Sermon Notes from 31 October 1993
Luke 9:43-50
And they were all amazed at (overwhelmed by) the majesty of God (the might God showed in this deed). But while everyone marveled at all the things which Jesus did, He said to His disciples, “Let these words sink down into your ears (pay close attention), for the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men (handed over to human power).” But they did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this saying.
Then a dispute arose among them (Instead, they began to discuss) as to which of them would be greatest.
And Jesus, perceiving the thought of (the calculation of) their heart, took a little child and set him by Him, and said to them, “Whoever receives this little child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. For he who is least among you all will be great.”Now John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side.”
Did anyone notice anything unusual about this morning’s Gospel reading?
Since we are preparing for our Annual Parish Meeting and today is Vocation’s Sunday in the OCA, I wanted us to look at a text that speaks to issues of leadership and vocation.
This Gospel lesson shows some sharp contrasts between what our Lord wanted His disciples to focus on and what they wanted to talk about. This is an important lesson for us to remember at our Annual parish meeting.
The story opened with everyone being amazed at the majesty of God because of the miracles Jesus was doing. And while everyone is being so amazed at Jesus’ divine power, the Lord speaks to them about his imminent death on the cross.
While the disciples are all starry eyed looking at Jesus, he tells them almost sternly, “Let these words sink into your ears…” While their hearts are bubbly and excited, Jesus wants them to get a grip on themselves and to PAY ATTENTION! Let my words penetrate into your hearts & not remain out in the air somewhere. The lesson he offered them is the same He offers us – “Yes I am revealing the majesty, glory and power of God to you, and I am going to continue to do so by being nailed to a cross and killed by the Romans.”
It is a hard lesson for us all. While we all like the lessons which promise us prosperity, 
peace, love, eternal life and God’s unending favor and Kingdom, Jesus tells us that being nailed to the cross is also part of the plan of salvation. There is no other way to the Kingdom then through the cross. We who make decisions at the Parish Meeting must keep this in mind. The way of Christ Jesus is the way of the Cross. A heart breaking love and self-sacrifice are God’s way.
We can note the reaction of the disciples to these words. The disciples immediately get into a dispute as to who is the greatest. They are unwilling to discuss their Lord’s sufferings, but eager to debate their rank. My friends let us in this community learn the lesson that the apostles could not grasp at this point of their ministry.
Our power, our greatness, is not something that derives from our own goodness nor from our good intentions nor even from the good things God has given us. Our power, our opportunity to be great comes from understanding and embracing the mission on which Christ Jesus has sent us. Namely to bring the Gospel to all people, to teach all that the Lord Jesus has taught us, and to baptize all nations. That mission we must always remember, for in that mission is your and my salvation.
As the Lord taught, greatness comes from receiving God’s commission, from doing the will of God, not from any rank or recognition the world or even the church bestows upon us.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is oft quoted as saying, “The Lord did not call us to be successful but to be faithful.” She has grasped the Lord’s intent, as we should also.
We should not be threatened by the success of others, nor by the fact that others seem to have power we don’t, nor by the fact that others outside of the church may do great and godly deeds, nor by the fact that the world may praise others outside the church for doing good works more then they praise us.
If we remain faithful to the Great Commission that the Lord has given us, we will be doing well, no matter how others succeed or fail, no matter how the world may judge us.
So, Let us hear the word of God and graciously and thankfully do it.
Then let us depart in peace into the world to accomplish God’s will.
“We, the faithful, should look upon all the faithful as one single being, and should consider that Christ dwells in each of them. We should have such love for each of them that we are willing to lay down our lives for him. Nor should we ever think or say that anyone is evil: we should look on everyone as good, as I have already said. Even should you see someone overwhelmed by some passion, execrate, not him, but the passions that fight against him. And if he is mastered by desires and prepossessions, have even greater compassion for him; for you too may be tempted, subject as you are to the same fluctuations of beguiling materiality.” (St. Symeon the Theologian in 
The series which began with 
The other blog series now available as a PDF considered some of the changes taking place in American law that is causing civil authorities to hold criminally accountable bishops in hierarchical church organizations who fail to do due diligence in pursuing allegations of clergy sexual misconduct against their diocesan clergy. That series began with the blog 
This is the 7th and final blog in this series which began with the blog 
Many Christians are not limited by literalism and read Genesis as speaking more about what it means to be human than as a history of the first human being. Genesis is about us; it is our story and explains our experience of the material world, including such issues as mortality. 
“We can imagine things to be different from how they are, and plan for our futures. They cannot. We know our beginnings and our end, and recognising the fact of our mortality, are impelled to seek explanations for our brief sojourn on earth. They do not. We inhabit the spiritual domain centred on the self, the soul, the ‘I’, with its several distinct interconnected parts which, being non-material, and thus not constrained by the material laws governing the workings of the brain, is free to choose one thought over another or one course of action over another. And that inextricable connection between the non-material self and freedom is the defining feature of man’s exceptionality, for we, unlike our primate cousins, are free to forge our own destinies to become that distinct, unique person responsible for our actions of which all human societies are composed, and from which virtually everything we value flows.” (Kindle Loc. 4241-47)
Science, biology, evolution are indeed concerned with the material nature of humans. We are material beings, and to this extent we Christians too are materialists. So is God who becomes incarnate as a man in order to unite all humans to Himself. We are not only material, we are created in the Maker’s image and likeness. We have the breathe/spirit of God enlivening us. We have been endowed by our Creator with intelligence, creativity and procreative abilities which allow us to work together with God as co-creators of the present and the future. We are able to be aware of things greater than our limited self. We have a conscience awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. We can imagine a future. We understand that death is a limitation placed upon us. We believe in God’s power to overcome death. We can aspire to things of God and of eternity, far beyond the limits of material creation. God is able to inspire in us the knowledge of and desire for the divine life.
