Is anyone beyond God’s redemptive love? There’s a story told about Karl Barth, the great Swiss Reformed theologian. It is said that Barth was asked what he would say to Hitler, if he ever had a chance to meet the man who had tried to annihilate the Jews and had wreaked so much destruction on Europe. The person who asked Barth that question most likely assumed that Barth would prophetically thunder God’s vengeance against the perpetrator of so much evil. Instead, Barth replied that all he would do was to quote Romans 5:8, “The proof of God’s love is that Christ died for us even while we were sinners.” Barth knew that accusation and judgment would have provoked Hitler’s self-righteous defense and self-justification. Only the knowledge of God’s boundless mercy and forgiveness, only the good news of God’s infinite grace, could possibly have wrought a change in Hitler. Do we believe that? Could you have said what Barth said? Could you have said those words to Pol Pot or Bull Connor, to Saddam Husain or the September 11th terrorists? Can you say them to Bashar al-Assad or Jared Loughner? Can you say them to yourself? Is anyone beyond God’s mercy, forgiveness, and love?
I hope that if I were called to answer the question put to Barth – and it would be a very hard one for me – I would be able to say, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us…. We entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.” For, once we hear Paul’s statement of the good news, then we see the world and all other human beings differently. We “regard no one from a human point of view.” We understand that no one is beyond the reach of Christ. We understand that, whether we or they think so, Christ has died for all. Not some, not a chosen few, but all. Christ has died for Hitler, for Pol Pot, for Saddam Husain, for the September 11th terrorists, for Bashar al-Assad, and for us. Such is God’s infinite mercy and grace.
Is God’s grace too unbelievable? Does God’s grace offend our sense of fairness? Don’t we always expect God to mete out justice, vengeance, and punishment? Do some of us live in fear of God’s justice, or even secretly pray for God’s punishment to rain down on others?
Make no mistake. If we cannot trust in God’s mercy – for all – then we have no basis for hope of any kind. For if we give up hope for anyone’s salvation – even the most evil person we can imagine – then we give up hope for ourselves. Indeed, if we can engage in honest self-examination, or if we are fortunate enough to get a glimpse of how others see us, then we know that we are not engaging in false humility when we say to God, in the words of the old confession, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.” Can we then hope for redemption for ourselves, while denying that others can be saved? Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar reminds us that the church has never, in any place, declared anyone definitely to be damned – not all those consigned to Hell in Dante’s Inferno, not the killers of martyrs, not even Judas. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,” and in Christ God has definitively demonstrated that God’s mercy extends to all.
Is that too unbelievable? Perhaps the saints among us – in whose number the church has dared to include those from “every nation, tribe, people, and language,” – are those who have accepted God’s all-inclusive grace, and are already living in that new reality. Jesus proclaimed that, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” Indeed, as members of Christ’s Body, as those who have been made new by his death and resurrection, we are living in that new realm now. Not in some life to come, but now. We are living under a new dispensation, inaugurated by Christ’s life and teaching, Christ’s death and resurrection. We are citizens of a new country, and we are ambassadors of a new way of living. God has reconciled the world to Godself, and we are called to proclaim that message of reconciliation to others.
Let’s look at that word “reconciliation.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say “sacrifice,” or “justification,” or “redemption.” “Redemption” means release from slavery. “Justification” is a legal word. Sacrifice” reminds us of rituals that have little or no meaning for us moderns. The word “reconciliation” is different. It comes from the world of international diplomacy. Elsewhere Paul uses military images and speaks in terms of spiritual warfare. Here he tells us that we are diplomats, ambassadors, and representatives of God. Now we no longer see the world in us/them terms; we look at the world as if we were diplomats, called to bring peace to a world full of conflict.
Of course, it is God who has made us citizens of a new country, it is God who has called us to be ambassadors and diplomats, it is God who has called us to be peacemakers. As one commentator tells us, “God reconciles and humanity is reconciled! For Paul it is never Jesus the loving son stepping into the gap to protect humanity from an angry father. It is God the Father who takes the initiative by sending Jesus the son to accomplish the work of reconciliation. God is not an angry tyrant “out to get us,” but one whose reconciling love has taken flesh in the life and death of Jesus.”1 It is that work of reconciling love in which we are called to participate. We are charged to be the advance guard proclaiming and showing forth the new creation and the ministry of reconciliation. As individuals, and more importantly, as the church, we are called to join the Peace Corps of God, the Red Cross of Reconciliation, and the embassy of Christ.2
Can we do that? As those who are now part of Christ’s Body, can we know ourselves to be recipients of God’s love? Do we believe that we are living in the new country that God has created? Can we share that good news with others? Are we willing to be agents of God’s love?
