of the age, and then in later weeks to the babe of Bethlehem. Advent is about what’s coming. But what if what’s coming doesn’t seem too good?
Today, Luke gives us uncertain signs. Signs that are hard to interpret, or perhaps can be interpreted in too many ways. Astronomical – or perhaps astrological – chaos, environmental changes, and helpless nations. Luke tells us that, “People will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world.” but what exactly the signs are referring to is not explained. The signs of the apocalypse are profound, but uncertain.
We have more certain signs, however. We only need to look around. From Eden onward to Babel, to Egypt and Babylon, and into our present day, we see clear signs that our world is broken. Our culture is broken. Things are not as they were meant to be. In 1919, after the first world war, the poet, William Butler Yeats pinned his famous work “The Second Coming .” He is describing his experience in post-war Europe, but the words describe our age all too well:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The signs of our life at the close of 2024, as it ever has been since we left the Garden, point to the fact that things are broken. They are not as they were meant to be.
These signs, if we are honest, create in us a sense of an uncertain destiny. Living in an uncertain present, we are tempted towards nostalgia – looking backward to a better past – or perhaps our temptation is some form of progressivism, looking forward to a more hopeful future. These are, I believe, false choices. The truth is that every time – past, present, and future – has its own crisis. We do the best we can to adapt, to overcome, to apply technique and technology to our situation. What all that has produced, however, is a life of means without ends. We go through the motions of our daily life not really knowing what it all means, what’s it for, or where we are going. So often, our hope is in just getting through the day, just getting through our lives. In many ways there is no goal which we are living for or towards. It is this directionless, hopeless, rat–race kind of life- so often lacking any measure of meaningful truth, goodness, and beauty- that the revelation of Jesus Christ judges and will ultimately put an end to. Before you flinch at that statement, remember what I said two weeks ago about God‘s judgment: it always has a curative intent. There is no anger, no vengeance, but hope, purpose, and healing. Looking at the signs of this age, we may feel that we have an uncertain destiny, that’s understandable. Today, Jesus invites us to look at something else, something that- when we understand it- shows that in fact, our destiny is both certain and secure. In the midst of all these confusing and frightening signs, Jesus invites us to consider the fig tree.
The parable of the fig tree appears today in verses 29 to 31 of our Gospel reading. However, this isn’t the only place it’s mentioned. A fig tree also appears as a sign in Mark, Chapter 11 and Matthew 21. You remember the story, don’t you? It takes place during Holy Week. Jesus has entered Jerusalem for his final confrontation with both the Jewish leadership and the Temple, and He finds a fig tree bearing no fruit. Because it bears no fruit, he judges it with a curse. It then withers and dies. Then, he goes on to judge the temple with his cleansing. What’s the connection? In the Old Testament, the people of Israel are sometimes represented as a fig tree that bears no fruit. Both Hosea and Jeremiah use this imagery. Now, the withered fig tree makes more sense: it is a parable of the judgment of God on the Temple, which has become a dead tree that produces no fruit of righteousness. More broadly, the withered fig tree- like the signs in the heavens and the nations -is a judgment of our life of means without ends. Like the Temple , all our human systems left to our own devices, are ultimately barren. Taking this as backstory, what can...
Christ the King – Enthroned on the Cross
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/25/24 • -1 min
Rev. Doug Floyd
ScreenshotChrist the King 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Daniel 7:9-14, Psalm 93, Revelation 1:1-8, John 18:33-37
A few years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Jesus is coming look busy.” And also, “Jesus is coming and he is p*&#ed.” A more Evangelical version has been, “He came as a lamb the first time. When returns, he will come as a lion.” In the early Medieval church, we see an emphasis on Christ as the Dread Judge who will come to sort the righteous and the wicked. The largest Gothic Cathedral in France is in Picardy, France. The Amien (aa-myen) Cathedral has a large sculpture in the central portal of Christ as King rendering judgment. His hands are upraised, his eyes wide open, and his mouth is frowning. He is the Dread Judge.
All these images indicate a slight confusion in Christ the King. By falling right before Advent, it seems as though the day is about the culmination of all things in Christ. In one sense that is true but at the same time this is about His enthronement. Our Revelation passage is pointing to the ultimate unveiling of Christ. Yes, we are longing and waiting for the fullness of this unveiling or coming. At the same time, we are meditating upon Christ’s ascent to the throne. Some people would place this enthronement on day of Ascension, when we recognize Christ ascends to the throne. At the same time, our Gospel reading points to the cross.
