Sermon: St. Barnabas (Obs)

 

Sermon for July 1, 2014 ~ 10:00 Healing Service

Feast Day of St. Barnabas (Observed)

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse

St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ

For online access to the readings click here

I speak to you in the name of One God:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Today we observe the feast day of St. Barnabas,

whose actual feast day is June 11,

but transferred the observance to today.

Barnabas appears largely in the history of the church;

we commemorate his feast day normally every June.

My guess is that most of you have read of him or know about him.  What do you all know about Barnabas?

Short Bio bits:

·        Born in Cyprus, was a Jew of the Dispersion (like Paul)

·        Not one of the “twelve” but likely one of the 70 sent by Jesus

·        Named in Acts as having “sold land and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet”

·        Barnabas took Paul by the hand to the the faithful and introduced him, guaranteeing his good faith.

·        Apostles called B to leave Jerusalem and go to Antioch.  He went to Tarsus to find Paul and they worked together in Antioch for over a year.  Antioch – where disciples were first called Christians. (~12 miles from Syria on far Eastern border of Turkey).

·        Part of his mission was to collect money for the poor; this was then taken to Jerusalem (w Paul), returning to Antioch.

·        Much travel: Seleucia, Cyprus, Salamis, Phos, Perga, Iconium, Lystra, returning to Antioch; as we heard in the reading from Acts today.

·        Name: Originally called Joseph but they changed his name to B, meaning “son of encouragement.”

Now that is a legacy – to be called son of encouragement. 

So for today, perhaps we can reflect on encouragement in our own lives.

How can we know Barnabas, through the Holy Spirit,

in the many people who encourage us.

Take a moment *pause*

and close your eyes if you like.

Think of a time recently when you needed encouragement.  *pause*

Think of what was on your mind and heart at the time.    Bring to mind the circumstances, the situation, the people involved, your feelings about it.

Now pull into focus that person

who said just the right thing to you,

who may not even have noticed

that was *just* what you needed to hear.

Think about what that person said.

Think about how the person said it.

Think about how it landed in your heart and

like a pebble in the water,

resonated rings of healing salve into your whole being,

filling you up with love and compassion.

*pause*

What an amazing gift you received.

*pause*

Does anyone want to share their story of receiving encouragement?

Perhaps today is one of those days, when you come to the Healing service needing encouragement for

·        Finding healing in the midst of yours, or another’s, illness,

·        Navigating reconciliation for yours, or another’s broken relationship

·        Knowing liberation from yours, or another’s dis-ease of addictions

·        Hope and healing from yours, or another’s recent death of a loved one

·        Empowerment to move out of yours, or another’s apathy or depression

We all need encouragement from time to time.

The root of the word is, of course,

“courage” which comes from the heart,

or “Coeur” in latin. 

To “en” courage is to “lift up your hearts”

as we say in the Eucharistic prayer.

We lift them up to God,

knowing that it was God who put those hearts in us.

 We received that gift and

we give it up to the Lord in return. 

This is the flow of the Holy Spirit. 

We received freely, so we give freely.

In turning to the Gospel message today,

these are the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples

as he sent them out,

“As you go, proclaim the good news…

Cure the sick

Raise the dead,

Cleanse the lepers,

Cast out demons…

You received without payment; give without payment.”

As Teresa of Avila once said,

“Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

In the Gospel teaching, as in this quote,

we receive the empowerment,

encouragement,

from God to be like Barnabas,

a son or daughter of en-couragement to others,

just as we have received encouragement.

With that promise of God’s faithful love,

we are encouraged to “proclaim the good news” –

to share with those who are in need of

‘healing’ touch

that God is with them,

that the Lord is healing them, that they are not alone…

We are encouraged today by God’s gift of grace

to be generous as the Lord has been generous with us. 

And so I ask you today, if you are willing,

to practice encouraging others,

to heal each other with the prayer of healing,

for it is in healing others

that we may recognize healing for ourselves.

Here are short prayer cards

that you can use to say prayers for each other. 

I invite you to turn to one another

and find one person to say this prayer. 

I lay my hands upon you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, beseeching  him to uphold you and fill you with grace, that you may know the healing power of his love.

Today’s good news is that we are encouraged,

by Barnabas and through the same Holy Spirit of God,

to be encouragers of each other.

Amen.

