[Propertalk] 2 Lent a 2017 - part 1

Thu Mar 9 18:49:32 EST 2017

Back again to Sunday sermons after a brief absence.
Here's the draft for Sunday.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
a

	GENESIS 12:1-4a  12th MARCH, 2017

	ROMANS 4:1-5, 13-17    PSALM 121

	JOHN 3:1-17

	 Seventy-four years ago last month, Sophie Scholl, a devout,
practising Roman Catholic, along with many others were executed,
murdered or lost in prisons. They belonged to The White Rose, “a
non-violent [1], intellectual [2] resistance [3] group in Nazi Germany
[4] led by a group of students and a professor at the University of
Munich [5].

	“The group conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign
which called for active opposition against the Nazi [6] regime. Their
activities started in Munich [7] on June 27th, 1942, and ended with
the arrest of the core group by the Gestapo [8] on February 18th,
1943. They, as well as other members and supporters of the group who
carried on distributing the pamphlets, faced unjust trials by the Nazi
People's Court [9] (_Volksgerichtshof_), and many were sentenced to
death or imprisonment.

	 “The group wrote, printed and initially distributed their
pamphlets in the greater Munich region. Later on, secret carriers
brought copies to other cities, mostly in the southern parts of
Germany. In total, the White Rose authored six leaflets, which were
multiplied and spread, in a total of about 15,000 copies. They branded
the Nazi regime's crimes and oppression, and called for resistance. In
their second leaflet, they openly denounced the persecution and mass
murder of the Jews [10]. By the time of their arrest, members of the
White Rose were just about to establish contacts with other German
resistance groups like the Kreisau Circle [11] or the
Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group of the Red Orchestra [12]. Today, the
White Rose is well-known within Germany and worldwide.” 1

	 We may not have known specifically about this group, but we know
that it goes on all the time, whenever severe repression is practised,
or fear is promoted, or hatred encouraged. Even when people know that
they engage in such activities under the threat of death, still they
cannot allow hatred, or fear, or persecution, or injustice to go on.
The truth is THAT important. If each of those individuals is to be
true to her or himself, and be able to look in the mirror and not feel
shame, then people HAVE to act under cover; they HAVE to be willing to
risk their lives in order to find out, and then to tell others, what
is really important.

	 It doesn’t matter what others say. It doesn’t even matter if
others are sympathetic towards them, but advise against such action
because of the danger involved. Life in Christ is a life of joy. But
it is also a life which demands that we take risks for the sake of
Jesus’ Gospel, if we have to.

	 Truth, justice, mercy, compassion – they ARE that important.

	 This is what Nicodemus’ action speaks to me about. He was an
intelligent person. He held authority in his community. He was someone
who was aware of what was going on, both politically and socially. It
seems as if he was doing more than just hedging his bets when he went
to talk directly with Jesus. Something about what he’d heard for
himself, or about which he’d heard others speak, compelled him to
take that risky step. We get the feeling that he sensed that there was
more to Jesus than just a good and affable speaker. It wasn’t the
fact that Jesus never brushed people off. It wasn’t that He seemed
so approachable. There was something about Him that made Jesus’
relationship with God not only possible, but probable.

	 But Nicodemus WAS afraid. He didn’t want to be seen going near
Jesus. He didn’t want to take any chances that he might lose his
authority, at the least, or, what might be worse, be punished in some
deeper, darker way. It was a desperate choice. On the one hand, he
didn’t want to take risks unnecessarily. On the other hand, he
didn’t want go through life wondering, “What if … ? What if I
HAD gone to Jesus? What if I could ask Him the questions that were
nagging in my mind? What if I could have been specific, and seen how
He reacted and how He greeted me? What if I wanted to know all that
but was afraid to do anything?”

	So he acted undercover. Nicodemus decided that perhaps there WERE
things over which it was worth taking a risk.

	Like Sophie and the members of The White Rose, Nicodemus, and
countless others, HAD to act as they did. God was calling them, just
as God called Abram and Abram responded.

	Life ISN’T always easy. Life can be dirty. Life can be scary. Life
can be dangerous. Life can be lonely. Yet life keeps involving
decisions. “What do I believe?” “How should I act?” “To whom
should I talk, and when?” This is the struggle in which Lent invites
us to rediscover what our vocation to follow Jesus really is. These
forty days hold both hope and challenge, and, despite the habits we
may have learned when younger, despite the edge to the atmosphere of
this season, it’s not without its humour, it’s not without its
joy, it’s not without hope.

	 “Dear Diary:” began the newspaper column, 2
 “At 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, the train is empty enough for an
incongruous ballet. A lone feather, ethereal white, dances across the
scuffed rubber floor. It leaps in the air, pirouettes around a pole.
Maybe it is rejoicing in newfound freedom, having just escaped from a
down pillow someone was carrying home. Maybe it has been left behind,
and the dance is one of distress, abandonment, fear.
 “An older man stands as the train approaches the Canal Street
station. He holds a briefcase in one hand and grabs on to a pole with
the other. His silvery hair glints under fluorescent light as the
feather dances at his feet.
 “The train comes to a halt. The feather continues to prance and
twirl.
 ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ comes the standard excuse over the
loudspeaker, ‘we are delayed because of train traffic ahead of
us.’

Links:
------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widerstand
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Maximilian_University_of_Munich
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Germany)
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreisau_Circle
[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Orchestra_(espionage)

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