Where do you think you fit in the cosmos? It’s said that President Teddy Roosevelt liked to take his important guests outside in the evening. He would point to the huge Andromeda Galaxy and remind his guests that it contained a hundred billion suns, many larger than our own sun. After a little silence he would then say, “Now I think we’re small enough. Let’s go in.”1 Roosevelt knew that people could work together effectively only when they understood their relative importance in the grand scheme of things.
A humor web site offers us a slightly different take. The folks who run humor@emmitsburg.net suggest that we can gain a healthy – and perhaps humble – perspective on ourselves by looking in the mirror. At age 3, the site says, a girl looks in the mirror and sees a queen. At 8, she sees Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. At 15, she sees a chubby, ugly, pimply teen who just can’t go to school looking like this. At 20, she’s too tall, too short, too thin, or too fat, but she goes to class or work anyway. At 30, she’s still too tall, too short, too thin, or too fat, but she’s too busy to do anything about it and goes out anyway. At 40, she’s still the same, but she says, “At least I’m clean and healthy,” and off she goes. At 50, she looks at herself, says “Well, that’s me,” and goes wherever she wants. At 60, she looks at herself, gives thanks that she can still see herself, and goes out and enjoys life. At 70, she sees wisdom, skills, and laughter and goes out with a grateful heart. At 80, she doesn’t bother to look; she just puts on a purple hat and goes out to enjoy life with her friends and family. Perhaps, say the folks on the site, we should just grab that purple hat a little earlier in life!
If Jesus were teaching today, he might suggest that both comparing ourselves to the stars and looking away from the mirror sooner would help us to have a clearer sense of who we are before God. What a strange dinner guest Jesus was in the part of Luke’s story that we hear today! We are still on the road to Jerusalem, with Jesus going from town to town and accepting invitations to teach and dine along the way. Here he has been invited by a leading Pharisee to dine on the Sabbath. You know, the Pharisees tend to get a bad rap in the Gospels. They were a sect that began in the diaspora, the colonies of Jews living outside Israel. These Jews were anxious to maintain the integrity and visible distinctiveness of their community in largely Gentile areas. So they very carefully observed all the rules and regulations in Scripture concerning dietary laws and Sabbath keeping. In inviting this relatively unknown travelling rabbi to dine, perhaps this leader of the Pharisees and his fellow rabbis were curious as to what Jesus would do and how he would interpret the rules and regulations. Perhaps they wanted to hear what new teaching he would give them.
Jesus must surely have disappointed them! He behaved in three ways definitely outside the norm for dinner guests in his day, or maybe in any day. In the first part of the story, which we don’t hear, he healed a man who had swelling in his joints. Remember that it was the Sabbath, and he wasn’t supposed to heal on the Sabbath. Healing is work, as we were reminded in last week’s Gospel reading, and one doesn’t work on the Sabbath. Jesus challenged his hearers here in the same way that he had in his healing of the bent-over woman, namely by reminding them that they would rescue a child or animal on the Sabbath, so it ought to be OK to heal.
Now everyone was surely on edge. So the second thing that Jesus did was to give his fellow diners a lesson in the proper etiquette for taking one’s seat. He told them that it’s smarter to take the lowest place around the table than the highest place. Of course, this was not news. Any Pharisee who read the Scriptures – and surely these Pharisees would have known their Scriptures backwards and forwards – recognized Jesus’ quotation of Proverbs 25.
If instructing his fellow diners weren’t bad enough, the third and oddest thing that Jesus did was to instruct his host as to whom to invite to dinner: not his family, his friends, and those able to reciprocate his hospitality, but rather the “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” The Pharisees must surely have shuddered when they heard Jesus say that. Most people believed that the “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” were that way because God despised them. Therefore a Pharisee would be ritually defiled by getting too close to them. Yet what does Jesus suggest? That one would be blessed by inviting such people, at least in the resurrection of the righteous.
Are we too at that dinner party with Jesus? Are we too observing him closely? What do we hear him telling us? I hear him telling us two things. I hear him telling us that we must let go of pride, self-preoccupation, and the desire for human accolades. That doesn’t mean being a doormat, but it does mean having a realistic sense of who we are. When we do have a realistic sense of who we are before God, when we put that purple hat on a little sooner in life, when we understand that all of us are created in God’s image and loved by God, then we will be truly blessed. Ultimately, God will enable us to become more than we are this minute. God will continue to help us to grow fully into the person God created us to be. As The Message Bible puts it, “If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’ll end up flat on your face. But if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
I also hear Jesus reminding us that if we are created in God’s image, then God will also enable us to get beyond ourselves, to go beyond focusing on our own needs and the needs of our own immediate circle. God will enable us to share our life with people who look, talk, act, and maybe even smell different from us. God will help us to reach out to those whom we don’t normally see, know, or care about. The people with whom God is inviting and enabling us to share our love and wealth are all around us: single moms, homeless men, disabled children, gay folks, migrant workers, people who can’t make ends meet even though they’re gainfully employed, immigrants trying to adapt to our community. Jesus calls us to see them as equally beloved of God as we are. Jesus calls us to step out of our comfortable middle-class existence and invite them into our lives. Jesus promises us that when we do, we will be blessed. Hear The Message again: “Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be – and experience – a blessing.”
Daniel Clendinen tells the wonderful story of the wedding of his friend’s daughter, Lisa.2 The young couple couldn’t afford to invite the whole church. So they had the main street in downtown Waco, Texas blocked off. Guests danced in the street, enjoyed ice cream from Baskin Robbins, and shared wedding cake in a park gazebo. The groom, a pastor, had befriended a homeless man who lived under a bridge. Sure enough, “Coyote” came to the wedding dressed as usual: in jeans with holes in the knees, scruffy beard, and unwashed hair. He brought several of his homeless friends too, who then cleaned up afterwards. The bride’s neighbor, a small girl, came with her mother and grandfather. Soon all the younger folks were vying for the chance to dance with the 70-year old man. People strolling by were invited to join the festivities. There were smartly dressed guests alongside guests who had probably never been to a formal affair. However they were dressed, for this moment at least, “every person felt welcomed as an honored guest.” Every person was welcomed as God welcomes us and invites us to welcome each other. Every person was blessed by the others there. Every person was a blessing to the others there.
My friends, here’s the good news. When we know who we are, when we know that we are beloved children of God, when we feel free to be who we truly are, when we feel free to be the people that God created us to be, and then when we reach out to others, all others, in true welcome, we will be a blessing, and we will surely be blessed. And not only at the resurrection of the righteous. Right here and now, in our lives in this place, today. Do we feel free to step out of our comfort zone and embrace those who cannot repay us? Are we ready to stretch out our hands in welcome to all?
1. Thanks to Patricia Sanchez for this and the following story in Celebration Preaching Resources.
2. In this week’s Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
My Words are in Your Mouth
It takes courage to answer God’s call. It takes guts, moxie, and nerve, to proclaim God’s word, to declare what God has shown us, to go where God sends us. It takes courage to answer God’s call.
The late 7th century BC was a turbulent time in the history of Israel. The northern kingdom, the likely birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah, had lost its independence a century earlier. The southern kingdom, whose capital was Jerusalem, was struggling to maintain its independence. The seers and prophets attached to its weak kings advised a series of political negotiations and alliances. In the midst of this political maneuvering, maneuvering that would eventually lead to the great Exile of the 6th century, a teenaged descendant of a priestly family now living in the northern kingdom heard God’s call. We don’t know how old Jeremiah was, we don’t know where he was, and we don’t know what he was doing when God’s call came to him. Perhaps he was reading the Torah or meditating on God’s holy word.
Whatever he was doing, Jeremiah knew without a doubt that God had taken the initiative to speak to him. He knew, that the “word of the Lord” had come to him. He heard God reveal to him that God had known him intimately even before he had been born, and that God had set him aside for a particular task. Like almost everyone who has a distinct sense of God’s call, including almost all those mentioned in Scripture, Jeremiah resisted God’s call. He had a good excuse. He protested: “I’m too young!” “No,” God said, “you are not too young. And anyway, I’ll tell you where to go, to whom to speak, and what to say.” Was Jeremiah afraid to do God’s will? Of course he was, and God knew that. God told him not to be afraid, that God himself would always be with him. What is most important, God gave him the authority he needed to speak: God touched his mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” We don’t know what Jeremiah said to God in reply, but we do know, from the rest of the Book of Jeremiah, that Jeremiah more than fulfilled God’s charge. Often in peril of his life and challenged by the other prophets, he warned the weak kings and their flunkies over and over again, that the alliances would fail, and that the Babylonians would eventually destroy their kingdom. Having done all that God had asked of him, Jeremiah himself was exiled and ended up dying in Egypt. It takes courage to proclaim God’s word.
