Jesus said:
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 5:14-16 – May 1, 2012)
When I joined the Episcopal Church in high school, the last verse of this quotation was the favorite offertory sentence of the parish priest – in the King James Version, of course: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” If he didn’t say that one, he said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21 KJV) I memorized those verses not by reading them, but by hearing one or the other at every service as the invitation to make a gift to God. I learned the lesson of an active faith, of being public and “out there” with my beliefs, of doing the will of the Father, from hearing those simple but profound verses at every service. ~ I love the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and its many options for worship, but I wonder whether in our quest for variety in worship we have left behind the wisdom of simple, repetitive teaching. In our current worship practice we are directed by a rubric to offer prayers for the Universal Church, its members, and its mission; for the Nation and all in authority; for the welfare of the world; for the concerns of the local community; for those who suffer and those in any trouble; and for the departed . That’s well and good, but the way in which these prayers are offered is left up to the designers of each service or to the presiding ministers and, in fact, variety seems to be encouraged. On the other hand, in our previous prayer book (and all those that preceded it) there was one prayer “for the whole state of Christ’s church.” Every Sunday, the same prayer was offered; the same lesson of the need for prayer was taught. ~ That standard prayer included the every Sunday petition that God “inspire continually the Universal Church with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: And grant that all those who do confess thy holy Name may agree in the truth of thy holy Word, and live in unity and godly love.” Is it possible, just the least bit possible, that some of our current discord in the church is because we’ve stopped hearing these words, stopped teaching and learning the lesson of “truth, unity, and concord”, stopped trusting God to support us in agreement, unity, and “godly love”? Have we extinguished our light, have we stopped shining that light before others because we’ve stopped offering and hearing these simple, repetitive lessons? ~ I don’t know. And I love variety in worship. But remembering those every Sunday offertory sentences, those every Sunday petitions for unity, I’m beginning to wonder.
Another reading of that proclamation is “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” To my hearing, this alternative version is a bit more imperative; the kingdom seems a bit more imminent when it is “at hand” rather than simply has “come near.” We used to live in that part of northeastern Kansas known as “tornado alley”. If we said a tornado had “come near” that was as good as saying “It missed us! It didn’t hit us.” On the other had, if someone had said a twister was “at hand”, I would have thought it was coming right at our front door! So . . . theologically I prefer the latter reading, but must confess that personally I breathe a sigh of relief if the kingdom merely has come near. A miss, after all, is as good as a mile, and it gives me time to do this repenting and reforming that Jesus calls for. ~ So what is this “kingdom of heaven”? Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat – it is not something different from the “kingdom of God”. Some try to make a distinction (like the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible towards which I acknowledge great antipathy), but a comparison of the gospels demonstrates that they are the same thing (compare these verses: Matthew 4:17 with Mark 1:14-15; Matthew 5:3 with Luke 6:20; Matthew 13:31 with Mark 4:30-31). ~ This kingdom also is not a place far away or near by. The Greek here is basileia ; the Hebrew for the same concept in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 103:19) is malkuwth. While both can refer to a physical place, an actual nation state, they are better understood to refer to a condition or fact or authority of sovereignty or dominion; they might better be translated is “rule” or “reign”. This kingdom also is not a time – past or present or future. It isn’t some place or state or condition at which we arrive after death; it isn’t some place or state or condition which will arrive on earth at some future time. So what is it? ~ Well . . . in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees about the signs of the kingdom’s arrival, to which he replies, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:20-21) The Greek here is entos which means (and in other versions is translated literally as) “within you”. Other things the Christian scriptures tell us are found within human beings are the “word of Christ” richly dwelling (Col. 3:16), spiritual gifts (1 Tim. 4:14), and sincere faith (2 Tim. 1:5). The Hebrew scriptures mention peace (e.g., Ps. 12:8), God’s commandments (Prov. 7:1), and “a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezek. 36:26). In other words, the kingdom is an internal, spiritual characteristic of human beings characterized by these things. That’s coming about as “near” as you can get! That’s even more imminent than being “at hand.” If it’s within me, within you, within us, right here in the midst of us . . . that’s a matter of some urgency! We’d best be paying attention to it. ~ It is also characterized by the things revealed in the eight “kingdom parables” of Matthew 13, but that is too much to write about in a short meditation on a sunny day. I’ll leave those to the reader’s own contemplation. ~ Just one final note . . . if the kingdom (in all its characteristics) is truly within a person (or within a community), it will be very apparent by that person’s (or community’s) outer actions, his or her (or their) conduct, his or her (or their) relationships with others and the whole of creation. Here, the words of the Letter of James apply: “Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” (James 2:17-18) If the kingdom of heaven is truly within, truly come near, truly at hand in the lives of Christ’s followers, then it will be made clear in works of mercy. I think that’s the repentance and reformation Christ encourages here.
You’ve got to hand it to John the Baptizer! He sure knows how to warm up and relate to a crowd. ~ What is John saying by greeting his audience thus? Is John speaking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees at all, or rather to the rest of the crowd? Or, more likely, is Matthew (who here is repeating a line found also in Luke and who later puts these same words into Jesus’ mouth) saying something to us, his later readers? ~ I grew up with snakes. In the desert wilderness of southern Nevada, pit vipers (in the form of rattlesnakes) were common even our backyards. Rattlesnakes can be dangerous, but they are also cowards. A rattler prefers to remain motionless, hoping not to be noticed. If you come too close and corner it, it will rattle a warning and stand its ground. But rattlesnakes never pursue people; they would rather flee than fight. They prefer to “flee the wrath to come”; make them aware that you’re coming and they will slither away as quickly as they can. ~ The image Matthew’s Baptizer puts before us may be that of a fearful group scattering in all directions. On the other hand, when snakes are congregated in a large group where they cannot flee, they are very dangerous. It is noteworthy that John says, “You brood of vipers” not simply “You vipers”. To me, the word brood suggests a bunch of snakes all tangled up together (as in the picture accompanying this text). When rattlers are congregated like this, they can’t and don’t flee – maybe it’s a phenomenon of “safety in numbers” – they stick together in a writhing, deadly mass. ~ Who are the vipers today? Back then, it was the religious leadership and not just those of one “party”. John addressed himself to both Pharisees and Sadducees, both the “right” and the “left” of his day. Could it be that today’s “brood of vipers” are the leaders of the churches? Could it (in my own denominational tradition) be all of the bishops and leaders of the Anglican Communion who have spent too much time tangled up, hissing and rattling at each other about issues which truly are adiaphora to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Could it be that John’s complaint was not that the Sadducees and the Pharisees were corrupt or evil, but that they were distracted and wasting their time and effort, that his ire was worked up because rather than be about the work of God they were too busy wrangling with one another over that which was extraneous and immaterial to that work? ~ John contrasts the “brood of vipers” to the “brood of Abraham”, reminding his listeners that God could “from these stones . . . raise up children to Abraham.” God was able to raise up in the church of Christ a brood for Abraham who were not of the lineage of the Jews. Has that brood, however, slipped into the same irrelevant behavior?
Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, has to have been one of the wisest men in all of Holy Scripture! What he advises Moses to do is nothing less that to delegate authority and responsibility. Delegation is one of the most important management skills. Good delegation saves time, develops people, grooms successors, and motivates subordinates. Poor delegation will causes frustration,confuses subordinates, discourages others, and leads to failure of purpose. Delegation is vital for effective leadership. Jethro seems to have known this and recommended it to Moses: “Look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.” (Exod. 18:21) ~ Here’s the thing, though, delegation means letting go! Once you have handed over authority, you cannot dictate what is delegated nor how that delegation is to be managed. Delegation means letting go and letting go is hard. Human beings, especially talented and successful ones, are reluctant to let go of the things we do well. It’s simply human nature. But refusal to hand-over jobs to subordinates minimizes our productivity and effectiveness. We need to learn to let go. That, by the way, is the message of Christ. Jethro anticipated Jesus: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matt. 6:34) In other words, let go! ~ When I was in college there was a bumper sticker popular among church-going Christians of a particular sort. It read, “Let go and let God”. And I know it’s also a catch-phrase for twelve-steppers and apparently it works for them…. but I hated it then and I don’t like it any better now! I think it misinterprets and trivializes the Christian message, what it means to be an active and responsible Christian. Jesus, in fact, never tells us to “let go and let God”. “Letting go” in this catch-phrase seems to imply that one do nothing, say nothing, feel nothing, and accept responsibility for nothing. That is neither what Jesus said, nor what Jethro advised Moses! Jethro told Moses to continue to be involved: “Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves.” (Exod. 18:22) Every good manager knows that delegation doesn’t mean complete relinquishment of responsibility, and every good Christian ought to know that “letting go” doesn’t mean just shrugging everything off onto God’s plate! Yes, we need to learn to let go, but letting go means letting go of tension, anxiety, worry . . . not of all responsibility. God has high expectations of us! That bumper sticker catch phrase fails to acknowledge that. ~ The fellow who said “Do not worry about tomorrow . . .” is also the man who said “Beware, keep alert . . .”, the man who said “[When] you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Mark 13:33; Matt. 2:40) We are not to abandon our responsibilities; we are to meet them in a non-anxious way in community working with others. That is what “letting go” means. That is what God expects of us; that is what Jethro advised Moses.
