A Sermon – Isaiah 9:1-6

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.  You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing, as they rejoice before you as at the harvest, as people make merry when dividing spoils.  For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed, as on the day of Midian.  For every boot that tramped in battle, every cloak rolled in blood, will be burned as fuel for flames.  For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests.  They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.  His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over his kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever.  The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this!”

In this passage we have expressed the messianic hope that is one of Christianity’s most spectacular messages.  One can hardly read this passage without getting goosebumps at the wondrous descriptions of the savior.  The messianic hope, indeed, is one of the three fundamental virtues of Christianity: faith, hope, and love.

A priest could preach a very moving sermon on hope, and on the blessings that a savior could bring to the world.  How wondrous it would be if one God-man could rescue us from the strife and faction that infests every corner of our world, could wrest from us the poverty and pollution that we cling to as a heritage.  How wonderful to be children again, with a Father Forever to watch over us, to administer to us justice, and to take responsibility for us!

The greatest evil of Christianity is just this false hope.  No such things will occur.  Old men will never be innocent again, the flower of our youth is gone forever.  Peace will not be seen on Earth in our lifetimes, nor justice, nor cleanliness.  A religion that preaches that these things will be delivered to us, given to us, as our destined heritage, is a false religion.

God is dead, and so we must be the heroes of our own lives.  This message is chilling, but also liberating.  We are freed from the slavery of expectation, empowered to take action.  If we wish for peace, we must work for it.  We must create our own peace, our own justice, our own prosperity.  It will not be given to us.

There is no power watching over us, no savior to redeem our sins.  No “something out there” loves us; it is only we that love ourselves, and only we that are protecting ourselves.  It is only we that can grant happiness.

Those we have wronged, we have wronged, and only they can forgive us.  Those who have died in poverty, misery, and violence, are dead forever.  Some will say that to deny the Christian storyline denies their suffering meaning, but I say the opposite.  I say that to affirm that story, to claim that this suffering is part of some deity’s grand scheme of good, or to say that it will be some day redeemed or made right, this deprives that suffering of meaning.  Only by recognizing the great magnitude of evil that our own failings as a race have allowed to happen will the meaning of that suffering emerge; only by owning these sins, and learning from them, will that suffering and those sins become part of a better future.  Even still, the horrible truth remains: for those that lived and died in suffering, there is only suffering.

It has been said by some, ironically, that “Freedom is Slavery.”  I say that this is true, and its converse too.  The slavery of religion brings freedom from responsibility; to be a servant of God is to be free from the responsibility for the evil that occurs in the world, to be free from the eternal sorrow at the irredeemable suffering that has already occurred.  To be a servant of God is much like being a “citizen” of the Chinese state; it is the obligation of God the Messiah, or the state, to provide justice and judgment, peace and heroism, in the end.  It is not for the Christian or Chinese slave to question the directives of his master; his duty is only to obey, no matter to what atrocities this may lead.

Freedom is slavery.  To reject these doctrines, that someone else, some other power, will save us and provide for us, is to be burdened with a responsibility that the weak-minded think so awesome that they assign it to super-human entities.  In a way, our responsibility as free people is even greater than that which the Christians assign to their God… we must not only make the good immanent, we must first learn what it is… God has the fortune of already knowing this.  But once knowing the good, it becomes our onerous duty to advance it at every step; every second of leisure, every diversion, is time stolen from the harshest of masters.  For not to advance the right is as great a sin as to advance the wrong.

This Christmas, instead of seeking a new savior in the world, a hero who will bring us peace and justice, let us realize that only we can be such heroes, and the longer we fail to recognize this, the greater are those things we irrevocably lose.

A Sermon – Mark 1:14-20

“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching  the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.’

“Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, ‘Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.’ And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.”

This excerpt is in some ways a remarkable story. The climactic moment is not the action of Jesus, but the response of his future apostles. He calls them, and they drop what they are doing and become his disciples without another word or thought. This is remarkable. How often in our lives do we drop what we are doing, abandon house, family, career, to embark upon some sort of mission? It is not merely the things abandoned that make the story remarkable, but the suddenness with which they are abandoned. The author of the Gospel of Mark does not lead us to believe that Jesus had at any point previously made any conversation or argument with Simon, Andrew, James, or John. He merely saw them, called them, and they came. Is there any force in the modern world that could make an ordinary person make such a momentous decision so quickly?

Of course, times have changed, and in some ways, lifestyles have become more static. The decision is nonetheless momentous, and we suspect that in our day and age no one could make such a decision. The suspicion is confirmed when one reflects that Jesus is calling his disciples to the pursuit of Truth, the spreading of the Good Life. The teachings that Jesus asks the disciples to spread are transcendental, answering the most fundamental questions of life: why are we here, and what should we do?

The nature of Jesus’ teaching has not changed with time. The mission that he gave to the fishers was the same mission that he gives to Christians today, its transcendental nature not diminished by one iota. What is different between the story and life is the importance placed in the story on the transcendental. The fishers could have said, “Let us fish before we preach, that we may eat and not die and then focus more carefully on the preaching, the ultimate end.” Instead, they said, “Preaching is the ultimate end. We preach.”

Today (and perhaps in Jesus’ time too) for nearly all people, we choose to fish before we preach. We also choose to clean our houses, get cable, take a shower, go to work, have a drink, and go to the beach before we preach, or in any other way pursue the transcendental. Now to one for whom these things are the transcendental – the ultimate purpose – for example, a hedonist, this is all well and good. But for someone who professes Christianity, or any other dogma with a strict, specific, but expansive set of strictures governing life, how can this attention to mundane things be justified, except that we are creatures of habit, not purpose?

For one who is uncertain, the situation seems even more dire. If one does not know why he is here or what he is to do, how can he afford time for movies, laughter, and sleep, when there is so much to be learned?

To return to the Gospel, Jesus called his disciples to a life of preaching. This is another aspect of the transcendental, the moral imperative, that seems lost in modern life (and again, perhaps in other eras as well). Many people consider it rude, dull, or strange to discuss life’s deepest questions. But if you have discovered what you believe to be the purpose of life, does not the nature of love demand that you share that purpose with those you love? That you let them know your purpose, so that they can help you at it? That you share how you arrived at this purpose with them, so that they may either share your purpose, or by similar processes arrive at their own? Moreover, if the truth and purpose you have arrived at are universal, if you live in a teleological universe, is it not your moral imperative to share this truth and purpose with one and all? How can you justify the hours spent conversing with friends when the masses blindly follow their daily lives, not knowing or caring about the end, the good, toward which the whole universe should be striving?

There may be many answers to this questions, which the reader may suspect are rhetorical in nature. Of course, I am inclined to suspect cowardice, shyness, and indifference as major culprits, but there may be others as well.

In summary, today’s Gospel is the story of four men who put aside the mundane tasks of their daily life as they encounter for the first time, transcendental truth, personified in Jesus. On a moment’s notice, upon encountering this truth, they abandon all that they have to pursue it. They do not merely pursue it, but go on to expound it and preach it to all who will listen. This story is truly remarkable, exceptional, and different from the dross that we encounter in daily life. Perhaps it will give us occasion to reflect upon moral purpose and the role it plays in our own lives.