It takes moxie to declare what God has shown to us. On May 8, 1373, in Norwich, England, a woman of “thirty and a half,” as she said of herself, lay mortally ill. When she seemed close to the point of death, a crucifix was put in front of her. Suddenly she felt herself drawn into the crucifix. She had an intense vision of the Passion, and she experienced direct mystic sight of Jesus. After she recovered from her illness, the woman, who subsequently came to be known as Julian of Norwich, continued to have intense visions of Jesus on the cross. Altogether, Julian experienced sixteen visions. She tells us that she was a only “simple creature,” who was not literate in Latin. Nevertheless at the urging of her parish priest, she wrote up her visions briefly in a sentence or two. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, Julian then spent the rest of her adult life enclosed in a small suite of rooms built onto the side of the church of St. Julian of Conisford in Norwich, from which comes the name by which we know her. Over the next twenty years, led by Jesus, she continued to meditate on her visions. Though not a church leader or teacher in the formal sense, through God’s leading, Julian developed a sophisticated understanding of the Passion, of the problem of sin, of the Trinity, and of Jesus as our Mother. In her last great vision, she saw the soul as a great city, at the center of which, Christ is enthroned forever.
Although she was enclosed Julian was a spiritual guide to many. At the urging of those who knew her Julian finally wrote up the full versions of all her visions. Following the last vision, Julian concluded her book having heard God’s assurance that his purpose in enabling her to write it was to have her visions more widely known. She tells us, “This book is begun by God’s gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it. For charity pray we all to God…; for truly I saw and understood our Lord’s meaning, why he showed it was to have it known more than it is, and in this knowing he will give us grace to love him and to cleave to him.” Although Julian died in about 1416, miraculously her writings did survive. Today they are an inspiration to many. The church where it is believed that she was enclosed is a beloved shrine, and an order of Benedictine Episcopal monks and nuns bears her name. It takes moxie to declare what God has shown us.
It takes nerve to go where God sends us. Henry Winter Syle was deaf. Soon after his parents returned from mission work in China, in 1850, Henry had a severe attack of scarlet fever that robbed him of his hearing and left him prone to other illnesses. He was fortunate to be educated at the only school for the deaf in the US, and was able to enter St. John’s College in Cambridge, England. Though forced by illness to return to the US, he eventually earned both a BA and an MA from Yale College. He was the first deaf man to take degrees from a hearing college. First a teacher of the deaf, he then became a librarian of the New York Institution for the Deaf and opened a free night school for the deaf. After moving Philadelphia to work for the U.S. mint, Syle became an active lay leader in his local Episcopal parish. He joined the work of Thomas Gallaudet, who had begun working with the deaf some twenty years earlier. In Philadelphia, Syle felt a call to ordained ministry. He could have protested that he was deaf, and that the Episcopal had never ordained a deaf priest. Instead, he screwed up his courage and began studying for Holy Orders. He was ordained deacon in 1876 by Bishop William Bacon Stevens of Philadelphia. At that time, many people believed that impairment of one of the senses was an impediment to ordination. Nevertheless, Syle was encouraged by Gallaudet and Bishop Stevens to continue his studies. On October 14, 1883, against the opposition of many, Syle was ordained priest by Bishop Stevens, the first hearing-impaired person to be ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.
Following his ordination, Syle was a thundering voice for mission to the deaf, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Delaware and New Jersey. In 1888 he founded All Souls Church in Philadelphia, the first Episcopal church constructed for ministry to hearing-impaired people. A prolific writer, Syle wrote many articles for journals devoted to the deaf. He was also active in professional organizations and helped establish a home for aged and infirm deaf people in Philadelphia. When he died of pneumonia in January 1890 at the age of only forty-three, both the church and the deaf community lost a valiant servant of God.
God called Jeremiah, Julian, and Henry Syle. Although each of them felt unworthy of God’s call, each of them accepted God’s invitation. They proclaimed God’s word, declared God’s visions, and did God’s work. What of us? To what has God called us? In our conversations with the Spirit yesterday, we talked about many ways that God might be calling us to growth and ministry in this place. Are we ready to accept God’s invitation to renewal? Perhaps it’s trite to say that “God has no hands but our hands,” but in every age, God uses human servants and prophets to make Godself known to us, and to effect God’s will in the world. God is well aware of the fragility and incompetence, the sinfulness and weakness, the physical impairments, the age or youth of all God’s human instruments. In the incarnation, God experienced all that and more. Yet Scripture and history show us over and over again that God’s strength can be, indeed must be, in this world, expressed through weak human beings. What is more important, when God calls, God gives the power and authority that we need to do God’s will. All that is needed on our part is to respond to God’s call.
And so what of us? Do we have the courage to accept God’s invitation to new life?
The late 7th century BC was a turbulent time in the history of Israel. The northern kingdom, the likely birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah, had lost its independence a century earlier. The southern kingdom, whose capital was Jerusalem, was struggling to maintain its independence. The seers and prophets attached to its weak kings advised a series of political negotiations and alliances. In the midst of this political maneuvering, maneuvering that would eventually lead to the great Exile of the 6th century, a teenaged descendant of a priestly family now living in the northern kingdom heard God’s call. We don’t know how old Jeremiah was, we don’t know where he was, and we don’t know what he was doing when God’s call came to him. Perhaps he was reading the Torah or meditating on God’s holy word.
Whatever he was doing, Jeremiah knew without a doubt that God had taken the initiative to speak to him. He knew, that the “word of the Lord” had come to him. He heard God reveal to him that God had known him intimately even before he had been born, and that God had set him aside for a particular task. Like almost everyone who has a distinct sense of God’s call, including almost all those mentioned in Scripture, Jeremiah resisted God’s call. He had a good excuse. He protested: “I’m too young!” “No,” God said, “you are not too young. And anyway, I’ll tell you where to go, to whom to speak, and what to say.” Was Jeremiah afraid to do God’s will? Of course he was, and God knew that. God told him not to be afraid, that God himself would always be with him. What is most important, God gave him the authority he needed to speak: God touched his mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” We don’t know what Jeremiah said to God in reply, but we do know, from the rest of the Book of Jeremiah, that Jeremiah more than fulfilled God’s charge. Often in peril of his life and challenged by the other prophets, he warned the weak kings and their flunkies over and over again, that the alliances would fail, and that the Babylonians would eventually destroy their kingdom. Having done all that God had asked of him, Jeremiah himself was exiled and ended up dying in Egypt. It takes courage to proclaim God’s word.
It takes moxie to declare what God has shown to us. On May 8, 1373, in Norwich, England, a woman of “thirty and a half,” as she said of herself, lay mortally ill. When she seemed close to the point of death, a crucifix was put in front of her. Suddenly she felt herself drawn into the crucifix. She had an intense vision of the Passion, and she experienced direct mystic sight of Jesus. After she recovered from her illness, the woman, who subsequently came to be known as Julian of Norwich, continued to have intense visions of Jesus on the cross. Altogether, Julian experienced sixteen visions. She tells us that she was a only “simple creature,” who was not literate in Latin. Nevertheless at the urging of her parish priest, she wrote up her visions briefly in a sentence or two. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, Julian then spent the rest of her adult life enclosed in a small suite of rooms built onto the side of the church of St. Julian of Conisford in Norwich, from which comes the name by which we know her. Over the next twenty years, led by Jesus, she continued to meditate on her visions. Though not a church leader or teacher in the formal sense, through God’s leading, Julian developed a sophisticated understanding of the Passion, of the problem of sin, of the Trinity, and of Jesus as our Mother. In her last great vision, she saw the soul as a great city, at the center of which, Christ is enthroned forever.
Although she was enclosed Julian was a spiritual guide to many. At the urging of those who knew her Julian finally wrote up the full versions of all her visions. Following the last vision, Julian concluded her book having heard God’s assurance that his purpose in enabling her to write it was to have her visions more widely known. She tells us, “This book is begun by God’s gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it. For charity pray we all to God…; for truly I saw and understood our Lord’s meaning, why he showed it was to have it known more than it is, and in this knowing he will give us grace to love him and to cleave to him.” Although Julian died in about 1416, miraculously her writings did survive. Today they are an inspiration to many. The church where it is believed that she was enclosed is a beloved shrine, and an order of Benedictine Episcopal monks and nuns bears her name. It takes moxie to declare what God has shown us.
