<html><body>I write this, fairly quickly, but haven't had a chance to go back to re-read it.<div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE LAST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">JEREMIAH
23:1-6 PROPER 29 c<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">COLOSSIANS
1:11-20 20<sup>th</sup>
NOVEMBER, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">LUKE
23:33-43
CANTICLE 16<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> How many death threats do you think
I received last week?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Let me repeat that. Sometimes folk
are still settling in and they don’t quite catch the first sentence of the
sermon, or they wonder if they heard it correctly.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> How many death threats do you think
I received last week? How about you? How many of you have received death
threats?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Well, so far, I’ve been lucky. I
haven’t had any. But I haven’t listened to this morning’s voice mail.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> This is not something about which to
joke. This <b><u>ISN’T</u></b> an attempt
to try to get a cheap laugh, or, for that matter, to try to curry your
sympathy. It’s a question because I have one friend who, after a sermon a
couple of weeks ago – a sermon to which I’ve listened, by the way, and heard
nothing that Jesus wouldn’t have said, namely, that every action we take in
life is a moral matter. He received – I’ve lost track of how many emails,
suggesting that he resign.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> I have another friend who’s not only
received virulent, profanity-laced emails, but has been told that her death is
being planned imminently. This friend said that if we – her friends – were to
share her Facebook comment, she’d cut us off immediately, she’s that afraid of
what is being said to her.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> I have another couple of friends
who’ve been receiving phone calls, but the caller has been hanging up
immediately after my friends answer. And this has been going on for hours each
day.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Just as an aside, although I think
it’s directly relevant, Mother Susan Church, whom some of you know, and who retired
from being the Vicar in Newport and Waldport, received death threats for weeks
after she opened the church basement to let Latinos and Latinas find shelter
after coyotes brought them down from the Spokane area and dumped them in
Newport in January and February – with nothing but the clothes on their backs
and a bedroll and a few personal items.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> We live in difficult times.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> It’s not new, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> I placed the two bulletin
illustrations in that sequence deliberately. We celebrate today, the Last Sunday
after Pentecost, called Christ the King Sunday. We acknowledge today,
publically, that Jesus is King, that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is our Judge.
But that’s the second illustration. The first is a scene at Jesus’ feet. The
soldiers, the onlookers, the rabble, are fondling Jesus’ clothes , in an almost
erotic way, the clothes which have been stripped off Him. And they do this
while He’s hanging on the cross, barely a few feet from them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> In other words – and, if you like,
this may be the best thing to remember from the sermon – in other words, Jesus
can’t get to the throne; Jesus cannot be Lord; Jesus cannot be King; Jesus
cannot be Judge – as the Creed describes Him – unless He receives death threats
that are actually carried out.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> Too often we all – you and I both –
try to soften this. We think about what Jesus’ death means for us. We think
about how, somehow, we’re saved by His death. But we seldom stop to see
actually that Jesus’ death, His ultimate obedience to the Law and the Prophets,
the unflinching way in which He refused to back down when He faced arguments
from those who thought they knew better,; the vilification when He did
something which brought comfort, and hope, and healing to those whom the rest
of the community despised; we seldom stop to see that this constancy of Love
and resolute seeking of God’s Will <b><u>MUST</u></b>
come before He is able to come to be our judge. “You,” we’ve been singing
through the last couple of months or more, “You will judge the world you made.”
And we’re part of the world. <b><u>I WILL</u></b>
be judged. <b><u>YOU WILL</u></b> be
judged. No escaping this!<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:
.5in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">But
first the ridicule; first the threatening; first the accusations of blasphemy
which carry not only banishment from society, but also – wait! These carry the
death penalty, whether it’s legal or not. Let’s get rid of this country peasant
from backwater Galilee before He gets any more of a following and the Romans
and the powerful Jews in the city find Him a threat to the banking and trade
commissions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> We’re fond of saying that Jesus, by
what He taught and what He did in healing and comforting those whom no one
would tough; we’re fond of saying that Jesus turned the world on its head. But
we expect nothing like this. The only way to the throne; the only way in which
Jesus can be true to Himself, is to stick scrupulously to what Jeremiah, among
others had taught.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> The LAST thing that Jesus would do
would be to destroy and scatter God’s sheep.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> The crazy thing is that, when Jesus
was born and came among the people whom God had endowed with the gift of caring
for creation; the crazy thing is that Jesus SHOULD have simply come, checked
out the sheep, maybe counted a few of the flocks to make sure that everything
was hunky dory, that none had untreated foot-rot, that none lacked for food and
water, and so on. If things were going according to God’s plan, Jesus’ job
SHOULD have been a snap.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:
normal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""> </span></p></div></body></html>