The early members of the church were prepared, I think, to be separated from the synagogue, to be cast out from Judaism, and to take the major step of becoming adherents of a new and distinct religion. The church members of the first few centuries were, I think, prepared to be persecuted, killed, martyred. Through their witness and the strength of their faith, the church overcame that separation and that persecution to become the most powerful institution in Western Europe; it was prepared to do that. That was, of course, a mixed blessing and there is a lot of historical debate about and some warranted condemnation of the church’s record as the established religion of empires and kingdoms. However, for 2,000 or so years the church, faced with and prepared for either persecution or power, flourished. ~ What the church was not and still is not prepared for is to be relegated to the sidelines, to be treated with indifference, to be seen as irrelevant to the lives of the people it is charged to reach (I’m thinking “Great Commission” here – Matthew 28:16–20). In other words, the church is not prepared for the contemporary, so-called post-modern world which it, in many ways, has helped to create. A recent book, The Millenials (B&H Books, 2011), claims that 70% of those born between 1980 and 2000 consider the church irrelevant to their lives. Meanwhile, 
A meal is in progress… Is it a seder, the ritual meal of remembrance of the Passover? We don’t really know; the playwrights have not made this clear; the theater critics, the scholars debate this issue. Three of the story-tellers suggest that it is but the fourth, John, tells the tale very differently. (The synoptic gospels tell the story in a similar way and, if truth be told, in the same way – Luke and Matthew based their stories on Mark’s, so to be honest there aren’t three stories, there’s only one that would make us think that this supper is a seder, but John doesn’t. In fact, John doesn’t even care about that – he spends no time at all describing the meal, for him the important thing is what happened afterward, and that comes in a later scene. So as we begin this three-day, three-act drama of redemption, since we have heard Luke’s voice narrating the story, let’s just assume that what we see in this first scene of the first act is, indeed, a seder.)
The meal is over, the dishes have been cleared. The disciples are arguing among themselves about who is the greater among them. Jesus looks frustrated and troubled; the teachable moment has passed and they clearly have not understood! They just haven’t gotten it.
“Stay here,” he tells them, “Stay awake while I go over there to pray.” As they settle themselves, he moves away from them, and collapses in a heap, sobbing: “O God … Father, let this pass!” 
This is the fifth and last Lenten sermon addressing a question posed by a parishioner and, in fact, I will try to answer succinctly two related questions that two parishioners asked. One was “What does the word catholic mean when we say it in the Nicene Creed?” and the other was “What do you (meaning me, Father Funston) mean when you describe the Episcopal Church as being ‘in the Catholic tradition’?” (If you could see the way I have typeset these sermon notes, you would see that I have capitalized the “C” in catholic in the second question, but not in the first. That’s an important point which I will address shortly. But let me start with a basic definition in answer to the first inquiry.
The simple answer is that fasting is going without some or all food or drink or both for a defined period of time. An absolute fast is abstinence from all food and liquid for a period of at least one day, sometimes for several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive, limiting particular foods or substance. The fast may also be intermittent in nature; for example, Muslims fast during the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan which is intended to teach Muslims patience, spirituality, humility, and submissiveness to God. Fasting as a spiritual practice is common to all major religions. Mahatma Gandhi once noted:
