A profound sermon from Fr. Dennis Parker At St. Paul's Episcopal Church on September 4, 2022

IT’S ALL GOOD – IT’S ALL INTERIM TIME

Let us pray: Holy one of many names, we look for stability and surety in our lives and you respond with upside-down gospel messages of costly discipleship and fractured family relationships. We search for calm and peace in our lives, and you respond with gospel messages of division and commands that we must hate that which we have held most closely in order to be your disciples. We come into your temples seeking to worship and honor your names – and you command us to leave our places of comfort and carry our crosses and follow you. Help us to find in your difficult messages, the kernel of truth and relevance to our lives and our dreams. May we who gather in your name – be always aware of the costs incurred in your call to love one another as you have loved us. Amen

(SUNG) COME GATHER ‘ROUND PEOPLE WHEREVER YOU ROAM
AND ADMIT THAT THE WATERS AROUND YOU HAVE GROWN
AND ACCEPT IT THAT SOON YOU’LL BE DRENCHED TO THE BONE
IF YOUR TIME TO YOU IS WORTH SAVIN’ – AND YOU BETTER START
SWIMMIN’ OR YOU’LL SINK LIKE A STONE, FOR THE TIMES THEY
ARE A-CHANGIN’

The Gospel or ‘good news’ of God in the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth in its retelling by the Author of Luke/Acts account over the past few weeks has not exactly been filled with sweetness and light! This is not the Jesus of the author of John’s account who commands us to ‘love one another as I have loved you’ – rather this is the Jesus who tells us “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” – not exactly Dale Carnegie’s suggestions on “How to Win Friends and Influence People”! And yet here we are, listening to the difficult words of an itinerant Jewish preacher/teacher of two thousand years ago calling us to costly discipleship. I think this Yeshuah bin Yousef – Jesus Son of Joseph – savior and redeemer of us all is warning us in a similar way as did Bette Davis’ character in the film All About Eve – to “fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night”!

The fifth and final book of the Hebrew Torah is titled in English Deuteronomy – a title that has its origins in the Greek title from the Septuagint duteronomion meaning “second law” or “repeated law”. The book is laid out as three sermons or speeches delivered to the Israelites by Moses on the plains of Moab, just before their entry into the promised land. The first and second sermons address the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness that led to this moment of entry into the that land flowing with milk and honey and the reminding of God’s people to follow the laws and teachings that Moses has given them from the hand of Yahweh – and the third sermon telling them that even should their nation prove unfaithful and lose that land – with return and repentance all can be restored into right relationship between God and God’s chosen people. Our reading this morning from the 30 th chapter of that text is taken from this latter sermon message. The sermonic text states in verses 19 and 20 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying and holding fast to God for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (and I might just add to Sarah, and to Rebecca, and to Rachel and Leah). The Lord God says to the people of God – you’re going somewhere – and it will be good and remember these things before you get there – and you ain’t there yet. This, my friends is a message for the Interim time – the almost but not yet!

(SUNG) COME MOTHERS AND FATHERS THROUGHOUT THE LAND
AND DON’T CRITICIZE WHAT YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND
YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS ARE BEYOND YOUR COMMAND
YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGIN’ – PLEASE GET OUT OF THE NEW
ONE IF YOU CAN’T LEND YOUR HAND, FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE
A-CHANGIN.

Our reading from the Christian testament today is a short and poignant letter that the apostle Paul has written to his friend and colleague Philemon on behalf of a runaway slave from Philemon’s house, Onesimus – who after escaping from his master’s house, travels to the big city (Rome) and discovers Paul and the messages of the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that Paul has been converted to. Onesimus has been serving Paul in his imprisonment, and the Apostle is beseeching his old friend Philemon to accept his former servant back, not as a slave, but rather as a brother in Christ, and return Onesimus to Paul so that he will be useful for the service of the Gospel and the wider movement outside of Colossae where Philemon’s house church was located. Paul, in his ever-diplomatic approach to the issues of his time and society – does not write a searing condemnation of the evils of the institution of slavery – but rather a measured and logical argument that in the love of Jesus the Christ – we have all been set free from the slavery of this world to live in the total freedom and dignity of our lives in God’s Kindom Come Among Us in the Right Here and Right Now.

It (will be) is my distinct joy to welcome to our community this morning The Rev. Christopher Craun, Diocese of Oregon Missioner for Thriving Congregations. The Reverend Mother is a colleague and personal friend, as well as the Diocesan staff person responsible for assisting parish congregations who find themselves in periods of transition. In a Q & A session after the service this morning, she will map out the process for the interim period of the next few months and then the longer interim period to follow as you explore your lives in community and the patterns and challenges living in this community present in your short- and long-term history. One of the lessons I have paid close attention to in my twenty (20) years of ordained ministry in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is that it’s all interim time – we are born, we live and we die and all of the time in between is interim time. We discern our call, we live out our call and our call comes to its completion – all the time in between is
interim time.

(SUNG) THE LINE IT IS DRAWN, THE CURSE IT IS CAST
THE SLOW ONE NOW WILL LATER BE FAST
AS THE PRESENT NOW WILL LATER BE PAST
THE ORDER IS RAPIDLY FADIN’
AND THE FIRST ONE NOW WILL LATER BE LAST
FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

Just prior to his sudden and untimely death, author, and mystic/priest/poet John O’Donohue was working on a book that has been subsequently published entitled, To Bless the Space Between Us. I have used that book many times in the past few years, as a source of insight and prayer, as a reference for meditations and retreat reflections and it is filled with insight and understanding of the many ways in which our relationships with God and with each other can be a source of healing and a balm of gentle grace when words can often escape expression of our deepest longings. My friend and clergy colleague whom I lovingly refer to as Holy Mother Church; was the rector of St. Stephen’s in Newport and the Vicar of St. Luke’s by the Sea in Waldport. Susan was the first person who introduced this book to me and she shared with me several poems and blessings from it – as well as many other pieces of poetry that speak to the varied and multiple spiritual experiences of our lives. I would like to share with you one of those “blessings” in the form of a poem from O’Donohue’s book entitled: For the Interim Time

When near the end of day, life has drained out of light, and it is too soon for the
mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline makes everything look strangely in-
between, unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless. In a while it will be night, but
nothing here seems to believe the relief of dark.
You are in this time of the interim, where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here is washed out; the way forward is still concealed
from you.
“The old is not old enough to have died away; the new is still too young to be
born.”
You cannot lay claim to anything; in this place of dusk, your eyes are blurred;
and there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart and you can see nowhere to put your
trust; you know you have to make your own way though.
As far as you can hold your confidence. Do not allow your confusion to squander
this call which is loosening your roots in false ground, that you might come free
from all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to
become new. The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your
heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.