Come, Thou Long-Expected Prophet

Come, Thou Long-Expected Prophet

    

Fourth in Lent

Collect of the Day: Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Gospel: St. John 6:1-14

Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.

One of the problems married men have is figuring out what to do when wives present problems. Sometimes she tells you a problem, and you start proposing solutions, and she says, “I wasn’t asking for a solution - just listen.” You think you understand, so the next time she tells you a problem, you just nod. And she says, “So what’s the solution?”

The worst kind of problem to have presented to you is one that has no solution. That’s what happened to Philip. When Jesus saw a great crowd approaching - 5,000 men, and maybe if there were women and children, 20,000 people - he asked Philip, “Where are we going to buy bread so these people can eat?”

Perspective. To understand this story we have to see it from two perspectives.

The first perspective is the Old Testament background for the story. There is no doubt that, as John wrote the story in today’s Gospel, he had in mind two events involving food that happened when Moses was leading the Israelites through the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land.

Not long the people left Egypt there was a crisis about food. They grumbled to Moses:

Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Their real complaint was against the Lord. But the Lord showed them mercy. He told Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you,” and told Moses to say to the people:

At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

That evening the Lord covered the camp with quail. The next morning the people found “on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing.” They said to each other, “Manna?” or, “What is it?” That’s how the stuff got its name - manna. For the next 40 years, until they entered the Promised Land, the Lord provided them with heavenly bread, manna, 6 days a week.

Later there was another incident about food when some of the people got tired of the manna. They developed a strong craving for something else. They complained:

“Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at” (Numbers 11:5,6).

The Lord was very displeased with the people. Moses was deeply distressed. He said to the Lord, “Why have you put the burden of all these people on me and told me to carry them as a nurse carries a nursing child?”

Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me (Numbers 11:11-14).

The Lord told Moses he would take care of it, but Moses could not see how it was possible. He said, “There are 600,000 people here. If flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were slaughtered would that be enough? If all the fish in the sea could be caught, would they be enough?” The Lord replied, “Has my hand become so short I can’t do what I said? Now watch and see if what I said happens.”

Then the Lord fed them with quail again, but also sent as judgment for their ingratitude and grumbling.

The second perspective we need is what John tells us. Jesus and his disciples were on eastern side of the big lake in northern Israel, known by two names, the Sea of Galilee or the Sea of Tiberias. Passover was approaching. That makes it about this time of year. People in the region had seen or heard about Jesus’s miracles of healing, so they followed him. Jesus and his disciples went into into the hilly countryside and sat down. From there they could see the large crowd of people approaching.

So Jesus turned to Philip and said, “What are we going to about this? Where are we going to buy bread so that these people can eat?” Philip replied, “Not even if we had 200 denarii (pennyworth) worth of bread, would we have enough so that each person could have just a little piece.” A denarius was the daily pay of a laborer, so 200 denarii would be about what 8 months pay for a day laborer. That much money would buy a lot of bread, but it would be enough to give everyone only a little piece of bread.

Jesus knows all along what he is going to do, but he presents Philip with an unsurmountable problem. Jesus can be like that. He can know what he is going to do in our lives, but first he puts us in a situation that shows us it’s too big a problem for us to solve.

Then Andrew, who was Peter’s brother and partner in the fishing business, said, “Well, here’s a boy who has 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, but what are they when there are so many people to feed?” It was a poor boy’s food for a day away from home, 5 loaves of barley bread and two fish preserved either by drying or salting.

Here was something, but not much. If with Moses it took manna everyday to meet the needs of the Israelites, how are you going to feed 20,000 with 5 loaves of bread? If Moses thought all the fish in the sea would not be adequate for Israel in the wilderness, how are two fish going to feed this multitude? Obviously you aren’t. As Jesus sometimes faces us with unsolvable problems, so he sometimes faces us with situations where we have resources of money, energy, persistence, or spiritual strength, but they not adequate for the situation we face. We have something, but nowhere near what we need.

Prophet. Before Moses died, he predicted that in the future the Lord would send another prophet like him:“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deuteronomy 18:15).  Moses reminded them that when the Lord had spoken to them 40 years earlier at Mt. Sinai, they had said to Moses, “We can’t handle the Lord’s speaking to us directly. It’s too much. We’ll die. Let the Lord speak directly to you, and then you tell us what he says.” The Lord said to Moses, “They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him” (Deuteronomy 18:17,18).

