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| SERMON 17 Pentecost - Proper 20 September 23, 2007 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
| 667 Mount Road, Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 |
| Small Parish - Big Heart - Inclusive Come and worship with us! All are welcome! |
| Our Mission: To worship the Lord To serve the community To grow the church |
I struggled, yesterday, not with this sermon – for reasons that will soon become obvious
– but with this introduction! So I finally decided, to start with just a short series of simple,
declarative sentences.
1: Our Lectionary is repetitive.
2: It repeats every three years.
3: Until 30 years ago, it repeated every year – one rotation!
4. It’s difficult to preach on the same lessons, year after year, without sounding
repetitive.
The best we preachers can do, I think, is to try to apply those same lessons, and their
same, timeless themes, to what’s going on today – to try to cast them in contemporary
terms.
Given all that…: Every week, in preparing my sermon, I read the lessons as they actually
appear in the context of scripture, along with the annotations that can be found in the
best versions, and I look at some of the commentaries available. But between those two
steps I go to my sermon file and read what I’ve preached, before, on those lessons.
After all that, and aware that I’m preaching the same Gospel that’s been preached for two
thousand years, and the same lessons that are read every three years, I write my sermon
in the hope that what I have to say won’t sound too repetitive but will be at least
somewhat fresh, and that I can shed, some kind of new light on that part of the Gospel
message to be preached that day!
I’m going to do something, today, that I’ve never before done, in all the 37 years I’ve
been preaching.
I’m going to preach a sermon I’ve preached before – and just as I preached it the first
time.
I did as I always do, including reading my old sermons, and when I read the sermon that I
preached to you 6 years ago, today, I was amazed. When I opened the file it hadn’t initially
occurred to me what had been going at this time 6 years ago, and had no idea what I’d
preached about.
But reading it, I suddenly felt I had to preach that same sermon again – just as it was! I
fought the idea, but finally gave in – I knew I had to do it! Why, I’m not sure - perhaps
because the distance of 6 years makes what I was saying a bit clearer; a bit less caught
up in the moment.
As I re-read it again – and again – I realized something else: that the first time I preached
it, it was in the context of the sermon I’d preached the week before! There followed
another battle with myself – but I finally gave in again – this time to the conviction that I
needed not only to preach, again, the same sermon that I preached 6 years ago on the
Sunday nearest this date, but that I needed to preach the sermon of the week before –
and THEN the original sermon! So today, I am going to preach to you the sermon I
originally preached to you on the 16th of September, 2001. And next Sunday, I will preach
to you the Sermon I originally preached to you on the 23rd of September, that same year.
Again, why, I really cannot tell you. I just know it’s needed. So here is the first of the two –
unedited and unchanged from the original:
A Sermon Preached at
Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale
On Calvary Day, 16 September, 2001, by
The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt
It is terribly difficult to know what to say this morning. On the one hand is the absolute
enormity of the events of last Tuesday, (September 9th; “9/11”) and how insignificant
most of the things in this world seem, now, by comparison, and, indeed, how insignificant
the things we might find to say! On the other hand, there is so much that has been said,
already, in the intervening days – by Presidents and mayors and governors, by
newscasters and commentators and columnists and editors, by evangelists and Deans
and, by Bishops.
And above all else there is what seems to me to be such an enormous need in all the
ensuing chaos for some silence: for a time without words when we can reflect; a time
when we can be alone with our thoughts and just let it all sink in; a time when we can
contemplate the silence long enough for GOD, perhaps, to get a Word in, edgewise.
With the chaos and the storms of emotion of these past days, it was clearly appropriate
that we cancel the festivities we had scheduled for this day – the Sunday of our Patronal
Feast, Calvary Day. In fact, I thought of restoring the lessons and music, too, to those for
the Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost, and shifting that WHOLE observance to next Sunday.
Yet this IS the Sunday after the Feast of the Holy Cross, and I came to see there is an
appropriateness to our special observance of the Cross and of Calvary on THIS date –
and, for the 10:00 Service, even to the music I’d chosen two weeks ago for today: “In the
Cross of Christ I Glory;” “At the Name of Jesus;” “Lift High the Cross” – a “fitness” to this
observance to the things I feel compelled to say, now, while we are in the midst of the
emotional storm that has been assaulting us all for the past five days.
