Are prophets welcome here? If a prophet walked in right now through the red doors, would we politely explain that this is a house of worship, and that we’re in the middle of a worship service? Eastertide, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday are now behind us. We’ve put on our green paraments and vestments, and we’ve entered the season of flowering and growth – our growth as Jesus’ friends and disciples. In the first half of the liturgical year, the year that began way back last December, we focused on Jesus and his life. In Advent, while we considered the end times, we also prepared to receive at Christmas the shocking news that the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. During our long Epiphany tide, we reflected on all the various ways Jesus’ true identity became clear to those around Him. In Lent we sorrowfully pondered our own sins and the events that led up to Jesus’ death. In Easter tide we too joyfully greeted the risen Jesus, watched him leave behind for good his earthly existence, and let the Holy Spirit blow over us.
Now the focus of the liturgical year shifts from Jesus to us. In this green, growing season, along with the flowers, grass, and crops, we too are growing and developing spiritually. We too may hope to harvest the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In the opening weeks of this year’s Pentecost season, the overarching theme of our Gospel lessons is our response to Jesus. For the next several weeks, our Gospel lessons will ask us to ponder who Jesus is for us, how and where we see him, and how we act, both as individuals and as a Christian community, on our vision of him. Today’s Gospel reading asks us to ponder how we respond to prophets, to those who speak in God’s name, who bring God to us, and who provoke us to think about what God wants for us and from us. Next week the Gospel reading will show us different ways that the people around Jesus responded to him. We will then hear several parables, illustrative stories that reflect Jesus’ prophetic ministry. You will hear the parable of the sown seeds two weeks from today, and others while I am gone. August presents us with two miracles that further confirm Jesus’ true identity: Peter’s walking on water and the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter. The final two Gospel lections in this series lead us to explicit statements of Jesus’ identity, as we hear Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jesus’ confirmation of Peter’s insight, with an allusion to the consequences of Peter’s confession.
So now we are at the beginning of this series of lections. We begin at the very end of chapter ten of Matthew’s Gospel. We are in the second of Jesus’ five great sermons in Matthew. If we had started at the beginning of this chapter, we would have heard Jesus deliver what is called the “missionary discourse,” i.e., Jesus’ charge to the seventy or so disciples whom he sends out to preach the nearness of God’s reign. He explicitly reminds them that they are going forth as his emissaries, and that if someone welcomes them it is the same as welcoming Jesus himself. Then, the Gospel narrative has Jesus suddenly shift gears and ask the disciples – or perhaps others standing around – to reflect on how those who bring God’s word are received.
Jesus asks his hearers – and by extension us – to consider how we receive three different kinds of people who might bring God’s word to us. The first are the prophets. How do we receive prophets? Our Hebrew Bible lesson, taken from the Book of Jeremiah, suggests that, when prophets tell the truth, they are often rejected. Indeed, much of the Book of Jeremiah deals with Jeremiah’s struggle to make the political leaders to whom he was preaching hear the truth of the desperate situation they were in. Jeremiah especially wanted to get the king and his advisors to see that the alliances that they hoped would avert conquest by Babylon and eventual exile would not work. Echoing Jeremiah’s struggle, a Talmudic saying suggests that, “A rabbi whose congregation does not want to drive him out of town isn’t a rabbi.”1 Do we do any better? Did anyone want to listen to Rachel Carson, when she warned us in Silent Spring about the overuse of pesticides in agriculture? Did those who risked – and lost – their lives in the Civil Rights movement fare any better? How long did it take us to realize that HIV-AIDS was a disease that affected everyone – and still creates thousands of orphans in Africa? Are we listening to today’s scientists who warn of global warming and climate change? Are we willing to hear that the church must do ministry in a new way if it is to survive in this century? Who are the prophets who speak God’s word for you? Do you act on what you hear?
What about the righteous ones? Who are the ones who model a deep commitment to God, and how do we receive them when we meet them? Many people thought St. Francis was insane. Even today, some people wonder whether Mother Teresa really had genuine faith. Is it OK for Episcopalians to take the writings of Evangelical theologians or commentators seriously? Is it OK to read Rob Bell’s book on salvation? Do Pentecostals really have anything to teach us about spirituality?
