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SERMONS

The Second Sunday after Pentecost
June 2, 2002

By Frank Spencer

The message in the Scripture readings for today is for us to listen to God's word and to respond to that word with obedience. Today, God is calling us in Deuteronomy through the words of a Prophet and in the Gospel lesson from Matthew through the words of Jesus. God is calling us to listen, to hear, and, critically, to apply God's Holy Word to our lives.

In the Old Testament lesson of Deuteronomy, God speaks to us through Moses, to tell us that we are to put the words of God into our hearts and souls, that we are to bind them as a sign on our hands, that we are to fix them as an emblem on our foreheads and to write them on our doorposts and gates, and that we are to teach them to our children and consider them at all times.

Moses then tells us that in hearing God's Word, we are being presented with both a blessing and a curse. A blessing if we obey, a curse if we turn away from the Lord's calling to follow other gods.

What does it mean if we don't respond by obedience to God's Words to us? The answer can be found in the Book of Common Prayer. In case you did not realize it and I was an Episcopalian for at least 8 years before I realized it, our Book of Common Prayer is one of the most valuable tools we have available to us in our spiritual journey. If you use it, the Book of Common Prayer is almost as valuable as the Bible in assisting us to understand God's word.

Please don't misunderstand me, in our tradition we know that the Bible is inspired by God and contains everything we need to know to obtain salvation. But by studying and following the worship forms in the Book of Common Prayer, we become the beneficiaries of the traditions and reasoning of two thousand years of Christian thinkers to help us better understand the Bible, to know how to best enter into worship, and to more fully understand the call of God to mankind and to each one of us.

Although I had thought about the concept of sin in my 55 years of life, I had never attempted to focus on what sin really was until fairly recently. That is, what sin was apart from a violation of the Ten Commandments. I knew that breaking any of the Ten Commandments was a sin but beyond that I'm not sure I could have adequately explained just what is sin. I found the answer for me in that portion of the Prayer Book called the Catechism.

The Catechism states simply and profoundly that sin is the seeking of our own will and not the will of God. The Catechism also goes on to tell us that by not obeying God's will but following our own, we distort our relationship with God, with humankind, and, in fact, with all creation. We sin when we follow our own will after being seduced by the false gods which we were warned us about in Deuteronomy. False gods such as greed and pride or the lust for wealth or power, just to name a few. False gods who distort our sacred relationships and throw our souls and lives out of balance and bring upon us the curses forecast by Moses.

In the Gospel lesson from Saint Matthew, we see again the call for obedience to God's word. This time the call comes from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus whom we Christians know as the Living Word. You see, the words of the Prophets in the Old Testament turned out to be insufficient in themselves to adequately explain God's Word, and God's Grace, and God's call to humanity.

Through the Grace of God, Jesus came to humanity to supplement that Word. Jesus came as the Living Word and he came to help us understand that the words of the Old Testament must always be read in context with God's absolute love for humanity that the words must be interpreted in context with God's Grace, and that God expects us to act out of the Grace we have received.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught and explained to the multitudes following him many of the wonderful Christian principals we seek to follow. Jesus began by pronouncing blessings on the citizens of God's kingdom in the series of blessings we call the Beatitudes. He told the crowd such things as: not to judge others lest they would also be judged and that his followers would love not only their neighbors but also their enemies. Jesus quoted several of the Ten Commandments and then he told the multitude that God expected them to demonstrate love even beyond the requirements of these Commandments.

Jesus gave them the prayer we know as The Lord's Prayer which required them to forgive as they were asking for forgiveness from God. He gave them the Golden Rule.

He told them not to worry about storing up treasures on Earth but that God would provide for them just as God provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. That if they needed anything, all they had to do was to ask God and it would be provided just as a Father provides for his child when asked.

Matthew then writes that Jesus concluded the Sermon on the Mount with two admonitions. The first admonition was the chilling anticipation of the plea of some who will appeal to him on Judgment day calling "Lord! Lord!"

Jesus warned the crowd that not everyone would enter the kingdom of heaven, not even all of those claiming to be his followers. He said that the people that will enter will be only those who do the will of the Father in heaven. Jesus thus warned the multitude and us of the uselessness of a mere outward profession of Christianity. After people have heard the Word of the Father, they must choose whether to obey and if they chose to obey they must take positive action.

The second admonition came when Jesus told the crowd that those who hear his words and act on them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. When the rains fell, and the floods came and the winds blew, the house stood unhurt because it had been built on the rock. But, Jesus warned, every one who heard his words and failed to obey them would be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand and when the storm came the house fell and great was its fall.

These words of Jesus encouraging us to build our houses on rock has become know as the foundation passage. As I was preparing for this homily, I reflected on what I knew about foundations, especially firm foundations. My thoughts went immediately to the foundations I had joined with some of you and other Episcopalians to build in Honduras. The Habitat homes that we built were built on truly firm foundations. In fact, the houses that Habitat builders have built in Honduras were so strong that Hurricane Mitch which struck Honduras in 1999 left the Habitat structures relatively unharmed in spite of immense damage to neighboring buildings and homes.