Our Bishop has observed that this week we have witnessed the effects of “the raw,
naked display of the empty powers of the Evil One” working through what he called
“ideological fundamentalism, apocalypticism, gnosticism and sectarianism;” four of the
“isms,” that, along with “racism”, make the letters “i-s-m,” one of the most hateful
combinations in the English language. These “isms” continue to cause untold and
immeasurable suffering in today’s world, as they always have. Sectarianism, in particular,
has been involved in some of the worst atrocities in history, from the persecution of
Christians in the Roman Empire, to the insanity of the Crusades, to the excesses of the
Inquisition, and the mutual horrors of the violent side of the Reformation; and even to
today, when in two recent studies of world terrorist organizations, over half of those
groups identified call themselves “religious.”
When human beings combine their “isms” they become even more destructive, as when
the combination of sectarianism and racism produces such horrors as the holocaust and
the systematic near elimination of American Indians.
But there is one “ism” it seems to me, that is more destructive than any of the others,
and that, more often than not, masquerades as one or more of the others – that was,
indeed, at least one of the REAL forces behind the Christian persecutions, the crusades,
the Reformation, the Holocaust, and the others: nationalism.
Nationalism: the “ism” that so often both transcends and underlies all the others; the ism
that ultimately pits “us” against EVERYbody else. The “ism” that people wear on their
sleeves and dignify by calling “patriotism” – transforming “love of country” into hatred of
others!
Our Bishop warned in his letter, “We, too, can be in the thrall of these evil powers. We,
too, can fall into thinking that we alone possess the truth, and the others, whoever they
are, are wrong.”
It is the unexamined patriotism that becomes a rabid nationalism that most often leads
people into that error, into that sin! It is the “…ism” that tempts us all, today!
I am proud to be an American. More importantly, I am thankful to God that I CAN be an
American. I am proud when I look at where this nation has come from, at what it has
become, at where it is heading. I am proud when I see what it, at its best, is capable of.
And I am proudest when I see the people of America – those born here and those who
have come here – responding as they have to the kind of tragedy we’ve witnessed this
past week.
But I worry, too, about what may be done in the name of love of this country when I hear
the calls for blood and destruction and death and vengeance! When I see and hear us
falling into the error of “thinking that we alone possess the truth” – and the right – “and
the others, whoever they may be, are wrong.”
When I hear these things, I think of the Venerable Dean of our National Cathedral, when
he prayed on Friday, “We do not want to become the evil we deplore!” – and I worry.
Because it has happened too often in history! CAN happen so easily, again!
Those who did this terrible thing, those who stand behind it, those who made it possible,
must be brought to justice. NOT “have vengeance wreaked on them,” but “brought to
justice.” There is a difference. What HAPPENS to them – what is done to them – may LOOK
the same, whether it is done as vengeance or justice! But the difference will lie – MUST
lie, in our hearts.
“Let Justice roll down like the waters,” cries the prophet Amos; and sometimes Justice is
terrible in its wrath – terrible to contemplate, terrible to execute, and terrible to witness!
Yet justice MUST be done! BUT, “’Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord.” And as much as
the acts might LOOK the same, Justice and vengeance are DIFFERENT things! The
ultimate outcome of Justice is Peace; while the inevitable issue of vengeance is more
hatred, more evil.
There is much pain in our world on this day; much pain, that gives rise to much anger;
pain and anger that lead to hate. The pain needs to be healed, with love and prayer and
time; the anger must be understood and accepted, but contained and overcome and
transformed; the hatred must be resisted with all our hearts, for hatred is ALWAYS EVIL!
And as followers of Christ, we must hold tight to our REAL priorities, cling to the real
values of our lives and of our faith, resisting the temptations to hatred and violence, and
recognizing them for what they are, recognizing them for the very things we renounced
in our baptisms into Christ: recognizing in them “the spiritual forces of wickedness that
rebel against God, …the evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures
of God…!” Recognizing in them the very things that caused this horror!
And as followers of Christ we must remember that our faith is in Christ Jesus, and not in
any institution of Man; in Jesus Christ, and not in any nation this world might create!
I fancy myself a patriot. I love the United States – love it all the more for having lived
elsewhere. I love its flag, and I am inspired by (it) (sights like this front page photo from
my son’s newspaper).
I love my country and I love its flag; but it is in the cross of Christ I glory.
I Salute my country, and I salute its flag; but it is at the Name of Jesus that I bow my knee.
I praise my country, and I raise it’s flag; but I lift high, the CROSS!
