Tag Archives: Mark

Powerful and Awe-Inspiring Moments (Sermon) February 15, 2015

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Sermon – February 15, 2015

The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY

The Last Sunday After Epiphany, Year B

The Transfiguration

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Mark 9:2-4

 Please be seated.

The church I grew up in had changed radically by the early 60s.  It was in a city, whose neighborhoods were changing, really disappearing from around the church.  The church was right downtown, close to the state capitol and office buildings for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The many neighborhoods, especially the predominantly African-American neighborhoods that had once been there, were being swallowed up by the needs of state government and urban renewal plans.  There was not much neighborhood around the church by the early 1960s.

But the church called a new pastor in 1963 and he challenged those there to revitalize the church.  My father heard this Pastor on the radio one Sunday and soon after, started attending.  By 1966, my mother converted from Roman Catholicism and we all started attending.

As I neared Junior High School a couple of years later – 7th Grade – I became very excited, because I’d be able to participate in the church youth group activities.  The church had called an Assistant Pastor and he focused on youth and young married couples.  There were a number of other adults who also assisted with the youth group and they seemed fun to be around.

So I was glad when it came time for me to join this group of 7th – 12th graders.  Now for the first 3 years, I attended confirmation classes prior to the youth group meetings.  Our Youth Group addressed many of the issues of the day such as the Vietnam War, the War on Poverty and Civil Rights.  We formed a singing group which performed songs with many of the themes of our time interspersed with written words and poems… songs like Blowin’ in the Wind or If I Had a Hammer.

We explored our faith and how it led us to take action.  We explored our belief in God.  Those were the days when Time Magazine had a cover story, Is God Dead?  There was a lot of questioning about belief in God and the place of the church.  I had gone to church as long as I could remember.  I wanted to believe in God.  I loved the story of Jesus Christ.  But I didn’t feel my belief deep in my soul and heart.

My best friend at the time and I would often go into the sanctuary in the evenings when it was dark, except for the Sanctuary light, which burned to let us know God was in this place.  We’d talk and share the deepest concerns of our 12-year old lives, including how we understood God.  We’d talk to God there.

Our youth group also went on retreats about twice a year.  Weekends away where we’d have fun and deepen our faith.  In the fall of my 8th grade year, we went to a retreat house just outside a small Pennsylvania town.  On Sunday morning, we had our church service, which was very free-form.  I remember the day was cold and late fall and very sunny.  We started saying The Lord’s Prayer and I started crying…tears streaming down my face.  Because I knew…I finally knew that God was real…that God was with me and in me.  I knew it deep in my soul.  I had experienced transfiguration.

In today’s Gospel Reading, we hear about Jesus’ transfiguration or being changed into something beautiful.  Jesus and the Disciples had left the region around the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up Mt. Tabor.

Mt. Tabor rises almost 1900 feet out of the Jezreel Valley.  It’s a steep climb up to the top. It’s understandable that not everyone made the climb.  But what happened on that mountain was crucial for the Disciples.  It was an experience both powerful and scary.  So powerful that Peter wanted to make monuments there.  And many paintings depict the disciples falling down part of the mountain in fear.  I mean, what would you do if you saw Moses and Elijah speaking to Jesus and then heard a voice from heaven confirming that Jesus was beloved and should be listened to?

But, you see, God knew what was coming when those disciples walked down that mountain.  They were setting off to Jerusalem and to another mount – Calvary.  God knew that the disciples would be very confused by the way salvation was going to come to them.  They were expecting a restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and being freed from the Romans.  But that wasn’t going to be how things worked out.  God knew it would be a hard road for all of them.  So, God gave them this powerful and awe-inspiring and unforgettable moment…a moment to hang on to when life got confusing and challenging.

What are those moments for you?  What are those times when you’ve felt peace or joy, especially in the community of God?  Or those times when amazing “coincidences” happened? Those times when you are filled with awe?  Those times when you experience a power beyond yourself?  I hope you’ve had them.  God gives them to us to hang on to when life is difficult and hard.