Most perplexing of all, who are those “little ones,” who deserve a cup of water from us as they bring us God’s word? And how do we receive them? Bryan Findlayson tells about a mission trip to a rural area on the east coast of Australia. The community was poor and isolated, and the team was put up in houses that lacked such basic amenities as indoor plumbing. The small church had long ago lost its old weatherboards and was clad in metal siding. Nevertheless the congregation flocked to the church on Sunday afternoon to hear Findlayson and his team preach God’s word. Who knows whether anyone committed themselves to Christ that day, Findlayson asks? What mattered was that the messengers – and hopefully their message as well – were welcomed.2
Sometimes too we may meet some of those “little ones” in chance encounters. As one writer suggests, sometimes God’s word comes to us when we least expect it. A sentence in a sermon may leap out at us. A chance meeting with a stranger, perhaps a comment on an elevator, or at a gas station, or overheard at dinner, may be God’s word to us. Unless we listen carefully, and attend to the Spirit working in our lives, we may never realize that the reign of God has come near to us, and that we have heard God speaking to us.3
And then there are the “little ones” in our midst. Most of us shy away from contact with those who aren’t of our own social class, who aren’t as educated as we are, who perhaps have been incarcerated, or who don’t look, act, or smell as we do. Yet many passages of Scripture in addition to this one remind us of our obligation to welcome strangers. Abraham welcomed angels, who then blessed him by announcing that Sarah would bear a child. The book of Leviticus reminded the Israelites to love strangers as themselves, “for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” On the road to Emmaus Cleopas and his friend welcomed a stranger into their home, and realized that they had welcomed the risen Jesus as he broke bread with them. Several of Paul’s epistles bid the new Christian communities befriend strangers. Monastic communities have an ancient tradition of welcoming all, and the Rule of St. Benedict is particularly explicit that all strangers are to be treated as honored guests.
So how do we welcome those “little ones?” How about those who receive our diapers at the mobile food pantry? Could any of them be Christ-bearers for us? How about the “little ones” who walk through the doors of our parish hall for Loaves and Fishes? Are they honored guests? How do we treat them? Do they bring Christ to us? Do they perhaps have even deeper faith than we do? Might we learn something from them? Can we see Christ in them? Can we join our prayers with theirs? And what other opportunities to welcome “little ones” are we missing? Are there others who need our resources of time, space, and money? What other “little ones” might the Holy Spirit be sending our way, if only we could see them? As we begin to ponder where the Holy Spirit might be leading St. Peter’s, as we continue to pray daily for our parish – are you still doing that – let us also pray that God will show us other “little ones” whom we are called to serve.
O God, you direct our lives by your grace, and your words of justice and mercy reshape the world. Mold us into a people who welcome your word and serve one another, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.
1. Synthesis, June 26, 2011, p.2.
2. Bryan Findlayson at lectionarystudies.com, quoted in Ibid.
3. Forward Day by Day, June 16, 2011.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Blown by the Spirit
Why are you here? What blew you in through the red doors? [Query a few people.] Is it because coming to church is what one does on Sunday? Is it because coming is what God expects of me, and I want to please and serve God? Do you seek weekly nourishment in the Eucharist? Do you hope thereby to become more like Jesus? Do you seek strength for the journey, the sustenance you need to keep going in life? Or are you perhaps looking to satisfy some deeply-felt need for authentic community? What brought you here?
My friends, none of these reasons is why you are here. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here, and no longer any social approbation for rousing yourselves and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus’ disappearance is behind us, we’ve crossed over the threshold, and the Holy Spirit is rampant in the world. But the Holy is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known. Some of us can really resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus? “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions. We know too that in Scripture fire is also a signal of God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai? When Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and enlivening. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing. For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar of a strange church and suddenly knew she was home. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” Paul went on to remind the Corinthian Christians that collectively their community possessed many different kinds of gifts, not just that of speaking in tongues, and that all their gifts had come from the same Spirit. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. Much as we love the Episcopal Church, perhaps we can learn from Lutherans, or Roman Catholics, or even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts needed to build the kingdom of God. We have a lot to learn from each other. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us all, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there’s kind of a paradox here. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor solely to enable us to feel at peace with ourselves, valuable as that may be, or at ease with the world. Strength for the journey, maybe. But, as one writer observed, the real truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us, that, in fact, may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After they stepped over that threshold, there was no going back to the old life for the disciples. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in unexpected directions.
And so too for us. Having stepped over that same threshold, we know there is no going back to what this parish once was. There is no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. In a recent speech, New York Times columnist David Brooks challenged his listeners to give up our American pre-occupation with self-fulfillment and instead make a “sacred commitment” to service to others. “Most successful young people,” he wrote, “don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem which summons their life…. They are called by a problem which then helps them create self-identity.” Isn’t that true for us as well? The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young or old, women or men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we can discern it. The Spirit calls us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “What can we do with our diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
Most of you know that I like icons. I especially like this one of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Cathedral of St. Sophia. You remember that icons are not realistic pictures but rather attempts to capture spiritual realities visually. This icon is different from what we might expect such an icon to be, in that it shows the apostles at rest, perhaps being gently bathed by the light touch of the Spirit. Henry Nouwen has written movingly of the way in which this icon reflects the Spirit’s role in creating Christian community, by drawing us into the community of love created by the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But two other things strike me about this icon. The first is how different all the apostles are. At first glance, they may look alike. However, if you look closely, you can see that the icon tradition has visibly represented the diversity among them. They are different ages, they are dressed differently, some are bearded and some are not, and their postures differ. In effect, the icon gives us a visual representation of the diversity of gifts among that first apostolic community. Second, and perhaps more important, each figure has in his lap a book or other object. Tranquil as this scene may be, we have the sure sense that the apostles will shortly rise from their chairs to go out to serve the church in the various paths on which they will be led.