And I pray that all of us, in the days and weeks and months to come, will find the strength
to resist the evil that tempts us, and to remember always what is MOST important in this
world and in this life – the Love of God which creates us, sustains us and calls us to itself!
In Jesus Christ’s Name! Amen.
– but with this introduction! So I finally decided, to start with just a short series of simple,
declarative sentences.
1: Our Lectionary is repetitive.
2: It repeats every three years.
3: Until 30 years ago, it repeated every year – one rotation!
4. It’s difficult to preach on the same lessons, year after year, without sounding
repetitive.
The best we preachers can do, I think, is to try to apply those same lessons, and their
same, timeless themes, to what’s going on today – to try to cast them in contemporary
terms.
Given all that…: Every week, in preparing my sermon, I read the lessons as they actually
appear in the context of scripture, along with the annotations that can be found in the
best versions, and I look at some of the commentaries available. But between those two
steps I go to my sermon file and read what I’ve preached, before, on those lessons.
After all that, and aware that I’m preaching the same Gospel that’s been preached for two
thousand years, and the same lessons that are read every three years, I write my sermon
in the hope that what I have to say won’t sound too repetitive but will be at least
somewhat fresh, and that I can shed, some kind of new light on that part of the Gospel
message to be preached that day!
I’m going to do something, today, that I’ve never before done, in all the 37 years I’ve
been preaching.
I’m going to preach a sermon I’ve preached before – and just as I preached it the first
time.
I did as I always do, including reading my old sermons, and when I read the sermon that I
preached to you 6 years ago, today, I was amazed. When I opened the file it hadn’t initially
occurred to me what had been going at this time 6 years ago, and had no idea what I’d
preached about.
But reading it, I suddenly felt I had to preach that same sermon again – just as it was! I
fought the idea, but finally gave in – I knew I had to do it! Why, I’m not sure - perhaps
because the distance of 6 years makes what I was saying a bit clearer; a bit less caught
up in the moment.
As I re-read it again – and again – I realized something else: that the first time I preached
it, it was in the context of the sermon I’d preached the week before! There followed
another battle with myself – but I finally gave in again – this time to the conviction that I
needed not only to preach, again, the same sermon that I preached 6 years ago on the
Sunday nearest this date, but that I needed to preach the sermon of the week before –
and THEN the original sermon! So today, I am going to preach to you the sermon I
originally preached to you on the 16th of September, 2001. And next Sunday, I will preach
to you the Sermon I originally preached to you on the 23rd of September, that same year.
Again, why, I really cannot tell you. I just know it’s needed. So here is the first of the two –
unedited and unchanged from the original:
A Sermon Preached at
Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale
On Calvary Day, 16 September, 2001, by
The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt
It is terribly difficult to know what to say this morning. On the one hand is the absolute
enormity of the events of last Tuesday, (September 9th; “9/11”) and how insignificant
most of the things in this world seem, now, by comparison, and, indeed, how insignificant
the things we might find to say! On the other hand, there is so much that has been said,
already, in the intervening days – by Presidents and mayors and governors, by
newscasters and commentators and columnists and editors, by evangelists and Deans
and, by Bishops.
And above all else there is what seems to me to be such an enormous need in all the
ensuing chaos for some silence: for a time without words when we can reflect; a time
when we can be alone with our thoughts and just let it all sink in; a time when we can
contemplate the silence long enough for GOD, perhaps, to get a Word in, edgewise.
With the chaos and the storms of emotion of these past days, it was clearly appropriate
that we cancel the festivities we had scheduled for this day – the Sunday of our Patronal
Feast, Calvary Day. In fact, I thought of restoring the lessons and music, too, to those for
the Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost, and shifting that WHOLE observance to next Sunday.
Yet this IS the Sunday after the Feast of the Holy Cross, and I came to see there is an
appropriateness to our special observance of the Cross and of Calvary on THIS date –
and, for the 10:00 Service, even to the music I’d chosen two weeks ago for today: “In the
Cross of Christ I Glory;” “At the Name of Jesus;” “Lift High the Cross” – a “fitness” to this
observance to the things I feel compelled to say, now, while we are in the midst of the
emotional storm that has been assaulting us all for the past five days.