I’ve forgotten plenty of things in my life, but I’ve never forgotten that moment when I was 13, on that retreat, saying The Lord’s Prayer.  I can picture it just as clearly as if it happened yesterday.  Yes, since then, I’ve had tough and challenging times in my life…times when I didn’t feel so close to God, but that experience at 13 has kept me close to God at the same time…sometimes just by a thread, but nonetheless unshakeable in my belief in God.

Hold on…hold on to those moments of transfiguration – powerful and awe-inspiring.  They comfort you on the journeys through the valleys of difficult and challenging times.

Amen

Amazed! (Sermon) February 1, 2015

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Sermon – February 1, 2015

The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY

The Fourth Sunday After Epiphany, Year B

They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching– with authority! Mark 1:27

Please be seated.

This week, I’ve been remembering and thinking about my experiences in addressing hunger.  How was it that I came to believe that following Jesus meant addressing issues like hunger?

My earliest memory is of being in Junior High School in the late 60s and waking my parents up early on Friday mornings.  The church I grew up in had partnered with the church down the street to make sure the children in the public housing complex in our neighborhood got breakfast each morning before they went to school.  Obviously, this was before school breakfast programs.

The mothers in the housing complex knew that a good breakfast was essential to their children getting a good education.  A number of the mothers attended the neighboring church and said they wanted to start this program.  They needed additional help, and members of my church helped on Fridays.  I remember there were plenty of wonderful stories about my parents going to help the mothers with this breakfast.  Sometimes the children didn’t like the food, but the mothers made it clear they’d better eat it.

In 1972, there was a huge flood in Harrisburg.  Only a small part of the center city did not get flooded, which included my church.  So many people were devastated by this flood and having enough food was a major issue.  Some people got together and started a food pantry in the basement of the church.  Suddenly, the little stage and much of the storage space in the church was filled with cans and cans of food and brown paper bags.  Lots of volunteers came to help.  My church regularly collected food.  If you visited the church during a weekday, you’d often find people waiting to get their bag of food.  When my father retired and as long as he was able, he was a volunteer at this Food Pantry.

Early on, I learned that following Jesus meant finding a way for people that were hungry to get food.  I guess that’s why when I found out Corbin Presbyterian needed help unloading 9,000 pounds of food and packing 312 boxes for senior citizens, I was happy to go help.  I guess that’s why I’m so excited about the Grow Appalachia program that makes it possible for people to learn how to grow their own fresh food and to sell some or give it away to others.  I guess that’s why I was so happy for Knox County Community Economic Council to use our park last summer as a lunch site for children.

In our Gospel today, Jesus astounds and amazes the people in Galilee.  He teaches with authority.  He rebukes the unclean spirits and makes them come out of people.  In essence, he challenges people to think differently.  I hear this amazement as excitement, but I’m sure some were thinking, “who does he think he is?”

Most of us don’t like to be challenged to think differently.  Yet, that’s what Jesus does throughout his entire ministry…challenges the status quo.  He asks us to love our neighbors.  He asks us to love ourselves.  He asks us to serve our neighbors.  He challenges all of the hierarchies we build between who’s rich and who’s poor, between who’s superior and who’s inferior, between genders, between people of different ages.

Love is at the heart of the message of Jesus…love for all of humanity…love for all of creation.   Making sure people have the basic needs for a good life:  food, clothing, shelter, meaningful work at a living wage, and a healthy environment, for no other reason than that they are beloved of God.

It’s a lot to ask and when we follow Jesus, Jesus never stops turning our world upside down and challenging us.

In the early 1980s, I was a new single mom.  My children were 4 and 5.  I had lots of family support and I was working really hard to be self-sufficient.  I’d gotten a new job with better benefits, although not much more money, but I wouldn’t get a paycheck for four weeks – your first bi-weekly check was held.  My apartment was pretty good, but there were railroad tracks close by and when the trains went by, the rattling of the apartment would make the dining room light come on.  But it had been hard as a single mom with two kids to even find a landlord willing to rent to us.

One Saturday, there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find my pastor.  He was carrying a brown bag of food from the Food Pantry.  I was overwhelmed to be the recipient of one of these bags of food and so grateful to be able to stretch my dollars for the month.  After he left and as I was unpacking the food, I found a check for $25 in the bag.  I was amazed.