It takes nerve to go where God sends us. Henry Winter Syle was deaf. Soon after his parents returned from mission work in China, in 1850, Henry had a severe attack of scarlet fever that robbed him of his hearing and left him prone to other illnesses. He was fortunate to be educated at the only school for the deaf in the US, and was able to enter St. John’s College in Cambridge, England. Though forced by illness to return to the US, he eventually earned both a BA and an MA from Yale College. He was the first deaf man to take degrees from a hearing college. First a teacher of the deaf, he then became a librarian of the New York Institution for the Deaf and opened a free night school for the deaf. After moving Philadelphia to work for the U.S. mint, Syle became an active lay leader in his local Episcopal parish. He joined the work of Thomas Gallaudet, who had begun working with the deaf some twenty years earlier. In Philadelphia, Syle felt a call to ordained ministry. He could have protested that he was deaf, and that the Episcopal had never ordained a deaf priest. Instead, he screwed up his courage and began studying for Holy Orders. He was ordained deacon in 1876 by Bishop William Bacon Stevens of Philadelphia. At that time, many people believed that impairment of one of the senses was an impediment to ordination. Nevertheless, Syle was encouraged by Gallaudet and Bishop Stevens to continue his studies. On October 14, 1883, against the opposition of many, Syle was ordained priest by Bishop Stevens, the first hearing-impaired person to be ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.
Following his ordination, Syle was a thundering voice for mission to the deaf, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Delaware and New Jersey. In 1888 he founded All Souls Church in Philadelphia, the first Episcopal church constructed for ministry to hearing-impaired people. A prolific writer, Syle wrote many articles for journals devoted to the deaf. He was also active in professional organizations and helped establish a home for aged and infirm deaf people in Philadelphia. When he died of pneumonia in January 1890 at the age of only forty-three, both the church and the deaf community lost a valiant servant of God.
God called Jeremiah, Julian, and Henry Syle. Although each of them felt unworthy of God’s call, each of them accepted God’s invitation. They proclaimed God’s word, declared God’s visions, and did God’s work. What of us? To what has God called us? In our conversations with the Spirit yesterday, we talked about many ways that God might be calling us to growth and ministry in this place. Are we ready to accept God’s invitation to renewal? Perhaps it’s trite to say that “God has no hands but our hands,” but in every age, God uses human servants and prophets to make Godself known to us, and to effect God’s will in the world. God is well aware of the fragility and incompetence, the sinfulness and weakness, the physical impairments, the age or youth of all God’s human instruments. In the incarnation, God experienced all that and more. Yet Scripture and history show us over and over again that God’s strength can be, indeed must be, in this world, expressed through weak human beings. What is more important, when God calls, God gives the power and authority that we need to do God’s will. All that is needed on our part is to respond to God’s call.
And so what of us? Do we have the courage to accept God’s invitation to new life?
My Words are in Your Mouth
It takes courage to answer God’s call. It takes guts, moxie, and nerve, to proclaim God’s word, to declare what God has shown us, to go where God sends us. It takes courage to answer God’s call.
The late 7th century BC was a turbulent time in the history of Israel. The northern kingdom, the likely birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah, had lost its independence a century earlier. The southern kingdom, whose capital was Jerusalem, was struggling to maintain its independence. The seers and prophets attached to its weak kings advised a series of political negotiations and alliances. In the midst of this political maneuvering, maneuvering that would eventually lead to the great Exile of the 6th century, a teenaged descendant of a priestly family now living in the northern kingdom heard God’s call. We don’t know how old Jeremiah was, we don’t know where he was, and we don’t know what he was doing when God’s call came to him. Perhaps he was reading the Torah or meditating on God’s holy word.
Whatever he was doing, Jeremiah knew without a doubt that God had taken the initiative to speak to him. He knew, that the “word of the Lord” had come to him. He heard God reveal to him that God had known him intimately even before he had been born, and that God had set him aside for a particular task. Like almost everyone who has a distinct sense of God’s call, including almost all those mentioned in Scripture, Jeremiah resisted God’s call. He had a good excuse. He protested: “I’m too young!” “No,” God said, “you are not too young. And anyway, I’ll tell you where to go, to whom to speak, and what to say.” Was Jeremiah afraid to do God’s will? Of course he was, and God knew that. God told him not to be afraid, that God himself would always be with him. What is most important, God gave him the authority he needed to speak: God touched his mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” We don’t know what Jeremiah said to God in reply, but we do know, from the rest of the Book of Jeremiah, that Jeremiah more than fulfilled God’s charge. Often in peril of his life and challenged by the other prophets, he warned the weak kings and their flunkies over and over again, that the alliances would fail, and that the Babylonians would eventually destroy their kingdom. Having done all that God had asked of him, Jeremiah himself was exiled and ended up dying in Egypt. It takes courage to proclaim God’s word.
It takes moxie to declare what God has shown to us. On May 8, 1373, in Norwich, England, a woman of “thirty and a half,” as she said of herself, lay mortally ill. When she seemed close to the point of death, a crucifix was put in front of her. Suddenly she felt herself drawn into the crucifix. She had an intense vision of the Passion, and she experienced direct mystic sight of Jesus. After she recovered from her illness, the woman, who subsequently came to be known as Julian of Norwich, continued to have intense visions of Jesus on the cross. Altogether, Julian experienced sixteen visions. She tells us that she was a only “simple creature,” who was not literate in Latin. Nevertheless at the urging of her parish priest, she wrote up her visions briefly in a sentence or two. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, Julian then spent the rest of her adult life enclosed in a small suite of rooms built onto the side of the church of St. Julian of Conisford in Norwich, from which comes the name by which we know her. Over the next twenty years, led by Jesus, she continued to meditate on her visions. Though not a church leader or teacher in the formal sense, through God’s leading, Julian developed a sophisticated understanding of the Passion, of the problem of sin, of the Trinity, and of Jesus as our Mother. In her last great vision, she saw the soul as a great city, at the center of which, Christ is enthroned forever.
Although she was enclosed Julian was a spiritual guide to many. At the urging of those who knew her Julian finally wrote up the full versions of all her visions. Following the last vision, Julian concluded her book having heard God’s assurance that his purpose in enabling her to write it was to have her visions more widely known. She tells us, “This book is begun by God’s gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it. For charity pray we all to God…; for truly I saw and understood our Lord’s meaning, why he showed it was to have it known more than it is, and in this knowing he will give us grace to love him and to cleave to him.” Although Julian died in about 1416, miraculously her writings did survive. Today they are an inspiration to many. The church where it is believed that she was enclosed is a beloved shrine, and an order of Benedictine Episcopal monks and nuns bears her name. It takes moxie to declare what God has shown us.
It takes nerve to go where God sends us. Henry Winter Syle was deaf. Soon after his parents returned from mission work in China, in 1850, Henry had a severe attack of scarlet fever that robbed him of his hearing and left him prone to other illnesses. He was fortunate to be educated at the only school for the deaf in the US, and was able to enter St. John’s College in Cambridge, England. Though forced by illness to return to the US, he eventually earned both a BA and an MA from Yale College. He was the first deaf man to take degrees from a hearing college. First a teacher of the deaf, he then became a librarian of the New York Institution for the Deaf and opened a free night school for the deaf. After moving Philadelphia to work for the U.S. mint, Syle became an active lay leader in his local Episcopal parish. He joined the work of Thomas Gallaudet, who had begun working with the deaf some twenty years earlier. In Philadelphia, Syle felt a call to ordained ministry. He could have protested that he was deaf, and that the Episcopal had never ordained a deaf priest. Instead, he screwed up his courage and began studying for Holy Orders. He was ordained deacon in 1876 by Bishop William Bacon Stevens of Philadelphia. At that time, many people believed that impairment of one of the senses was an impediment to ordination. Nevertheless, Syle was encouraged by Gallaudet and Bishop Stevens to continue his studies. On October 14, 1883, against the opposition of many, Syle was ordained priest by Bishop Stevens, the first hearing-impaired person to be ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.
Following his ordination, Syle was a thundering voice for mission to the deaf, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Delaware and New Jersey. In 1888 he founded All Souls Church in Philadelphia, the first Episcopal church constructed for ministry to hearing-impaired people. A prolific writer, Syle wrote many articles for journals devoted to the deaf. He was also active in professional organizations and helped establish a home for aged and infirm deaf people in Philadelphia. When he died of pneumonia in January 1890 at the age of only forty-three, both the church and the deaf community lost a valiant servant of God.
God called Jeremiah, Julian, and Henry Syle. Although each of them felt unworthy of God’s call, each of them accepted God’s invitation. They proclaimed God’s word, declared God’s visions, and did God’s work. What of us? To what has God called us? In our conversations with the Spirit yesterday, we talked about many ways that God might be calling us to growth and ministry in this place. Are we ready to accept God’s invitation to renewal? Perhaps it’s trite to say that “God has no hands but our hands,” but in every age, God uses human servants and prophets to make Godself known to us, and to effect God’s will in the world. God is well aware of the fragility and incompetence, the sinfulness and weakness, the physical impairments, the age or youth of all God’s human instruments. In the incarnation, God experienced all that and more. Yet Scripture and history show us over and over again that God’s strength can be, indeed must be, in this world, expressed through weak human beings. What is more important, when God calls, God gives the power and authority that we need to do God’s will. All that is needed on our part is to respond to God’s call.