If you read the Gospel of John as a whole, you discover that “king” language appears as Jesus nears the cross. Jesus does not call himself the King of the Messiah, but Pilate calls him King of the Jews and places this placard above him on the cross.
Joseph Ratzinger says of the cross, “Early pictures of Christ on the Cross show him as the risen Christ, as King. He is shown with his eyes open, so as to make clear that the Godhead did not die, that it is still living and still gives life. From being the stigma of Roman execution, the Cross thus became the sign of triumph of the Son of Man, which not only will appear to us at the end of all time, but which already thus appears to us when he, as Victor, comes to us and seeks us out.”[1]
This link between King or Christ is directly connected to the cross. Ratzinger says elsewhere, “His crucifixion is his coronation; his kingship is his surrender of himself to men, the identification of word, mission, and existence in the yielding up of this very existence. His existence is thus his word. He is word because he is love.”[2]
When we call ourselves “Christians” we are acknowledging in one sense that we serve the king on the cross. As Karl Barth has said, “The One who is prosecuted according to this story, the One whose passion is enacted in all its stages, is the only innocent One, the One who has indeed divine authority to accuse in the midst of sinful Israel, the “King of the Jews.” There is, in fact, a complete reversal, an exchange of roles. Those who are to be judged are given space and freedom and power to judge. The Judge allows Himself to be judged. That is why He came to Jerusalem, entering it as a King. He is, in fact, judged.”[3]
And all mankind must kneel before the last King of the Jews at the place of the cross. This image of Jesus enthroned as King on the cross should challenge our notions of His second coming, His appearing.
The kingdom of God in Christ comes in the shape of the cross. The shape of humility, making room for humans to be humans. In our utter humanness, we crucify Jesus. In our utter failure as humans, the glory of God is revealed. Sin and death are forever defeated. Christ rules on high and on low. As G.K. Chesterton so aptly wrote,
“Outrushing the fall of man
Is the height of the fall of God.
Glory to God in the Lowest”[4]
We worship our king by following in His descent. As Paul writes in Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”[5] And in verses 4 through 11,
4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that ...
Pentecost +26 – The Wound that Heals
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/19/24 • -1 min
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Pentecost +26 2024
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Daniel 12, Psalm 16, Hebrews 10:31-39, Mark 13:14-23
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and apart from your grace, there is no health in us.
+ In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Regarding this time in the church year, Episcopal priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge writes the following “If you know your Christian calendar, you’re getting goosebumps. Advent is close; the lectionary readings from scripture start getting apocalyptic in November.” This should be no surprise to us, having heard both from Daniel and from the little apocalypse of Mark in this very service. Both refer to a coming “abomination of desolation” that will bring to an end the sacrificial system, the Temple, and- if not the world- the world as the Jews had known it since they settled in the Promised Land. On August 30th, in the year 70 A.D. Roman forces who were combating a short-lived, rebel government in the province of Judea overwhelmed the defenders of the city, breached the final wall, and set fire to the temple. The Jewish historian Josephus describes the event this way:
“As the legions charged in, neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command. Crowded together around the entrances many were trampled by their friends, many fell among the still hot and smoking ruins of the colonnades and died as miserably as the defeated. As they neared the Sanctuary, the partisans were no longer in a position to help; everywhere was slaughter and flight. Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar the heaps of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom.”
What was prophesied, had come to pass. I can’t imagine how it painful and devastating it must have felt to the people of God at that time. Nonetheless, what was a future event in the time of Jesus, is now for us ancient history. As tragic as it was, as monumental an historic event as it was both for Jews and the early church, we can nonetheless ask “Why spend a whole Sunday on it? What’s the point for us today?”
To answer this question, we need to refresh our minds about what exactly an apocalypse is. It is not primarily a prophetic description of the end of the world. In fact, although apocalypse may refer to future events, as is the case in today’s readings, to view it as talking exclusively about the future is to not get the concept quite right. The Greek word apokálypsis, from which it is derived, means a revelation, an unveiling of truth. Apocalypse tells the truth of the way things are. That is what is revealed.
