Jesus, a Racist? On Identity & Call

Aug 16, 2020

Pentecost 11th Sunday

Fr.  Phil Eberhart 

The Racist Jesus & Our  Identity

Have you ever been completely misunderstood because you used a certain word or phrase in a sentence?   People or an individual just couldn't get past that word to a different interpretation of what you said?  I think that happens a lot actually.   It's endemic to the nature of communication itself,  and so we constantly have to go beyond the words to context and intention before we judge one another for what we say. 

Jesus gets into that pickle here in our gospel this morning.  It's one of the "sticky wickets" among the sayings of Jesus in all the gospels.   On the face of it,  calling another human a "dog" is racist.  Right? 

That's most people's conclusions here. What a horrible thing to say,  we judge!  And we completely miss the potential of this encounter to teach us about the nature of identity and of calling.

IDENTITY

Identity is made of many different things:  physical characteristics of your person,  your sex,  your skin color,  your... race.  Basics.  To that we add your place in a cultural hierarchy, your belief or faith,  your wealth or lack,  your education, jobs and work,  e.t.c.   The list is long and distinguished! 

To say that these factors were at play in our gospel reading is to state the obvious,  but what we're missing is the fact that while the disciples wanted to chase the woman off, Jesus engages her need and her person,  speaking with her at all - which was outside the boundaries.  She knew it! 

Her importunity, her persistence turns immediately to humility when Jesus engages her in conversation! 

Much to her surprise and, I would add the disciples... again... Jesus turns and has a conversation with a Gentile... ANATHEMA... and a woman to boot. GASP!!

Jesus's reason given to her is his own life call and identity!   "To the children of the house of Israel!"  Jesus and His calling is crystal clear.  BUT...

God is moved by prevailing prayer and persistent, overcoming faith!

Jesus is actually amazed at the faith of the woman and her prayer is answered.   It may be time for us to take note of the persistence and desperation of a Gentile woman and come and do likewise! 

ONE LAST WORD... OUR IDENTITY

Just as Jesus was clear on his personhood,  his identity and his calling from God,  it's of paramount importance that we also understand who we are and Whose we are! 

I just want to read a verse from our Psalm this morning...

7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Just as surely as Jesus had an identity,  we have an identity and a calling!   We've heard for years about the effect of our devotion to God's Word,  to a Shared life,  to our Eucharistic Hospitality and to Prayer, but this is even more basic,  more core IDENTITY FOR US TODAY AT REZ! 

1.  This is A Holy Place... a Holy Hill. We've felt it and its been affirmed by almost all who come to this spot to worship , to read or to pray and intercede! 

2.   God's presence... his Joy is here.  We need to let his joy become a hallmark of our life together. 

3.  We are to offer acceptable sacrifices and offerings in this place.   It is the re-establishment of an Altar in the city.  As we worship in Spirit and in Truth, in both Word and Sacrament here on this Altar... we're releasing more and more of the Kingdom of heaven into the kingdoms of this world... of this present darkness. 

4.  God Himself is bringing this verse to full fruition among us in this place.  It is our IDENTITY!  A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS.  More and more I pray for this to become a living reality in our midst and in this place,  for the glory of the Lamb and the furthering of the Kingdom of God to flow from this hilltop. 

Won't you pray with me? 

11.  for  the  local  congregation 

O God the Holy Spirit,  Sanctifier of the faithful:  Sanctify this  Congregation  by your abiding presence.  Bless those who minister in holy things.  Enlighten the minds of your people more and more with the light of the everlasting Gospel.  Bring erring souls to the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ;  and those who are walking in the way of life,  keep steadfast to the end.  Give patience to the sick and afflicted,  and renew them in body and soul.  Guard those who are strong and prosperous from forgetting you.  Increase in us your many gifts of grace,  and make us all fruitful in good works. This we ask,  O blessed Spirit, whom with the Father and the Son we worship and glorify,  one God, world without end.    Amen.

Epiphany III - The Call

Epiphany III

January 26, 2014

Fr. Philip Eberhart

The Call

Do you ever spend time wondering what the purpose of life is?   What the purpose of YOUR life is?  

I think we all have that innate desire for our life to have meaning and purpose.  The search for meaning has been the subject of countless writers, biographers and storytellers the world over for countless centuries.  It exists for all of us, as surely as the ache that we have inside for that "something more" - something beyond us, something transcendent.  Thus the "idea" that we call GOD is something that is "built in" to our core - we have an innate need to worship - so innate in fact that we do it automatically, kind of like breathing.

God, in creation, knit us together, the Psalmist tells us.  In that knitting, God placed within us threads of longing - longing to know and to be known by the ONE who created us.  We all have that longing.  We pursue that longing in a myriad of different ways and in a million different directions.

This morning's sermon is simply entitled, THE CALL.

It reflects not our search of the ways and directions of our heart's longing to know and be known, but the voice of the ONE, whom, if heeded, will answer that longing and fill us all with the meaning and purpose HE designed us to have.

At the root of the call that God has on a life is the love that God has for each of us and for our lives.  God designed us to be able to grasp that love - as the apostle Paul prayed it, "to know how high, and how wide, and how long and how deep is the love of Christ - and to experience that love in its fullness, though we cannot possibly grasp its fullness."  The New Living says, "Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God!"  It is an incredible, even an incomprehensible promise!  The love of God is so HUGE that we cannot possibly comprehend it - just to get a glance at it will change a life forever!