And so what of us? Do we have the courage to accept God’s invitation to new life?
The late 7th century BC was a turbulent time in the history of Israel. The northern kingdom, the likely birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah, had lost its independence a century earlier. The southern kingdom, whose capital was Jerusalem, was struggling to maintain its independence. The seers and prophets attached to its weak kings advised a series of political negotiations and alliances. In the midst of this political maneuvering, maneuvering that would eventually lead to the great Exile of the 6th century, a teenaged descendant of a priestly family now living in the northern kingdom heard God’s call. We don’t know how old Jeremiah was, we don’t know where he was, and we don’t know what he was doing when God’s call came to him. Perhaps he was reading the Torah or meditating on God’s holy word.
Whatever he was doing, Jeremiah knew without a doubt that God had taken the initiative to speak to him. He knew, that the “word of the Lord” had come to him. He heard God reveal to him that God had known him intimately even before he had been born, and that God had set him aside for a particular task. Like almost everyone who has a distinct sense of God’s call, including almost all those mentioned in Scripture, Jeremiah resisted God’s call. He had a good excuse. He protested: “I’m too young!” “No,” God said, “you are not too young. And anyway, I’ll tell you where to go, to whom to speak, and what to say.” Was Jeremiah afraid to do God’s will? Of course he was, and God knew that. God told him not to be afraid, that God himself would always be with him. What is most important, God gave him the authority he needed to speak: God touched his mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.” We don’t know what Jeremiah said to God in reply, but we do know, from the rest of the Book of Jeremiah, that Jeremiah more than fulfilled God’s charge. Often in peril of his life and challenged by the other prophets, he warned the weak kings and their flunkies over and over again, that the alliances would fail, and that the Babylonians would eventually destroy their kingdom. Having done all that God had asked of him, Jeremiah himself was exiled and ended up dying in Egypt. It takes courage to proclaim God’s word.
It takes moxie to declare what God has shown to us. On May 8, 1373, in Norwich, England, a woman of “thirty and a half,” as she said of herself, lay mortally ill. When she seemed close to the point of death, a crucifix was put in front of her. Suddenly she felt herself drawn into the crucifix. She had an intense vision of the Passion, and she experienced direct mystic sight of Jesus. After she recovered from her illness, the woman, who subsequently came to be known as Julian of Norwich, continued to have intense visions of Jesus on the cross. Altogether, Julian experienced sixteen visions. She tells us that she was a only “simple creature,” who was not literate in Latin. Nevertheless at the urging of her parish priest, she wrote up her visions briefly in a sentence or two. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, Julian then spent the rest of her adult life enclosed in a small suite of rooms built onto the side of the church of St. Julian of Conisford in Norwich, from which comes the name by which we know her. Over the next twenty years, led by Jesus, she continued to meditate on her visions. Though not a church leader or teacher in the formal sense, through God’s leading, Julian developed a sophisticated understanding of the Passion, of the problem of sin, of the Trinity, and of Jesus as our Mother. In her last great vision, she saw the soul as a great city, at the center of which, Christ is enthroned forever.
Although she was enclosed Julian was a spiritual guide to many. At the urging of those who knew her Julian finally wrote up the full versions of all her visions. Following the last vision, Julian concluded her book having heard God’s assurance that his purpose in enabling her to write it was to have her visions more widely known. She tells us, “This book is begun by God’s gift and his grace, but it is not yet performed, as I see it. For charity pray we all to God…; for truly I saw and understood our Lord’s meaning, why he showed it was to have it known more than it is, and in this knowing he will give us grace to love him and to cleave to him.” Although Julian died in about 1416, miraculously her writings did survive. Today they are an inspiration to many. The church where it is believed that she was enclosed is a beloved shrine, and an order of Benedictine Episcopal monks and nuns bears her name. It takes moxie to declare what God has shown us.
It takes nerve to go where God sends us. Henry Winter Syle was deaf. Soon after his parents returned from mission work in China, in 1850, Henry had a severe attack of scarlet fever that robbed him of his hearing and left him prone to other illnesses. He was fortunate to be educated at the only school for the deaf in the US, and was able to enter St. John’s College in Cambridge, England. Though forced by illness to return to the US, he eventually earned both a BA and an MA from Yale College. He was the first deaf man to take degrees from a hearing college. First a teacher of the deaf, he then became a librarian of the New York Institution for the Deaf and opened a free night school for the deaf. After moving Philadelphia to work for the U.S. mint, Syle became an active lay leader in his local Episcopal parish. He joined the work of Thomas Gallaudet, who had begun working with the deaf some twenty years earlier. In Philadelphia, Syle felt a call to ordained ministry. He could have protested that he was deaf, and that the Episcopal had never ordained a deaf priest. Instead, he screwed up his courage and began studying for Holy Orders. He was ordained deacon in 1876 by Bishop William Bacon Stevens of Philadelphia. At that time, many people believed that impairment of one of the senses was an impediment to ordination. Nevertheless, Syle was encouraged by Gallaudet and Bishop Stevens to continue his studies. On October 14, 1883, against the opposition of many, Syle was ordained priest by Bishop Stevens, the first hearing-impaired person to be ordained priest in the Episcopal Church.
Following his ordination, Syle was a thundering voice for mission to the deaf, not only in Pennsylvania, but also in Delaware and New Jersey. In 1888 he founded All Souls Church in Philadelphia, the first Episcopal church constructed for ministry to hearing-impaired people. A prolific writer, Syle wrote many articles for journals devoted to the deaf. He was also active in professional organizations and helped establish a home for aged and infirm deaf people in Philadelphia. When he died of pneumonia in January 1890 at the age of only forty-three, both the church and the deaf community lost a valiant servant of God.
God called Jeremiah, Julian, and Henry Syle. Although each of them felt unworthy of God’s call, each of them accepted God’s invitation. They proclaimed God’s word, declared God’s visions, and did God’s work. What of us? To what has God called us? In our conversations with the Spirit yesterday, we talked about many ways that God might be calling us to growth and ministry in this place. Are we ready to accept God’s invitation to renewal? Perhaps it’s trite to say that “God has no hands but our hands,” but in every age, God uses human servants and prophets to make Godself known to us, and to effect God’s will in the world. God is well aware of the fragility and incompetence, the sinfulness and weakness, the physical impairments, the age or youth of all God’s human instruments. In the incarnation, God experienced all that and more. Yet Scripture and history show us over and over again that God’s strength can be, indeed must be, in this world, expressed through weak human beings. What is more important, when God calls, God gives the power and authority that we need to do God’s will. All that is needed on our part is to respond to God’s call.
And so what of us? Do we have the courage to accept God’s invitation to new life?
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Signs of the Times
How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? At least 50. A sexton to change the bulb. The rector, the deacon, and seminarian to lead the ceremony blessing the new bulb. The church secretary to make up the special bulletin insert with the bulb-blessing ceremony, including congregational responses: “Do you, the people of St. Peter’s, promise to support this bulb in its work on behalf of this church?” “We do!” The choirmaster/organist to write and arrange a special Blessing of the Bulb Anthem: the “Phos 100-Watt GE Soft White” and 12 specially-imported choir members to sing it. One parishioner to say to herself during the singing of the anthem, “Wait, my mother donated the old light bulb!” The remaining people in the pews thinking to themselves, “Is this service EVER going to end?” PLUS — six of those in the pews will form a Society for the Preservation of the Light Bulb, and two of those people will leave the parish and try to find someone who will let them use the Real Light Bulb of their forefathers.
Well, it’s easy to laugh at ourselves. In fact, it’s healthy to laugh at our ourselves, but there’s some truth in the joke, isn’t there? We Episcopalians have a tendency to get hung up on trivial issues. We sometimes behave as if we believe that a well-crafted liturgy will solve all our problems. We often look to the past instead of attending to the present. Most important, we tend to resist change, whether in how we use space – “You want to move the font??” – how, when, and in what language we worship, how we minister to the rest of the community, even what pew we sit in! Change is just plain difficult! And not only for us. That light bulb joke, with slight variations, can be told about every religious community, really most any group of people. In fact, we naturally fear change of almost any sort, of our living arrangements, our work, our health, our leaders, our friends, and family. Change is risky. Maybe it’s even adaptive to be suspicious of change.
