Sunday, August 30, 2015

Walk the Talk

Did Jesus really say that religious people shouldn’t wash their hands? Of course, washing our hands is one of the common, habitual actions that we do. You know that ubiquitous sign in restaurant rest rooms: “All employees must wash their hands before returning to work.” In the winter we’re told that the best way to prevent spreading flu and colds is to wash our hands. It goes without saying that hand-washing is standard practice in any healthcare setting. However, for religious leaders in Jesus’ time – and no doubt thirty or so years later when the Gospel of Mark was written – hand-washing was not a hygienic practice but, rather, a religious practice. In suggesting that all Jews followed this practice, Mark may have been exaggerating, or perhaps responding to questions put to followers of Jesus. Certainly, working class people, like most of Jesus’ followers, would not have been able to regularly practice the ritual washing of hands.

So did Jesus really condemn hand-washing? Our gospel lection for today is an odd one. We really should read all twenty-three verses – and I urge you to do so when you get home. Following the quote from Isaiah is an example of real hypocrisy, viz., the way some pious people disobey the commandment to honor one’s parents by entrusting their money to the temple. Then Jesus moves into a private conversation with the disciples. He explains that true piety has nothing to do with food, but rather with what is in their hearts. If you think that our lection, as we have it, doesn’t hang together, you’re right!

So did Jesus condemn hand-washing? Notice what Jesus did not say. He did not condemn tradition. He was not against hand-washing or other similar ritual practices. As a good Jew and a rabbi, he may well have followed such practices himself. Nor did Jesus condemn the Pharisees as people or as religious leaders. Again, as a rabbi, he knew full well that the Jews’ distinctive religious practices, dress, and diet helped ensure their survival as a minority community in a religiously diverse world.

What Jesus did condemn the Pharisees for was emphasizing tradition and custom, indeed the many minute and trifling customs which pious people had devised, and neglecting the larger demands of God’s commandments. Moreover, the practices of hand-washing and other similar practices of ritual purification were available only to a select few and enabled those privileged few to see themselves as superior to working class people, artisans, and peasants, indeed any people who worked with their hands. Most important, Jesus was condemning the religious leaders for focusing on their own practices, what I do, rather than on the needs of others. If our text hangs together it is in this: that focusing on oneself and one’s own needs, seeing the world only from our own point of view, our own limited understanding and lifestyle, is ultimately the source of the evil intentions which Jesus names.

So the answer to the question is “No.” Nevertheless, let’s be clear: Jesus did not condemn religious practices as such. Rather, he condemned practices that were self-referential, that led to the exclusion of large groups of people, and that did not reflect the Torah and the foundational values that underlay God’s covenant with the Jews.

Our lesson from the Letter of James, which we began today, reinforces what we’ve just heard in the gospel. Like the letter to the Ephesians, this letter too was probably an encyclical, i.e., a letter not addressed to a specific Christian community but intended for circulation among several communities. It lacks the parts common to letters in the ancient world, and it seems to keep changing topics – you can hear that even in the portion we heard today. But there is an over-arching theme to this letter. As you could hear today, James emphasizes the importance of good works, of good practices if you will. If the Pharisees had asked Jesus what they should do, he might have answered with much of James’ letter.

So what practices does James commend to his hearers? To begin with, the writer says, we must remember that whatever we have comes from God – there are no self-made people in this world – and that God expects us to use God’s gifts to advance God’s reign. Secondly, James asks us to listen carefully to the needs and concerns of others, not jumping in with our own ideas and observations, but attentively taking in what other people are offering us. Finally, James reminds us that as followers of Jesus we are called to take care of the most vulnerable members of society, the “widows and orphans,” i.e., those who have no economic or social support. In a word, like Jesus, James calls us to actualize our faith in our behavior, in truly loving practices, in a word, to “walk the talk.”

