A Reflection for 18th Sunday After Pentecost St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Nags Head, N.C.
September 26, 2021 Thomas E. Wilson, Guest Preacher/ Celebrant
Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29 Psalm 19:7-1 James 5:13-20 Mark 9:38-50
He's A Wrecker
In the Hebrew Testament from the Book of Numbers, the Hebrew children are complaining loudly about how lousy life has been in the Wilderness and about the incompetence of their present religious leader Moses. If only, they weep, they could go back to slavery of Egypt where at least they had fish, onions and garlic galore instead of this tasteless, and oh so boring, manna. Yes, the former leaders in Egypt would abuse them from time to time, but it was better than this. Maybe it is not to late to turn around and say “We're sorry”. Moses was the wrecker of the old life! Ah, that was the life, back in the good old days!
Not to be outdone, Moses, their Religious leader, is muttering, complaining, and throwing a hissy fit to God about how thankless and useless the members of his parish were and how he was tired of putting up with their constant whining. He wishes he was back in his old parish where all he had to do was take care of his father-in-law's non-complaining and obedient sheep. God was the Wrecker of the old life! Ah, that was the life, back in the good old days!
The Hebrew children in the wilderness would not be the last religious parish to complain about how their present leader is and how good the old days were preferable. Moses would not be the last religious leader to keep revising their resume and how much better the old parish was compared to these ingrates.
Jesus, in today's Gospel reading, had this problem with his disciples. They, the disciples, knew how a religious organization needed to be run; first and foremost you need to protect the franchise. They saw someone outside their group who was healing in Jesus name, and that person did not have the organizational authority. They thought that this do-gooder is going to be a wrecker of the whole Jesus system.
I remember in a parish I served many years ago, there was a harried period of time when my wife was approached by a few women parishioners, weeping about how I, her husband, the present Rector, was instead of a Rec-tor he was really a Wreck-er and wrecking the parish. In the good old days, three Rectors and a Prayer Book back, the church was really something, they would weep!
In the meantime, I would mutter to my wife something like; “God was crazy to lead me to this place, from the old parish The call I heard to come here is wrecking my life.” In response I was filling my prayers with asking if I really wanted to be nailed to this cross, and taking a sneak peek at the openings in other dioceses. I moaned that thought I had discerned coming from God was really messing up my life!
So how is this resolved, in this Lesson from Numbers, in the Gospel lesson from Mark, and in the lives of so many of our churches? In this lesson. God does not smite the ones who are complaining. In this lesson Moses does not read them the riot act and point out that in the Canons, he was in charge. Nor did Jesus hunt down the independent healer, and quote from scripture. Nor did I quote canons or scripture in that Parish to prove my point. I had a Bishop once who pointed out to his clergy that if they quoted the church canons to parishioners as a way to buck up their authority; then they had already lost.
How does God solve the problem? God calls Moses to call forth prophets. Prophets are not people who tell the future, but people who share a vision of God being present in the middle of everything. Prophets share a vision of Grace and redemption. Prophets are not bound by loyalty to institutions or cliques. They share the truth of the Holy being in the middle of the Profane. The past is never forgotten, the future is still before us, but Prophets place themselves in this Holy Present where God is sharing God's abundant Grace. Prophets are regular dog-faced people who allow God to touch their soul, to be as Jesus will say, “salted with fire!” Salted, being preserved and seasoned, and being set on fire of the flame that does not consume that Moses found in the Wilderness.
Madeleine L’Engle tells us in her A Stone for a Pillow:
“How do we tell the false prophet from the true prophet? The true prophet seldom predicts the future. The true prophet warns us of our present hardness of heart, our prideful presuming to know God’s mind. The ultimate test of the true prophet is love. A mark of the true prophet in any age is humility, self-emptying so there is room for God’s Word.”
In this lesson from Number, Eldad and Medad, who were not in the tent of meeting where the others, received the gift of prophecy, still receive it, abundantly sharing God's vision in and through this very moment. Moses does not call forth a franchise agreement but says, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets.” From Eldad and Medad to Isaiah, to Amos, to Hosea, to Jeremiah, to John the Baptizer, to Paul, to Augustine, to Francis, to Julian of Norwich, to Martin Luther, to Dorothy Day, to Martin Luther King, to John Shelby Spong, to Desmond Tutu, to Michael Curry and even to the unnamed outside the church do-gooder and healer in the Gospel lesson for today; all of them and so many of millions more were prophets in their generations; all of them “salted with fire”.
In my life of any parish I have worked in, when I start to throw myself a pity party, God graciously gives me and the parish, prophets who see the present as alive with God's loving presence. I was blessed in every one of the places I served, prophets did not lament the past, nor pine for a rosy future, but lived with courage in God's present, inviting others by more deed than word, even in the giving of cups of water for a thirsty soul, such as mine. Prophets don't try to prove anything, they just share by their words, deeds, and their lives how God is healing in this broken world.
I tell you: in this room, there are scores of people who are ready to be prophets. You don't have to go to Seminary to be a prophet. As Moses marveled; “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets.” I say to you- BE STILL- LISTEN – God is calling each of us to be a prophet. See what God is doing in our daily lives, and share it by deed and word- even with a cup of water. We are surrounded by Grace. God's grace is flowing, like a river, over, in and through us. As the collect for today underscores: “Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure,”
He Is A Wrecker
He is a wrecker; things were all right before he came.
Before he came, there was a sure sense of knowing what
was what, and how it all fit together. Except, there's a but,
in that all of our stuff lacked, what we could call a flame.
A flame that burned, whose heat we'd feel if we got close,
close enough almost to sizzle, afraid that we'd burn,
burn in a way as if to teach us something we'd learn,
and change us from the top of our head to our toes.
We don't really want that kind of change, we want the old
stuff that is comfortable without challenging us to think,
of adopting any other options of which we aren't in sync.
In fact, instead of flames we'd prefer to stay out in the cold.
Yet, Grace, not he, calls us away from our home made igloo-ses
to live in new places of growth where she, not we, chooses.