Yet, Jesus forcefully reminds us in today’s Gospel that change we must. We’re still walking with Jesus towards Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus has been teaching his disciples and us about the cost of discipleship. He has reminded us that we must disentangle ourselves from the standards and values of this world and make our primary commitment to him and to life in the Spirit. Last week Jesus raised the standards for discipleship by exhorting his friends to remain “dressed and ready for action,” ready to respond to his call to deeper commitment whenever it comes. Today his charge is even more electrifying. His eyes are hard, and his words are angry: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing.” Whatever they may have thought before, this is certainly not the cuddly baby whom the angels promised would bring peace on earth to those whom God favors. This is not the Prince of Peace. This is not Jesus the Good Shepherd, the gentle caretaker of the sheep? The Jesus whom his friends and we now see intensely, passionately longs to realize God’s kingdom. This Jesus longs to purify the earth, cleanse its people, destroy sin, and restore creation. This Jesus intensely, passionately wants to enable God’s people to produce the fruits of righteousness and justice expected of disciples. And this Jesus reminds us that if we take our commitment to him at all seriously, our life will not be sweetness and light. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” If we are deeply and truly committed to Jesus, if we are willing to answer his call, we will inevitably face opposition, especially from those who hold power and influence over us.
As he urges his friends to a deeper commitment, Jesus also turns to the wider crowd. Jesus challenges the crowd to read the signs, to see what God is doing in their midst, and to discern, if they can, what God calls them to do. “You can read the signs of changing weather,” he tells them, “but do you understand what is happening around you. Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Jesus challenges the crowd to focus on, to really look at what is happening right in their very midst, to see that God’s Kingdom has come near to them. And he warns them and us, that with his death and resurrection, all that is settled and stable will be changed, and the world will never be the same.
Do we somehow want to stop the train? Somehow tell Jesus to stop challenging God’s people to deeper life, stop calling us to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom? We know we can’t. Jesus has warned us. We know that we are called, every day of our lives, to grow in the Spirit and to change. Certainly, we are called to personal change. As life-changing as baptism was for all of us, even those of us baptized as infants, we know that baptism was just the beginning of our Christian lives. We are called to give up old sins and bad habits. Perhaps parts of our lives really need a cleansing or even a destructive fire. We are called to continue to grow in our intellectual understanding of our faith, in our spiritual lives, in our service to our neighbors, and in our efforts to spread God’s kingdom of love and righteousness. Sometimes we may feel that all that was easy and comfortable in our lives is being swept away as we follow Jesus into new and uncharted territory. If you feel that way sometimes, then give thanks to God, for that feeling is a sure sign that God is at work in your life.
We are called to change as a parish. We can no longer be content with the “same old, same old.” We must take on new forms, times, perhaps even places of worship. Perhaps we will have to make changes in how we understand sacred space. Perhaps we can make room in our busy, stressed-out lives for some spaces of silence, some intentional practice of contemplative prayer, some new ways of seeing God in our midst. We will have to find new ways of doing Christian formation. Perhaps not everything has to happen on Sunday. We must look hard at what, where, and when, we are engaging in mission and outreach. Are we engaging in mission that really serves our community? Are we reaching out in ways that show God’s love to others? Are we really partnering with God to help bring God’s Kingdom near, or are we only doing what feels easy and comfortable to us? What signs of the present time are we missing?
And we must consider well and deeply the kinds of changes in the wider community and world, whose birth we might help encourage. What is God saying to us in the events of our own day? Where are those in the military whom we pray for actually stationed? Do we know why they are there and what our nation is trying to accomplish through its military deployment? Can we do a better job of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, eliminating poverty, stamping out human trafficking, or caring for the earth? Are we taking the trouble to see where God might be at work in any of these areas? Come to Mountain Grace in October and see how God is at work in this region. Subscribe to the e-newsletter of the Episcopal Public Policy Network and begin reading the signs of the times in other areas of concern.
A century and a half ago, our country was called to make a great change in its social life.1 It almost seems incomprehensible to us today. Our country was called to abolish human slavery. The abolition movement was begun and continued by people of great faith, including women, who discovered that they too could be in the advance-guard of God’s kingdom. Difficult as it is for us to imagine, there were also people of faith who justified slavery. We know what happened: it took the bloodiest war in American history for us to do what Britain had done peacefully over thirty years earlier. But the outcome of that war, with the abolition of slavery, we took a baby step towards God’s reign of justice and righteousness. And what of now? “How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” What else needs to be set on fire? What are the evils in our own world that need our attention? To what else is Jesus pointing us? Dare we not notice what is happening in our world?
Change is difficult, painful, and sometimes destructive. Even so, God calls us to change so that God may accomplish God’s purposes, so that we may produce good fruit, and ultimately so that God’s kingdom of love and justice may be fully realized. Every time we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven,” we commit ourselves to being more attentive to where God is at work and to the tasks that God has appointed for us. O God, you call us to share your zeal for justice and righteousness. Give us courage to follow your servants and prophets and to look always to the perfecter of our faith, your Son, Jesus Christ.
1. Thanks to David Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit for reminding me of the pertinence of the abolition of slavery to this Gospel reading.
Well, it’s easy to laugh at ourselves. In fact, it’s healthy to laugh at our ourselves, but there’s some truth in the joke, isn’t there? We Episcopalians have a tendency to get hung up on trivial issues. We sometimes behave as if we believe that a well-crafted liturgy will solve all our problems. We often look to the past instead of attending to the present. Most important, we tend to resist change, whether in how we use space – “You want to move the font??” – how, when, and in what language we worship, how we minister to the rest of the community, even what pew we sit in! Change is just plain difficult! And not only for us. That light bulb joke, with slight variations, can be told about every religious community, really most any group of people. In fact, we naturally fear change of almost any sort, of our living arrangements, our work, our health, our leaders, our friends, and family. Change is risky. Maybe it’s even adaptive to be suspicious of change.
Yet, Jesus forcefully reminds us in today’s Gospel that change we must. We’re still walking with Jesus towards Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus has been teaching his disciples and us about the cost of discipleship. He has reminded us that we must disentangle ourselves from the standards and values of this world and make our primary commitment to him and to life in the Spirit. Last week Jesus raised the standards for discipleship by exhorting his friends to remain “dressed and ready for action,” ready to respond to his call to deeper commitment whenever it comes. Today his charge is even more electrifying. His eyes are hard, and his words are angry: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing.” Whatever they may have thought before, this is certainly not the cuddly baby whom the angels promised would bring peace on earth to those whom God favors. This is not the Prince of Peace. This is not Jesus the Good Shepherd, the gentle caretaker of the sheep? The Jesus whom his friends and we now see intensely, passionately longs to realize God’s kingdom. This Jesus longs to purify the earth, cleanse its people, destroy sin, and restore creation. This Jesus intensely, passionately wants to enable God’s people to produce the fruits of righteousness and justice expected of disciples. And this Jesus reminds us that if we take our commitment to him at all seriously, our life will not be sweetness and light. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” If we are deeply and truly committed to Jesus, if we are willing to answer his call, we will inevitably face opposition, especially from those who hold power and influence over us.
As he urges his friends to a deeper commitment, Jesus also turns to the wider crowd. Jesus challenges the crowd to read the signs, to see what God is doing in their midst, and to discern, if they can, what God calls them to do. “You can read the signs of changing weather,” he tells them, “but do you understand what is happening around you. Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Jesus challenges the crowd to focus on, to really look at what is happening right in their very midst, to see that God’s Kingdom has come near to them. And he warns them and us, that with his death and resurrection, all that is settled and stable will be changed, and the world will never be the same.
Do we somehow want to stop the train? Somehow tell Jesus to stop challenging God’s people to deeper life, stop calling us to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom? We know we can’t. Jesus has warned us. We know that we are called, every day of our lives, to grow in the Spirit and to change. Certainly, we are called to personal change. As life-changing as baptism was for all of us, even those of us baptized as infants, we know that baptism was just the beginning of our Christian lives. We are called to give up old sins and bad habits. Perhaps parts of our lives really need a cleansing or even a destructive fire. We are called to continue to grow in our intellectual understanding of our faith, in our spiritual lives, in our service to our neighbors, and in our efforts to spread God’s kingdom of love and righteousness. Sometimes we may feel that all that was easy and comfortable in our lives is being swept away as we follow Jesus into new and uncharted territory. If you feel that way sometimes, then give thanks to God, for that feeling is a sure sign that God is at work in your life.
We are called to change as a parish. We can no longer be content with the “same old, same old.” We must take on new forms, times, perhaps even places of worship. Perhaps we will have to make changes in how we understand sacred space. Perhaps we can make room in our busy, stressed-out lives for some spaces of silence, some intentional practice of contemplative prayer, some new ways of seeing God in our midst. We will have to find new ways of doing Christian formation. Perhaps not everything has to happen on Sunday. We must look hard at what, where, and when, we are engaging in mission and outreach. Are we engaging in mission that really serves our community? Are we reaching out in ways that show God’s love to others? Are we really partnering with God to help bring God’s Kingdom near, or are we only doing what feels easy and comfortable to us? What signs of the present time are we missing?