Where do we begin? Can we even conceive of the new creation we are called to proclaim? Perhaps we begin by attempting to see the world through God’s eyes. Such vision begins in prayer, in a way of seeing that God gives us when we pray. When we stop talking and take time for holy silence, when we open ourselves to God, we strengthen our ability to see as God sees. We begin to see all people, people nearby and people farther away, good and bad, healthy and sick, legal and illegal, addicted and clean, rich and poor, all people, indeed all creation, as reconciled to God, as beloved by God, as worthy of God’s and our forgiveness, care and concern.
When we see with God’s eyes, then we begin to have empathy. We begin to see through others’ eyes and begin to understand how the world looks to them. After that, we can begin to take concrete action. The children of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida have already begun to act as God’s agents.3 Every year during Lent, the youngest Sunday school children raise money for Episcopal Relief & Development. In 2012 they learned about malaria and raised $550 for Nets for Life. This year, the children decided to purchase a dairy cow from the ERD catalogue in order to help a family in need. They wanted to raise $630. Parents and parishioners gave them donations and cleaned out the extra change from couch cushions. The children went a step further and set up a lemonade stand to raise even more money. They encouraged members of the congregation to buy animals of their own and even set up a Noah’s Ark on the parish hall bulletin board filled with purchased animals. They hope to fill the ark by the end of Lent. “Our children continue to amaze and inspire us with their genuine desire to help others,” said Margaret Cavin, Sunday school coordinator at St. Mark’s. “I've loved hearing stories from parents about their children's efforts to raise funds. One student emptied his entire piggy bank so that he could be sure to contribute a mosquito net last year. I've already heard parents say that any bit of change found in their home or car has been scooped up and deposited in a mite box. We can't wait to see how much the children will raise!"
The children of St. Mark’s have already become ambassadors for Christ. Young as they are, they have already become emissaries of God’s love to children whose names they will never know. Can we do any less? God has decisively demonstrated God’s love for us and for all humanity. Whom are we called to embrace? To whom is this parish called to reach out in love?
1. Hulitt Gloer, “Ambassadors of Reconciliation: Paul’s Genius in Applying the Gospel in a Multi-cultural World: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21,” Review & Expositor 104, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 591, quoted in L. Susan Bond, “Fourth Sunday in Lent,” New Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 169.
2. L. Susan Bond, ibid.
3. http://www.er-d.org/Friends-February-2013-St-Marks-Jacksonville
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Bear Fruits Worthy of Repentance
Have you ever eaten fresh figs? I don’t mean the dried figs that are common in our supermarkets. I mean a fig fresh from the tree, before it’s dried. They are tender, plump, and sweet. They’re very popular along the Mediterranean, which may explain why fig trees were also common in Tucson. We never grew figs while we lived there, but we did have a grapefruit tree, which actually produced grapefruits. Anyone who has a fruit tree of any kind, or grows the vegetables that botanically are fruits – tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkins, for example – knows that you spend a lot of time and effort helping a fruit-bearing tree or vine to flourish. There’s something else about fruits too: they are products of mature plants. Fruit trees have to reach a certain height before they begin bearing. Even when they are tall enough, or the vines are sturdy enough, the plant must bud, flower, and slowly produce the fruit out of its flower. It’s an awe-inspiring process – think about it when, in a few weeks, the trees around here begin to flower. And then remember that all the hard work and patient waiting are worth it, if the tree brings forth luscious figs, juicy grapefruits, or crisp apples.