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. The Spirit has given us all gifts. The Spirit has given us the responsibility to rebuild and revitalize this parish. And so therefore we pray most earnestly, that the Spirit will continue to shower her gifts on us, so that we may continue to bring God’s reign nearer. “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and light us with celestial fire. Thou the anointing Spirit art, who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart.”
My friends, none of these reasons is why you are here. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here, and no longer any social approbation for rousing yourselves and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus’ disappearance is behind us, we’ve crossed over the threshold, and the Holy Spirit is rampant in the world. But the Holy is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known. Some of us can really resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus? “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions. We know too that in Scripture fire is also a signal of God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai? When Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and enlivening. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing. For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar of a strange church and suddenly knew she was home. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” Paul went on to remind the Corinthian Christians that collectively their community possessed many different kinds of gifts, not just that of speaking in tongues, and that all their gifts had come from the same Spirit. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. Much as we love the Episcopal Church, perhaps we can learn from Lutherans, or Roman Catholics, or even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts needed to build the kingdom of God. We have a lot to learn from each other. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us all, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there’s kind of a paradox here. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor solely to enable us to feel at peace with ourselves, valuable as that may be, or at ease with the world. Strength for the journey, maybe. But, as one writer observed, the real truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us, that, in fact, may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After they stepped over that threshold, there was no going back to the old life for the disciples. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in unexpected directions.
And so too for us. Having stepped over that same threshold, we know there is no going back to what this parish once was. There is no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. In a recent speech, New York Times columnist David Brooks challenged his listeners to give up our American pre-occupation with self-fulfillment and instead make a “sacred commitment” to service to others. “Most successful young people,” he wrote, “don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem which summons their life…. They are called by a problem which then helps them create self-identity.” Isn’t that true for us as well? The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young or old, women or men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we can discern it. The Spirit calls us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “What can we do with our diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
Most of you know that I like icons. I especially like this one of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Cathedral of St. Sophia. You remember that icons are not realistic pictures but rather attempts to capture spiritual realities visually. This icon is different from what we might expect such an icon to be, in that it shows the apostles at rest, perhaps being gently bathed by the light touch of the Spirit. Henry Nouwen has written movingly of the way in which this icon reflects the Spirit’s role in creating Christian community, by drawing us into the community of love created by the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But two other things strike me about this icon. The first is how different all the apostles are. At first glance, they may look alike. However, if you look closely, you can see that the icon tradition has visibly represented the diversity among them. They are different ages, they are dressed differently, some are bearded and some are not, and their postures differ. In effect, the icon gives us a visual representation of the diversity of gifts among that first apostolic community. Second, and perhaps more important, each figure has in his lap a book or other object. Tranquil as this scene may be, we have the sure sense that the apostles will shortly rise from their chairs to go out to serve the church in the various paths on which they will be led.
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. The Spirit has given us all gifts. The Spirit has given us the responsibility to rebuild and revitalize this parish. And so therefore we pray most earnestly, that the Spirit will continue to shower her gifts on us, so that we may continue to bring God’s reign nearer. “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and light us with celestial fire. Thou the anointing Spirit art, who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart.”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Teach Us to Pray
One Sunday afternoon, in a locked section of a nursing home, a woman sat slumped in her wheelchair. Along with her husband two people had come from her parish with communion from that morning’s service. The woman moaned quietly when one of the visitors touched her arm. She made no other sound, not even to acknowledge her husband. The Eucharistic visitors laid out the communion linens and elements, read the Gospel lesson, and said the suggested prayers. Still no response. Then one of the visitors said, “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say, ‘Our Father….’” The woman’s head came up as she began to whisper, “who art in heaven….” At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, the woman shared in the Lord’s gifts.
Prayer is powerful. Because we say the Lord’s Prayer so often, and because it links us with members of almost every other Christian community, the Lord’s Prayer has a virtually unique power to stay with us and sustain us. Although Jesus teaches his followers that form of prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Scripture also has other things to teach us about prayer. This morning, as we stand on the threshold between our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, all three of our lessons teach us about the power of prayer.
Our lesson from the Book of Acts overlaps with the reading from Acts that some of us heard on Ascension Day. Our story begins with Jesus’ reminder to his disciples that they will soon experience personal transformation through the Holy Spirit. Then the disciples have an experience that convinces them that Jesus has been released from his visible, earthly existence and has returned to his life with God. Now they wonder what will happen next, and especially what Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit will mean. And so the disciples return to Jerusalem. They do the only thing they know how to do: they go back to that upper room. They join with their fellow disciples, both women and men, and they devote themselves to prayer. They take up that posture common to all Christians, really to believers of all faith communities, they wait in hope for the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled. As they wait, they pray together.