Our Bishop has observed that this week we have witnessed the effects of “the raw,
naked display of the empty powers of the Evil One” working through what he called
“ideological fundamentalism, apocalypticism, gnosticism and sectarianism;” four of the
“isms,” that, along with “racism”, make the letters “i-s-m,” one of the most hateful
combinations in the English language. These “isms” continue to cause untold and
immeasurable suffering in today’s world, as they always have. Sectarianism, in particular,
has been involved in some of the worst atrocities in history, from the persecution of
Christians in the Roman Empire, to the insanity of the Crusades, to the excesses of the
Inquisition, and the mutual horrors of the violent side of the Reformation; and even to
today, when in two recent studies of world terrorist organizations, over half of those
groups identified call themselves “religious.”
When human beings combine their “isms” they become even more destructive, as when
the combination of sectarianism and racism produces such horrors as the holocaust and
the systematic near elimination of American Indians.
But there is one “ism” it seems to me, that is more destructive than any of the others,
and that, more often than not, masquerades as one or more of the others – that was,
indeed, at least one of the REAL forces behind the Christian persecutions, the crusades,
the Reformation, the Holocaust, and the others: nationalism.
Nationalism: the “ism” that so often both transcends and underlies all the others; the ism
that ultimately pits “us” against EVERYbody else. The “ism” that people wear on their
sleeves and dignify by calling “patriotism” – transforming “love of country” into hatred of
others!
Our Bishop warned in his letter, “We, too, can be in the thrall of these evil powers. We,
too, can fall into thinking that we alone possess the truth, and the others, whoever they
are, are wrong.”
It is the unexamined patriotism that becomes a rabid nationalism that most often leads
people into that error, into that sin! It is the “…ism” that tempts us all, today!
I am proud to be an American. More importantly, I am thankful to God that I CAN be an
American. I am proud when I look at where this nation has come from, at what it has
become, at where it is heading. I am proud when I see what it, at its best, is capable of.
And I am proudest when I see the people of America – those born here and those who
have come here – responding as they have to the kind of tragedy we’ve witnessed this
past week.
But I worry, too, about what may be done in the name of love of this country when I hear
the calls for blood and destruction and death and vengeance! When I see and hear us
falling into the error of “thinking that we alone possess the truth” – and the right – “and
the others, whoever they may be, are wrong.”
When I hear these things, I think of the Venerable Dean of our National Cathedral, when
he prayed on Friday, “We do not want to become the evil we deplore!” – and I worry.
Because it has happened too often in history! CAN happen so easily, again!
Those who did this terrible thing, those who stand behind it, those who made it possible,
must be brought to justice. NOT “have vengeance wreaked on them,” but “brought to
justice.” There is a difference. What HAPPENS to them – what is done to them – may LOOK
the same, whether it is done as vengeance or justice! But the difference will lie – MUST
lie, in our hearts.
“Let Justice roll down like the waters,” cries the prophet Amos; and sometimes Justice is
terrible in its wrath – terrible to contemplate, terrible to execute, and terrible to witness!
Yet justice MUST be done! BUT, “’Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord.” And as much as
the acts might LOOK the same, Justice and vengeance are DIFFERENT things! The
ultimate outcome of Justice is Peace; while the inevitable issue of vengeance is more
hatred, more evil.
There is much pain in our world on this day; much pain, that gives rise to much anger;
pain and anger that lead to hate. The pain needs to be healed, with love and prayer and
time; the anger must be understood and accepted, but contained and overcome and
transformed; the hatred must be resisted with all our hearts, for hatred is ALWAYS EVIL!
And as followers of Christ, we must hold tight to our REAL priorities, cling to the real
values of our lives and of our faith, resisting the temptations to hatred and violence, and
recognizing them for what they are, recognizing them for the very things we renounced
in our baptisms into Christ: recognizing in them “the spiritual forces of wickedness that
rebel against God, …the evil powers of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures
of God…!” Recognizing in them the very things that caused this horror!
And as followers of Christ we must remember that our faith is in Christ Jesus, and not in
any institution of Man; in Jesus Christ, and not in any nation this world might create!
I fancy myself a patriot. I love the United States – love it all the more for having lived
elsewhere. I love its flag, and I am inspired by (it) (sights like this front page photo from
my son’s newspaper).
I love my country and I love its flag; but it is in the cross of Christ I glory.
I Salute my country, and I salute its flag; but it is at the Name of Jesus that I bow my knee.
I praise my country, and I raise it’s flag; but I lift high, the CROSS!
And I pray that all of us, in the days and weeks and months to come, will find the strength
to resist the evil that tempts us, and to remember always what is MOST important in this
world and in this life – the Love of God which creates us, sustains us and calls us to itself!
In Jesus Christ’s Name! Amen.