And we must consider well and deeply the kinds of changes in the wider community and world, whose birth we might help encourage. What is God saying to us in the events of our own day? Where are those in the military whom we pray for actually stationed? Do we know why they are there and what our nation is trying to accomplish through its military deployment? Can we do a better job of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, eliminating poverty, stamping out human trafficking, or caring for the earth? Are we taking the trouble to see where God might be at work in any of these areas? Come to Mountain Grace in October and see how God is at work in this region. Subscribe to the e-newsletter of the Episcopal Public Policy Network and begin reading the signs of the times in other areas of concern.
A century and a half ago, our country was called to make a great change in its social life.1 It almost seems incomprehensible to us today. Our country was called to abolish human slavery. The abolition movement was begun and continued by people of great faith, including women, who discovered that they too could be in the advance-guard of God’s kingdom. Difficult as it is for us to imagine, there were also people of faith who justified slavery. We know what happened: it took the bloodiest war in American history for us to do what Britain had done peacefully over thirty years earlier. But the outcome of that war, with the abolition of slavery, we took a baby step towards God’s reign of justice and righteousness. And what of now? “How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” What else needs to be set on fire? What are the evils in our own world that need our attention? To what else is Jesus pointing us? Dare we not notice what is happening in our world?
Change is difficult, painful, and sometimes destructive. Even so, God calls us to change so that God may accomplish God’s purposes, so that we may produce good fruit, and ultimately so that God’s kingdom of love and justice may be fully realized. Every time we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven,” we commit ourselves to being more attentive to where God is at work and to the tasks that God has appointed for us. O God, you call us to share your zeal for justice and righteousness. Give us courage to follow your servants and prophets and to look always to the perfecter of our faith, your Son, Jesus Christ.
1. Thanks to David Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit for reminding me of the pertinence of the abolition of slavery to this Gospel reading.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Awake, Alert, Dressed for Action
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return….”
Have many of you have ever been part of a trauma team? Probably there isn’t a person in this parish who hasn’t spent some time in an emergency room. But have any of you ever been part of the group of people in the ER who stand ready to treat traumatic cases when they come in? I have. As part of my chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, I had to be on 24-hour call in the Emergency Department. When my pager went off – often with only minutes to spare – with the rest of the trauma team I sprang into action, ready to meet the ambulance the minute it arrived. Everyone in the trauma room was dressed and ready for action. The physicians, EMTs, and nurses were in their scrubs, their stethoscopes around their necks. The pharmacist was already wheeling in a trolley of drugs. The operating room nurse was standing by ready to alert the surgical suite, the X-ray technicians were ready to prepare for a CRT or other test. The social worker and I, in my blue chaplain’s coat, stood ready to do our jobs. Between patients all of us might relax a little, chat, or get a drink, but we remained dressed and alert, ready to reassemble and spring into action the minute our pagers went off.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples to be like the Children’s Hospital trauma team: on the alert, ready, “dressed for action,” with “lamps lit.” All summer in Luke’s account, we have been on the road with Jesus. We have been hearing Jesus instruct his friends, the rest of the crowd, and us, about the demands of discipleship. What have we learned so far? We have learned that our commitment to Jesus is to be total, that we are to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, that we are to pray daily for even our most basic needs, and that we must put our commitment to God first in our lives. Now, Jesus shifts gears slightly. He continues his instruction by suggesting that we also must always be on the alert, “dressed for action,” ready for the “master’s return.” He uses two parables here to make his point. In the first he alludes to slaves being ready to greet their master when he comes home from a wedding banquet. In the other he warns us to guard against sudden theft. Both parables underscore the need to be on the alert. Perhaps Jesus is referring here to the final coming of God, what we call the parousia, or Second Coming, when God will finally bring in God’s Kingdom. We have no idea when that event might occur, but both parables suggest that we need to be ready for that moment when Christ will return.
One of the ways we prepare for that moment is by having faith that Christ actually will return, and that God will bring in God’s Kingdom. Our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests what such faith might look like. The passage holds up the figure of Abraham as the supreme model of faith. You remember that, although Abraham had no heir, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that Abraham and Sarah trusted God’s promises. Although Abraham and the others mentioned in today’s passage, could not actually see the fulfillment of God’s promises, nevertheless they trusted God and pressed on along the road marked out for them by God. So believing in God, trusting in God’s promises, seeing the Kingdom, if only from afar, is one of the ways that we await the Second Coming, one of the ways that we stand “dressed for action.”
But I think there is also another way. As the spiritual writer Barbara Crafton reminds us, Jesus’ coming is not just a future event. Jesus comes to us even in this middle time, this time between his Incarnation and his Second Coming. As Crafton tell us, “it could also be that Christ is coming into my life today. That Christ constantly comes into my life, steadily inhabiting every moment and every chance, consistently stands ready to fill the random things of my random life with meaning. It could be that Christ is in my life and I haven't noticed….” Indeed, Christ comes to us all the time, every day, throughout the day. We deepen our relationship with Christ and become more alert to Christ’s presence with us by cultivating disciplined practices of prayer and Scripture reading. We let Christ nourish us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. More importantly, we also let Christ come to us in our ethical choices and in our outreach to others. As he warns us, sometimes Christ comes when we least expect him. Sometimes Christ comes to help and support us, and sometimes Christ comes to urge us on to fuller participation in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom. However and whenever Christ comes to us, if we are living faithful, disciplined spiritual lives, we will be dressed and ready to let his grace change our lives.
Make no mistake. In commanding us to remain dressed for action, Jesus also suggests that when he comes into our lives he will call us to serve him. When the master finally arrives, the slaves leap up. When the ambulance arrives in the trauma bay, the team springs into action. When we hear Christ’s call, we too must be ready to do whatever he asks of us. And he may ask us to do something difficult or scary. He may even ask us to follow him all the way to the Cross, as he did Jonathan Myrick Daniels, whom the Church remembers this week. Daniels was a native of Keene, NH, the son of a Congregationalist physician. He became an Episcopalian during his high school years and began to sense a call to the priesthood. However, after graduating in 1961 at the top of his class from the Virginia Military Institute, he entered Harvard University with a fellowship to study English Literature. On Easter Day 1962 he had a profound conversion experience at the Church of the Advent in Boston. Hearing again, now strongly, the call to ordination, he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge in 1963, expecting to graduate in 1966.
In March 1965, Christ called to Daniels. Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to people to come to Selma to assist in a voting rights drive. Daniels went to Selma under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. He wrote of the moment of clarity about his decision that came to him during Evening Prayer at the chapel:
“…as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence that I have always felt for Mary’s glad song…. I found myself peculiarly alert…. Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma.”
Following a brief return to ETS in May, Daniels returned to Alabama to work with legal aid agencies. He was arrested with three other people on August 13 as part of group picketing local businesses. Shortly after their unexplained release from jail six days later, the four went to a local store to buy a soda. As one of them, Ruby Sales, a sixteen-year old African American girl, came up to the entrance, a deputy sheriff aimed a shotgun at her and cursed her. Daniels pushed her to the ground, saving her life. The shotgun blast killed Daniels instantly. Another of his companions, a Roman Catholic priest, was badly wounded. When Martin Luther King heard of Daniels’s death, he said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was alert and dressed for action. When Christ came to him that night at Evening Prayer, he was ready to carry out Christ’s command. What about us? Are we asleep or awake? Are we dressed in our scrubs or our pajamas? Is our pager turned on? Are we ready to receive Christ, ready to hear his call, ready to follow his bidding? Christ may not ask us to make the ultimate witness that he asked of Jonathan Daniels, but Christ does expect us to be ready to do our parts to help bring in God’s Kingdom. Are you willing to let him into your life? Are you willing to make space in your life for him? My friends, the good news is that Christ continually calls to us. Christ is continually present to us. If we remain alert, if we are “dressed for action,” he will transform us. He will give us the grace and strength to follow his commands and partner with him in the bringing in of his Kingdom.