What Jesus is doing is leading the  people to the confession that he is that Prophet Moses predicted long ago. Jesus had the people sit down. It was springtime so there was lots of grass. Once all were seated, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, and then had his disciples distribute it to the people. Then he took the 2 fish, again gave thanks, and had them distributed. People took all they wanted and ate to they were full. Then Jesus had the disciples gather up the leftovers, and there were 12 basketfuls.

This was a sign. Jesus’s miracles point to a reality. What reality?  In this case the people seemed to understood the significance of the sign: “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Jesus is the fulfillment of promise God would sent a Prophet like Moses.

• People - you and I - need to see, hear, and know God, but God’s holiness and glory are so great, if God appeared to us, we would die. How can we see God and live? When we see him in Jesus Christ, his Son, who is God in the flesh. St John tells.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14).

Or, as St. Paul put it

God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Do you want to see God and live? Do you want to hear the living Word of God? Do you want to know God, as he is, and not be destroyed by saved? Then focus Jesus. He is the full, final, and saving revelation of God. Know Jesus, know God - and be saved.

• This same Jesus is the bread of life who alone can satisfy hunger God had put in your soul. The day after Jesus fed this great multitude many of them found him again. It turned out they did not really understand the sign of the day before. What they wanted was a Messiah who could fill their bellies with food. They asked Jesus for another sign, a sign like Moses did when he fed people manna in the wilderness: But Jesus told them, and he tell us:

My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world... I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger... Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life... This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

How do you eat this bread that gives eternal life? By

      putting our faith in Jesus who died on the cross to give

you eternal life. You can strengthen that faith now and eat the life giving flesh of  Jesus as you “Take and eat this bread in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed upon him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.”

Can We Learn from the Past?

Can We Learn from the Past?

Third in Lent

Collect of the Day: We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Old Testament: Zechariah 1:1-6,12-17 (KJ21, p.1391)

Homily Text: Zechariah 1:1-6

1 In the eighth month in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,

2 “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with your fathers.

3 Therefore say thou unto them: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Turn ye unto Me,’ saith the Lord of hosts, ‘and I will turn unto you,’ saith the Lord of hosts.

4 Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying: Thus saith the Lord of hosts: ‘Turn ye now from your evil ways and from your evil doings.’ But they did not hear, nor hearken unto Me, saith the Lord.

5 Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for ever?

6 But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? And they returned and said, ‘As the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us.’”

“Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” That’s a slightly altered quote from the philosopher, Carlos Santayana, who wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We often hear a statement like that  made by people who want to make a point about what we should do or not do today. The trouble is that people don’t agree what lessons of history are.

Take for instance the Great Recession of 2008. What are its lessons? If in the future a recession of that magnitude happens what should people living then learn from the past? If you ask a conservative economist, he may say the lesson is that government intervention hinders, doesn’t hasten, recovery. If you ask a progressive economist, he may say the lesson is that too little government intervention too late increased the severity and length of recession. Who’s to say what lessons we should learn from history?

Fortunately in God’s Word we are told infallibly some lessons we should learn from the past. The portion of Zechariah’s prophecy we read this morning is one such place.

Prophet. In order to understand what Zechariah says, we have to ask, “Who was Zechariah?” We need to know more than he tells us in the first verse - that he lived in the time of Darius, King of Persia, and was the son of Berechiah and grandson of Iddo.

To know who Zechariah was we have to know a little about the history of Israel. David became king of the unified kingdom of Israel about 1000 B.C. About 80 years later, because of some dumb decisions by his grandson, King Jeroboam, the Kingdom split into a northern kingdom and southern kingdom. The northern kingdom was usually called Israel, and the southern, Judan. The northern kingdom never had a king who followed the Lord. By 722 the northern kingdom was conquered by the dominant Middle Eastern power, the Assyrians, and many of the citizens were deported.

Meanwhile the southern kingdom, known as Judah, was ruled by descendants of David. Some kings were good, some were bad. The Lord sent many prophets to minister to the kings and the people. But, in the end the people did not heed the Word of the Lord. The Babylonians, who had succeeded the Assyrians as the great Middle Eastern power, invaded Judah around 600, and began deporting some of the best and brightest back to Babylon. By 586, Babylon, tired of Judah’s rebelliousness, destroyed both the city Jerusalem and the Temple.

