Homily Highlights for May 17 Ascension Sunday

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church Sermon Page

Homily Highlights for May 17 – Ascension Sunday WANT TO GET AWAY?

SCRIPTURE READING

John 17:15-16 “I am not asking you to take them out of the world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.”

THE COLLECT “Do not leave us comfortless but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before.”

THE MYSTERY OF THE DISAPPEARING JESUS The nature and meaning of Christ’s Ascension into heaven is one of the great mysteries of the Christian Faith for it must answer the question: “GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?” Throughout the Gospels we experience a compelling presence of Jesus as teacher and healer and the death and resurrection of Jesus are the central events that define the faith. What then are we to make of the Ascension into heaven in a profoundly materialistic age. We look to the prayer today which we call the Collect because it “collects” the key themes of the Scriptures and the collective prayers of our hearts. “Do not leave us comfortless but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before.” The new presence of God in Jesus Christ will be in the Holy Spirit.

WHERE IS THAT PLACE WHERE CHRIST “HAS GONE BEFORE”? In our Collect for Ascension Day we say that “Our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things.” Jesus Christ has not disappeared after all and in asking the question, “God, where are you?” we will need to look in many directions for an answer from the God who has “filled all things” with the Holy Spirit.

1) Creation is begun and sustained in the power of the Holy Spirit and we respond with thanks and a deepened sense of our call to good Creation Care. 2) Christ has walked with the sick and the suffering in a ministry of healing and we are called to follow. 3) Christ has fed the hungry and we are called to follow. 4) Christ has created a new world wide family in his church and we are called to follow. 5) Christ has taught us to pray in a personal way to a personal God we can call “Our Father” and we are called to follow.

Jesus always taught us that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and at work among us and within us. It does extend beyond this life but while we are living the gift of years we are given Christ does not want us to be “taken out of the world” but to be a part of God’s work of transforming it through the values of the Kingdom of Heaven. The life of the Spirit is countercultural and life changing so that in a real sense a follower of Jesus Christ does not “belong to this world.” If we imagine “the world” to be the place where the tragedies of war, hunger, crime, natural disasters and disease are unchangeable cycles that are beyond our control then who wouldn’t want to get as far away as possible. God’s Kingdom is a vision that will never accept that as the final word and calls us to a close walk with Christ in justice, peace and compassion in this world and beyond.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for May 10 – The 6th Sunday of Easter CHRIST’S ASCENDING LADDER OF LOVE

John 15:12 “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”

“LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF” (Matthew 22:39) As Christians we view love as the heart of the faith, long to live according to that vision, but are painfully aware that we often fall short of it. Still, we are called to rise and try again for this is the compelling power of the faith. The call to love begins at home and in close communities; “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It assumes a love of self and moves us to develop disciplined habits of care and concern. Its rewards are in the blessings of healthy community. We experience this most intensely in family life. The comfortable tranquility of the community may be shaken as Jesus calls us even higher.

“LOVE YOUR ENEMIES AND PRAY FOR THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU.” (Matthew 5:44) Sometimes the bond and identity of a close community contains a shared sense of who the “enemy” is. To hold up an enemy in prayer challenges us with discovering the humanity of another and challenges the comfortable camaraderie of contempt for others. It can be a risky kind of love. Yet, in the midst of family and community feuds, we may thank God for this vision of expansive love; for our neighbors or a family member may have become a perceived “enemy” and the ministry of reconciliation will depend on a vision of love that moves us beyond the comfort zone of our feelings and our certainty of what the “truth” is.

“LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU” (John 15:12) Nothing less than a living, personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can unlock the full potential of our love. When our own weaknesses have us baffled and beaten down we need to reach for Christ’s hand and hear his voice saying “rise and follow me.” Good ideas alone have never saved us, something in us even rebels against the call to love. It takes a life changing relationship with the living God to make us people who love fully and receive love thankfully.

“LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH” (Mark 12:30) It is important to remember that before Jesus says anything about loving our neighbor as ourselves, he teaches that the love of God is “the first and great commandment.” First things first; for it is in that love of God that we will find both the strength to love and the forgiveness for our failures to love. In climbing Christ’s ascending ladder of love we may slip and fall down a step or even fall off the ladder altogether. If in those moments of dusting ourselves off and rising again, we find a deepened empathy for the struggles of others, our power to love will have grown even stronger. Amazing Grace how sweet the sound. “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things.” (Psalm 98) Calling a bruised imperfect people to be God’s beloved community.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for May 3 – The 5th Sunday of Easter SEASONS OF LOVE

Having served in the Diocese of Maryland for almost 11 years and gained a great appreciation for Baltimore, I was saddened to see the violence and destruction of Monday night. It is surely true from the perspective of the Christian Faith that all lives matter. We need answers, justice, and reform in response to the death of Freddie Gray. And we also need to understand that the images of a burning pharmacy and senior citizens housing under construction was a profound symbol of the disregard for many lives in the Baltimore community - a neighborhood deprived of needed medicine and needed jobs, senior citizens deprived of needed housing, a dedicated faith community having their good ministry burned, children being given the corrupt moral example of reckless violence and disrespect for law enforcement officers and firefighters. They need something better. We all deserve better.

The Faith provides it in the Gospel of love and so we turn to God’s Word for today.

SCRIPTURE READINGS 1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” John 15:4 “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

GOD’S LOVE MAKES ALL LOVE POSSIBLE Love from the Christian perspective is seeking the good of another regardless of our feelings at any given moment. It is for all seasons. In the words of the Marriage Vows in the Book of Common Prayer (p. 427), love is “For better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” (It is a unique love with a unique word to describe it- - - AGAPE.) It requires a disciplined faithfulness that is a reflection of God’s steady love for us in every season of our lives. The love of a personal God offers the very gifts we pray that each newly married couple will have to be “a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow and a companion in joy.” (BCP p. 429)  Gifts that are needed for the journey of commitment through the years of marriage and parenting.  Gifts that make parenting an opportunity for a mature depth of thankfulness and reflection on the nurturing love that gives birth to new life and nurtures new life with wisdom, patience, and a resourceful humor that handles our imperfections while never letting go of that surpassing goal to love as God loves with firmness in both support and guidance. It is more than an ideal. It is a life-giving power that is rooted in God’s own nature and in faith, continually reminding us that God’s love makes all love possible.

If we are wearied and even guilty about our own limitations in reflecting this love, we may yet still know that it beckons like every morning sun with the grace of life’s perseverance and the hope of new beginnings.

A FAMILY OF EASTER FAITH Everything important in life leads to Easter. God knows our need to continually “rise again” and sent Jesus as the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” to offer this gift not just beyond this life but to make this life a life worth living— without illusions about all that burdens us. Again we look to the special prayers of our Marriage Service: “Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair.” (BCP p. 429) This “resurrection power” comes to us by abiding in Christ: His amazing grace, his profound wisdom and his steady love in all seasons.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for April 26 – The 4th Sunday of Easter

JESUS THE GOOD SHEPHERD

“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not be in want.” (Psalm 23)

BUBBA THE SHEEP DOG Have any of you ever seen a real shepherd at work? I did when I was serving a church in Southwest Missouri, a part of the state where sheep are raised and coyotes are plentiful. There I met Bubba, the sheep dog, who was protecting the sheep of one of my parish families.

Bubba did two things very well.  He kept the coyotes away.  He led the sheep to food and water by running a special set of patterns around the flock.

PSALM 23 Protection and feeding, that’s a good day’s work for a shepherd. King David, who was a shepherd before defeating Goliath and earning the reputation that led him to become King, always remembered his first calling as a shepherd and saw in it a model of what God can be for us when he wrote Psalm 23. Jesus relates deeply to this image and calls himself, “The Good Shepherd.”

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. As St. Augustine notes, there is a “God shaped emptiness in all of us” that longs to be filled. In all the noise, haste and crowding of modern life, our souls long for “still waters.”

He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for his name’s sake. The need for moral guidance at every age connects our soul to the living God.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. In the midst of so much change and loss in this life, we deeply need the comfort and strength of God in Christ.

You have spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me (my enemies KJV) you have anointed my head with oil and my cup is running over. Many people may misjudge us but the Lord honors and anoints us with his blessing and a place at his table. In the New Testament teaching of Jesus, enemies are invited to sit together at the table of fellowship, let go of their hatreds and judgments, and live in the new vision of God’s Kingdom.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This peace, this guidance, this comfort, this reconciliation is for every season of this life but not for this life alone. The House of the Lord stands as the eternal home which is the heart’s true home, now and always. Amen.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for April 19 – The 3rd Sunday of Easter SEARCHING IN A HOUSE OF MIRRORS

SCRIPTURE READING “...what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he (Christ) is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

THE HOUSE OF MIRRORS I recall once as a child walking into a House of Mirrors in an amusement park. Mirror after mirror on all sides would reflect some kind of distorted image. I might appear to be 10 feet tall in one mirror and two feet tall and ten feet wide in another. After spending some time in that House of Mirrors, my childish imagination would start to run away with me and I would get a little frightened that maybe I really was one of those distorted images. Where is the mirror that’s reflecting the me that is not a lie?

THE TRUEST REFLECTION On the day we are born we enter a House of Mirrors. Our image of who we are becomes reflected by many people in many relationships: those who love us and those who demean us. “What we will be has not yet been revealed.” Where is the mirror, the one reflecting my true and best self? In Jesus Christ, God revealed to us what it means to be truly human in the image and likeness of God. (Gen. 1:26-27) Jesus reflects to us both who our God is and who we can be. The divine compassion revealed in the saving love of the cross becomes a quality we are to embrace as we respond in compassion to Christ who is present in the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless and the many in need. (Matthew 25:31-46)

THE CHOICE IS OURS The distorted mirrors of hate that twist us and our relationships can be compelling. We have the choice to cling to those mirrors and even become those distortions: “What we will be has not yet been revealed.” But God has called us from the beginning to be something more: “What we do know is this: when he is revealed we will be like him.” And so we struggle together in our journey to find the one true mirror of Christ within us that will illuminate us to see Christ within others and see that great reflection of a humanity that has finally answered God’s call from Genesis to be people in his image and likeness: “For we shall see him as he is.”

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for April 12 – The 2nd Sunday of Easter FROM DOUBT TO THE PEACE OF GOD IN FAITH GOSPEL “Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you….Thomas, do not doubt but believe.’” (John 20:19, 27)

THE TRUST OF A CHILD As we gather on a Baptism Sunday in the second week of the Easter Season, I find myself thinking about faith from the perspective of a young child, for the cradle of loving arms is the place where faith is born long before the word is first spoken. There is warmth, feeding and quick responsiveness, and life in the world feels good and safe. But I remember the first time many years ago when my oldest daughter started restlessly moving in my arms wanting to explore the world of the nursery and home and there were some bumps and falls and tears in that exploring, but as long as there was a steady guide and arms to return to, the world could still feel good and safe. Over the years, the bumps and falls continued but seasoned by times of laughter and sharing and through it all life in the world can still feel good and safe for the child who is loved and learns faith.

As the child grows, there are questions and some of the answers are wondrous gifts and surprises and some are bumps and falls and tears….And if there is someone who will hear the questions and walk with you in finding the answers, the world can still seem good if not always as safe as the nursery. God has never turned away from our questions and doubts. They are written as prayers in the Psalms of lament and can lead to a deep and authentic faith. Doubting Thomas is the patron saint of Christians in India, for history and tradition tells us that Thomas went to one of the furthest corners of the world to proclaim the Gospel of the one who knew how to handle his doubts and lead him to an even deeper faith.

LOST CHILDREN IN A WORLD OF DOUBT, HOPEFUL CHILDREN IN A WORLD OF FAITH The gift of love we give to our children can grow into a gift of faith. Baptism plants the seed of the Spirit that marks them “as Christ’s own forever.” It is an irrevocable gift that will reach out to grow; waiting for the nurturing family…..telling the stories, celebrating the blessings, unafraid of the questions and even carrying the doubts with a patience that may challenge our own faith until God’s time of revealing comes for hopeful children in a world of faith.

Jesus does not leave Thomas in doubt but comes to him, leads him to faith and sends him. And the promises we make in the Baptismal Covenant will not allow us to leave out children in doubt, lost in a world without faith. The long walk of commitment that is the Easter Faith is made vivid today as we promise to support these children in their life in Christ.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for April 5 – Easter Sunday THE LORD IS RISEN, INDEED!

Were you ever kept awake through an entire night by fear or worry? Did the night seem longest, coldest, darkest just before the first rays of the rising sun? So it is with the Easter faith. It rises in the heart, sometimes slowly, and it may be weariness and tears that are first faintly warmed by the rising of a new sun that begins to tell us that Easter keeps happening and God wants it to happen in all of our lives.

“Since you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above.” (Col. 3:1) “Alleluia, Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed” - Greeting of the early church, the new family of Jesus Christ. They rejoiced in the risen Christ because their lives depended on it. Our lives do too. A from-the-heart Easter is not just the remembrance of an event two thousand years ago, it is a feast of hope for every age – especially those times when hope is challenged.

Easter (Resurrection of Jesus) confronts two of the greatest issues all human beings must face: 1) The problem of evil and our struggle with suffering. 2) The possibility of healing and renewal in our lives, the personal transformation we are called to in Jesus Christ.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL On the day of the Crucifixion, the followers of Jesus must have pondered some disturbing questions: Was Jesus wrong about everything? Had he failed? Had God failed? Is there a God at all? Can the power of death so recklessly wielded by blind and violent people bring an end to all that is good? Can evil silence the truth with violence? (“What is truth?” said Pilate.) They are important questions for us all, for if death is the ultimate power, the ultimate reality, the silencer, then death is God and we are all in deep trouble. Where is justice, where is hope, if the power of evil that uses violence to crush the innocent is triumphant? (If the murderer triumphs over his innocent victim.) If death is God what reason is there for all of us not to grab all we can for ourselves in our brief moment in time, making selfishness our standard and disregarding the needs of others. Unselfish love which holds together families and societies would be only for fools.

This is a picture of the world under the dominion of sin and death and this is what Jesus Christ has saved us from. (Alleluia, Christ is risen!) The message of Easter takes us even further, “not only has Christ been raised but we have been raised with Him.” (Hebrews 2:15) By His death and resurrection, Christ “frees” those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. The slavery of being bent inward upon ourselves, afraid to give ourselves up to God’s call of love and service, the slavery of sin — the chains of the soul — that brings death to the living. “Do not seek the living among the dead...” says God’s messenger. Who are the dead? Are we among them? Alleluia Christ is risen! Life itself is transformed. Ask Him anew to enter your life.

LIVES TRANSFORMED BY THE RISEN CHRIST There has at times been an obsession with finding “proof” of the resurrection. But the truth is that from the first dawn of Easter faith, when terrified men who had deserted Jesus were suddenly proclaiming that he still lives, and through the centuries, it has been the witness of transformed lives more than anything that has been the sign of the presence of the Risen Christ alive and at work in the world. And now God bids us to be a part of that resurrected Body of Christ. In the words of the prophet Ezekiel, “God has given us a new heart and a new spirit...” a spirit that can rise above all those discouragements and deaths, great and small, that life can deal to us. A spirit that is not intimidated by the earthly shadows of defeat and death into living a totally self-centered existence. The Holy Spirit released through Jesus Christ is God’s gift to a broken world, filling us with a vision of God’s Kingdom and an enduring sense that we are part of something bigger and greater than ourselves. It is a vision often hidden in simple things, but we can see it with eyes of faith when we look beyond all the glittering hype and illusions of our time to the redemptive possibilities of common things, small but important victories for God’s Kingdom every time we can reach out and lift each other up. In this is resurrection.

In that reaching, in that lifting, in that caring, we will be wounded by life’s pain and wearied by life’s routines but Christ has uplifted especially the wounded and the weary. In His rising we too are raised and can say from the heart: “Alleluia, Christ is risen” and because of that my life is changed and God’s gift of new beginnings which brought creation from chaos, freedom from slavery and resurrection from crucifixion can bring renewal and hope to each of our lives. Today is not the end of the story, it is the beginning, a new season to embrace with joy and hope God’s gift of life renewed.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for March 22 – The 5th Sunday of Lent SIR, WE WISH TO SEE JESUS

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:21) In today’s Gospel, a group of seekers ask to “see Jesus” and the question is raised for all of us: Where will we find Jesus?

1. IN THE MANY CALLS TO DYING AND RISING WE RECEIVE IN THIS LIFE Jesus uses a compelling illustration from farming to teach of the power of sacrificial love. “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) This is what Jesus will do in his dying and rising for us. (The Paschal Mystery) This is what God will do for us in following Jesus in the ministry of service. In those times when the price of sacrificial love seems more than we can bear, Jesus offers us words of comfort and strength: “Come to me all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-30) In this we can find the strength to begin again and know Christ’s resurrection power as a renewing power in our own life.

2. WE FIND JESUS WHEN WE ARE BURDENED BY GUILT AND TURN TO HIM God’s Word tells us that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) There is a God given value in our life and a power to begin again because of what Christ has done for us.

3. WE FIND JESUS IN RESPONDING TO THE NEEDS OF OTHERS The hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner...and when we serve them, we serve Jesus himself. (Matthew 25:40)

4. WE FIND JESUS WHEN WE ARE IN DOUBT and find that he can come to us in the midst of the storm (Matthew 8:24) and say “if you have faith even as small as a mustard seed” you will move mountains of fear, mountains of doubt and see clearly a new road of hope. (Matthew 17:20)

5. WHEN WOUNDS OF ANGER MAKE FORGIVENESS SEEM IMPOSSIBLE We find Jesus in the prayer he taught us: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

6. WE FIND JESUS WHEN IN OUR DAILY WALK WE CAN BEGIN TO SEE THE SACRED IN ORDINARY THINGS AND THANK GOD FOR HIS PROVIDENCE that clothes the lilies of the field and brings forth bread from the earth. (Matthew 6:30-33)

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Open your eyes of faith. You will find Jesus everywhere.

Father Hagerman

Homily Highlights for March 15 – The 4th Sunday 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 2nd Sunday 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