Sermon: Ephrem of Edessa

 

Sermon for June 10, 2014 ~ 10:00 Healing Service

Feast Day of Ephrem of Edessa

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse

St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ

For online access to the readings click here

I speak to you in the name of One God:

Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen

My mother always had a tune under her breath. 

She was constantly humming

and occasionally breaking out in song. 

As a music major, she studied all the major composers

and practiced diligently on the piano,

modeling for us how to be faithful to a passion. 

My mother always had a tune under her breath,

a gift that did gladden my heart.

When I read about Ephrem of Edessa,

that the Syrian Church called him

“the harp of the Holy Spirit,”

this sense of having music “at hand” –

both literally and metaphorically –

framed how God’s grace was in his being. 

What do you know about this deacon

from the very early church?

We hear that he was

·        Born in 308 in Edessa, near Antioch (Syria)

·        Baptized at 18 by and traveled with the (then)

Bishop James of Nisibis

to the Council of Nicea in 325.[1] 

You know what that council created, right?

His journey to Nicea must have formed him

in a deeply profound way,

as pilgrimages in our day, do, too. 

·        Upon his return, he taught and founded a School of Nisibis, the center of learning for the Syriac Orthodox Church. 

·        He wrote commentaries of the OT and NT

as well as homilies – having been credited

by one historian as having authored 3 million lines

·        Ephrem gained his moniker

“The Harp of the Holy Spirit” from

the Christian hymns that he wrote

to defend Trinitarian theology

against Gnosticism

(which challenged the nature of Christ’s divinity). 

To counter the popular songs of the Gnostics,

he composed hymns in defense of the Nicene faith. 

Hymn 443 is one of them,

filled with scriptural references from

the Gospels, Paul’s letters and the Psalms.

·        Sounds a bit like a reality show –

which community can capture

the popular imagination of the people? 

Regardless, God gifted Ephrem

with the sense of beauty and artistry

from which he could spread the Gospel. 

Think of how Paul was so gifted with words,

in this way Ephrem was gifted in song.

·        He retired to a cave where he lived simply,

devoting himself to writing

and going into the city to preach. 

·        During a famine in 372-373,

he worked distributing food to hungry people

and organizing a ministry of an ambulance service. 

He worked long hours

and eventually became exhausted and died in 373

God blessed Ephrem with many gifts

– hymn-writer, teacher, poet, devotion to God –

but he didn’t use all those gifts all at once. 

Like us, we have many gifts

but they are called upon during our life

in different degrees and in different situations.   

Little did he know that when he was baptized

he would use his gifts in these different ways.

He didn’t know how his life would unfold.

Nor do we, do we? 

Do we sometimes wonder

what good are these gifts,

such as our faith, in an uncertain future? 

What gift have you been given that

has yet unfolded in the service of God’s reign?

*pause*

Today’s Gospel speaks directly to

living into our faith

in the midst of that uncertainty. 

Jesus said,

“I still have many things to say to you,

but you cannot bear them now.” 

Jesus guides the disciples (that would be us, too)

to understand the role of faith in community. 

He uses “to bear” metaphorically –

the burden that is unbearable is the future.  

Jesus assures disciples that

the future will be something

that they cannot now articulate. 

So it is with us –

our faith will unfold in ways that

we are not able *now* to bear how the future unfolds. 

Theologian Rudolf Bultmann said,

“The believer can only measure

the significance and claims of what one has to undergo

when one actually meets it. 

The believer anticipates the future in faith,

not in foreknowledge.” 

Three times, Jesus uses the word “declare”: 

When the Spirit of truth comes,

“… he will declare to you the things that are to come… he (the Spirit) will glorify me…

and declare it to you…

all that the Father has …

he (the Father) will declare it to you.” 

Here, Jesus invokes the Trinitarian presence of God

to proclaim how faith forms the community

for the future. 

This is the early church rendition of

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” 

Today’s good news is that

Jesus promises the presence of the Spirit

in the life of the community.

The Spirit softens the hearts of believers to be

open to fresh expressions of God’s love

and unpredictable ways to use God-given gifts.

May we, today,

anticipate fresh expression of God’s love

in our community. 

May we, today, (while we are uncertain of the future,)

know the love of God that arises from the Spirit.

Our teacher is ready when we are. 

Our sacred songs will gladden our hearts

and fuel our devotion.

Our God will love us through the end of the age. Amen

---

[1] http://www.lentmadness.org/2012/02/ephrem-of-edessa-vs-thomas-cranmer/