All empires come to an end. Babylon was conquered by the Persians about 540. The Persian King Cyrus instituted a policy of allowing exiles to return to their homelands. The first group of Jews returned to Judah about 538. They laid the foundation for the Temple, but because of the hostility of external enemies and discouragement of the people, they stopped work on the Temple. But, about 520 the new king, Darius, whom Zechariah mentions, reaffirmed the policy that allowed the Jews to rebuild their Temple. Two prophets also began to challenge the Jews to rebuild of their temple and to encourage them about the future of the city of Jerusalem. These men were Haggai and Zechariah. What Haggai and Zechariah faced was renewed external opposition; political, economic, and military weakness of Judah; and profound discouragement among God’s people. Those were the circumstances in which Zechariah proclaimed the Word of the Lord.

Past. Zechariah tells us the date of the beginning of is ministry - the eighth month of the second year of the Persian King Darius. The eighth month of the Jewish calendar occurs sometime during our months of October-November. The second year of Darius’ reign was the year 520.  

The foundation of Zechariah’s message was to remind the people of his day what had happened in the past and why it happened.

The Lord reminded Zechariah, “The Lord hath been sorely displeased with your fathers,” or, “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.” Zechariah knew the history of the Babylonian invasion, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the exile of the people. But he needed to know what to tell the people about why it had happened.

It was occurred in the realm of international political and military affairs. Judah was a small kingdom that got caught between two world powers - Babylon and Egypt. People in the king’s court leaned two ways. Some wanted to side with Egypt, some with Babylon. Judah’s policy wavered back and forth, and ultimately Babylon had enough and crushed Judah. But, while dynamics of nations and politics were at work, they cannot provide the ultimate explanation of what happened. The ultimate reason for what happened to Judah was that the Lord was very angry with that generation.

The Lord sent many prophets to them to speak for him. The message of the prophets was, “Turn ye now from your evil ways and from your evil doings.”  Before the Exile Jeremiah had used almost the same words to summarize the Lord’s message through the prophets:

Turn now, every one of you, from his evil way and evil deeds, and dwell upon the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers from of old and forever. Do not go after other gods to serve and worship them, or provoke me to anger with the work of your hands. Then I will do you no harm. (Jer. 25:5,6).

Over and again, for centuries the Lord called on his people to give up worshiping other gods, to to turn away from their immoral and unjust behavior, and to quit looking to other nations to be their savior - to return to him, worship him alone, and keep his commandments.

But how did they respond? According to the Lord, “But they did not hear, nor hearken unto Me.” Just before the Exile Jeremiah told the people of his day about his own ministry and that of the prophets who came before him:

For twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, to this day, the word of the Lord has come to me, and I have spoken persistently to you, but you have not listened. You have neither listened nor inclined your ears to hear, although the Lord persistently sent to you all his servants the prophets… Yet you have not listened to me, declares the Lord, that you might provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm. (Jer.25:3,4,7).

What had happened to that last generation before Babylon took them into exile? They were gone - all dead. Even the prophets who has proclaimed the Word of the Lord to them were gone. But one thing remained -  the Word of the Lord. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord abides forever. The Lord reminded the people through Zechariah of not only the endurance but also the power of his Word:

But My words and My statutes, which I commanded My

      servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?

Picture the people running away from the Word of the Lord - thinking they need not repent and return to him, that the judgments the Lord threatened would not catch up to them. But the Word of the Lord was like a tiger chasing his prey. The tiger of God’s Word caught them, and, because they would not repent, grasped them in its jaws and devoured them with its judgment. Both the gracious promises of God’s Word and its threatening warnings will be fulfilled.

Finally, in Exile the people began to repent. They said, “As the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us.”  They still were exiled in Babylon. But the people didn’t complain or see themselves themselves as victims. They said, “We are in this situation because of our sins.” Sometimes the first part of repentance is to stop pitying ourselves and accept that the Lord has dealt with us as he saw fit.

Present. This is a case where the people living in the present -  could learn from the past and not repeat it. How? By listening to the Word the Lord spoke through the prophet, “Return to me, and I will return to you.”

They were restored to their homeland. They had made a start of getting back to rebuilding the Lord’s house, the Temple. They were not worshiping idols. But their repentance was not complete. They had not wholeheartedly returned to the Lord.

But they can return and expect the Lord to be gracious. The Lord will not act like an offended friend who might say, “So you want to return and renew our friendship now? It’s too late. I’m done with you.” No, the Lord says, “If you return to me, I will return to you.” Their circumstances were still very difficult - a relatively small group of people, living in a city and countryside devastated a generation ago, with limited resources was called upon to rebuild the Temple. But they could return to the Lord and know that he will meet and receive them into his favor.