That’s what following Jesus does…encourages us to come together and care for others in ways that may go against our inclinations.  In the process Jesus teaches us new things with authority and we are amazed.

Amen

 

Born Saying God’s Name (Sermon) January 11, 2015

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Sermon – January 11, 2015

The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, CSW

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Corbin, KY

The First Sunday After Epiphany:  The Baptism of the Lord

Year B

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.11And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ Mark 1:10-11

Please Be Seated

Yesterday, my son, Scot, turned 40!  Where did the time go?  Naturally, at this time, I recall the day he was born and many other memories over the years.  His son, Logan, is so much like him that I often call him Scot instead of Logan!  It’s like I’m seeing my son grow up all over again, sort of.

But even in remembering, there’s so much we forget.  I don’t think too many, if any, of us remember the day we were born.  As adults, we talk about how traumatic it must be for a child to be born after nine months in a comfortable place with all of their needs met.  We make jokes about how a baby cries when it’s born.  Of course it’s important for a baby to cry at birth as a sign their lungs are cleared out and working well, but it seems to resonate with the trauma of being born into the world.  But none of us remembers that trauma, at least not overtly.

Sinead O’Connor in her recording from 1995, had a song that suggested babies are also born in spiritual trauma.  The words are:

 

All babies are born saying God’s name
Over and over,
All born singing God’s name
All babies are flown from the Universe
From there they’re lifted by the hands of angels
God gives them the stars to use as ladders
She hears their calls
She is mother and father
All babies are born out of great pain
Over and over
All born into great pain
All babies are crying
For no-one remembers God’s name

 

All Babies, Sinead O’Connor

 

“All babies are crying for no one remembers God’s name.”  It’s like when we’re born, a process of forgetting God ensues.  We’re born into a world that values what we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands or physical selves over what we can see with our hearts and touch with our spirits.  A world that discounts intuition and a sixth sense.  A world that in many places and in many ways is uncomfortable with, even afraid of, mystery and of unknowing.

 

We are born into this world with strong connections to God and our own spirits.  We don’t have a way to communicate with words for awhile, so we are very connected to our bodies and to what we experience in them.  But, it seems like as we grow older, we’re taught to ignore our bodies and hearts in favor of passing the standardized math and reading tests.  We forget how to read ourselves and each other.

 

Many times, we begin to accept this “vain” world’s assessment of us.  We’re not pretty.  We’re not smart.  We think funny.  We dress funny.  We don’t make enough money.  We aren’t good enough.  We forget that God created our diversity and that the norm is diversity rather than conformity.

 

That’s why renewing our baptismal vows is important.  Those of us baptized as children may only have a photograph of the event, but in a very real sense, that baptism was telling our spirits to remember where we came from…to remember God’s name.  As we got older and once again surrendered to the world’s assessment of us, renewing our baptismal vows reminds us that in the waters of baptism, we died to the world’s view of us and were returned or reborn to God’s view of us.

 

And God’s view of us is that we were perfectly created.  No, we are not God.  We are not perfect in that we know everything or can do everything or see everything.  We are perfect in the part of the body of Christ that we are.  We are perfect in our humanity.  We don’t have every talent, but we have talent…talent necessary for the world.  We don’t possess all knowledge, but we possess knowledge that is necessary for the world.  We don’t have all intelligence, but we have intelligence that is necessary for the world.  We don’t have all understanding of God, but we have understanding of God that is necessary for the world.

 

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, the heavens were torn apart, so the Holy Spirit could break in and the voice of God could confirm that Jesus was a child of God, beloved of God and that God was pleased.

 

And we need those same reminders.  When we renew our baptismal vows…when we feel the water sprinkled on us, God is breaking through to us…recalling to us what we knew when we were born…reminding us of God’s name.  God is reminding us that the Holy Spirit is right with us.  God is reminding us that we are beloved children and that God is well pleased with us.  Then we are prepared to go into the world in peace to love and to serve God.

 

Amen