This is why something else Josephus says about the destruction of the temple is perhaps more powerful than the graphic description I’ve already shared. Reflecting not so much on the event, but on the meaning of the event, he remembers an ancient saying, that “Jerusalem would be taken, and the temple be destroyed, when it had been defiled by the hands of Jews themselves.” When it had been defiled by the hands of Jews themselves. When viewed this way, what happened in AD 70 was not simply a calamity. The truth of the way things are is that it was a judgment. An external intervention by God resulting from the Jews defiling their own sacred space. Being a hospital chaplain, that got me thinking about sepsis.
When we commonly think about sepsis, what comes to mind is a systemic infection. That’s true, as far as it goes, but it’s not really the whole story. Sepsis is much more than that. It’s s a potentially life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs, followed by suppression of the immune system. An initial infection, untreated, gets out of control, and the body becomes part of the problem. It literally works against itself. Without outside intervention, death will result. Unlike a simple infection, the treatment can be quite complex: IV fluids, strong, medicines, and commonly time in the intensive care unit. The treatments can actually be quite harsh, because sepsis is harsh. A harsh sickness, a harsh response.
Now, what does this have to do with the destruction of the temple? What does it have to do with the abomination of desolation? What does it have to do with us? I think one way of looking at how the truth of the way things are is revealed in our apocalypse today is through the lens of sepsis. Simply put, we’re really sick. Humanity, left to its own devices, is septic.
This is not to say that humanity is not good. The original design for all of creation was proclaimed by the Father to be good. Human beings, t...
Pentecost +25 – The Far Country
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/16/24 • -1 min
Pentecost +25 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
1 Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44
Jesus is teaching in the Temple. He is engaging with Sadducees, Scribes, and his disciples. He sits down near the offering box and is watching people go into the Temple. Many fine people with long robes walk past and fill the treasury with large sums of money. If we were following common church building advice, we might say, “Quick put them on a committee.” “Make sure to greet them.” “We need to get them involved!”
Then comes a widow woman. She’s so poor that her two copper coins only equal one penny. Suddenly Jesus turns to the disciples. “Did you just see that?” I wonder if the disciples were about to comment on her tiny gift. Before they can complain, Jesus says, “She just gave more than all those wealthy folks combined!”
What!?
They gave out of their abundance. She gave out of her poverty. That was all she had and she gave it. She gave all she had to live on.
What!?
How could she survive? Jesus doesn’t tell us, but her act recalls another widow who gave all she had.
Before we tell her story, let’s get the picture in our minds. Elijah is a wild prophet of a man. He seems to move across Israel like the wind and speaks or acts as the Lord directs. In fact, he is almost like YHWH in the midst. His words don’t fall to the ground. It goes forth from His mouth and does not return void. I am not suggesting that Elijah is a preincarnate appearing of God, but rather, the word of God rests upon him and sounds through him like the roaring wind.
Israel is corrupt. The king, Ahab, has married the daughter of King Ethbaal of Sidon. She is from a culture that worships Baal. This worship can involve sexual perversion and even human sacrifice. Baal is an agricultural god, assuring fruitful harvests, but he eventually is seen as a storm god, which also connects him to agriculture but also emphasizes his power. This power is bought through oppression, perversion and blood.
It must be stopped because it is corrupting all the people of Israel. Elijah launches an attack against Baal worship. If Baal worship is about controlling harvest and the rain, Elijah will stop the rain. James 5:17 tells us that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.” [1] He shut the heavens. His word did not return void.
After Elijah prays, he goes to Ahab and tells him that there will be no rain except at his word. See how Elijah is acting like God-in-the-midst? Elijah must also survive this drought. The Lord sends him to the brook Cherith, and he drinks the water and is fed by the ravens. Think about this, Elijah does what he sees “the Father doing or what the Father tells him to do. This sounds a bit like Christ. But Elijah is an incomplete image. He is not the exact image of the Father but is speaking and acting out a word of the Father for a specific place and time.
He has come to bring judgment upon Israel for abandoning her God. At the same time, he will raise a remnant of the faithful who will learn to trust God is the darkest and most difficult seasons of life. Even when Israel falls and the people are taken captive, there will be a righteous community who trust God and will serve the Lord in the pagan lands.
Now back to Elijah and the widow. The brook dries up. No more water or food. The Lord tells him to go see a widow in Zarephath (zehr fath). He goes to the city gate and sees her gathering some sticks. “Bring me a drink of water.” “And while you’re at it, bring me some food to eat.”