Fruit is a wonderful spiritual image! It’s no wonder that Jesus chose to use a story about a fig tree to drive home his point about repentance, about being transformed spiritually. In using this image, Jesus was drawing on Hebrew Scripture, reminding his hearers that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets had compared the community of Israel to a fruitful plant. Jesus’ hearers might also have remembered that his cousin John the Baptizer had shouted to the crowds who came for baptism, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance …. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:8-9). Now Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. His cousin is dead. Jesus knows that he himself faces certain execution in Jerusalem. So, as they travel the dusty roads to the south, Jesus begins to give his band of disciples the spiritual tools they will need to carry on without him. Someone poses a question to him about some Galilean rebels killed in a surprise attack by Pilate’s soldiers: a sad but commonplace incident under Roman rule. While his disciples might be tempted to think that those people got what they deserved, Jesus says, “No, that is not how God’s economy works.” Rather, he reminds them that none of them knows when their lives will end, nor whether they will end peacefully or violently. And so, they must earnestly engage in continued reflection, self-examination, and, where necessary, change of life.
But that’s not the end of the story. In that strange little parable about a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit Jesus offers his disciples a word of grace. He reminds them that, even if they have been unproductive fig trees, God never gives them what they deserve. God does not abandon them or cut them down, as human rulers do. Rather, like the gardener, God always gives them a second chance. God is always willing to be patient, take extra care, or offer richer nourishment, so that they may bear the fruit they were created to bear, so that they might indeed mature into plants producing luscious figs, juicy grapefruit, crisp apples, cherries, tomatoes, or any one of millions of other fruits.
Is Jesus speaking the same words to us? On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of the church’s retreat in the wilderness, we accepted the challenge to keep a holy Lent through engaging in self-examination and repentance. You remember that the word that gets translated as “repentance” is metanoia, which means change of direction. Certainly acknowledging all the ways in which we miss the mark is necessary for our spiritual health,. However, in Lent, we are not called to manufacture sins – which we then “confess” to God. Rather, we are called to assess our lives, to examine how we are living, how we are spending our money, with whom we are associating, what we are returning to the community, and to ponder where change of direction might be needed.
Perhaps you are struggling at home. Perhaps you hate your job. Perhaps the teens are trying to figure out what kind of life they are supposed to live. Perhaps the seniors wonder if the psalmist was really right in declaring, “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green” (Ps.92:14). Perhaps some are wondering whether, after the wreck they have made of their lives, God could still love them.
Lent is truly the time to ask ourselves, “Where should I be bearing fruit in my life?” What fruits might God want to see us bear? For what help might we ask God, in our desire to bear richer fruit? In his letter to the contentious Christians in Galatia, Paul reminds them and us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” If you need a standard by which to examine your life, Galatians 5:22-23 would be a good place to start. We might also ask ourselves what fruits of ministry God might expect us to bear. Are you serving the church in any way? Praying for our parish and regularly attending worship is an important part of our ministry as Christians. Growing spiritually through prayer and formation is also part of our ministry, as is actively serving those who come through our doors. And we might ask ourselves, what fruits of service to the wider world God expects of us. Are you working in any way for a more just world, are you helping to alleviate hunger, are you part of the effort to enact sane gun laws, wider healthcare access, more effective immigration policies, appropriate aid to overseas churches and organizations? Finally, are we emulating our master in living an open and generous life, welcoming, indeed embracing, all whom we meet?
We might ask ourselves similar questions as a parish. Indeed, the fig tree is a collective image, often used in the Hebrew Scriptures to refer to Israel. What kind of fig tree are we as a parish? Are we bearing the fruit that God intends? Or do we need to pray for more help? If you are worried about the survival of St. Peter’s, are you praying that God will continue to give us a second chance, showing us how we must change?
You don’t think it’s possible to change your life? Then hear the story of Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the very last person to be rescued from the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.1 Though her right leg was crushed, Genelle received a second chance at life. Genelle had been living with her boyfriend Roger and spending her life working and going to dance clubs. She and Roger, who had been raised in church-going families, seldom awakened early enough on Sunday morning to consider attending church. Something happened to Genelle while she lay under the rubble of the Trade Center for twenty-six hours: she began to pray. She had visions of God and angels. When she awoke from sleep, she prayed some more, gradually feeling at peace. Arising again from sleep, she heard voices and knew that she was being rescued.
A few hours later in her hospital bed, Genelle told Roger of her experiences. She didn’t have a clear sense of direction, but she knew she needed to change her life. She told Roger that they needed to get married, and that they would attend the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Roger agreed, and they began planning a wedding. Genelle knows that her experience in the rubble truly transformed her. She cares much less than before about money or looking good. She refused to participate in the suits brought by other survivors. And she radiates a deep sense of peace. The designer of her wedding gown said that, “My main impression of her is really just how calm she is. You would never guess what she had been through.”
All of us have faced tragedy in our lives, but God willing, none of us will lie under rubble for twenty-six hours. Even so, God continues to give us second chances, continues to stand with us as we ponder how we might amend our lives, continues to offer us people who support us in the changes we see that we need to make. By God’s grace, this parish might be a place where we bear one another’s burdens, and where those who seek to amend their lives might be welcomed and encouraged.
“Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Let God tend to you. By God’s grace, and with God’s help, our lives will bring forth good fruit, luscious, juicy, crisp, beautiful fruit.
1. The following is based on Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, Series V, Year C (Lima: CSS, 2006), pp. 68ff. This chapter is based on John Cloud, “A Miracle’s Cost,” Time magazine, September 9, 2002.
Fruit is a wonderful spiritual image! It’s no wonder that Jesus chose to use a story about a fig tree to drive home his point about repentance, about being transformed spiritually. In using this image, Jesus was drawing on Hebrew Scripture, reminding his hearers that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets had compared the community of Israel to a fruitful plant. Jesus’ hearers might also have remembered that his cousin John the Baptizer had shouted to the crowds who came for baptism, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance …. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Luke 3:8-9). Now Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem. His cousin is dead. Jesus knows that he himself faces certain execution in Jerusalem. So, as they travel the dusty roads to the south, Jesus begins to give his band of disciples the spiritual tools they will need to carry on without him. Someone poses a question to him about some Galilean rebels killed in a surprise attack by Pilate’s soldiers: a sad but commonplace incident under Roman rule. While his disciples might be tempted to think that those people got what they deserved, Jesus says, “No, that is not how God’s economy works.” Rather, he reminds them that none of them knows when their lives will end, nor whether they will end peacefully or violently. And so, they must earnestly engage in continued reflection, self-examination, and, where necessary, change of life.
But that’s not the end of the story. In that strange little parable about a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit Jesus offers his disciples a word of grace. He reminds them that, even if they have been unproductive fig trees, God never gives them what they deserve. God does not abandon them or cut them down, as human rulers do. Rather, like the gardener, God always gives them a second chance. God is always willing to be patient, take extra care, or offer richer nourishment, so that they may bear the fruit they were created to bear, so that they might indeed mature into plants producing luscious figs, juicy grapefruit, crisp apples, cherries, tomatoes, or any one of millions of other fruits.
Is Jesus speaking the same words to us? On Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of the church’s retreat in the wilderness, we accepted the challenge to keep a holy Lent through engaging in self-examination and repentance. You remember that the word that gets translated as “repentance” is metanoia, which means change of direction. Certainly acknowledging all the ways in which we miss the mark is necessary for our spiritual health,. However, in Lent, we are not called to manufacture sins – which we then “confess” to God. Rather, we are called to assess our lives, to examine how we are living, how we are spending our money, with whom we are associating, what we are returning to the community, and to ponder where change of direction might be needed.
Perhaps you are struggling at home. Perhaps you hate your job. Perhaps the teens are trying to figure out what kind of life they are supposed to live. Perhaps the seniors wonder if the psalmist was really right in declaring, “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green” (Ps.92:14). Perhaps some are wondering whether, after the wreck they have made of their lives, God could still love them.
Lent is truly the time to ask ourselves, “Where should I be bearing fruit in my life?” What fruits might God want to see us bear? For what help might we ask God, in our desire to bear richer fruit? In his letter to the contentious Christians in Galatia, Paul reminds them and us that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” If you need a standard by which to examine your life, Galatians 5:22-23 would be a good place to start. We might also ask ourselves what fruits of ministry God might expect us to bear. Are you serving the church in any way? Praying for our parish and regularly attending worship is an important part of our ministry as Christians. Growing spiritually through prayer and formation is also part of our ministry, as is actively serving those who come through our doors. And we might ask ourselves, what fruits of service to the wider world God expects of us. Are you working in any way for a more just world, are you helping to alleviate hunger, are you part of the effort to enact sane gun laws, wider healthcare access, more effective immigration policies, appropriate aid to overseas churches and organizations? Finally, are we emulating our master in living an open and generous life, welcoming, indeed embracing, all whom we meet?