What does that look like in real life? What religious practices might help us to avoid Jesus’ condemnation and fulfill James’ criteria? Serious Christians have asked these questions since the earliest Christian communities began to gather. Actually, even before Jesus’ time, the Essenes, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, retired to separate communities where they followed an austere lifestyle and devoted themselves to prayer and study. In the twelfth century, Francis and Clare of Assisi tried to create communities that followed Jesus’ own way of life. They took literally Jesus’ commands to “take nothing for the journey, eat what is set before you, wear no shoes, and work for your wages,” i.e., to live exactly as Jesus had lived. Thus the earliest Franciscans lived among and served the poorest in society, owned nothing, begged for what they needed, and took comfort in being far from the seats of power. However, like many similar communities – like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Celtic monastics, the Beguines, and the Bruderhof – they found it difficult to sustain this lifestyle, despite their commitment to Jesus and to Francis’s teachings. Like others, the Franciscans eventually also became clericalized, settled, and wealthy. Fortunately, in the twenty-first century, Francis’s “alternative orthodoxy,” as Richard Rohr calls it, is being rediscovered by the Franciscans themselves, by the Nuns on the Bus, and by intentional communities like the School for Conversion in inner-city Durham, North Carolina.

And what of us? What does faithful practice look like for us ordinary folks in the twenty-first century? We are not monastics or even members of intentional communities – although it is possible to be an associate of a religious order or support the work of alternative intentional communities. “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” What would that evidence actually look like? First of all, we are called to be clear about what we do profess. We say the Nicene Creed every Sunday. We say the Apostles Creed and repeat the baptismal promises at every baptism. Do the statements in these creeds or promises mean anything to us, or do we just repeat them? One of the reasons I like Joan Chittister’s book In Search of Belief, which I mentioned in the e-news, is that she fleshes out the implications for our lives of every phrase of the Apostles Creed. I commend the book to you.

I am going out on a limb. In addition to our secular lives, our lives involving work, family, and friends, I’d like to suggest a minimum set of practices that will enable us to live a little more as Jesus lived, that will help actualize our faith, and that will strengthen our ability to “walk the talk.” The first practice is some form of daily prayer – even five minutes worth. You can say “good morning” to God before you get out of bed, you can pause at your lunch hour, or you can review the day with God before going to bed. A couple of weeks ago, the comic strip character Ziggy is shown looking up towards a sunbeam. He says, “Oh, I’m not asking for anything…. I just wanted to know how you are doing today!” Did you ever consider saying that to God yourself?

The second essential practice is some form of Sabbath. Yes, ideally, we all ought to be able to take an entire day – and just do nothing! If an entire day isn’t possible, pencil in some time, any amount, to rest from your labors – and from all electronic devices, to study, pray, enjoy nature, or just rest. The third practice is regular worship, ideally every Sunday. If we are to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we need regular spiritual nourishment, just as much as our bodies need physical nourishment. The fourth and final practice is some regular form or self-reflection. We need to take the time to periodically ask ourselves these questions: how does my life reflect my faith? How do my practices, my habitual behaviors, my daily life both draw me closer to God and increase my compassion for others?

And then we can trust that, when we ask for God’s grace to do all this, God will lavishly bestow that grace on us. We trust that God is indeed “the giver of all good things,” who will enable us to show forth our commitment to Jesus and our praise of God not only with our lips but always in our lives.

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Stand Up for Jesus

Where is Ephesus? For the last seven weeks we’ve been hearing sections of a letter addressed to a Christian community there. Where is this place?

Actually, you can visit the ruins of ancient Ephesus. Today, Ephesus entertains many tourist groups, and cruise ships regularly call at the port of Kusadasi nearby. The city lies on the southwestern coast of Turkey on the eastern shore of the Ionian Sea. Archeologists have been at work there since the 1860s and have to date unearthed about 15% of the ancient city. So visitors can see wonderful Roman ruins. There’s an imposing gate and a second-century library. There’s the Temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and many other temples, including one dedicated to the emperor Domitian. Among other sites you can even see an ancient theater and a marketplace.

The city had been founded in the early 10th century BC by a Hittite king. By the time that Christian communities were being established there, i.e., in the first and second centuries AD, Ephesus was a thriving commercial center with a population of about 50,000 people. Of those, a small minority had become followers of the itinerant rabbi who had been executed by the Roman establishment in Jerusalem. Comprising a small number of Jews among many gentiles, these earliest Christian communities were socially mixed and were subject to persecution and discrimination, chiefly for refusing to worship the Roman emperors.

We’ve been calling what we’ve been hearing an “epistle” or “letter,” but scholars believe that our text was probably more like an encyclical, i.e., a letter not addressed to a specific community but rather intended for circulation among several different communities. We are not sure who wrote it. Traditionally it was ascribed to Paul. However, much internal evidence suggests that it was probably written by a disciple of Paul who was writing in Paul’s name – a common practice in the ancient world.

The first half of the letter, as we’ve heard this past month and a half, deals with theological issues. The writer begins by warning the gentiles not to return to their former pagan religious practices. This was not a trivial issue for them, as much of their business and social life would formerly have centered around the temple – not unlike our own society a generation or two ago. What is more important is the reminder that, through Christ, gentiles have been brought into the covenant that God had established first with the Jews: “So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth … that you were … without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel…. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (2:11-13). Therefore the followers of Jesus now constitute a new community, unified by the work of Christ: “So you are then no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (2:19-22).

In the second half of the letter, the writer explains what it means to be a Christian community. Christians are called, we have heard, especially to live lives that reflect their commitment to Jesus, to honor his call to live in unity and peace, to give up immoral practices, and to seek wisdom. Because “the days are evil,” Christians are also called to “be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time” (5:15-16).

Now, finally, we have come to the end of the letter. We have come to what scholars the “peroration.” This is a technical term for a “battle charge.” This is what a general would say before sending troops into battle, or a coach would say before sending players onto the field or court. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of “Go get ‘em!” Now Christians were called to be peaceful, to even fly under the radar, so why did the writer use military imagery here? Think about it. What did ancient people see around them all the time? Roman foot soldiers! People were as familiar with the foot soldiers’ armor as we are today with the uniforms of law enforcement officers or Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. But there is more here than simply familiarity. Jews are also reminded of similar images in the Hebrew Scriptures, especially, for example, Isaiah’s description of Israel’s coming savior: “Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist….” In the third part of Isaiah, we hear again that God, in avenging injustice, “put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head….” And finally, all the hearers, both Jews and Gentiles, are reminded that they, as followers of Jesus, are not lone rangers, but rather, like common soldiers, are part of a community, a company or platoon, a regiment in God’s forces.

What is the battle charge for the Ephesians, and by extension, for us? To what are we called as committed followers of Jesus? First, we are called to stand firm, to stand ready to do God’s work, even if that work is not popular. More important, we are called to acknowledge that there are real forces arrayed against us. These forces are not “enemies of flesh and blood,” that is our personal enemies. In the ancient world, for the writer of the letter to the Ephesians, these forces are characterized as demonic forces: rulers, authorities, “cosmic powers of this present darkness,” and “spiritual forces in the heavenly places.” We might characterize those forces differently. Certainly we can point to human beings whom we consider evil. Just this week Islamic State extremists beheaded Khaled Asaad, the eighty-two year old Syrian archeologist who gave his life defending the Roman ruins of Palmyra. However, beyond even ISIS, reprehensible though it may be, some of us might name those systemic forces against which we feel powerless. What might be such forces for us? Consider these: segregation, apartheid, and racism, the Mafia and other organized crime, terrorism of all kinds, the easy availability in this country of deadly weapons, drug and alcohol addiction, human trafficking, a celebrity culture of Bad Boys and Girls, global warming, political corruption, and unjust incarceration, just to name a few.

As Christians, we are called to participate in the struggle against all these forces of darkness. But – and this is a huge but – we are called not to depend solely on our own selves and our own efforts, but always on God’s grace. We are called to be first and foremost members of Jesus’ regiment, to put on the armor issued to us, the belt, breastplate, and shoes that are standard issue in his service. We are called to accept the protection and word, the helmet and the sword, that come from him. We are called to remember that, even with God’s grace, Christian life is a struggle against powerful forces, especially if we are imitating Jesus, who exemplified for us the ultimate struggle against evil. Finally, we are called to remember that we are already victors in this struggle, that Christ, through his resurrection, has already won for us the victory against evil and death.

And how might we remember all that? We gain the strength to combat the dark forces by remaining always in prayer, our writer tells us, prayer both for ourselves and for others. We do have spiritual resources available to us, if we would but avail ourselves of them. We do have the encouraging words of Scripture, especially Jesus’ promise that “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” We do have the nourishment of Christ’s Body and Blood and his promise, which we have been hearing all this month in one form or another, that, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them….” And we do have the encouragement, grace, and experience of transformation that comes to us through our own practices of prayer. When we remain firmly devoted to Jesus, through reading Scripture, letting ourselves be regularly nourished in communion, and deepening our relationship with him in prayer, we begin to become the Christians described by St. Teresa of Avila, when she reminded us that, “We are all vassals of the of the King. May it please his Majesty that, like brave soldiers, we may look only where the banner of our king is flying and thus follow his will.” As we follow his banner, we also have his promise that we will grow in our ability to share the good news with others and establish a community of peace, love, and unity.

You’ve heard the call to arms. With the Ephesians, go, stand firm against indifference, scorn, and evil in high places. Stand firm in your commitment to Jesus. Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross!

Sunday, August 2, 2015

What Sign Will You Give Us?

“What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” The Gospel of John, or the Fourth Gospel, as many scholars call it, is a Gospel of Signs. In this gospel, the story of Jesus is structured around seven “signs,” miracles that are meant to clarify and concretely reveal Jesus’ identity to everyone who might hear or read this account. In this sixth chapter, which we began hearing last week, we encountered one of those miraculous signs. We watched Jesus’ enabling the feeding of the crowds who were following him. The other signs in the gospel story, most of which we hear about in our three-year lectionary, include the wedding at Cana, where Jesus’ turning water into wine is the first sign, the healing of the royal official’s son in Capernaum, the healing of a paralytic at the pool of Bethzatha, Jesus’ walking on water, which we also heard about last week, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus.

In the gospel, these seven signs reveal Jesus’ power over disease, sickness, and death. They show that Jesus brings wholeness to what is broken, that he is master of the created world, and that he rules over a realm that is greater than any earthly realm. What is more important, these miracles are powerful symbols. They show us something about God through elements of our lives with which we are already familiar, through healing, and through water, food, and wine. For those with eyes to see, these signs reveal God’s glory and deepen trust in the Word made flesh, God’s self-revelation in Jesus.

Is it surprising then that the miracles in the Fourth Gospel did not often lead the people who witnessed them to deeper faith in Jesus? More often than not, the signs caused confusion, division, and even hostility among those who witnessed them, including Jesus’ very own disciples. Lest we become judgmental or think ourselves superior to the people who interacted with Jesus in the flesh, remember that the people who misunderstood Jesus’ signs were not stupid, hard-hearted, or evil. Rather, those who witnessed Jesus’ signs missed their meaning, because what they were seeing in Jesus was completely beyond anything they had encountered before. Scripture and the traditions that ordered their lives were also no help in explaining what they were seeing.

The community for whom John was writing in the late 90’s AD may also have been confused as to Jesus’ true identity. We believe that the people for whom this gospel was written were mostly Jewish followers of Jesus who now found themselves in conflict with the wider Jewish community and its leaders. They were struggling to understand the Jesus to whom they had committed themselves and to define themselves as a community. The miraculous signs of this gospel were meant to fill out their understanding of Jesus, bolster their faith in him, and reassure them that they had made the right choice in responding to Jesus’ call. At the end of chapter 20, the writer reminds the hearers that, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

Are we also confused by the signs in the Fourth Gospel? If we’re honest, we might admit that we too find it hard to comprehend Jesus’ true identity. Week by week, we say, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “[T]rue God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.” What are we saying when we say that? More to the point, is our faith only in a past event? Do we also seek signs? Can we see signs of God at work in the world around us now? Where might we look for signs that will clarify Jesus’ identity and reveal God’s glory for us? Ultimately, we must learn from our own experience Who Jesus is. Even so, I’d like to suggest that the experiences of two people might help open our eyes to see the signs of God at work more clearly.

