SAINT Bartholomew Anglican Parish

Sometimes I think that we don't read the Book of Revelation often enough. Some people seem to fear reading it and yet it was written as a book of hope and consolation. At the time it was written, the Christians were being persecuted by the Romans because they would not bow to the Emperor as a god. By claiming to be a god, he had earned the name of "beast" as well as the number "666" which was his designation for claiming to be God and falling short. In this passage, those who had died under this persecution are seen in Heaven praising God with a version of the hymn of victory that Moses led after escaping Egypt and successfully crossing through the sea on dry ground while the Egyptian chariots and charioteers perished. These Christians who had died had passed through the Valley of Death and were now safe with God in heaven. Their song of victory echoing Moses song, was a message to all those who were still suffering under the persecution that eventually God would prevail. Other messages throughout the Book of Revelation speak to the need for people to hold firm and not to give in to the temptation to save their lives by bowing to the Emperor and worshiping him as a god. I can't ever imagine having to make this decision. I know that there are people in some parts of the world who make this decision every day and I admire and pray for them. I hope that they can take comfort from the promises of Christ and remain firm. But what about us who do give in to the temptations which come our way to turn our backs on God without any threat of harm, let alone death. We need to do better.

Whether we are young or older, the answer to keeping ourselves pure is the same: live according to God's word. Sounds so simple, so why is it so hard to do? Jesus summed up God's word in one word: Love! That's why it's so hard. All we need to do is love God, love one another, and love ourselves. The first of the commandments call us to love God. We are not to put anything or anyone above God. We are not to take God's name in vain by using it as a curse or an exclamation of anything other than praise. We are not to take God's role in condemning anyone or anything. It belongs only to God to decide if someone will be damned and sent to hell, not to us. We are to take time out of our week to give thanks and praise to God. The rest of the commandments speak about our responsibilities to others. As we learned from reading Scripture, our allegiance to authority only goes so far. We are not to follow immoral rules. When I think of the horrors of the holocaust, I can't believe how many people turned in their neighbors because of their religious beliefs! Hi**er, in his determination to kill the Jewish people, would have killed Jesus with less compunction than Pilate who at least considered him innocent. We are told not to kill the spirit of a person as well as not to kill or harm his body. We are told to keep ourselves out of harm's way; not to put ourselves in dangerous situations without a good reason, and not to use people for our own pleasure; to treat others with the same respect we want them to show us. We are not to lie or cheat or steal, but to be satisfied with the blessings we have been given. If we do these things, we will be pure in the eyes of the Lord.

When I am going through a difficult time, and God feels far away, I remember this passage from Paul's letter to the Romans. Nothing, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ! Those are the days when I use one of my favorite meditations. I picture myself sitting on a bench watching the ocean and Jesus is sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders giving me comfort. We don't have to speak because his presence is all that I need. This especially has come to mind when someone I loved died. Just knowing that Jesus has earned salvation for us gives me confidence that we will be together again in heaven. I don't care what life throws at me; I have faith in his words and promises. Meditating on his word brings me peace. If you have never tried to meditate, I encourage you to do so. First, find yourself a quiet place to sit and allow yourself about ten to fifteen minutes. Once you are seated, quiet your mind, but don't try to block out sounds. Breathe deeply and relax your body. Once you are comfortable, close your eyes and imagine Jesus sitting next to you. You can tell him anything, ask him anything, or just enjoy being in his presence as you would enjoy being with someone you love. You will know when it is time for you to return to your day or evening, but the feeling of being with Jesus will stay with you. I practiced meditation with my high school students and on stressful days, they always asked if we could begin the class with meditation. Once you learn the technique, you can use it in any time of stress. Find a Scripture passage that you love, and use that if you want. Anything that reminds us of Christ's presence brings us peace.