Just like the Jerusalem disciples before Pentecost, the members of the Christian community in Colossae also waited in hope for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises. Theirs was a persecuted community, a tiny minority in a culture that considered them atheistic, subversive, and dangerous. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminded these Christians that, if they were persecuted, they did not struggle alone, but that Jesus struggled with them in their trials. Consequently, whatever befell them, they were to pray together. In this way they could be assured of Jesus’ love for them: “Cast all your anxiety on him,” they were told, “because he cares for you.”
In our Gospel reading, we listen in on Jesus’ prayer at the very end of his last supper with his disciples. Jesus had instructed these chosen friends and given them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them. Then, knowing that God’s time had finally come, Jesus turned toward his Father and began to pray. As the disciples overheard Jesus’ prayer, they learned a different model of prayer from the one the disciples were taught in Matthew and Luke. Anticipating his resurrection and ascension, Jesus first prayed for himself. “Glorify your Son,” he asks of the Father, “so that the Son may glorify you…. [G]lorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” Jesus then prayed for his close friends. Again, anticipating his complete departure from the earthly, physical world that they inhabited, he prayed for their safety: “They are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me….” Finally, in the last part of the prayer, which we don’t hear here, Jesus prayed for the rest of the world, all those who would come to believe in him when his friends, filled with the Holy Spirit, carried the Good News to the ends of the earth. “I ask not only on behalf of these,” Jesus prayed, “but on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word….”
The message is clear: prayer, especially corporate, common, prayer is an integral part of life in God. Jesus prayed frequently throughout all four Gospels, Jesus taught us a model prayer, and, on his last night in his human body, Jesus prayed intently for us and for all future believers. While they waited for the promised Holy Spirit to explode on them, the disciples prayed continually together. As they endured the slights and persecutions of their fellow citizens, the Christians in Colossae leaned on their Lord and offered up to him all their cares and worries. Prayer is an integral part of life in God.
Prayer as a part of common life didn’t end with the beleaguered Christians of Colossae. Soon after Benedict of Nursia founded his holy communities amidst the chaos of sixth-century Italy, he wrote a Rule for them outlining how they were to live together. Benedict understood that his monks and nuns were not hermits. They were not cloistered, and they were not to spend their entire life on their knees. Rather, as they followed Benedict’s rule, they led a balanced life of prayer, both individual and corporate, work of about six hours a day, spiritual reading, especially study of Scripture, and fellowship around meals and recreation. Whatever they did, wherever they were, even when they were travelling, prayer formed the foundation of their lives, and prayer was woven inextricably into every aspect of their lives.
Benedict’s rule of a balanced life of prayer, study, work, and fellowship continues to be the standard for monastic communities today. Benedict’s rule also provides a model for our own life together. Leaving aside for the moment the values of study and fellowship, I want to focus here on the importance of regular prayer, both individual and corporate, for all of us – not just for those of us who wear clerical collars. You’ve probably noticed that when we worship, in our corporate prayers, either the ones we say together, or the ones that the presider prays on your behalf, there are generally four types of prayer: praise or adoration, in which we praise God for who God is or what God has done; thanksgiving, in which we thank God for all that God has done for us or given us; intercession, in which we pray for the needs of others; and confession, in which we admit to ourselves and to God the ways in which we have missed the mark. We can, and often do, use all four forms in our own personal prayer as well. In our personal prayer time we can also include some silence, in which we stop talking to God and just listen to God. Wherever we pray, and whichever forms of prayer we use, or even if we keep silent before God, prayer always has a two-fold goal. Just as Jesus did in his own earthly life, we pray to deepen our relationship with God, especially our trust in God’s love and care for us. Secondly, and perhaps more important, again following the model Jesus gave us, we pray for the life of the world, and especially that God’s reign may be brought nearer. Ultimately, the two goals converge: when we deepen our relationship with God, when we strengthen our confidence that God will fulfill God’s promises, then we see more clearly what our role is in making known to others God’s plan of salvation, the good news of God in Christ.