Have many of you have ever been part of a trauma team? Probably there isn’t a person in this parish who hasn’t spent some time in an emergency room. But have any of you ever been part of the group of people in the ER who stand ready to treat traumatic cases when they come in? I have. As part of my chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, I had to be on 24-hour call in the Emergency Department. When my pager went off – often with only minutes to spare – with the rest of the trauma team I sprang into action, ready to meet the ambulance the minute it arrived. Everyone in the trauma room was dressed and ready for action. The physicians, EMTs, and nurses were in their scrubs, their stethoscopes around their necks. The pharmacist was already wheeling in a trolley of drugs. The operating room nurse was standing by ready to alert the surgical suite, the X-ray technicians were ready to prepare for a CRT or other test. The social worker and I, in my blue chaplain’s coat, stood ready to do our jobs. Between patients all of us might relax a little, chat, or get a drink, but we remained dressed and alert, ready to reassemble and spring into action the minute our pagers went off.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples to be like the Children’s Hospital trauma team: on the alert, ready, “dressed for action,” with “lamps lit.” All summer in Luke’s account, we have been on the road with Jesus. We have been hearing Jesus instruct his friends, the rest of the crowd, and us, about the demands of discipleship. What have we learned so far? We have learned that our commitment to Jesus is to be total, that we are to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, that we are to pray daily for even our most basic needs, and that we must put our commitment to God first in our lives. Now, Jesus shifts gears slightly. He continues his instruction by suggesting that we also must always be on the alert, “dressed for action,” ready for the “master’s return.” He uses two parables here to make his point. In the first he alludes to slaves being ready to greet their master when he comes home from a wedding banquet. In the other he warns us to guard against sudden theft. Both parables underscore the need to be on the alert. Perhaps Jesus is referring here to the final coming of God, what we call the parousia, or Second Coming, when God will finally bring in God’s Kingdom. We have no idea when that event might occur, but both parables suggest that we need to be ready for that moment when Christ will return.
One of the ways we prepare for that moment is by having faith that Christ actually will return, and that God will bring in God’s Kingdom. Our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests what such faith might look like. The passage holds up the figure of Abraham as the supreme model of faith. You remember that, although Abraham had no heir, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that Abraham and Sarah trusted God’s promises. Although Abraham and the others mentioned in today’s passage, could not actually see the fulfillment of God’s promises, nevertheless they trusted God and pressed on along the road marked out for them by God. So believing in God, trusting in God’s promises, seeing the Kingdom, if only from afar, is one of the ways that we await the Second Coming, one of the ways that we stand “dressed for action.”
But I think there is also another way. As the spiritual writer Barbara Crafton reminds us, Jesus’ coming is not just a future event. Jesus comes to us even in this middle time, this time between his Incarnation and his Second Coming. As Crafton tell us, “it could also be that Christ is coming into my life today. That Christ constantly comes into my life, steadily inhabiting every moment and every chance, consistently stands ready to fill the random things of my random life with meaning. It could be that Christ is in my life and I haven't noticed….” Indeed, Christ comes to us all the time, every day, throughout the day. We deepen our relationship with Christ and become more alert to Christ’s presence with us by cultivating disciplined practices of prayer and Scripture reading. We let Christ nourish us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. More importantly, we also let Christ come to us in our ethical choices and in our outreach to others. As he warns us, sometimes Christ comes when we least expect him. Sometimes Christ comes to help and support us, and sometimes Christ comes to urge us on to fuller participation in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom. However and whenever Christ comes to us, if we are living faithful, disciplined spiritual lives, we will be dressed and ready to let his grace change our lives.
Make no mistake. In commanding us to remain dressed for action, Jesus also suggests that when he comes into our lives he will call us to serve him. When the master finally arrives, the slaves leap up. When the ambulance arrives in the trauma bay, the team springs into action. When we hear Christ’s call, we too must be ready to do whatever he asks of us. And he may ask us to do something difficult or scary. He may even ask us to follow him all the way to the Cross, as he did Jonathan Myrick Daniels, whom the Church remembers this week. Daniels was a native of Keene, NH, the son of a Congregationalist physician. He became an Episcopalian during his high school years and began to sense a call to the priesthood. However, after graduating in 1961 at the top of his class from the Virginia Military Institute, he entered Harvard University with a fellowship to study English Literature. On Easter Day 1962 he had a profound conversion experience at the Church of the Advent in Boston. Hearing again, now strongly, the call to ordination, he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge in 1963, expecting to graduate in 1966.
In March 1965, Christ called to Daniels. Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to people to come to Selma to assist in a voting rights drive. Daniels went to Selma under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. He wrote of the moment of clarity about his decision that came to him during Evening Prayer at the chapel:
“…as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence that I have always felt for Mary’s glad song…. I found myself peculiarly alert…. Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma.”
Following a brief return to ETS in May, Daniels returned to Alabama to work with legal aid agencies. He was arrested with three other people on August 13 as part of group picketing local businesses. Shortly after their unexplained release from jail six days later, the four went to a local store to buy a soda. As one of them, Ruby Sales, a sixteen-year old African American girl, came up to the entrance, a deputy sheriff aimed a shotgun at her and cursed her. Daniels pushed her to the ground, saving her life. The shotgun blast killed Daniels instantly. Another of his companions, a Roman Catholic priest, was badly wounded. When Martin Luther King heard of Daniels’s death, he said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was alert and dressed for action. When Christ came to him that night at Evening Prayer, he was ready to carry out Christ’s command. What about us? Are we asleep or awake? Are we dressed in our scrubs or our pajamas? Is our pager turned on? Are we ready to receive Christ, ready to hear his call, ready to follow his bidding? Christ may not ask us to make the ultimate witness that he asked of Jonathan Daniels, but Christ does expect us to be ready to do our parts to help bring in God’s Kingdom. Are you willing to let him into your life? Are you willing to make space in your life for him? My friends, the good news is that Christ continually calls to us. Christ is continually present to us. If we remain alert, if we are “dressed for action,” he will transform us. He will give us the grace and strength to follow his commands and partner with him in the bringing in of his Kingdom.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Transformed in Christ
How many of you can remember your baptism? You “cradle” Episcopalians were most likely baptized as infants. You’ve probably seen family photos – “See, there you are in your white baptismal gown!” – but you probably don’t have any direct memories of the event. Some of you were baptized as children old enough to speak for yourselves. You most likely do remember what it felt like to say “yes” to God at that moment. And those of us who were baptized as adults can clearly remember what it felt like to have “the holiest head in town.” A little damp, perhaps, but holy nonetheless. For many adults, even today, consenting to baptism involves a difficult and scary decision. Sara Miles, for example, who described the beginning of her spiritual journey in Take this Bread, led the food distribution ministry of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco before she was able to commit herself to Christ and put her head under St. Gregory’s fountain-font. Whatever your age, whether you were baptized as an infant, as we will soon baptize little Jackson Boone, whether you were a school-age child, or whether you were an adult, whether consenting to baptism was an easy decision or a difficult one, your baptism was a transformative event. Baptism changed your life. Baptism changed your life more than anything else that has happened to you: more than graduation, marriage, or the birth of your own children, or even the deaths of your loved ones.
The writer of the letter to the fledgling Christian community at Colossae wanted to make sure that these new Christians remembered how decisively their own lives had been changed through baptism. We don’t know who wrote the letter, although scholars are now reasonably certain that it was not Paul himself. Nor do we know exactly when it was written. We do know that Colossae was a Roman city in the eastern part of the empire, the part now in Turkey. It is likely that both Jewish and Greek communities were presen in Colossae, and that the Colossian Christian community included members of different ethnic groups and social classes. From the letter itself we can surmise that, like many other early Christian communities, tensions existed among those attracted to Jewish or Greek philosophies and also within the community among different ethnicities and classes.
In addressing these various tensions, our letter writer had two aims: one was to give these new Christians a lesson in theology that would strengthen their resistance to other religious perspectives, and the other was to remind them of the kind of life to which Christ called them. We’ve had a chance to hear much of the theology in our Epistle readings for the last three weeks. Now in this lection – our last in this cycle from this letter – we hear again a summary of the writer’s theological perspective. The writer assures the Colossians that through the resurrection of Christ, which Christians now share through baptism and through continuing faith and trust, they have a source of their power to live a Christian life. In baptism we have experienced for ourselves, he tells them, the death and resurrection of Christ, and in that experience we too have been completely transformed. In the ancient church, people were baptized naked in big tanks or pools. As they came out of the water they were clothed in a set of new white clothes, symbolizing their new life in Christ. Our writer draws on that image, of the new clothes, to suggest how deep the transformation is that the Colossians have experienced in baptism: “you have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed according to the image of its creator.”