Le Fanu says that despite the denial of a few prominent scientists the evidence shows that non-material processes (thinking for example) do have an effect in the world. Everything does not follow a perfect cause and effect pattern set off by random events. Rather, humans are able to make choices and influence their future. A purely materialistically based approach to humanity does not take into full account what it is to be human. Le Fanu says there is an existing mystery involving humanity, and conscious awareness and thought is part of that mystery and is as real as any physical property.
The non-material, so scientific studies have shown, thus exists and is able to influence the material world. This is a basic assumption of believers and Le Fanu thinks the scientific evidence proves the point. Secular scientists reduce being human to material impulses that ultimately have no true meaning. We simply do what our bodies’ chemistry and electronic impulses tell us to do. While that view is held by some scientists it is not the thinking of most theistic Christians who accept free will.
“… yet the particles of light impacting on the retina are colourless, just as the waves of sound impacting on the eardrum are silent, and scent molecules have no smell. They are all invisible, weightless, subatomic particles of matter travelling through space. It is the brain that impresses the colours, sounds and smells upon them. ‘For the [light] rays, to speak properly, are not coloured,’ wrote the great Isaac Newton.” (Kindle Loc. 3358-61) 
Thus our brains, quite material in their existence open up to us to perceive, remember and organize both the physical and non-materials experiences we have in the world. Le Fanu sees this as part of the great mystery which is ourselves. We discover through science that we are not merely physical beings, but have a true non-material dimension which introduces into our study of human beings notions of the self, the soul, the mind, the heart.
Though new methods of doing brain scans have made visible to us areas of the brain involved in various mental activities, how these processes actually work is not totally known. Brain functions can be spread through large portions of the brain and how the various areas of the brain work together and the fact that even “silent” portions of the brain are essential for these functions is little understood today. In addition how DNA works to make the brain what it is remains a mystery.
The relationship between mind and brain is a mystery that Le Fanu thinks materialistic science cannot resolve because it introduces the non-material reality into scientific study and science says it is limited to physical realities.
This is the 5th Blog in this series which began with 
The sudden disappearance of species and the sudden appearance of new species has been raised as a question by many scientists themselves. (see for example the comments of evolutionist Lynn Margulis in my blog 
Le Fanu believes that there are real developments in humans and really all species that cannot be reduced to scientific materialistic explanations. There are forces that work on us and in us – thought processes, the development of language which Le Fanu thinks points to elements in our human development that cannot be explained by materialist science alone. In this he questions whether the study of DNA could ever explain all there is to know about being human. Le Fanu thinks that focus is too narrow and misses important elements about what it means to be human.
Thus for Le Fanu, evolutionary theory which assumes scientific materialism cannot fully deal with the the universe that we know and in particular with our own experience as humans with one another and with the planet as a whole.
This is the 4th Blog in this series which began with 
“So, while the equivalence of the human and chimp genomes provides the most tantalising evidence for our close relatedness, it offers not the slightest hint of how that evolutionary transformation came about – but rather appears to cut us off from our immediate antecedents entirely.” (Kindle Loc. 874-76)
Of course science often responds to such claims of wonder and marvel with the words “yet.” We cannot answer the questions “yet” but one day we will. And many are convinced that the answers will be found in matter since the empirical world is the only world which exists. The questions Le Fanu raises are sometimes thrown into a category of being questions that focus on the “gaps” in our knowledge, and believers often attribute these gaps in our knowledge to God. Which causes some to characterize these doubts about evolution as the God of the gaps. But then the scientists believe that in due time our scientific efforts will fill these gaps.
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
“Just as, when God expelled Adam from paradise, he settled him opposite the garden in order that the continual sight might renew his suffering and give him a clearer awareness of his fall from the good, so also He settled the rich man opposite Lazarus in order that he might see the good of which he had deprived himself. ‘I sent,’ he says, ‘the poor man Lazarus to your gate to teach you virtue and to receive your love; you ignored this benefit and declined to use his assistance toward your salvation. Hereafter you shall use him to bring yourself a greater punishment and retribution.’ From the poor man we learn that all who suffer curses and injustice among us will stand before us in that other life.
Indeed Lazarus suffered no injustice from the rich man; for the rich man did not take Lazarus’ money, but failed to share his own. If he is accused by the man he failed to pity because he did not share his own wealth, what pardon will the man receive who has stolen others’ goods, when he is surrounded by those whom he has wronged? In that world there is no need of witnesses, accusers, evidence, or proof; the deeds themselves just as we have done them appear before our eyes. ‘See the man,’ He says, ‘and his works: indeed this also is theft, not to share one’s possessions.’ “ (
Fraternized 