Jesus’, Peter’s, and Benedict’s instructions are clear: prayer is an integral part of our life as Jesus’ disciples. A balanced Christian life always includes time for prayer. No matter how busy your life is, give yourself the gift of prayer as part of your daily life. Here’s a starting place. Say grace at meals. If you’re by yourself, say it silently. Do you have two minutes in your day for prayer? Turn to page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer. Daily Noonday prayer is a wonderful way to put yourselves in God’s presence. It takes exactly two minutes to say – I guarantee it. How about five minutes at night? Turn to page 117. Compline takes five minutes. It’s a wonderful way to end the day with God. Intercede for others. Take the six suggestions for the Prayers of the People on page 383 of the prayer book. They’re perfect for organizing your personal prayer as well. Consider taking a retreat or quiet day, either one that I’ll be organizing or one available through other organizations. There’s no better way to immerse yourself in God’s love than to take an extended time with God apart from your ordinary life. And one more form of prayer. We are in a time of transition at St. Peter’s. Turn to page 817 of the prayer book. I challenge you to pray daily for St. Peter’s. You can use this prayer, or any other you want to say. God doesn’t care about the words, but God does care about whether the continued life of this parish is important to you. So pray for St. Peter’s! Just do it!
Prayer is powerful. And when our prayer is united with Jesus’ prayer for all creation, it is even more powerful yet. You yourselves, this parish, and the world need our prayers. And so may we continually pray, “Into your care, O God, we place ourselves and all our prayers, trusting your promise of new life in Jesus Christ, our risen Savior.”
Prayer is powerful. Because we say the Lord’s Prayer so often, and because it links us with members of almost every other Christian community, the Lord’s Prayer has a virtually unique power to stay with us and sustain us. Although Jesus teaches his followers that form of prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Scripture also has other things to teach us about prayer. This morning, as we stand on the threshold between our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, all three of our lessons teach us about the power of prayer.
Our lesson from the Book of Acts overlaps with the reading from Acts that some of us heard on Ascension Day. Our story begins with Jesus’ reminder to his disciples that they will soon experience personal transformation through the Holy Spirit. Then the disciples have an experience that convinces them that Jesus has been released from his visible, earthly existence and has returned to his life with God. Now they wonder what will happen next, and especially what Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit will mean. And so the disciples return to Jerusalem. They do the only thing they know how to do: they go back to that upper room. They join with their fellow disciples, both women and men, and they devote themselves to prayer. They take up that posture common to all Christians, really to believers of all faith communities, they wait in hope for the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled. As they wait, they pray together.
Just like the Jerusalem disciples before Pentecost, the members of the Christian community in Colossae also waited in hope for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises. Theirs was a persecuted community, a tiny minority in a culture that considered them atheistic, subversive, and dangerous. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminded these Christians that, if they were persecuted, they did not struggle alone, but that Jesus struggled with them in their trials. Consequently, whatever befell them, they were to pray together. In this way they could be assured of Jesus’ love for them: “Cast all your anxiety on him,” they were told, “because he cares for you.”
In our Gospel reading, we listen in on Jesus’ prayer at the very end of his last supper with his disciples. Jesus had instructed these chosen friends and given them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them. Then, knowing that God’s time had finally come, Jesus turned toward his Father and began to pray. As the disciples overheard Jesus’ prayer, they learned a different model of prayer from the one the disciples were taught in Matthew and Luke. Anticipating his resurrection and ascension, Jesus first prayed for himself. “Glorify your Son,” he asks of the Father, “so that the Son may glorify you…. [G]lorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” Jesus then prayed for his close friends. Again, anticipating his complete departure from the earthly, physical world that they inhabited, he prayed for their safety: “They are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me….” Finally, in the last part of the prayer, which we don’t hear here, Jesus prayed for the rest of the world, all those who would come to believe in him when his friends, filled with the Holy Spirit, carried the Good News to the ends of the earth. “I ask not only on behalf of these,” Jesus prayed, “but on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word….”
The message is clear: prayer, especially corporate, common, prayer is an integral part of life in God. Jesus prayed frequently throughout all four Gospels, Jesus taught us a model prayer, and, on his last night in his human body, Jesus prayed intently for us and for all future believers. While they waited for the promised Holy Spirit to explode on them, the disciples prayed continually together. As they endured the slights and persecutions of their fellow citizens, the Christians in Colossae leaned on their Lord and offered up to him all their cares and worries. Prayer is an integral part of life in God.
Prayer as a part of common life didn’t end with the beleaguered Christians of Colossae. Soon after Benedict of Nursia founded his holy communities amidst the chaos of sixth-century Italy, he wrote a Rule for them outlining how they were to live together. Benedict understood that his monks and nuns were not hermits. They were not cloistered, and they were not to spend their entire life on their knees. Rather, as they followed Benedict’s rule, they led a balanced life of prayer, both individual and corporate, work of about six hours a day, spiritual reading, especially study of Scripture, and fellowship around meals and recreation. Whatever they did, wherever they were, even when they were travelling, prayer formed the foundation of their lives, and prayer was woven inextricably into every aspect of their lives.