But there it is.  It is that glance, that grasp, as minuscule as it admittedly is, that changes everything.  Paul once again reflected on how that perspective changed things for him: 

After a long list of his accomplishments by birth and hard work, study and discipline, Paul says, "I once thought all these things valuable, but now I consider them worthless - quite like garbage or even dung, in comparison with the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.  I have discarded it all that I might gain Christ and become one with Him! ... to KNOW HIM and the power that raised him from the dead - to come to suffer with him and eventually, to be raised like him from the dead.

Towards all this, Paul says, I firmly press - running so as to win the prize and receive this promise of life in Christ Jesus.

Friends, you see, - once we grasp the love of God everything else fades into the background - like a wash on a watercolor painting in contrast with the sharp lines of the love of God displayed on the Cross for all to see.

This is what we hear so clearly in Paul's testimony of his own life and his own call.  In our Corinthian reading this morning, Paul says it clearly:

Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

Paul's call was comprised of three elements:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Cross, and The Power of the Cross

Our call is similarly structured, as is the call of every Christian in the world

==============

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

The Good News (that's what "gospel" means) of Jesus Christ

So what is the good news?

One of my professors and others have described it as Good News / Bad News / Good News:

Good news =  God created and loves you.  He designed you from the ground up!

                          He knows you "inside and out" - backward and forward, up and down.

                          Every thought, action, good and bad - He knows it before it even is.

                          And He loves you - with an everlasting love!  An unconditional love.  It just is.

and as one of my pastor friends, Gary Hines, says, "There is nothing you can do about it!"

BAD NEWS =  You (we) have told God to get away from us!  Leave us alone; don't mess with me.

                          I can do it myself!  We've done the exact opposite of what He says - disobeyed and rebelled.

                          Needless to say this caused a giant chasm!  Like the Grand Canyon except infinitely bigger!

[recently I watched a special about a tightwire walker who walked a wire all the way across the Grand Canyon!  True!]

                          NOT THIS GRAND CANYON!  There is no way for us to get there from here!  NO WAY ... in and of ourselves!

GOOD NEWS =  Jesus!  John 3:16 ... God so loved that HE GAVE!

                             He made a way for us to come back across.  A CROSS!  The only way across the divide is A Cross!

                             Jesus is the way.

==========

THE CROSS

We think that for God to straighten up our mess was a pretty simple thing!  But I want you to look at what it took.

The Almighty God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, knew the end from the beginning - before creation God knew all

this was going to happen, and He made the provision for Salvation, even before Creation!  Jesus, was the "lamb

of God, slain from the foundation of the world."  The Son of God, was sent by the Father, to be born, to live and to

die.  

Wait a minute - GOD DIED? 

Yes and here is the secret to the power of the Cross:  God willingly gave himself up, in Jesus Christ, for our sin.

God took the sin of the world into His own heart, died to pay its penalty - the penalty which separates us all from Him.

He took our sin to the grave with Him and left it there, dead and gone.  Paid in full!  Jesus was executed on our behalf!

But that's only part of the story!

=============

THE POWER OF THE CROSS

The power of the Cross is the Resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus didn't stay dead - the grave could not hold him - death was

overcome - beaten!  Sin itself has lost its power, because of the Cross of Jesus.

One of my favorite moments in the Passion of the Christ is the moment that the soldier spears Jesus side on the cross,

and immediately he is showered with a spray of blood and water, as John testified.  Now that is probably movie license

but it is one of the most amazing moments for me - it is what it means for us to be "washed" in the blood of the Lamb!

And it happened in the movie to the very one who pierced our Lord!  

We are that one!  We are those who drove the nails and cast the lash at the whipping post!  We are the ones who cried out

for blood and who freed Barabbas!  We are the ones whom the blood of Jesus Christ was spilled by - and the ones that the 

blood of Jesus Christ was spilled for.

The Power of the Cross is the life that we have been given IN HIM.   "He who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might become, In HIM, the very righteousness of God!"

This is the Power of the Cross.  This is the Good News of the Gospel.

So what?

Well the so what is that like the disciples that Jesus called in our gospel reading we are being called to "Follow Me, and I

will make you Fishers of Men."  I will make you fish for people!

Our opening collect says it this way:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, 

that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works.

Friends, the Call that God has for each of us is this and simply this:  to tell the story.  Good News - Bad News - Good News

God has made a way for us to come back - to come back across the divide we created by our sin - to come by the way of The Cross.  To accept the work that Jesus has done on our behalf and to come back into a relationship with God, our loving creator.

That is what it's all about.  All of our life is so busy and distracted that we forget.

It's all about this one thing.

And today if you are listening and you've never understood this, or have never come to the end of this universal search for God and His love and meaning for your life.  You can come now.

All it takes is "yes, Lord, I believe and I receive your offer of salvation."

It is Good News!  Indeed.

Shall we pray:

"Lord Jesus Christ, You stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace."

I stretch out my arms and receive your embrace Lord.  No other has loved me the way you have loved me.  I receive your love.

(silence)

Now, so clothe me in Your Spirit, Lord Jesus, that I might reach my hands out to others, and to bring them to know and love you as I have.  I answer your Call, Lord.  Let me by a witness, by your Spirit's power, to your love and grace and faithfulness, all my days.

In Jesus name and for the sake of His Kingdom we pray,

Amen.