Elijah is not longer in Israel. He has left Israel and entered a pagan center, and yet his authority is still recognized. She replies, “As the Lord your God lives (notice she refers to Elijah’s God not her god). She says, “I have just a little flour and a little oil.” I’ll make a fire with these sticks and make one last meal for my son and myself. We’ll eat it and then we’ll die.
Elijah looks at her. “Do not fear.” He has walked into a pagan city. Met a widow who is at the end of her rope. And invited her into the feast of God. But she doesn’t know it yet.
He says, “Don’t fear. Do what you said but first give me a little bite to eat. Then you fix some food for you and your son.”
Then suddenly the Word of the Kingdom of God breaks out in their midst. For when he speaks, we can already sense the coming Wedding Feast of the Lamb, we can already get a sense of Christ’s body and blood given for us.”
Elijah says, “Here’s why my God, the God of Israel, says to you, “Your jar of flour will not run out. Your bottle of oil will not become empty before God...
All Saints’ Day – Enduring Disappointment
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/13/24 • -1 min
All Saints’ Day 2024
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Sirach 44:1-14, Revelation 7:9-17, Matthew 5:1-12
Today we observe the Feast of All Saints. It began in the fourth century as a catch all feast to remember all the martyrs of the Diocletian persecution.
By the ninth century in the British Isles, it had moved to November 1 and later Pope Gregory IV expanded this observance to the whole Western church. It is followed on November 2 with the Feast of All Souls, where we remember all the faithful departed, not just those who have left a name, and the day before All Saints or All Holies Eve is where we get Halloween when we remember and ward off the less appealing spirits. But what is a saint?
The word comes from the Latin “sanus” meaning only the Greek equivalent Haggios appears 229 times in the Greek New Testament, so a saint is a holy one or a set apart one, an exemplary model, an inspired teacher, a worker of miracles. They are often an ascetic who denies the world and more often than not, they are considered as possessed of a special relationship with God. The term saint is first of all used for named saints: Saint Mary, Saint John, Saint Brendan, the famous men mentioned in our reading from Sirach today. Saint can also be used to refer to all the faithful departed, the people who left no name, and yet their deeds live on both throughout Christian history and particularly in our lives, more broadly the term saint is used for all Christian people.
That certainly how Paul uses it. Now there’s a problem inherent in this definition and it has to do with the accretion over time of legends and stories and how that shaped how we view things. I think it part of God’s providence that October 31st is also Reformation Day.
That we say something about the reform of the church, right, before we go in into remembering all these holy people. Because it was a problem then and a problem now. The problem now takes on a certain psychological reality for us that has a huge theological impact, and that problem is this.
When we use stained glass language to describe the saints, when we talk about them in such exalted terms, well, it separates us from them. They become Christian superheroes rather than our older brothers and sisters. And so that number three of the definition Paul’s usage that all Christian people of our saints tends to get forgotten underneath all the trappings of tradition.
I want to take a hard left turn today and suggest my own definition of what a saint is. The saints of God were primarily saints of God in their disappointment, which means that All Saints Day would be a feast for remembering all those who have endured their disappointment in a profoundly Christian fashion.
I’m serious. Let me explain. Have you noticed that life is difficult?
It doesn’t take too many years of experience to learn this. My young son Isaiah, 18 months old, is already starting to say no, not just in the defiance sense, but in the existential sense. He wants something he can’t have and I don’t give it to him and he says no.
Life is difficult. There’s that lost job. The poor health. The failed relationship. The enemies we have, the general sense of cultural malaise and decline. There’s this overwhelming sense that things shouldn’t be like this. Fill in your blank for the this.
That it’s just too hard It’s a sense that’s almost universal. And it’s universal not just in 2024, but through all human life. And thus, for the saints of the church, too. Because no human life is free from disappointment.
Let’s consider the famous ones in a way you may have never thought of Saint Mary scorned as an unwed mother with a sword through her heart at Jesus’ passion. Saint Benedict and Martin Luther 1100 years apart, they both went to Rome, the political, cultural, and religious capital of their society only to find it morally and spiritually bankrupt, religious disillusionment. Julian of Norwich and Saint John Paul II, both endured severe, excruciating, long term illnesses, and Saint Teresa of Calcutta well, when her journals came out, we learned that even as she was serving the poor so courageously all those years, she suffered from depression and a sense of spiritual darkness.