Paul gives us advice in how to live in just about all of his letters. He writes to the communities of Christians that he had established to remind them of the necessity of living lives of love as well as pointing out behaviors that they might not see as sinful. Many people I know do not consider all of the above listed habits as sinful either, and are surprised to find out that they are. Have you ever thought of covetousness as idolatry? Have you thought of inappropriate jesting or "foolish talking" as sinful? Today we have a real problem with bullying among the young which has led to su***de in many cases. When I was a child, there was a phrase, "Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me." I'm not sure that that was true then, but I am well aware that this is not true today. Name calling, bullying, is so much easier today because of social media. The young are particularly vulnerable. The fact that it's possible to be anonymous, makes it even easier to inflict this pain. As adults, we are also not immune to hurt. Racial and ethnic slurs, calling people names because of gender or sexual preference, disabilities, economic status, are only a few of the ways in which people cause pain in others. Sexual violence is also a common problem among young adults. Date r**e is still r**e and when a person says "no" he or she means "no." Sexual harassment in the workplace is another problem that is finally getting to be seen as criminal. We live in an unclean world, and we have a choice to make. Paul is reminding the Christian community that the world they live in corrupt just as ours is today, and we have been called to a higher standard.

Paul is letting both the Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity know that they are equally saved by Jesus. He is also telling us that no matter who we are or where we're from we are all equally heirs of the Kingdom. I have a tough time with people who try to say that if you don't follow their way, then you are doomed. I once knew a woman who had been convinced to join a "Christian" church. I am using the quotation marks for a reason! She was told who she could associate with, how much she should be giving to the church and how she needed to obey if she wanted to be saved. There was nothing there that looked like love. She met a man who was a Methodist minister and fell in love. Even after they were engaged, and she had left the group, she still was afraid that she was going to hell for leaving this church. She had been brainwashed! I knew another couple who were great parents and worked very hard who had also been seduced into belonging to what I call a cult, and begged me to come to their Bible study group. With many misgivings, I finally went. According to the leader of the group, unless a person could quote chapter and verse from Scripture, and could give the "correct" wording from the "correct" translation, they were suspect and you probably shouldn't believe anything they say! Really???? I guess that if you didn't speak English and didn't use the correct Bible, you, too, were doomed! Paul reassures all of us that in Christ we are all one. Anyone who says differently is suspect in my book. Jesus isn't the one who wrote the Gospels, his disciples did. He spoke; and he didn't speak English. But what he did say is that we need to love our neighbors and also our enemies. He also warned us to avoid false prophets. We have been called to a life of love, and of gratitude to the God who saves.

We are probably more familiar with Matthew's Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes than we are with the "woes." But Luke's version of this sermon gives us something a little different to think about. For Matthew who was writing for the Jewish converts in Jerusalem, it was important to have them see Jesus as the new "Moses" and this sermon of the new covenant is placed on a mountain to remind us of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Luke was writing for a predominantly Gentile community and so he has Jesus giving his sermon on the plain, or flat land. But, let's look at the "woes." Woe to you who are rich. This must have sounded very unusual to the people as they would have presumed that the rich had been blessed and the richer they were the more blessed they were. Unfortunately this idea came up again in the sixteenth century and there are people today who think this way. But Jesus is saying that they have already received their reward. The hungry are hungry for the word of God while those who have everything they need often don't think that they even need God. We are more apt to turn to God in times of difficulty than when all is going well, so it makes sense that when everything is wonderful we ignore God until we are in trouble caused by following out own way and not the way of Jesus. There's a big difference between flattery and honest approval. People who flatter usually want something. They have their own agenda and feel that the person being flattered can get it for them. If we read the books of the prophets, we know that no one really wanted to hear their messages of truth. We need to pay attention to how well we follow the path that Jesus has pointed out to us and not follow the path that leads to sin.

I love the line in this passage, "For we are God's fellow workers." Do you think of yourself as God's fellow worker? As disciples, we are called to spread the Good News and go make disciples of others. Paul states very clearly that no one has to do all the work. Sometimes we might be the one who plants by spreading the seeds of faith in our families and among our friends. Other times we may be the one who waters by encouraging others to believe or by praying for them or through our witness of faith. But God is the one responsible for helping the seed grow and blossom. But we can't have blossoms if there are no seeds, or if no one has watered them. I am a terrible gardener! About the only thing I can keep alive is a Christmas cactus which needs little or no care! I have tried to grow herbs; they die. But my entire life, it seems, has been in planting or watering the seeds of faith in others. When missionaries would come to the door when I was a child, I would love to talk to them and share our interpretations of Scripture. As a teen, I helped out in our churches children's prayer class. Whether it was with my children, my students, friends or strangers, I felt that the best gift I could give them was the knowledge of God's love for them. I am not alone, and I don't feel as though I am any better than anyone else in my efforts. There are many who have devoted their lives to God's service and have taken far greater risks. But this is a task for all of us to undertake. It can be as simple as saying that we will pray for someone who is suffering, but whatever we do, God will be able to bring it to full bloom.