Benedict’s rule of a balanced life of prayer, study, work, and fellowship continues to be the standard for monastic communities today. Benedict’s rule also provides a model for our own life together. Leaving aside for the moment the values of study and fellowship, I want to focus here on the importance of regular prayer, both individual and corporate, for all of us – not just for those of us who wear clerical collars. You’ve probably noticed that when we worship, in our corporate prayers, either the ones we say together, or the ones that the presider prays on your behalf, there are generally four types of prayer: praise or adoration, in which we praise God for who God is or what God has done; thanksgiving, in which we thank God for all that God has done for us or given us; intercession, in which we pray for the needs of others; and confession, in which we admit to ourselves and to God the ways in which we have missed the mark. We can, and often do, use all four forms in our own personal prayer as well. In our personal prayer time we can also include some silence, in which we stop talking to God and just listen to God. Wherever we pray, and whichever forms of prayer we use, or even if we keep silent before God, prayer always has a two-fold goal. Just as Jesus did in his own earthly life, we pray to deepen our relationship with God, especially our trust in God’s love and care for us. Secondly, and perhaps more important, again following the model Jesus gave us, we pray for the life of the world, and especially that God’s reign may be brought nearer. Ultimately, the two goals converge: when we deepen our relationship with God, when we strengthen our confidence that God will fulfill God’s promises, then we see more clearly what our role is in making known to others God’s plan of salvation, the good news of God in Christ.
Jesus’, Peter’s, and Benedict’s instructions are clear: prayer is an integral part of our life as Jesus’ disciples. A balanced Christian life always includes time for prayer. No matter how busy your life is, give yourself the gift of prayer as part of your daily life. Here’s a starting place. Say grace at meals. If you’re by yourself, say it silently. Do you have two minutes in your day for prayer? Turn to page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer. Daily Noonday prayer is a wonderful way to put yourselves in God’s presence. It takes exactly two minutes to say – I guarantee it. How about five minutes at night? Turn to page 117. Compline takes five minutes. It’s a wonderful way to end the day with God. Intercede for others. Take the six suggestions for the Prayers of the People on page 383 of the prayer book. They’re perfect for organizing your personal prayer as well. Consider taking a retreat or quiet day, either one that I’ll be organizing or one available through other organizations. There’s no better way to immerse yourself in God’s love than to take an extended time with God apart from your ordinary life. And one more form of prayer. We are in a time of transition at St. Peter’s. Turn to page 817 of the prayer book. I challenge you to pray daily for St. Peter’s. You can use this prayer, or any other you want to say. God doesn’t care about the words, but God does care about whether the continued life of this parish is important to you. So pray for St. Peter’s! Just do it!
Prayer is powerful. And when our prayer is united with Jesus’ prayer for all creation, it is even more powerful yet. You yourselves, this parish, and the world need our prayers. And so may we continually pray, “Into your care, O God, we place ourselves and all our prayers, trusting your promise of new life in Jesus Christ, our risen Savior.”
Friday, June 3, 2011
What Next?
The disciples were standing on a threshold. As they looked behind them, they could see all the wonderful things that they had witnessed during their time with Jesus. His family members thought about how they had gradually come to realize just how extraordinary he really was. His friends remembered how he had persuaded them to leave their old lives behind to join his troupe. Their feet still hurt from walking all the way with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. Then there was his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and that last meal with him. Thinking of him in agony on the cross still brought tears to their eyes, even though a short three days later, he was alive and among them again. He had spent the time since being raised giving them instructions about what they were supposed to do next. Clearly, they’d misunderstood some of his instructions. When a group of them had gone with him to Bethany, they’d asked him about whether he was finally going to claim his throne, and he rebuked them. If he wasn’t going to finally kick out the Romans and rule Israel, then what was he going to do? What’s more, out there at Bethany they had an experience there was no way to describe. They understood in no uncertain terms that Jesus’ earthly life, his life in some kind of physical body, was over. They didn’t know what exactly had happened, or “where” he had gone, so when they told others about what they had experienced, they just described it in terms of the universe they knew. But what mattered was that they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jesus was no longer confined to a visible body, that he was no longer subject to the constraints of time and space. They knew and truly believed that he had come from God, and now he had, in some sense, returned to God. And they guessed that now it wasn’t just a small band of Jews in Jerusalem who could be his followers. People everywhere could be his followers, and he would somehow be present wherever those who knew him and loved him were present. As the disciples stood on that threshold, pondering this new revelation, as they looked backward to all that had happened, and as they looked forward to life without Jesus, they wondered, “What’s coming next? Who will we be?”
My friends, don’t we often feel as if we’re standing on a threshold along with the disciples, looking back to a past we can understand, but knowing that our lives have changed, and not sure what’s coming next? Aren’t our whole lives made up of such experiences? That cuddly infant is suddenly graduating from high school. The vows we took on our joyful wedding day have melted away into a bitter divorce. Our nests are empty. What will fill our houses now? We move from one job to another, from one town to another. We loved our jobs, but now we’ve accepted early retirement. What next? We once could hike ten miles up and down a mountain or play tennis all afternoon, but now no longer. Friends move away, and loved ones die. Our own death beckons. As we look through all these doorways, over and over we wonder, what next?
