PROPER 21, YEAR B

Sunday 26 September 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

One of my favorite maxims is that we’re often “right in what we affirm and wrong in what we deny.” So far as I’ve been able to trace its origins, this saying originated not with the nineteenth-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill—to whom it’s usually attributed—but with the Anglican theologian and social reformer Frederick Denison Maurice, in his 1838 book The Kingdom of Christ.

Edward Bouverie Pusey, a key figure in our own Anglo-Catholic tradition, expressed the same idea in his writings: “Look at what other people affirm, where they are usually in the right, not at what they deny, where they are usually in the wrong ...” In his 1951 book Christ and Culture, H. Richard Niebuhr of Yale Divinity School repeated it: “[People] are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. What we deny is generally something that lies outside our experience, and about which we can therefore say nothing.”

Of course, we’re talking about a general tendency rather than an ironclad rule. There are exceptions. We can certainly be wrong in what we affirm and right in what we deny; and some propositions are so wrong that they must be denied in the strongest possible terms.

Nonetheless, the insight behind this maxim is that the truth is often so much bigger and more complex than any of us can grasp. So, just when we’re tempted to deny something that someone else has affirmed, we need to consider whether it’s possible that they’ve glimpsed something that we’ve missed. We need to be careful. It’s all too easy to be “right in what we affirm but wrong in what we deny.”

Today’s Old Testament and Gospel readings present examples of religious leaders who were “right in what they affirmed but wrong in what they denied.”

The reading from Numbers recounts an episode from Israel’s wilderness wanderings. God puts his Spirit upon the seventy elders that Moses has assembled at the Tent of Meeting, empowering them to assist in the burdensome task of leading the people. But Eldad and Medad have remained in the camp where they, too, have received the Spirit and started prophesying. This development seems dangerous and subversive to Joshua, who urges Moses to forbid them. But Moses displays a much more open and generous attitude: “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them.”

In the Gospel reading, John tells Jesus that the disciples saw a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name and they forbade him to do so because he wasn’t following them. The disciples seem to feel that such use of their Master’s name outside their circle constitutes a kind of breach of copyright. But our Lord’s response echoes Moses: “Do not forbid him . . . for he that is not against us is for us.”

Both Joshua and John are right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. Joshua is right to affirm the spiritual authority of Moses and the empowerment of the seventy elders. And John is right to affirm the special relationship between Jesus and his disciples.

But both Joshua and John are wrong to deny that God’s Spirit is free to operate outside the authorized channels. Moses and Jesus see the big picture where Joshua and John don’t.

These stories anticipate a certain tension in the Church’s life between institutional authority and prophetic inspiration, between ordered hierarchy and charismatic spontaneity. Some of the Church’s greatest saints have been figures like Francis of Assisi and Teresa of Avila whose relationship with the ecclesiastical authorities of their day was often uneasy. But other great saints have been figures like Augustine of Hippo and Gregory the Great who were themselves the very embodiments of such institutional authority.

We need both. God gives us institutional authority in the Church to keep order and maintain boundaries so that the Gospel may be truly preached, and the Sacraments rightly administered. But from time to time he also inspires prophetic witnesses to challenge us when we become too complacent; and raises up charismatic figures to remind us by their words and examples what it means to live according to the Gospel.

As an Anglo-Catholic priest, for example, I believe firmly in the efficacy of the Sacraments as means of grace. So, when I anoint someone with oil for healing, I’m confident that at some level God reliably imparts the grace of healing to that person, regardless of whether a physical cure happens. It’s not because I personally have a particular gift of healing, but because I’ve been ordained to act in the name of Christ and his Church, and the Sacrament of Unction is the Church’s authorized channel of Christ’s healing power. As Saint James writes: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord …”

But however strongly we affirm the efficacy of the Sacraments, it would be foolish in the extreme to deny that God can and does work outside the authorized channels. Over the years, I’ve known a good number of lay people with real gifts of spiritual healing. Such people are sometimes drawn to an informal ministry of visiting the sick and praying for healing, sometimes with spectacular results. So, according to the traditional saying, we may be bound by God’s ordinances, but God is not.

Today’s readings also speak to our relations with other Christian denominations and, indeed, other religions. One of my longtime interests is ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. To engage in such dialogue, we don’t have to go all relativist and believe that any form of Christianity is as good as any other, or that any religion is as good as any another. On the contrary, I believe that the Catholic faith as received and expressed in classical Anglicanism is the Truth, with a capital “T.” 

Still, the truth of our own tradition should not blind us to the elements of truth, goodness, and beauty to be found in other very different traditions. Commenting on today’s Gospel, St. Augustine of Hippo writes, “Just as there is much that is uncatholic within the Church, so there is much that is Catholic outside the Church.” Engaging in ecumenical and interfaith conversation, friendship, and co-operation does not require us to compromise or water down our convictions. It just requires us to be alert enough to recognize, identify, and act on shared ideals and values.

It’s easy to be right in what we affirm but wrong in what we deny. We rejoice in our own traditions, beliefs, and gifts. But let’s not be too quick to deny or disparage those of others. For it’s more than possible to encounter God’s presence, power, and holiness in the most unexpected places.

 PROPER 20, YEAR B

Sunday 19 September 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt

Mark 9:30-37

“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” In that sentence, our Lord enunciates one of the most revolutionary principles of his teaching and, indeed, of the Christian faith itself.

Jesus and his disciples are traveling through Galilee on their way to Jerusalem. For the second time, he’s predicted his coming passion, death, and resurrection: “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”

When they stop for the night in Capernaum, he asks his disciples what they were discussing on the way. But they’re silent, presumably on account of embarrassment, for they were discussing who among them was the greatest. 

We can easily imagine how such a discussion might have started. At the beginning of Saint Mark’s Gospel, the first disciples to be called by Jesus were Simon, Andrew, James, and John. So, maybe they’re the greatest, on account of being first called. Soon after that, Jesus called the Twelve to be his apostles. So maybe the Twelve are the greatest. In the events leading up to today’s Gospel, Peter has confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah. So, maybe Peter is the greatest. A short time after that, the Lord has taken Peter, James, and John up the mountain to witness his Transfiguration. So, maybe those three are the greatest. 

In any case, despite what he’s been telling them about his forthcoming suffering and death, the disciples seem to believe that their current journey to Jerusalem will culminate in Jesus being enthroned as king of Israel, and they’re trying to sort out who will get the choice positions in his court when he enters his glory.

In response, Jesus declares the only way to true greatness: “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”  That statement radically reverses the world’s values.

Nowadays, under the influence of two millennia of Christianity, we’ve gained some notion of service as a noble and honorable calling. We speak of time spent in the armed forces as military service. Elected officials are public servants. Government workers are civil servants. Diplomats belong to the foreign service. More broadly, we speak of service industries and service professions. All these uses of the word aspire to an ideal of promoting the common good and protecting the weak and vulnerable. Being of service in these ways is generally considered worthy of respect and admiration.

To my knowledge, however, the ancient world had no corresponding ideal. According to a philosopher like Aristotle, in the natural order of things some were born to rule, and others to serve. You served those who were above you on the social ladder, and you ruled those beneath. While the ruling classes often found it in their interests to be magnanimous in funding public works, feasts, and entertainments for the masses - "Bread and circuses," as the Romans put it - nonetheless the universal measure of greatness was how many people served you, not how many people you served. So, when Jesus declares, “If anyone would be first he must be last of all and servant of all,” he’s effectively upending his world’s values and proclaiming an utterly new pattern of relationships, an utterly new model of community.

To give specify his point concretely, Jesus sets a child in the disciples’ midst, and proclaims, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me receives not me but him who sent me.”

A bit of background may be helpful here. In the ancient world, as in some spheres of the contemporary world, people practiced hospitality as a means of enhancing their social status. The more prestigious the guests you received and entertained in your home, the more their prestige rubbed off on you. Moreover, the recipients of such hospitality incurred an obligation to return the favor and invite you to their homes, which would increase your own position and standing in society even further. Receiving and entertaining important people was an activity that carried definite social rewards.

Our Lord’s point in holding up the alternative of receiving a child in his name was that children in the ancient world were completely without position or status. Before they reached the age of majority, the law treated them as their parents’ property, without any rights of their own. Children were legally and socially nobodies.

To receive a child, then, is to practice a form of hospitality that carries no reward. The host gains no honor or prestige from entertaining the guest; the guest has no ability to repay the favor. Yet, says our Lord, in receiving such a guest we receive Jesus himself and, in receiving Jesus, we receive his Father in heaven. In self-sacrificial service to those with no ability to repay, we serve none other than God himself, and God, rather than any earthly patron or benefactor, is the one who rewards us in the end.

The gift of grace that makes such service possible is specifically humility. I like to think of humility as the virtue by which we learn not to take ourselves too seriously. One commentator describes it as death to self-importance.

We need to take this principle to heart. Down through the centuries, Christianity has to some extent taught the world to regard power and authority as opportunities for public service for the sake of the common good. But our conversion remains incomplete. Altruism competes with self-interest and ambition. And it becomes such a temptation to resent the service that we’ve rendered when we feel inadequately recognized, appreciated, or rewarded.

The Church is the place, however, where we can put the Christian ideal of service into practice. Reflecting on my own priestly ministry down through the years, one of the questions that I’ve learned to ask myself when confronted with unexpected difficulties or challenges, is “How may I best be of service in this situation?” I don’t always get the answer right; and when I do get the answer right, it’s not always the answer I want to hear. But it’s become clear to me that it’s always the right question to ask.

The same goes for all of us. In the parishes I’ve served, I’ve noticed that the parishioners with the greatest staying power, those most likely to persevere over the long haul in their practice of the faith, are not those who vie for positions of power, influence, recognition, or prestige, but rather, those who stand ready to respond to the call to help wherever they’re most needed—for no reward other than that of knowing that they're being of service. 

The death to which Jesus calls us is a death to self-seeking and self-importance; the life into which he invites us is a life of humble and self-sacrificial service. And the Christian life’s endlessly wonderful paradox is that those who end up first in God’s Kingdom are precisely those who’ve put themselves last and made themselves the servants of all.

PROPER 19, YEAR B

September 12, 2021

St. Uriel's, Sea Girt

Mark 8:27-38

Beliefs have costs. A wise mentor once offered me those words as a bit of advice and perhaps also as a warning.

Wrong beliefs certainly have costs. When we decide that some particular proposition is true, it may well cost us dearly to be wrong. If I somehow end up believing that San Francisco is only 500 miles from Sea Girt, it’s going to cost me if I attempt to drive there in one day. We make mistakes and get into trouble when we base decisions on inaccurate information.

But even when we’re right—when our information is accurate, and our beliefs are true—we’re apt to find that their very truth makes costly claims upon us. Indeed, the most profound truths are not abstract and theoretical propositions, but realities that engage us personally and existentially. The truest beliefs are often the ones that have the steepest costs.

Today’s Gospel gives us a case in point of an individual expressing a true belief but then being unwilling or unable to accept its consequences. In response to the Lord’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ”—in other words, you are the Messiah, God’s Anointed One. That is indeed the true answer, in contrast to some of the other answers that people have given to the same question. But then Peter protests when Jesus starts spelling out the consequences of that truth.

“He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again … And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.” While Peter gives the right answer to the question of who Jesus is, he rejects that answer’s consequences for Jesus, the cost of being the Christ. Recognizing in Peter’s rebuke a demonic attempt to deflect him from his messianic mission, Jesus responds harshly: “Get behind me Satan! For you are not on the side of God but of men.”

But there’s more. The consequences of Jesus being the Messiah extend beyond Jesus himself to his disciples. Turning to the crowd, Jesus declares: “If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.”

The point is that there’s a deep inner connection between what we profess with our lips, what we’re called to do, and how we’re called to live. Acknowledging Jesus as Lord inescapably entails the commitment to take up our cross and follow him.

This passage in Saint Mark’s Gospel serves as a warning against certain types of Christian triumphalism. Among relatively new and spiritually immature Christians a frequent temptation is to view the faith as a kind of insurance policy against suffering and hardship. For example, the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” purveys false assurances that if we only pray hard enough, and in the right way, God will send us all kinds of blessings of earthly riches, bodily health, and worldly success. But Jesus knows better; and he warns his disciples that just as he will be rejected, suffer, be killed, and after three days rise again, so his disciples can expect nothing less than their share of rejection, persecution, and suffering in this world.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” The obvious question is: How do we do that? What does it mean to take up our cross? Where do we find this cross that we’re supposed to take up?

Having reflected on this question over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the time we don’t need to look for our crosses; they find us! Deep down, I think, we all know this to be true. Life in this world brings all of us our share of frustrations, hardships, burdens, and pain—whether in the form of illness, injury, bereavement, broken relationships, or other setbacks and disappointments. In some cases, these sufferings are the consequences of our own bad choices. In many cases, we’ve had no choice at all, and we’re the innocent victims of unfortunate circumstances, or worse, the ill will, bad intentions, and wrongdoing of others.

We don’t have to go looking for our crosses; they generally come and find us. Still, while we don’t have a choice about which crosses are laid upon us, we do have a choice about whether to accept and take them up as our means of following Jesus. Here, right belief has good consequences. In following Jesus, we serve him; in serving him, we know him; in knowing him, we become like him – which is another way of saying that we become more and more the people that God created us to be.

The good news here, I think, is twofold. First, in taking up our cross and following Jesus, we find fellowship with him and with our brothers and sisters in Christ; and there’s no greater joy in this life. 

Second, the point that’s easy to overlook in the Gospels is that when Jesus foretells his sufferings, he always foretells his Resurrection as well: “he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” That last clause is crucial: “and after three days rise again.”

The cross is real, but it never has the last word. If we willingly accept our share in Christ’s sufferings in this life, he first lightens our load by sharing our burdens with us. And then he shares with us his glory in the life of the world to come. 

Several years ago, Aretha Franklin’s funeral was broadcast live. I’ve always really admired African-American preaching and Gospel music. While I didn’t necessarily agree with everything that all of the preachers said, one of the stories I liked best went like this: A daughter said to her mother, “When I get to heaven, there’ll be so many people there, how will I ever find you?” She answered, “Meet me at the exchange counter.” “The exchange counter? What’s that?” “Why, that’s the place where you exchange your cross for a crown!”

PROPER 18, YEAR B

Sunday 5 September 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt

Mark 7:31-37

In our excellent congregational discernment meeting a week ago today, a question that came up repeatedly was what we can do as a parish to grow attendance and membership. Many of us are clearly hoping that the next rector will facilitate parish growth: by preaching, by worship, and by working with the lay leadership to implement programs attractive to visitors and newcomers, especially young families. 

Those comments brought to my mind a conversation several years ago with the bishop of the diocese where I was then serving. He’d been elected bishop partly because he was one of those priests with a track record of doubling or even tripling the attendance of every parish he’d ever led. When I asked him for his insights on this, he said that the first thing to do, before anything else, is to get on your knees and pray. Ask God every day to show you what your parish needs to be doing to fulfill its mission; and then ask God to send you the new people you need to help you do it.

In the days and weeks that followed, I gave his recommendation serious thought. In addition to my own personal prayers, I decided at length to add to the intercessions at the daily Mass a prayer intention for growth in attendance and membership. To my surprise – even though I shouldn’t have been surprised – within six months seven new people were attending the parish, including one family with three kids, and an adult confirmation class was under way. 

What impressed me about my bishop’s recommendation was his underlying conviction concerning the power and efficacy of intercessory prayer. He had all kinds of ideas for practical initiatives to publicize parish life and attract newcomers. But he knew that no matter what elements a strategy for church growth might involve, the essential foundation would always be prayer.

The point of intercessory prayer is not that God needs to be told anything that he doesn’t already know. God doesn’t need us to change his mind about what he does or doesn’t intend to do. But, to use a tried-and-true metaphor, God is a gentleman, and in most circumstances, gentlemen wait to be asked. Our prayer needs always to be that that God’s will be done. Yet the wonder of intercessory prayer is that God gives us the incomparable privilege of envisioning for ourselves what a future conforming to his will might look like – in a world where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven – and of then bringing him those requests that are nearest and dearest to our hearts.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is unanimous that God is pleased when we’re honest enough to tell him what’s really on our mind – whatever it is that we want more than anything else. And while it’s entirely legitimate to ask for what we want for ourselves, it’s especially pleasing to God when we reach out beyond ourselves and pray for others.

Today’s Gospel affords a case study in intercessory prayer. A Syro-Phoenician woman begs Jesus to cast out a demon from her daughter; and a little further down the road an unspecified group of people bring a deaf-mute and beseech Jesus to lay his hand upon him. Both incidents occur in Gentile territory and involve Gentiles. But the point I want to dwell on today is that while many of the Gospel stories do feature individuals asking Jesus for healing on their own behalf, what stands out here are people approaching Jesus on behalf of others – the very model of intercessory prayer. Indeed, both the demon-possessed girl and the deaf-mute are incapable of approaching Jesus themselves and so must rely on others to do so for them.

Commentators offer different interpretations of the encounter between our Lord and the Syro-Phoenician woman—which many people today find somewhat troubling and even disturbing. What does Jesus mean by not giving the children’s bread to the dogs—seemingly an insult to both the woman and her daughter by calling them dogs along with all other Gentiles? Some commentators suggest that he’s tired, grumpy, and having a bad day. Others suggest that he really means what he says but the woman’s quick-witted response teaches him to be more open-minded and inclusive. Others suggest that he’s playing a rabbinical game of verbal repartee, knowing all along what he intends to do, but first testing her to see whether she has the faith not to give up and go away when he initially rebuffs her. Still others suggest that he’s being ironic, not at all meaning what he says, but rather making fun of his critics who might really say and mean such a thing.

In the end, the answer to this question eludes us, because all we really have is the text itself. But whatever the historically accurate interpretation may be, the crucial point to my mind is her perseverance. She doesn’t give up in asking for what she wants. Just as she perseveres in her prayer, so we need to persevere in our prayers as well.

Another key point in both encounters is the setting. The Syro-Phoenician woman comes to the house where Jesus is staying. Even though he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there, we can be sure that he’s not alone in the house but rather in the company of his hosts and probably also an entourage of his disciples. The encounter takes place not in private but in the presence of those gathered around Jesus. Likewise, we know that the request to heal the deaf-mute is made in the presence of a multitude, because Jesus then takes him aside from the crowd privately to perform the actual healing.

The implication is that while we can indeed pray in any place at any time, it’s nonetheless particularly powerful and effective to bring our prayers to Church and offer them up in the context of the Mass. Just as the Syro-Phoenician woman went to the house where Jesus was staying, so we come to this house set apart for worship and prayer. Just as the deaf-mute’s friends brought him to the place where the multitudes had gathered around Jesus, so we bring in our hearts those for whom we pray to this gathering of God’s people in the Eucharistic Assembly.

Here then is a good reason for coming regularly to Mass. We’re here not just for what we get out of it ourselves but also for those who need our prayers. Intercessory prayer for the living and the departed is a vital part of the work we’ve been given to do as Christians. When someone we love is seriously ill, or is in dire straits, or has died, then no matter how helpless we might feel to do anything else, the one thing we can always do is pray for them. And there’s no more effective way to do so than coming to Church and offering up our participation in the Mass on their behalf.