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Sunday
spoken eucharist - 8 am
bible study - 9 am
sung eucharist - 10 am

Wednesday

services begin at 7 pm

healing service (1st, 3rd)

evening prayer (2nd,4th)

eucharist (5th)

Caesarea Philippi was located in a region called the Panion, named after the Greek fertility God, Pan, associated with a grotto and shrines close to a spring called Paneas.  Today the city, no longer inhabited, is an archeological site located within the Golan Heights.

When we visited the Baniyas[1] three summers ago, we had just been climbing about in the former Syrian bunkers taken by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967.  As we emerged from the darkness of the tunnels into daylight, and walked through ranks of young Israeli Defense Force solders, who were taking their oath of allegiance there in the Heights, we looked down upon the fertile valley below where crops were growing in great green lushness.

From there we made our way to the Baniyan Springs and explored the ancient ruins where Pan surely was adored for keeping the crops of older times as green as today.

It is to this area, in our ongoing reading of Mark’s Gospel of the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, that Jesus and his followers now come.  Standing next to the stream that issues forth from the spring at Baniyas, bringing life in the midst of the desert, I imagined that the band of disciples might have stopped on their way to Caesarea and perhaps cooled their feet in that stream, maybe dipped their hand in it and drank some of the fresh water.

I imagined them doing all this within eyesight of the Grotto and Shrine, to them surely a pagan place, but yet something perhaps none of them had ever seen.

I imagined a conversation that went something like this:

Peter: Teacher, do you think we should be here?

Jesus: Why not?  It’s cool, the water is refreshing, we’re tired, it’s a nice place.

Peter: But, you know … here?!

Jesus: I know what?  What do you mean?

Peter (nodding his head in the direction of the statue of Pan, part man, part goat, rather lusty): You know (whining a bit).

Jesus: Peter, I don’t know what you mean, get to the point.

Peter: (whispering) It’s the pagan God over there.  I mean look at him.

Jesus: Yes, pretty interesting.

Peter: But what about the young guys who are with us, don’t you think they’ll be … you know …

Jesus: Peter, you keep saying, “you know” and I really don’t know what you are trying to say.

Peter: OK, it’s the full frontal of the man-goat … do you think these impressionable youth should be seeing that!?

Jesus: Not my area of expertise.  I’m really concerned about other things.  By the way, everyone gather around, huddle up (as it were, although I know that phrase won’t be used for nearly 2,000 years).

The disciples come near and sit down on some nearby rocks and tree limbs in the shade by the stream.

Jesus:  Peter has been talking about impressions, so I want to know what kind of impression you think I’m having here, what do folks say about me?

James: (answering first) Well, some people think you’re John the Baptist.

Jesus: Really?

Simon the Zealot: Yeah, really, but others think you’re Elijah come back to earth.

And then some more of the bolder young men, eyes askance at the rather striking pose of the stone figure of Pan in all his manish-goatness, offer that lots of people are confused and think Jesus is one of the prophets, or a prophet, or … (are those really hooves on that statue?).

Jesus: (dipping his hand into the stream for another drink of the cool water) But, what about you?  What do you think?

Peter: (Jumping up) You are the Meshiach!

Jesus: I wouldn’t be shouting that out loud Peter.  Let’s not make more trouble than I think there is going to be.

And with that Jesus began to tell them about the future.  He was pretty explicit in his storytelling, and the outcome had the disciples very troubled.

Peter spoke up again, forcefully, but quieter:  That can’t be, I won’t let happen to you!

And Jesus turned to Peter standing there in the sun as he was and said:  You’re acting like Satan, the Accuser (because that’s really what Satan in Hebrew means).  Go back into the shade where you belong.  You don’t understand that God is at work here in me, in us, in this place, in this world, in these people.  And things are changing, they have to, it is what God wants most.  And it isn’t going to happen by sword, or power, or wealth, or privilege.  It’s going to happen when we all learn to do mitzvot[2] to each other, good deeds of loving and caring and compassion and helping and healing and lifting up and feeding and nurturing and learning how to listen and support and embrace … things like that are going to make it all work.

Jesus continued: Look, you want to follow me, well and good, but in order to do it, you have to be vulnerable, you have to give of yourself and take the risk, go beyond the gate of safety, reaching into humanity even when humanity is unpleasant and strikes out against you … that’s what it means to follow me.  If you do it that way, then you really do have life.

Jesus continued even more:  Don’t be ashamed of me, ever.  Hold onto me, and I will teach you how to do this.  See where we have been, what we have done, who we have touched … that is more powerful than any army, any Caesar after whom these villages are named by the way.  There is another village, it is the village of your heart, where in it, all are welcome, all have a place in the living room, around the table, in the kitchen, in the resting places at night.  Make that village come alive and you will be doing the will of God, that is what God really wants.  Do that and we won’t be ashamed of each other, and rather we will have such strength and power that even the mightiest army, even these Romans, will not be able to put down our rebellion of love and peace.

And then, Jesus said to them: Peter, James, John … come with me, we’re going up on this mountain for a while.  The rest of you stay here and do the mitzvot I mentioned … talk with people, welcome them, heal them, care for them, show them by your deeds and actions what the kingdom of God is like.

And so they did, and if you read on in the Gospels of Mark, and Matthew, and Luke where this story takes place equally, the very next story is called the Transfiguration, where Jesus and Peter and James and John ascend into the mist of that high place, and see Jesus changed in appearance, glowing white with holiness, and talking with Moses and Elijah, and all being surrounded by the holy presence of Adonai Elohenu (the Lord God).

And the disciples are left down below to continue the work, to do the work, to be faithful by allowing themselves to be vulnerable, because that is how it all works in the Kingdom of God.

It’s rather like that for us, isn’t it.  Jesus ascends (literally or symbolically, it doesn’t really matter), and leave us with his teaching that we call the Life of Faith. 

What is that faith?  What does it mean? 

It means that we trust Jesus, that we want to be like him, that we want to do what he did, and every day we do the mitzvot, the reaching into humanity, making ourselves vulnerable for the sake of others.  We knit prayers shawls and wrap them around those who are in need of being comforted.  We hand out bags of food every week from our now nearly depleted food pantry.  We visit the sick, Listen to the distressed, Welcome the stranger, Hold with loving and quiet and gentle embrace those who are grieving.  And we do it not because we have the answer, not because we have the truth, but because Jesus showed us how to do it, and asked us to do it … that is what faith is, following Jesus into the world.

Every liturgy, every Eucharist ends the same way … not with us commanded to stay here and make the church perfect, dusting the corners and rearranging the furniture … no, Every liturgy, every Eucharist ends with us being sent into the world.

Remember?

The Liturgy is ended.  Our worship is over.  We have finished our prayers.

No, the prayers begin, the prayers that take place where words turn into actions.  So, Go peacefully, and serve the Lord, by making yourselves vulnerable to the needs of humanity.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.
Let us pray.

Teaching God,

  teach us to listen as those who are taught.

Save us from the arrogance that thinks we can judge others.

Make your wisdom our constant companion

  and gentleness our guide,

  so your Church can offer a faithful witness

  to Jesus Christ,

  the suffering and resurrected one.

Guard our tongues that we may sustain the weary

  with words of your love for all.  Amen.[3]