For those of you who weren't with us, imagine if you will, the ground on the side of a mountain. It contains boulders and rocks and the rich black soil that results from the erosion of the volcanic rocks which make up the mountains. To build a Habitat house foundation there, you dig trenches about three feet deep and about a foot and half wide. The trenches underlie where the outside of the house and each of the walls within the house will be. It's very difficult work and it takes a couple of days for a crew to dig the trenches even for the small 20 X 30 homes we build.

When the trenches have been dug, you put back in a layer of the largest boulders. Then you mix the concrete, the Spanish word is mescala and pour it into the trench to bind the boulders together. Part of the crew mixes mescala right on the ground and the rest place boulders and rocks into the trenches and mescala is poured layer after layer until the foundation footing reaches the surface of the ground. At that point, two rows of cinder blocks are put on the footing, the dirt previously dug from the trenches is put back as fill dirt and 6 inches of concrete are poured to make the floor.

It is hard work but when you are finished you have a very strong foundation. The foundation in a Honduras Habitat House insures that the concrete block walls of the homes will be supported and will not collapse. It also ties the home in with the boulders in the rocky soil so that the home won't slide off the mountain during the heavy rains and mudslides which occur during heavy storms and hurricanes.

I thought also about the firm foundations that we build in other aspects of our lives and especially in our church lives. For instance, I was privileged to have been present at the service at Chapel of the Cross on May 19th when I witnessed our Journey to Adulthood class being commissioned to depart on their pilgrimage to San Francisco. For those of you who are visitors or have become a part of the Chapel family within the last few years, you should know that the Chapel had tried repeatedly over the past 12 years to have a program for young people that would attract them to church on Sunday. Although we tried and tried hard, we failed year after year. We would start a new program every year and desperately hope that we would have enough teachers and that the young people would want to come. No matter how desperately we wanted the programs to succeed, the youth programs failed year after year.

Finally, about 5 years ago, church leaders made the effort and built a firm foundation for the youth program. We began not at the last minute, but months early and planned for the future. We looked for programs around the nation that were working in other churches. We met repeatedly and researched all aspects of the potential programs. We also prayed a lot because we knew the importance of the program to our young people and to our church. The result is now here for everyone to see. The program is successful, successful, in fact, beyond my own original expectations. All because we finally took the time to plan and then to build the program on the appropriate firm foundation for our youth.

Why is a firm foundation necessary? I have given you the reasons for the firm foundation of a habitat home and our J2A classes, but what was Jesus talking about?

As I reflected on this passage, I thought that it might be informative to look at what an early church leader had to say about the foundation passage. And so I went to the sermons of St. John Chrysostom. Chrysostom lived between 350 and 400 A.D. and is considered one of the great sermon writers of the Christian faith. He wrote in a sermon regarding this passage of Matthew: By "rain" and "floods," and "winds," Jesus is expressing metaphorically the calamities and afflictions that befall men; such as false accusations, plots, bereavements, deaths, loss of friends, vexations from strangers, all the ills in our life that any one could mention. "But to none of these, doth such a soul give way; and the cause is, it is founded on the rock." Jesus calls the steadfastness of His doctrine a rock; because in truth His commands are stronger than any rock, setting one above all the waves of human affairs. [The one] who keeps these things strictly, will not [only] have the advantage of men when they are vexing him, but even of the very devils plotting against him.

And the apostles too are our witnesses, for when the waves of the whole world were beating against them, when both nations and princes, both their own people and strangers, both the evil spirits and the devil, and every engine was set in motion, they stood firmer than a rock, and dispersed it all. In some respects, things are not that different in the 1600 years since St. Chrysostom preached. I recognized in the words of Chrysostom some of the same serious storms and calamities that I have faced in my life journey. Thankfully, my foundation of faith has been there to take me through the storms.

Jesus calls us today as he called St. Chrysostom and the apostles and all of us who call ourselves Christians to build lives based upon a foundation of faith shaped by God's Word. He calls us to build the foundation not only by listening but also by acting in obedience to God's word. In truth, listening to God's word can only become relevant when it is translated into action.

I know there are some in the church today who do not know me and some of you who know me do not know why I am in the pulpit. The reason is that as a student in the Deacon's school, it is time for me to give my first homily to my church family. In doing so, I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity, to encourage you to respond to God's Word by involvement in some type of servant ministry. That is, some action to assist those who are less fortunate than ourselves. You see, the role of the Deacon in the Episcopal Church is to bring the needs of the world to the church and then to enable and lead Christians out into the world as the Body of Christ to perform works of Servant Ministry. God willing, I am 6 months away from being ordained and assuming that role.

This church and our Episcopal Diocese have very active servant ministry programs. There are opportunities to help with Habitat Projects both here and in Honduras, to participate in Amos, to work in any of the Stewpot ministries, to be a lay eucharistic minister or many, many other opportunities. I urge everyone to make some of these types of servant ministry one of the rocks in your foundation of faith. If you would like further information about these programs, or if you have some other servant ministry calling, please get in touch with me, I will be glad to talk with you, and there is plenty to do.

Take it from a fellow traveler who was transformed by his work in Servant Ministry. God's Grace will follow you and God's Grace will never be more obvious to you. Amen.

Frank Spencer
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi