Pentecost 13, Aug. 23, 2015 (full size gallery)
A busy week for St. Peter’s in August. Two different Fellowhip Dinners on Friday and the Village Harvest serving 80 on the 19th with the food supplies you brought and 500 pounds of food purchased by Johnny Davis.
We had 37 on Pentecost 13, Aug 23, 2015. It was a party cloudy day with mild temperatures for August, barely reaching 80 if that and low humidity. Great weather – we could have easily held service under the sycamore. Catherine was away on vacation for this Sunday and will be for next Sunday
We celebrated Morning Prayer this Sunday at 11am. Before that we had 8 children in Godly Play with Callie. The river had different currents flowing through and will be the scene for the "Gospel on the River", Sept 13, 4pm. The interior of church was bathed with intense colors earlier this morning around 9am.
Alex was the officiant and his youngest son Justin as acolyte. Justin and his wife celebrated their wedding anniversary today, exactly one year later. Dad was beaming. Karen’s mom was also here.
Dave Fannon and his Gibby brought a big bag of big tomatoes. They are wonderful having had one for lunch. The Longs brought a bag of egglant. The last batch we had produced enough egg plant parm to last two days.
Roger’s sermon was on traditions.–they help us remember who we are and they help to complete tasks. Roger mentioned one in his own family – oyster stew for Christmas breakfast.
There can be dangers in following traditions. He cited Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Vindication of Tradition" in the 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities -"Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." The Jewish people developed a series of laws and traditions 500 years before Christ that regulated behavior. If you violated them you were accused of not following God and of falling into sin.
Jesus has to remind the Pharisees that over the years they had lost sight of following God’s laws. Roger used the example of washing hands – which they had to do not only before meals but when entered the temple, touched their heads, fell asleep etc. It was not done for good hygiene but it had to be fulfilled so that people would not be considered as sinners – going through the motions of following the law. Jewish practices in this way tended to place man’s laws above God, forgetting not only the real purpose behind them as well as the Messiah.
Jesus condemned the Pharisees – legalism had triumphed over winning souls. They honored Jesus with only their lips and not their hearts. Jesus was not against all traditions. Traditions that are meaningful have purpose. For example, he followed the Passover tradition and came to Jerusalem on Holy Week just before his crucifixion. He became the passover lamb. His death, however, was not traditional but it helped to save sinners.
There is a dark side in following tradition when we follow the tradition but forget Christ and that the measure of religion is in our hearts.
We will fail to measure up, we cannot reach perfection of God. It is not about following rules but about action. God gather us to do something for us and not for Him. He washes us clean in baptism, and continues to cleanse our hearts. He gathers us on Sunday and we honor God in service.
Commentary by Canon Lance Ousley, Diocese of Olympia
A retired Theology and Ethics professor at Sewanee’s School of Theology once said, "To be a Christian in today’s world, you have to not believe in a lot of gods to believe in the one true God." Both Solomon and Joshua might have made this same statement in their time. In Matthew 6:24, Jesus posits the same theology telling us we can not serve two masters, that we cannot serve both God and money.
In our contemporary culture Jesus’ words ring loud and clear, yet they fall silent so many times even on the ears of the faithful. The overwhelming cultural treatment of money and its place in our lives gives it god-like power in our society. It is insidious, creeping into our lives in a constant barrage. I even have heard clergy speak of a modern day tithe of 5%. But "tithe" means 10%, nothing less. The fallacy of a modern day tithe is magnified by the fact that we live in the wealthiest era of human history. Wouldn’t it have been more difficult for a poorer or less wealthy era to keep the tithe?
But maybe our contemporary poverty is exposed in our epistle and gospel lesson this week. Maybe this sense of the 5% tithe developed because we have eaten the cultural bread of this world allowing money and its material representations to take over our lives. The onslaught is constant and the encouragement in Ephesians tells us that the battle is not against flesh and blood, but rather the "cosmic powers of this present darkness." To me, this description sounds like the cultural lie of "money gives life." This ideology is an evil spiritual force in our time and it may very well take the whole armor of God to stand counter-culturally firm against it.
I understand in response to this that there may be echoes of many of this disciples words, "This is a difficult teaching, who can accept it?" The primacy of Christ as Lord of our lives is a stumbling block to many in our culture, but it is not foolishness to the spiritually wise, to those who feed on the Bread of Heaven that gives us abundant life. As for me and my house, we will serve God and feast on the Bread that came down from heaven. Who else has the Word of eternal life? Who else is the Holy One of God?
Certainly not money and its minions