The first person is Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, who lived from 1491 to 1556. Born into a Basque family, IƱigo, as he was known, began his adult life as a soldier. However, he was seriously wounded in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521. While he was recovering, he underwent a spiritual conversion and resolved to join a Benedictine order. In 1534, in the wake of the stirring of the Protestant Reformation, he resolved to found his own order, the Jesuits, which would be dedicated to evangelism, education, and prayer. During his earlier convalescence, Ignatius had read De Vita Christi, by Ludolph of Saxony, a commentary on the life of Jesus that encourages us to place ourselves in the scene of the Gospel story. From this method of “simple contemplation,” Ignatius developed his Spiritual Exercises, a set of meditations, prayers, and other mental exercises on the life of Jesus, designed to be carried out over a period of 28–30 days.

Among the most influential prayer practices in the history of the church, the Spiritual Exercises are regularly used by those who wish to deepen their relationship with Jesus. Right here in Ohio, at the Jesuit Spiritual Center in Milford, you can undertake weekend, week long, or even thirty day Ignatian retreats. What is more important, as those of you who have experienced even brief Ignatian prayer can testify, immersing yourself into a gospel scene, experiencing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches of the scene, seeing Jesus at work, looking into his eyes, and conversing with him, enable us to open our hearts to him, to know him in our hearts, and not just in our heads, and to experience him as friend and brother. Dare I say that we may even come to love Jesus more deeply and to discern the love he has for us? If nothing else, when the “eyes of our hearts” are opened, we may also be able to begin sharing with others the love that we experience in Jesus’ presence.

Jeanne Bishop also came to see more clearly the signs of Jesus’ presence in her life. In time, she even was moved to act on what she saw. The day before Palm Sunday in 1990, Bishop’s twenty-five year old sister, Nancy, Nancy’s husband Richard, and their unborn child were shot to death by sixteen-year old David Biro, who had broken into their home in a Chicago suburb. David was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Bishop later said, “When he got that sentence, I was glad. It meant I never had to think about the murderer again. I could leave him behind, go forward in my life thinking only of Nancy and Richard and how to honor their lives with my own.” Bishop forgave her sister’s murderer, but, for more than a decade, refused to have any contact with him. Even though she was a lawyer and a public defender, she argued vigorously for life sentences without the possibility of parole even for juveniles.

But God would not let Bishop alone. “God changed my heart,” she said, “made me turn and look back, go back to reach out to the killer, to tell him that God loved him, that I forgave him, that he is not alone.” In her moving book, Change of Heart, Bishop describes how she came to the point of being able to visit Biro. She wrote to him and received a surprisingly penitent letter in return. She began visiting him, and little by little, she was able to accept him as a human being in need of and deserving of God’s love. She has since also become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. Although her family does not agree with her, she also now opposes mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles. Where are the signs of Jesus’ presence? In the healing and reconciliation that Jeanne Bishop has both experienced and helped to bring about.

Signs of Jesus’ presence, signs that signal who Jesus is, are all around us, if we could but open our eyes to see them. Whenever we turn to God in prayer, and especially when we bring ourselves more directly into Jesus’ presence through practices like Ignatian prayer, we see Jesus more clearly. We experience his love more deeply. More important, when we do the works of mercy, when we become instruments of God’s grace for others, then not only do we ourselves see Jesus, but we also enable others to perceive his presence and to understand his work.

Gracious God, open our eyes to see you and the signs of your presence everywhere we look. Let us be instruments of your peace, and of your grace and mercy.