There are those who believe that this "predestination" means that only some have been called or justified, but, in reality, all of us have been predestined from our birth to be called, justified and glorified. We are all created in the image and likeness of God. No one is created in another image. As images, children, of the one God, Jesus came to redeem us all. No one can justify him or herself, we are all justified by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. However, we must answer the call; we must accept the gift of salvation, or justification, by the quality of our lives. Once we accept Jesus as our Savior, our lives change. Others may not see much difference, but we are different. We are happier; we are more able to take life in stride. Our attitude is different and so that we are more able to handle the bumps that life throws at us. We believe that some good can come out of whatever happens. We often become stronger because we know we are never alone. If we like the person we are today, then we are the result of all that we have encountered in our past and all the choices we have made – even the ones we may regret! We have been called and justified and we trust in the promise that we will be glorified. God will take care of us, and we know that he will continue to bring good out of bad situations.

We hope that one day we will dwell in the house of the Lord! This is the promise and this is our goal. We can also consider that the world we live in, the place that God created is also God's house. The first place we encounter God is in our own homes with our families, the first church where God can be known and worshiped; the place where faith is learned. The earth with its beauty and strength is also where we encounter God. The problem is we don't always recognize him, and until we recognize this as coming from God, we don't praise him. I love the image of a pilgrimage. There was once a minister at the church where I worshiped who talked about how we can go through life as a pilgrim or a tourist. He defined a tourist is one who goes through life wanting everything to be just as they want and like it. A pilgrim enters into the circumstances of the life in which one finds himself. A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey usually to a holy place. This can be a physical place as to Jerusalem for the Jews, Mecca for the Muslims and various shrines such as Lourdes or Fatima for Christians. However, it can also be a spiritual journey, a search for holiness. The pilgrim is searching for the presence of God in his or her life in order that his presence will overflow into the fullness of his presence in Heaven. The pilgrim looks outward and works to bring the Kingdom present even in this Weeping valley. The tourist is only thinking of his own needs and comfort without any thought to the needs of the people he meets or the world he is supposed to care for. The pilgrim finds joy; the tourist sometimes only finds disappointment. We have a choice, are we pilgrims or tourists?

In these chapters, Jeremiah is letting the Israelites know that God has not abandoned them and in the end will redeem them. In the short run, Cyrus will defeat the Babylonians and will allow those in exile to return and will give them the means to rebuild the land and the temple. In the long run, this refers to the coming of the Messiah and the new covenant ushered in by the birth of Jesus. Whenever the Israelites got themselves into trouble, God sent them the prophets to warn them of the dangers of following the path that they were on as well as to let them know that eventually he would put things right. We may not realize that he does the same for us when we go astray, but if we think about it, he does. Maybe it's a spouse who expresses concern, or a good friend who calls us back. They may see signs that we are less kind or more selfish in our behavior. But we also know that Jesus is there to forgive us and bring us back. In so many ways we are so much better off than the Israelites. We have the Good News of salvation to bring us joy. We are not waiting for the Messiah, and we have been told that all we need to do is turn back to God and follow his law of love to show our acceptance of the gift. Although there are no kings to tell us to worship other gods, we do have leaders who sometimes can create laws that are unjust and we have a responsibility to try to change them, because the results can be quite similar. When government leaders are corrupt or just misguided or selfish, they can lead their nations into conflicts with other nations and while the result may not be an invasion, an economic war can also create injustice especially for the poor. Maybe we need to pay more attention to the "prophets" God sends us today, and work harder to live as God wants us to.