How does the transformation that Christians experience in baptism translate to a new and different life? Our letter writer answers that question in four different ways: maintain, reject, adopt, and place. First, the Colossian Christians are reminded to maintain a heavenly perspective. Realize that a transformation has occurred in your life. Realize that your allegiance therefore is no longer to this world, with its standards and values, but to Christ and his standards and values. Second, the Colossian Christians are reminded to reject the sins of a previous life, or of a life that conforms to the values of this world. Christians are to reject the sins of selfishness and greed, the sins that make my pleasure, my possessions, the sole focus of my life. They are also to reject all those emotions, speech habits, and ways of relating to each other that are hurtful and dishonest: anger, wrath, slander and abusive language. Third, the Colossian Christians are to adopt the virtues of the new life to which they have been called. They are to recognize that they are all one in the church, that ethnic and social differences no longer define them. They are to focus on others, forgiving others, and treating all with sacrificial love. They are to study Scripture, continuing to grow in their formation as Christians, and they are to be faithful in worship, so that Christ can continue to nurture them from week to week. Finally, as Christians they are to place Christ at the very center of their lives. They are to see Christ as the beginning and the end of their spiritual and temporal lives, and they are to express their continuing gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for them and for the world.
Maintain, reject, adopt, and place. Whoa! That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Jackson, are you sure you want to be baptized? Yes, as a community of those committed to Christ, as a community of those baptized into Christ’s Body, we too are called, just as surely as those Colossians were, to maintaining, rejecting, adopting, and placing – as individuals and as a parish. As individuals – and as a parish community – we are called to pursue lives focused not on our own self-aggrandizement, not on how many barns we can build, possessions we can own, or honors we can garner, but on our obligations to others. We are called to forgo all those destructive behaviors that tear a community apart. And we are called to find ways to minister to those around us, to welcome all into our midst, and to aspire to help our parish community begin to mirror the socio-ethnic diversity of the community around us. Most importantly, we are called to keep Christ at the center of our lives. As individuals we are called to nurture our relationship with him, finding those times in our day, week, month, and year when we may fully pay attention to him and his word for us. As a parish, we are to keep our relationship with Christ at the center of our planning and deliberation as a community. We will try to do just that at our parish visioning event on August 20th and 21st. I had a vision for St. Peter’s while I was at my Shalem residency: let St. Peter’s soar. By keeping Christ at the center of our visioning, and by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God willing we can share that vision! I invite all of you to come to our visioning event! And to the other opportunities we will have this fall to continue discerning the shape of our life together in Christ.
Some of you may have heard of Coventry Cathedral in England.1 It was completed in 1962 to replace the Gothic cathedral that was bombed in World War II. It’s a magnificent building. I have now seen it twice, first in 1964 when it was still very controversial because it was so contemporary, and again in 2005 when it was, if anything, even more magnificent. Towering over the altar of the present cathedral is a wonderful tapestry of the Risen Christ that draws our eyes ever upward, and that reminds us again and again into whose Body we have been graciously incorporated. When the cathedral was first built it was a parish church for the predominantly Christian community that surrounded it. Now its neighborhood includes people of all ethnic groups and faith communities, many of whom are not Christian. Nevertheless, as members of the Body of the Risen One, Coventry parishioners engage in a ministry of hospitality, reconciliation, and service to all. This is the mission to which all of us at St. Peter’s are called, as the rest of the world longs to meet the Risen One in us.
In a few minutes we will welcome Jackson Alexander Boone into that blessed company of all faithful people. Christ will call him, as he calls his parents, sponsors, and us, to accept the transformation wrought in us in baptism. We have all raised with Christ and changed by the waters of Baptism. Let yourself continue to be renewed and transformed into Christ. The old life in you has died, and you have been born again. You have been clothed with a new self. Embrace God’s call with joy.
___________________________
1. Thanks to John Shearman, who in his commentary on these lections, reminded me of my own visits to Coventry Cathedral.
The writer of the letter to the fledgling Christian community at Colossae wanted to make sure that these new Christians remembered how decisively their own lives had been changed through baptism. We don’t know who wrote the letter, although scholars are now reasonably certain that it was not Paul himself. Nor do we know exactly when it was written. We do know that Colossae was a Roman city in the eastern part of the empire, the part now in Turkey. It is likely that both Jewish and Greek communities were presen in Colossae, and that the Colossian Christian community included members of different ethnic groups and social classes. From the letter itself we can surmise that, like many other early Christian communities, tensions existed among those attracted to Jewish or Greek philosophies and also within the community among different ethnicities and classes.
In addressing these various tensions, our letter writer had two aims: one was to give these new Christians a lesson in theology that would strengthen their resistance to other religious perspectives, and the other was to remind them of the kind of life to which Christ called them. We’ve had a chance to hear much of the theology in our Epistle readings for the last three weeks. Now in this lection – our last in this cycle from this letter – we hear again a summary of the writer’s theological perspective. The writer assures the Colossians that through the resurrection of Christ, which Christians now share through baptism and through continuing faith and trust, they have a source of their power to live a Christian life. In baptism we have experienced for ourselves, he tells them, the death and resurrection of Christ, and in that experience we too have been completely transformed. In the ancient church, people were baptized naked in big tanks or pools. As they came out of the water they were clothed in a set of new white clothes, symbolizing their new life in Christ. Our writer draws on that image, of the new clothes, to suggest how deep the transformation is that the Colossians have experienced in baptism: “you have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed according to the image of its creator.”
How does the transformation that Christians experience in baptism translate to a new and different life? Our letter writer answers that question in four different ways: maintain, reject, adopt, and place. First, the Colossian Christians are reminded to maintain a heavenly perspective. Realize that a transformation has occurred in your life. Realize that your allegiance therefore is no longer to this world, with its standards and values, but to Christ and his standards and values. Second, the Colossian Christians are reminded to reject the sins of a previous life, or of a life that conforms to the values of this world. Christians are to reject the sins of selfishness and greed, the sins that make my pleasure, my possessions, the sole focus of my life. They are also to reject all those emotions, speech habits, and ways of relating to each other that are hurtful and dishonest: anger, wrath, slander and abusive language. Third, the Colossian Christians are to adopt the virtues of the new life to which they have been called. They are to recognize that they are all one in the church, that ethnic and social differences no longer define them. They are to focus on others, forgiving others, and treating all with sacrificial love. They are to study Scripture, continuing to grow in their formation as Christians, and they are to be faithful in worship, so that Christ can continue to nurture them from week to week. Finally, as Christians they are to place Christ at the very center of their lives. They are to see Christ as the beginning and the end of their spiritual and temporal lives, and they are to express their continuing gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for them and for the world.
Maintain, reject, adopt, and place. Whoa! That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Jackson, are you sure you want to be baptized? Yes, as a community of those committed to Christ, as a community of those baptized into Christ’s Body, we too are called, just as surely as those Colossians were, to maintaining, rejecting, adopting, and placing – as individuals and as a parish. As individuals – and as a parish community – we are called to pursue lives focused not on our own self-aggrandizement, not on how many barns we can build, possessions we can own, or honors we can garner, but on our obligations to others. We are called to forgo all those destructive behaviors that tear a community apart. And we are called to find ways to minister to those around us, to welcome all into our midst, and to aspire to help our parish community begin to mirror the socio-ethnic diversity of the community around us. Most importantly, we are called to keep Christ at the center of our lives. As individuals we are called to nurture our relationship with him, finding those times in our day, week, month, and year when we may fully pay attention to him and his word for us. As a parish, we are to keep our relationship with Christ at the center of our planning and deliberation as a community. We will try to do just that at our parish visioning event on August 20th and 21st. I had a vision for St. Peter’s while I was at my Shalem residency: let St. Peter’s soar. By keeping Christ at the center of our visioning, and by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God willing we can share that vision! I invite all of you to come to our visioning event! And to the other opportunities we will have this fall to continue discerning the shape of our life together in Christ.
Some of you may have heard of Coventry Cathedral in England.1 It was completed in 1962 to replace the Gothic cathedral that was bombed in World War II. It’s a magnificent building. I have now seen it twice, first in 1964 when it was still very controversial because it was so contemporary, and again in 2005 when it was, if anything, even more magnificent. Towering over the altar of the present cathedral is a wonderful tapestry of the Risen Christ that draws our eyes ever upward, and that reminds us again and again into whose Body we have been graciously incorporated. When the cathedral was first built it was a parish church for the predominantly Christian community that surrounded it. Now its neighborhood includes people of all ethnic groups and faith communities, many of whom are not Christian. Nevertheless, as members of the Body of the Risen One, Coventry parishioners engage in a ministry of hospitality, reconciliation, and service to all. This is the mission to which all of us at St. Peter’s are called, as the rest of the world longs to meet the Risen One in us.
In a few minutes we will welcome Jackson Alexander Boone into that blessed company of all faithful people. Christ will call him, as he calls his parents, sponsors, and us, to accept the transformation wrought in us in baptism. We have all raised with Christ and changed by the waters of Baptism. Let yourself continue to be renewed and transformed into Christ. The old life in you has died, and you have been born again. You have been clothed with a new self. Embrace God’s call with joy.
___________________________
1. Thanks to John Shearman, who in his commentary on these lections, reminded me of my own visits to Coventry Cathedral.
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