It’s not too late for you or me. We may not escape all the this worldly consequences of our sins. But we can return to the Lord and know that he will return us. We can start by coming to this Table with true repentance. It’s not enough to come to this Table if we intend to leave here and return to our sinful ways. But, if we come repenting of our sins and returning to Christ our Savior, this Table can be the place we meet the Lord and find his grace to forgive and renew us.

Yesterday, Bp. Morse, sent a letter to all the Clergy members of the Diocese. He suggested we read it in services today. I think it is a fitting way to close this sermon:

Dear Fathers and Brothers,

It has concerned me for most of my ministry that there are so few professing Christians who have any knowledge or experience of living by the grace of God, having the Gospel as the operative principle in their daily lives, but instead live according to the wisdom of the medical establishment, TV pundits, radio gurus, or financial advisers. Making a conscious effort everyday to live in the power of the Holy Spirit according to the teaching of Holy Scripture hardly ever occurs to them. I have heard numerous times of the surveys that show that there is no difference between church members and non-church members on such things as divorce, abortion, use of recreational drugs, adultery, etc.

Too many times I’ve had the experience of counseling someone who has gotten himself into trouble due to a failure to follow even the simplest understanding of the Ten Commandments. I frequently have asked the person which part of the Bible or the teaching he has received from me gave him the idea that it was ok to do what he has done, and every time that person has looked at me in amazement as if that was the dumbest question he ever heard. What that means is it never occurred to him to make decisions based on the Bible or the teaching of the church, and he thinks I’m pretty stupid even to ask such a question.

Too many people think that being a Christian means believing in Jesus and going to church at least occasionally, but they have no idea that the dynamic power to live the daily Christian life comes from the Holy Spirit. They have a list of things in their heads that Christians believe, and they claim to believe them, but they have no awareness of the need to depend daily on the Holy Spirit for the power to live that life.

There certainly are plenty of Bible verses that make this crystal clear. Two that come immediately to mind are Gal. 5:22-26, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another,” and Col. 2:6-7, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”

Please keep this matter foremost in your teaching, preaching and counseling. You might want to share this letter with your whole congregation, or read it in the Sunday worship.

Sincerely yours,

The Prayer Book is Un-American

The Prayer Book is Un-American

Second in Lent

Collect of the Day: Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28 (BCP, p.154)

Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshiped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

The Book of Common Prayer is un-American. Think about some of the things it makes us say. Last Wednesday at Evening Prayer, we called ourselves “miserable offenders.” Before we receive Holy Communion we are required confess our sins:

We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.”

Before I consecrate that bread and wine, I am required to kneel and pray on behalf of us all:

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.

But, as un-American is the Prayer Book is, Jesus is even more so. Did you hear in the Gospel what he said to that poor woman asking mercy for her daughter? “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.”

Story. Jesus temporarily left Galilee, the northern part of the territory of ancient Israel, and traveled up the Mediterranean coast, to the region of the cities of Tyre and Sidon, in Phoenicia. There he was confronted by a Canaanite woman, a non-Jewish pagan. Her daughter was afflicted with a devil - not the devil, but a demon. We don’t know what the demon did too the girl, but we know the girl was grievously oppressed and the mother was deeply distressed. This demon oppression was not a primitive way of explaining physical or mental disease. It was real, for when Jesus was working out our salvation, the devil threw everything he had at Jesus.

This woman pled with Jesus, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.” We don’t know how much she knew and believed about Jesus, but she had heard about some of his miracles, and she believed that he could deliver her daughter from oppression by the demon. However, Jesus did not say a word. He didn’t acknowledge her. He ignored her. You know that sometimes it would be less hurtful for someone to say something mean to you than to ignore you. But Jesus just kept on walking.

Jesus lack of response did not cause the woman to go away. Desperation can make people persistent and bold. The woman kept following Jesus and crying out for mercy. Jesus’s disciples did not think that that Jesus should give the woman his attention. Rather, they were irritated, and perhaps embarrassed that the woman kept following and pleading for mercy. So they said to Jesus, “Send her away.” The woman was making a scene, and they wanted Jesus to put a stop to it.

Jesus did not respond to his disciples, but he said something to the woman about his mission: “ I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” What Jesus said was true. For two thousand years God had been working out his plan of salvation through the Jews. They were God’s people from the time of Abraham. They were the only people who knew the one true living God. They were the people God delivered from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. They were the people to whom God sent his prophets. When Jesus came, as the St. John says, “He came unto his own” - to his own people. Jesus priority was to present himself to Israel as the promised Messiah in whom all of the Old Testament was fulfilled. He proclaimed that in him the Kingdom of God had come and the day of salvation had arrived. He called on all Israel to believe in him.