Then there are those less well known. Hebrews 11 mentions them. I’m going to start reading at verse 33 It’s kind of interesting when you think of saints.
Through faith they conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised, shut the mouth of lions, quenched raging fire escaped the edge of the sword gained strength in weakness, mighty in battle, they put foreign armies to flight, and women received back their dead raised to life. Les, I thought you were talking about disappointment. He doesn’t stop there.
Others were tortured, not accepting release. Others experienced mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment they were stoned,...
Pentecost +23 – Healing Bartimaeus
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/12/24 • -1 min
Pentecost +23 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Isaiah 59:9-20, Psalm 13, Hebrews 5:11-6:12, Mark 10:46-52
...justice is far from us,
and righteousness does not overtake us;
we hope for light, and behold, darkness,
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
10 We grope for the wall like the blind;
we grope like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
among those in full vigor we are like dead men.
11 We all growl like bears;
we moan and moan like doves;
we hope for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us. [1]
The word of Isaiah’s song take hold of me. I feel them in my bones. Here are a people cast aside. Blind and eyeless. Stumbling in the dark. The goodness of God is far from them. They’ve followed the rituals of the Temple, but Isaiah says these supposed righteous acts are filthy rags that cannot cover their oppression of the poor and weak. In their idolatry, they are not only blind to God but blind to their neighbor. Yet all the while, they think they are righteous.
Makes me think of a song by The Call from the 1980s. He sings,
Do, you feel protected inside the white walls?
A world neglected heads for a fall
A fate suspended each day is a gift
A world offended, God what is this?
He says, “We’ll walk in the front door
And proudly raise our heads”
I say, “Man you must be joking
Our hands are covered in blood red”
When we read Isaiah, we think of ancient Israel, but he is speaking of the human condition, and his words ring as true today as they ever have. Our hands are covered blood red. Lord have mercy on us.
Israel cannot save themselves. We cannot save ourselves. Amid pronouncing judgment, Isaiah sings words of hope and healing.
The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no one to intercede;
then his own arm brought him salvation,
and his righteousness upheld him. [2]
Despite judgment, the Lord does not abandon His people. When He comes to redeem Israel, He will do so much more. In Isaiah 49:6, we read,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” [3]
God comes to redeem His wayward people and redeems all of us wayward people. This sets up our Gospel story today. Jesus goes to Jericho. Mark doesn’t tell us any details of this visit. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem and stops by Jericho on the way. Mark writes,
“And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.” [4]
We know nothing of the trip to Jericho except one. Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, sits by the roadside. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem, but He stops in Jericho. Has He stopped for a blind beggar, sitting by the roadside?
Most people have no time for this blind beggar. In fact, they tell him to be quiet. Who is this blind man? His name is Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. That’s all we know. He is a real flesh and blood person that desperately needs the grace of God. At the same time, the presence of this blind man reminds us that Israel is blind. The people do not have eyes to see or ears to hear Jesus. He also reminds us that our age also tends to be blind and deaf to the ways of God. Instead of standing in judgment on our surrounding culture, I suggest we begin with the cry of Bartimaeus, “Jesus Son of David have mercy on me.”
The blindness reminds us that in many ways Israel is still in exile. In Isaiah, we see how idolatry results in blindness, deafness, and lameness. They become like their idols. Eventually, they are exiled to Babylon. Though some Jews eventually return, they are still in exile. The people live under subjection. They long for the coming Messiah to set things right, but when He comes, they cannot see Him. He doesn’t look or act like the Messiah they had hoped for.
This is a challenge all through Scripture. When the exiles return to Jerusalem, they rejoice. As the Psalmist declares,
1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for the...
Pentecost +22 – Health Bestowing Wound
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
11/05/24 • -1 min
Pentecost +22 2024
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Isaiah 53:4-12, Hebrews 4:12-16
But he was lifted up for our illnesses. He carried our pain in the name of the living God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The first open heart bypass surgery where the heart is exposed, stopped, and life is sustained by a heart lung machine while the operation takes place was pioneered by Dr. John Hessam Gibbon of Jefferson medical school in Philadelphia in 1953.
I observed my first open heart bypass in Evanston, Illinois in 1992, when I was a chaplain at Saint Francis Hospital. It’s a heady thing. He was a 53-year-old Indian man with three blockages by the time I entered the operating theater, which was cold. No one told me how cold it would be.
