The Rabbi Walks in the Woods

 

My Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany at Saint Luke's.  The sermon starts at 22:00 minutes in the YouTube video above.

Epiphany 6A
1 Cor. 3:1-9 and Matthew 5:21-37
Saint Luke’s
February 12, 2023

This morning’s Gospel is one of those - for a preacher – when you can’t help but scratch your head and ask – is there anything else to preach on???  It is long and full of Thou Shalt Not’s.  Thou Shalt not murder, thou shalt not be angry with other people, Thou Shalt not swear to anything – ABOUT anything.  THEN it sounds like Jesus is telling us - there are times when we should tear out our right eye or cut off our right hand. Tevye - that wise old peasant Jew in Fiddler on the Roof - says that an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth leaves only a world of blind and toothless people, and I think the same is likely true for right eyes and right hands.  How do you preach on that?

 

So, I turned in hope to 1 Corinthians.  It’s usually pretty good and includes that wonderful Chapter 13 which is all about love.  We hear it a lot at weddings.  Besides, love is usually easy to preach about.  But this morning’s reading is from Chapter 3 and the word “LOVE” is not found even ONE time.  Instead, the Apostle Paul is literally telling the early Christians in Corinth to stop acting like immature children.  It seems they were divided over which of their 2 favorite Apostles was the right one.  Some liked Paul – others Apollos.  From everything I have studied about Paul and Apollos, I doubt either of them volunteered to be the cause of a controversy.  It’s funny how we can find the strangest things to divide us.  When I was in seminary at Sewanee – I used to drive to Memphis one weekend a month for Air Force Reserve duty.  I’d bypass Nashville on Highway 100 and I’d always see the New Regular Baptist Church.  Then - a few minutes later - I’d drive by the OLD New Regular Baptist Church.  Looks to me like our 1 Corinthians reading this morning still happens even today! 

 

I briefly considered Deuteronomy, but it was not the answer.  Maybe I should preach on the Super Bowl.  Then I read our collect of the day.  O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you:  Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you…”  A lightbulb went on.  WE CAN DO NOTHING GOOD WITHOUT YOU…  There are 2 ways to hear this prayer.  We could throw up our hands and say well we can do nothing GOOD so why try.  Maybe we should just stick with all the Thou Shalt Nots.  But then it hit me.  Of course, we cannot do anything GOOD without God because God is the source of all Good.  It all begins with our Savior. 

Back to Matthew I went.  We continue this morning with the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’s sermon to the crowds gathered on a hillside above the Sea of Galilee.  Throughout this part of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus talks about God’s love and calls us to live the life of faith by sharing that love throughout our world.  When we love God and our neighbor – its never enough to just NOT commit murder and be satisfied with that.  We come to Church, and we say our prayers, confess our sins and then pass the peace.  The Peace that passes all understanding and it begins with the love of God.  Of course, if we are angry with our brother or sister, we should go and make Peace before we come to this altar.  And if anything is getting in the way of our relationship with Christ, cut it off - spiritually.  Come to Wednesday Eucharist in the chapel and offer up your right hand and your right eye and every part of you to God.  Then the source of all Good will do GOOD things through you.

 

I love the story about a monastery which had fallen on very hard times. Once, its many buildings were filled with young monks and its big church was often filled with many visitors. But now it was deserted. People no longer came.  A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters.

 

On the edge of the monastery woods, an old rabbi had built a little hut. He would come there from time to time to fast and pray. No one ever spoke with him, but whenever he appeared the word would be passed from monk to monk: “The rabbi walks in the woods,” And, for as long as he was there, the monks would feel his PRAYERFUL presence.

One day the abbot decided to visit the rabbi and to open his heart to him. After the morning Eucharist, he set out through the woods. As he approached the hut, the abbot saw the rabbi standing in the doorway, his arms outstretched in welcome. It was as though he had been waiting there for some time.

 

After a while the rabbi motioned for the abbot to enter. In the middle of the room was a wooden table with the Scriptures open on it. They sat there in silence.

 

Then the Rabbi said. “You and your brothers are serving God with heavy hearts,” “You have come to ask a teaching of me. I will give you a teaching, but you can only repeat it once. After that, no one must ever say it aloud again.”

 

The rabbi looked straight at the abbot and said, “The Messiah is among you.”

 

The next morning, the abbot called his monks together. He told them he had received a teaching from “the rabbi who walks in the woods” and that this teaching was never again to be spoken aloud. Then he looked at each of his brothers and said, “The rabbi said that one of us is the Messiah.”

 

The monks were startled by this saying. “What could it mean?” they asked themselves. “Is Brother John the Messiah? Or Father Matthew? Or Brother Thomas? Am I the Messiah? What could this mean?”  They were all deeply puzzled by the rabbi’s teaching. But no one ever mentioned it again.

 

As time went by, the monks began to treat one another with a very special reverence which was hard to describe but easy to notice. They lived with one another as those who had finally found something. Visitors found themselves deeply moved by the life of these monks. Before long, people were coming from far and wide to be nourished by the prayer life of the monks.  They never forgot the Rabbi who walked in the Woods or his teaching.  One of us is the Messiah.

 

O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you…  We can do nothing good without you.  AMEN.