Fifth Sunday in Lent

A full transcript of the Fr. Swann's Homily:

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie...” this very familiar and well loved Christmas carol was written by Phillips Brooks an Episcopal Priest and who was briefly Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts. He had other talents, he was also responsible for one of the masterpieces of American nineteenth-century church architecture: Trinity Church in Boston’s Copley Square. Brooks played a very direct role in Trinity’s design. However, there is one feature of Brooks’ design that is visible only to those who preach in Trinity church. Brooks had these words carved on the inside of Trinity’s pulpit: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Here is where I “connect” this to our Gospel lesson for today.
These words, “Sir, we would see Jesus” are, of course, the words that “some Greeks” spoke to Philip when both they and Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem. The Greeks were more than likely non-Jews who were fascinated by Judaism’s antiquity and its profound ethical teaching. They were known as “God-fearers,” and they were numerous in the first century. Many of these “God-fearers” would have converted to Judaism had it not been for the rigid requirements of Jewish rituals. Along with Jesus and his disciples, the “God-fearers” were on their way to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. But---- Jesus was also on his way to suffer, die on the cross, and be raised again.

When Philip reported to Jesus that the Greeks had asked to see him, Jesus exclaimed, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This is a major turning point in John’s gospel. Scholars tell us that John is divided into the “book of signs” and the “book of glory.” In the “book of signs” (the first part of John) Jesus performs seven miracles that John refers to as “signs.” You may recall that they begin when Jesus turns water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana and end with Jesus’ greatest miracle: raising Lazarus from the dead. Throughout the “book of signs” Jesus makes enigmatic references to his “hour” or “time” and says that it has not yet come. When his mother tells him that the revelers at the wedding feast have run out of wine, he says, “My hour has not yet come.” In John 7:8, Jesus tells his disciples that he will not go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths because his “time has not yet fully come.” But when the Greeks asked to see Jesus, he knew that the hour had come for him to be “glorified.” We realize that Jesus’ idea of glory and our idea of glory are radically different. For Jesus, to be glorified was to embrace the cross, the epitome of suffering:

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. … Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. … And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” Because non-Jews such as the Greeks were “seeking to meet Jesus,” he knew that his mission was no longer restricted to Israel but had become universal. It was time for him to be lifted up – that is, crucified – so that all people could be drawn to him. For us “glory” is about having more: more money, more prestige, more power. For Jesus, glory was about giving more, and he demonstrates this throughout John’s gospel, but nowhere more vividly than in the final chapters. Jesus gives himself to his friends by washing their feet. Then he gives himself to the world by dying on the cross.

From the beginning words of John’s gospel “The cosmic Word” by which God spoke creation into being descends from on high and is clothed with flesh, “and we beheld his glory.” The Word Incarnate heals the sick, feeds the multitude, raises the dead, and finally completes his task by dying on the cross, and only then--- resumes the glory that is rightfully his. “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Bishop Phillips Brooks knew that everyone who steps into a pulpit and presumes to preach needs to think about those words, because the great temptation of preaching is to give our hearers something other than Jesus. “We would see Jesus,” our listeners plead, and sometimes there is too little of Jesus in our preaching.

But it is not only preachers who do this. All around us are people who “want to see Jesus.’ Do they see Him in us? I ask that to all of us—all of us who have been “signed with the sign of the cross,” who are in the Church, who ARE on the Lord’s side. Are you and I ‘on His side’- just as an “ornament? OR are we “on the Lords side” – TO DO SOMETHING? Father Darwin Kirby, then Rector of a parish in Schenectady, NY, wrote a short piece- aimed directly at Episcopalians- who feel that they DO NOT have the gifts to evangelize- or simply to invite others to share the “Jesus you have found in this tradition.” It spoke to me. I found it in a book that I purchased in Lent, 1962. He goes on to say that we may feel terribly “inadequate”: BUT so did Moses. You might say the “wrong thing”—BUT so did Peter. You may have once been unaccepting of the Church- BUT so did Paul. BUT GOD used them and will use us.

Father Kirby goes on to say: Has it occurred to you that we in our little Anglican Communion have the greatest treasures to offer – and everything to give? WE stand for a Catholicism which is democratic, not autocratic; dynamic, not static; free, not feudal; apostolic, not papal; genuinely universal, not crammed into a mold of a single Mediterranean group. WE look upon Roman Catholics as our brethren beloved, and we look upon Protestants as our brethren beloved. WE think that the Romanists have gone too far their claim to be the “whole” Church; and we think that the Protestants have reacted too violently against 15th & 16th century abuses into an atomism which denies the purpose of Christ. So with all of our faults, and they are many, we stand in a unique position to assist all souls into a restored, organic, unified body of Christ.

WE are Catholic in Faith, polity and liturgical worship. WE are axiomatically Protestant against ALL human infallibilities, whether of the Bible or the Pope. Within the Anglican Communion are the dimensions of authority and freedom, of individual initiative and corporate controls, of rapt mystical experience and humble submission to discipline. WE have a Catholicism without superstition, and a Protestantism without vagueness. We may well be the “particle” on which the whole amorphous solution of Christendom will one day crystallize. Now that we have “patted ourselves on the back’- let us commit to helping others “see Jesus” in us as we move through Holy Week to the Great Festival of the Resurrection. AMEN.

Pray for healing especially for:
John Cunningha, Betty Stenger, Terese Gluck, Rose Mauzy, David Garber, Pete Walburg, Ella Lane, Sara Pace, Bill Gardner, Katie Armstrong, the Heaton family, Lisa McNelly, Jimmy Milas, and Pete Stanish.

Tommy Fagiana is in an extreme amount of pain and Aunt Terese lives with him. A simple phone call or card can help keep his spirits up. Let us show him how much he and Aunt Terese mean to us all by calling and sending cards. I will post on Facebook and to the blog more information as it becomes available on his upcoming surgery.  


Collect:
O ALMIGHTY GOD, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(1st Reading Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 119:9-16, 2nd Reading Hebrews 5:5-10, John 12:20-33)

Announcements:
**Palm Sunday is also potluck Sunday (April 1) bring a guest and enjoy lunch.
**There is a sign up sheet on the bulletin board for those who would like to give money for Easter Lillies in honor or in memory of a loved one.
**Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. The liturgy will begin in the grassy area behind the church and we will process inside.
**Maundy Thursday (April 5) Mass 6:30PM.
**Good Friday (April 6) Communion will be from the Reserved Sacrament at noon.