He was already sedate, surrounded by people in insulated blue gowns. The incision was made the sternum was cut with a saw. The ribs were spread open with something that looks kind of like an old-fashioned jack.
Major veins and arteries were detached cut and attached to a heart lung machine and then, with the tiniest jolt of electricity, the heart stopped as the blood went out of it, it deflated. We have those pictures of the heart, the models, and the drawings we see, and the heart is this big, rather impressive muscle that keeps going our whole life. No one told me when it deflated how small it would be except for the intervention of the machines, this gentleman was clinically dead.
And then the repairs began. Some four-and-a half hours later another small shock nothing. Another small shock. Nothing.
Dr. Murphy took his gloved hand and flicked the heart, and it started again. Four-and-a-half hours later, life resumed, but better, newer, reborn. A chest cut open, a heart not beating.
In this case, under these conditions, it was a medical miracle, but in another scene, idt could be the scene of a crime or the result of a horrible accident. surgery or violence. The only difference is intent an expertise. The intent to heal rather than harm and the skills to do just that. Today in Hebrews four, we read these words (verse 12-13):
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit and joints from marrow. It is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart and no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.
You pay attention to those words. It seems clear that Christ intends to operate on us. And if you think about that for a minute, that’s really terrifying.
Most of my patients in the hospital today have some degree of denial about the illness when I first meet them. and we are no different when it comes to the spiritual sickness of our own hearts. I’m not that bad any more that means I haven’t committed murder or adultery. I’m not that bad and yet there’s that anger I can’t let go of.
That judgmentalism that is like reflexive. The lack of forgiveness, the lack of love, the pride, the arrogance. is it that I’m not that bad or am I in denial? I can manage it.
I got this. And yet my life is a history of failed discipleship efforts, self-help that doesn’t help. Problems in our relationship with others, with ourself, with God, then over the course of a lifetime build up like barnacles and eventually are hard to ignore.
In truth, they can only build up so long. Over time, if we are honest and bold, we come to recognize the spiritual sickness of our heart, sin we call it, and in the words of the old general confession, the memory of our sins is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable. And if we’re lucky, that’s when the denial dies or dies again, because in truth, it’s an ongoing process.
And when the denial dies, we realize that we need heart surgery ourselves. If we get beyond denial, we next have to contend with shame and fear. My favorite definition of shame is as follows a pervasive negative, emotional state, marked by chronic self-reproach and an unending sense of personal failure.
Perhaps we resonate with those words because in this day shame is one of the enemy’s most powerful tools. It’s wicked really. Think about how it works.
We sin whether through intent or inadvertently weakness, we sin and shame fastens upon us so that rather than confessing rather than thinking seeking help, rather than opening our heart to those closest to us, we hide. just like our ancestors did in that garden. The hiding, that sense of being an impostor, that sense of having a false self creates emotional tension in us. That tension builds and builds and builds till we need release.
So we sin and then we have shame and then we hide. And then there’s emotional intention and it builds and builds a...
Pentecost +21 – On Earth As It Is In Heaven
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
10/28/24 • -1 min
Pentecost +21 2024
Rev. Doug Floyd
Hebrews 3:1-6
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”[1]
The book of Hebrews opens with God who created the world and speaks to His people. He created the world through Christ Jesus, speaks to His people through Christ Jesus. He reveals His glory through Christ Jesus and has redeemed His people through Christ Jesus. Jesus is the center of this book.
Now let me back up to God as creator. If we jump ahead to verse 10 of chapter 1, we read,
You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; 11 they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment, 12 like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will have no end.” [2]
The writer quotes Psalm 102, which emphasizes the distinction between God and His creation. In Psalm 102, the psalmist is struggling, is discouraged, is taunted by his enemies. He looks to the God who is not bound by His creation but over and above His creation. The writer of Hebrews references this verse but here he is focused on the supremacy of Christ. As we read the letter, we learn that the hearers of this book are also facing some struggles that have caused discouragement.
The writer draws upon this image of God as Creator, but he combines it with the focus on Christ who is fully God and separate from creation and who is fully man and has entered creation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christ bears witness to God the Father. Christ has entered our suffering, our discouragement, our struggles. He bears witness that we have not been forsaken, but we have been redeemed. As Hebrews 2:18 says, “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”[3]
Now we finally get to chapter 3. Once again, we return to a creation image. This time the focus is on the Temple or Tabernacle.
“Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.” [4]
Moses served the household of Israel. He directed plans for the Tabernacle and the eventual Temple is still based upon the plans he received on the Holy Mountain from God. Moses served the household of God, but the builder of all things is God.
We learn from Hebrews and John 1 that all things have been created in and through Christ. When the Father speaks, He creates in and through the Son and by the power of His Spirit. Jesus is not simply another Moses. He is the builder of the house. He is the redeemer of the house.
The writer has been talking about the creation, about the household of God’s people, and about the Temple because the whole letter is leading us beyond the veil to the Most Holy Place. All this finds consummation in Christ Jesus.
Listen to the end of our passage, “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.”[5]
We are His house.
First, Christ has incorporated us into the household of God. Consider Ephesians 1:5-6, “In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in th...
St. Michael and All Angels
Sermons – St. Brendan's Anglican Church
09/30/24 • -1 min
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
St. Michael and All Angels
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Genesis 28:10–17, Psalm 103, Revelation 12:7–12, John 1:47–51
Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In the name of the living god, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen Today is Michaelmas or the feast of Saint Michael and all angels. If you’re from a non-liturgical tradition, that sounds really confusing. Michaelmas is the English contraction of Michael mass, the mass of Saint.
Michael just as Christmas, is the Christ mass. And this feast of the angels originated in the Christian East with the veneration of saint Michael somewhere in the third century. It began to spread to the west in the fifth century, and it is culturally associated with the beginning of autumn in school, many religious institutions and English institutions have Michaelmas Term rather than the rather pedestrian false semester.
Father Doug mentioned the blackberries, the other thing that Michaelmas is known for is eating goose. I could find no particularly good reason for this except that gooses have wings. It started as the feast of Saint Michael, but grew to include all angels, those messengers of God that appear in scripture and tradition.
Saint Paul, as we know, talks about principalities and powers. Scripture also mentions thrones and dominions, angels, and archangels. These are apparently beings who guard, who deliver messages, who protect, who lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, they console our Lord after his temptation in the desert, and also in the garden of Gethsemane.
They are even responsible for the jail break of a couple of apostles, and they have roles in the final consummation of all things in revelation. By the late Middle Ages, there is a particular focus on four archangels. Michael, the protector or warrior, he can first read about him in in Jude one nine, Gabriel, the messenger found in Daniel and Luke, Raphael, the healer found most extensively in the apocryphal book of Tobit. I think chapter 12 and then Uriel, the angel of the afterlife or the the angel of death found in the apocryphal book of second Esdras. These became the focus of the feast and they’re kind of a holistic focus. We have protection.
We have communication, we have healing, and we have the last things. angels that surround all these key events in our life. So that’s kind of what we celebrate today. It’s a major feast.
It used to be a holy day of obligation in the Roman church. That’s what we celebrate, how we celebrate it is another matter. I don’t know if you remember what CS Lewis said about the devil.
He said the problem with the devil is you can either pay him too much or too little attention too much or too little. I think the same can be said of angels. Sometimes we can spend too much attention on them.
I think of two things that I’ve experienced in my own life around that speculation and the desire for power. um speculation, in other words, we can spend an awful lot of time saying, well, just what are angels? What are they? I kind of had this question.
Many of you know I was an an atheist and a in a convert from scientific materialism. And when I began to accept the idea of God that was one thing, but then there were these additional creatures and I love Jesus pretty well, but but I didn’t know what to do with these additional creatures. They seemed superfluous to my materialistic mindset.
So I ran around and I came across things like Mortimer J Adler, the founder of the Great Books curriculum who said that the best way to think about angels was as was to think of them as minds without bodies, not very helpful to a former materialist. There is the Jewish medieval philosopher Maimonides who seems to collapse angels just into the material world. If you read Maimonides long, he seems to be saying that angels are just things like gravity and planetary rotation.
It’s it’s just the strings behind the creation that we don’t see. All that stuff is angels. Well, if that’s the case, science has erased angels.
And then there was new age thought that said that angels were everything from demigods to the lost people of Atlantis to ancient aliens. In other words, the more I read about what angels were, the more uncomfortable I got, the less impressed I got. And I had the overwhelming question, what does this have to do with Jesus?
An offshoot of that, of course, is I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and particularly coming out of that new age thought it wasn’t just trying to understand angels that was important. It was ...
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