Perhaps we even see ourselves on a threshold as we contemplate the church. As we look backward, we see the early church with its heroic founders and witnesses. We look longingly at the great cathedrals that towered over European cities. We celebrate those who brought the European churches to this country or founded new native denominations. And surely we look backward with fondness and longing at our parishes as they were a generation or two ago, when our churches often were multi-generational social centers. Our pews were filled on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, energy and excitement poured out of Sunday School classrooms, our youth groups were thriving, our bazaars, rummage sales, and dinners supported our ministries, and there were always plenty of people around, both men and women, to do all the work that the church needed to have done. Now as we look around us, we often see closed Sunday school rooms. All the heads in our half-filled pews are gray-headed. Our youth groups have ceded place to travelling hockey teams and middle-school sports. To make matters worse, we’re fighting with each other, within our own congregations, within our denominations, and even with members of other faith communities. We know the church is changing. As we look backwards, many of us feel as if we’ve lost something precious. Yet we know, just as surely as the disciples knew that Jesus had left them, that the church of 1964 will never come again. And so we wonder, what next?
My friends, just before the disciples began to realize that Jesus had left his earthly existence, something else happened to them out there in Bethany: they were given a promise. They were given the promise that they would receive the Holy Spirit, that Christ’s Spirit would be alive in them connecting them with both him and the Father. They were not to receive the gift of the Spirit solely so that they themselves might become more holy, but rather that they might be equipped to proclaim the good news of God in Christ all over the world. On the threshold between what was and what was to come, the disciples were promised the power that would enable them to step over the threshold into the world and begin the real work of advancing Jesus’ ministry. Not looking up to heaven, not trying to get Jesus to come back to earth, but focusing on the work they would be given to do, they returned to Jerusalem, and waited, praying with the others, for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
And so it is for us. As we stand on the thresholds of our lives we too hear Jesus’ promise. When our personal lives are in transition, we can look backward, but we can also be assured that Jesus holds, strengthens, and empowers us for whatever comes next. In this time of change and transition in the church, with the disciples, we too can claim Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. We too can fulfill our vows to him and continue to proclaim the good news of God in Christ. We too can, indeed must, claim the power given us in baptism and be Christ in the world around us.
I’d like to share with you an ancient apocryphal story. It is said that as Jesus arrived in heaven following his ascension, the angels all gathered round to welcome him back and ask about his experiences on earth. They wept over his crucifixion but exulted at his triumph over death and at his demonstration of God’s great love for humanity. Finally someone said, “So, Lord, now that you’re no longer physically there, who will continue to share the good news?”
The Lord answered, “I had eleven really close friends. Plus I had a lot of other followers, both women and men. I’ve charged them with getting the word out.”
“Oh, they must be extraordinary people, the best people you could find on earth!”
“No,” said the Lord, “They’re just average, ordinary folks. Nothing extraordinary about them.”
“But are they up to the job, Lord?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he answered.
“You can’t be sure, Lord? What if they fail? What’s your backup plan?”
Jesus answered quietly, “There is no backup plan.”1
Yes, friends, there is no backup plan. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us. Just as he did on the first Ascension Day, he continues to charge us with carrying his ministry forward. He depends on us to proclaim the good news, to teach, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and advocate for those who have no one else to advocate for them. Having left his earthly existence, he depends on us to let ourselves be filled with his Spirit and work together to bring his reign closer. Writer Ray Stedman reminds us that the Ascension presents us with an “incarnational mandate.” He tells us that, “The good news does not come by means of angels. It is not announced from heaven by loud, impersonal voices. It doesn’t even come by poring over dusty volumes from the past. In each generation, the Gospel is delivered by living, breathing men and women who speak from their own experience. Most of us seem to require models that we can follow. In the same way, God’s love must somehow become visible and personal before it is caught by others. There is a strong personal element about the Gospel which cannot be eliminated without harm.”2
We look backward. Then we step over our own thresholds, in both our personal and our church lives, perhaps with fear and uncertainty. We may not be sure what our future will look like, or where God is leading us. But if we take seriously Jesus’ promise to the disciples as he was leaving them, we can live hopefully into the future. We can trust that Jesus will fulfill his promises to us and enable us to continue to proclaim the good news and minister in his name.
1. Adapted from David Leininger, “Clouded Vision,” Tales for the Pulpit (Lima OH: CSS Publishing, 2007, 94.
2. Synthesis, June 2, 2011, 4.
My friends, don’t we often feel as if we’re standing on a threshold along with the disciples, looking back to a past we can understand, but knowing that our lives have changed, and not sure what’s coming next? Aren’t our whole lives made up of such experiences? That cuddly infant is suddenly graduating from high school. The vows we took on our joyful wedding day have melted away into a bitter divorce. Our nests are empty. What will fill our houses now? We move from one job to another, from one town to another. We loved our jobs, but now we’ve accepted early retirement. What next? We once could hike ten miles up and down a mountain or play tennis all afternoon, but now no longer. Friends move away, and loved ones die. Our own death beckons. As we look through all these doorways, over and over we wonder, what next?
Perhaps we even see ourselves on a threshold as we contemplate the church. As we look backward, we see the early church with its heroic founders and witnesses. We look longingly at the great cathedrals that towered over European cities. We celebrate those who brought the European churches to this country or founded new native denominations. And surely we look backward with fondness and longing at our parishes as they were a generation or two ago, when our churches often were multi-generational social centers. Our pews were filled on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, energy and excitement poured out of Sunday School classrooms, our youth groups were thriving, our bazaars, rummage sales, and dinners supported our ministries, and there were always plenty of people around, both men and women, to do all the work that the church needed to have done. Now as we look around us, we often see closed Sunday school rooms. All the heads in our half-filled pews are gray-headed. Our youth groups have ceded place to travelling hockey teams and middle-school sports. To make matters worse, we’re fighting with each other, within our own congregations, within our denominations, and even with members of other faith communities. We know the church is changing. As we look backwards, many of us feel as if we’ve lost something precious. Yet we know, just as surely as the disciples knew that Jesus had left them, that the church of 1964 will never come again. And so we wonder, what next?
My friends, just before the disciples began to realize that Jesus had left his earthly existence, something else happened to them out there in Bethany: they were given a promise. They were given the promise that they would receive the Holy Spirit, that Christ’s Spirit would be alive in them connecting them with both him and the Father. They were not to receive the gift of the Spirit solely so that they themselves might become more holy, but rather that they might be equipped to proclaim the good news of God in Christ all over the world. On the threshold between what was and what was to come, the disciples were promised the power that would enable them to step over the threshold into the world and begin the real work of advancing Jesus’ ministry. Not looking up to heaven, not trying to get Jesus to come back to earth, but focusing on the work they would be given to do, they returned to Jerusalem, and waited, praying with the others, for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
And so it is for us. As we stand on the thresholds of our lives we too hear Jesus’ promise. When our personal lives are in transition, we can look backward, but we can also be assured that Jesus holds, strengthens, and empowers us for whatever comes next. In this time of change and transition in the church, with the disciples, we too can claim Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. We too can fulfill our vows to him and continue to proclaim the good news of God in Christ. We too can, indeed must, claim the power given us in baptism and be Christ in the world around us.
I’d like to share with you an ancient apocryphal story. It is said that as Jesus arrived in heaven following his ascension, the angels all gathered round to welcome him back and ask about his experiences on earth. They wept over his crucifixion but exulted at his triumph over death and at his demonstration of God’s great love for humanity. Finally someone said, “So, Lord, now that you’re no longer physically there, who will continue to share the good news?”
The Lord answered, “I had eleven really close friends. Plus I had a lot of other followers, both women and men. I’ve charged them with getting the word out.”
“Oh, they must be extraordinary people, the best people you could find on earth!”
“No,” said the Lord, “They’re just average, ordinary folks. Nothing extraordinary about them.”
“But are they up to the job, Lord?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he answered.
“You can’t be sure, Lord? What if they fail? What’s your backup plan?”
Jesus answered quietly, “There is no backup plan.”1
Yes, friends, there is no backup plan. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us. Just as he did on the first Ascension Day, he continues to charge us with carrying his ministry forward. He depends on us to proclaim the good news, to teach, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and advocate for those who have no one else to advocate for them. Having left his earthly existence, he depends on us to let ourselves be filled with his Spirit and work together to bring his reign closer. Writer Ray Stedman reminds us that the Ascension presents us with an “incarnational mandate.” He tells us that, “The good news does not come by means of angels. It is not announced from heaven by loud, impersonal voices. It doesn’t even come by poring over dusty volumes from the past. In each generation, the Gospel is delivered by living, breathing men and women who speak from their own experience. Most of us seem to require models that we can follow. In the same way, God’s love must somehow become visible and personal before it is caught by others. There is a strong personal element about the Gospel which cannot be eliminated without harm.”2
We look backward. Then we step over our own thresholds, in both our personal and our church lives, perhaps with fear and uncertainty. We may not be sure what our future will look like, or where God is leading us. But if we take seriously Jesus’ promise to the disciples as he was leaving them, we can live hopefully into the future. We can trust that Jesus will fulfill his promises to us and enable us to continue to proclaim the good news and minister in his name.
1. Adapted from David Leininger, “Clouded Vision,” Tales for the Pulpit (Lima OH: CSS Publishing, 2007, 94.
2. Synthesis, June 2, 2011, 4.
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