The woman did not disagree, but she got down on her knees and said the most basic prayer anyone can pray, “Lord, help me.” Did Jesus then turn to her in mercy? No, he said something that sounds very harsh: “It is not right to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” The children are the Jews. The dogs are Gentiles. Jews often referred to them insultingly as “Gentile dogs” as people sometimes say to someone they disdain, “You lowdown, dirty dog.” It’s just not right to take food meant for children and give it to the dogs.

Then the woman said something that was not only very clever, but also full of faith: “Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” While people did not treat dogs the way Susan treats our dog, Murphy, some did keep dogs, and, when the kids dropped crumbs while they were eating, fathers did not stop the dogs from eating up the crumbs under the table. As, this woman sees it, if she can just get some crumbs of mercy for herself and her daughter that will be enough.  

This is where Jesus was leading the woman - to the expression of true faith. He responded, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” By humble, dependent faith, this woman laid hold of Jesus’s mercy. Instantly her daughter was healed.

Significance. What are we to make of this story from the life of Jesus?

The reason the Prayer Book is un-American is because it says what the Bible says. The Bible is un-American. Jesus is un-American.

What do I mean by saying that? There are several things about the way contemporary American culture teaches us to think that are contrary to the way the Bible teaches us to think.

First, we are taught the importance of a positive self-image. It is unhealthy to think of ourselves as anything except basically good people. Parents and teachers must avoid saying or doing anything that would hurt the self-image of children. If a person goes to a psychologist and says, “I am a bad person,” the psychologist might explore why the person thinks that way about himself, but the psychologist’s goal will be to find a way to give the person a more healthy self-image.

But then in church we confess that we are miserable offenders, that the remembrance of our sins is grievous to us, that the burden of our sins is intolerable. We read St. Paul saying, “There is none righteous, no, not one...All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and, “The wages of sin is death.” We read Psalms such as this morning’s 32. We sing, “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” We find Jesus bringing this woman to admit she is a dog. We don’t just saunter up to Communion, but first say we are not worthy to pick up the crumbs from under the Lord’s Table.

The Prayer Book and Bible run counter to the whole positive self-image outlook.

Second, we live in an age of entitlement, rights, and demands. We feel we have certain rights and entitlements and ought to demand that our rights be honored and our entitlements given. We demand rights and benefits from the government. We have the right and are entitled to be treated in certain ways by other people. If they don’t treat us as we believe the should, we set boundaries for them or cut off contact altogether. And, if people believe in God, they feel that they have rights God must honor and entitlements that God must give. One of our rights and entitlements from God is happiness. God owes it to us to provide what we need for our happiness and not to do anything that would make us unhappy. We demand what we are entitled to from government, church, other people, and God. If we feel any need of mercy - and we really shouldn’t because this is not good for our self image - we don’t ask for mercy, we demand it. We are like the father in the movie, “Life with Father,” who when his wife is sick, is persuaded by the Episcopal priest to get down on his knees and pray, but prays, “Have mercy, I tell you! Have mercy!” Why, if you need some kind of mercy, you have a right and entitlement to it and you demand it from God.

The Prayer Book and Bible contradict the whole rights, entitlement, and demand approach to God.

Am I telling you that God wants you to live with a lousy self-image? No. But I am telling the Prayer Book and Bible approach. You don’t begin with self-image. You begin with acknowledging the truth. You are a sinner and miserable offender. The only thing God owes you is justice, and justice means condemnation. What you need from God is forgiveness and a way to be accepted by God. This is what God has provided in Christ. It is not because he owes it to you, but because he is gracious and merciful. Christ died for your sins. Christ lived the life you cannot live and  provides the righteousness you need before God. In Christ God sees you as forgiven and righteous. All your sins - the worst of them, not only the sins you committed before you were a Christian but the sins you committed yesterday, not just the sins of yesterday but the sins you committed before you came to church, the sins you will commit this afternoon, and the sins you will commit tomorrow - all of them are forgiven. And God sees you as righteous as his Son, Jesus Christ.  And

That is how you can have a positive self-image - it is not that you are a good and wonderful person, but that in Christ God loves you, forgives you, counts you righteous, accepts you, and gives you eternal life.

How do you get the mercy you need? As this woman did. By asking - humbly, persistently, and with the boldness that comes from knowing you are unworthy but desperately need mercy.

It’s all pictured and experienced at this Table. You come saying you are not worthy of crumbs. But you won’t go away hungry. Eat and drink with faith, and God will fill you and satisfy you with the feast of grace provided by his Son.