We might ask ourselves similar questions as a parish. Indeed, the fig tree is a collective image, often used in the Hebrew Scriptures to refer to Israel. What kind of fig tree are we as a parish? Are we bearing the fruit that God intends? Or do we need to pray for more help? If you are worried about the survival of St. Peter’s, are you praying that God will continue to give us a second chance, showing us how we must change?
You don’t think it’s possible to change your life? Then hear the story of Genelle Guzman-McMillan, the very last person to be rescued from the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.1 Though her right leg was crushed, Genelle received a second chance at life. Genelle had been living with her boyfriend Roger and spending her life working and going to dance clubs. She and Roger, who had been raised in church-going families, seldom awakened early enough on Sunday morning to consider attending church. Something happened to Genelle while she lay under the rubble of the Trade Center for twenty-six hours: she began to pray. She had visions of God and angels. When she awoke from sleep, she prayed some more, gradually feeling at peace. Arising again from sleep, she heard voices and knew that she was being rescued.
A few hours later in her hospital bed, Genelle told Roger of her experiences. She didn’t have a clear sense of direction, but she knew she needed to change her life. She told Roger that they needed to get married, and that they would attend the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Roger agreed, and they began planning a wedding. Genelle knows that her experience in the rubble truly transformed her. She cares much less than before about money or looking good. She refused to participate in the suits brought by other survivors. And she radiates a deep sense of peace. The designer of her wedding gown said that, “My main impression of her is really just how calm she is. You would never guess what she had been through.”
All of us have faced tragedy in our lives, but God willing, none of us will lie under rubble for twenty-six hours. Even so, God continues to give us second chances, continues to stand with us as we ponder how we might amend our lives, continues to offer us people who support us in the changes we see that we need to make. By God’s grace, this parish might be a place where we bear one another’s burdens, and where those who seek to amend their lives might be welcomed and encouraged.
“Bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Let God tend to you. By God’s grace, and with God’s help, our lives will bring forth good fruit, luscious, juicy, crisp, beautiful fruit.
1. The following is based on Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, Series V, Year C (Lima: CSS, 2006), pp. 68ff. This chapter is based on John Cloud, “A Miracle’s Cost,” Time magazine, September 9, 2002.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Standing Firm in the Lord
Do you know where your coffee comes from? If you’re a fan of Silver Bridge coffee, as I am, you know that it is roasted from certified Fair Trade beans. That means that anyone who buys it can be sure that the beans were grown by farmers who are members of a democratically run cooperative, that it was produced without child labor, that there were restrictions on the use of herbicides and pesticides, and that the coffee harvesters received a fair price.
It wasn’t always so. In the late 1970s Felipe and Mary Barreda were ordinary middle-class people living in Nicaragua under the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.1 Felipe was a watchmaker and Mary was a hair stylist. Together they had raised six children. After participating in Cursillo and the base communities movement, they came to see that their Christian faith called them to serve the poor. When the Sandinistas came to power, the Barredas threw themselves into the work of reconstruction of the Nicaraguan economy and into programs that brought healthcare and literacy to poor communities. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s, the Sandinista reforms met increasing opposition from the Contra movement, which waged a war of terror from bases in Honduras. Because coffee was one of Nicaragua’s principle exports, coffee harvesters, especially those who tried to organize, became targets of Contra terror activities.
The Barredas knew well the dangers that they faced. They were committed to the service of poor communities to which they knew that their faith had called them. Family members and friends tried to persuade them to leave their work with the poor. But they defended their decision to join the coffee harvest just before Christmas in 1982. They wrote to their friends, “We discovered that faith is not expecting that the Lord will miraculously give us whatever we ask, or feeling the security that we will not be killed and that everything will turn out as we want. We learned that faith is putting ourselves in His hands, whatever happens good or bad. He will help us somehow.” On December 28, as they were harvesting coffee, they and six other harvesters were surrounded by contras and forced to march to a camp in Honduras. Mary was repeatedly raped. On January 7, 1983, both were executed.
As committed disciples of Jesus, Felipe and Mary Barreda were doing no more than following where their master had gone before. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is on long walk from Galilee to Jerusalem. As he makes his way, he continues to teach and heal in all the small towns and villages through which he passes. Perhaps he has arrived at a place where he can see the holy city in the distance. Surrounded by his disciples, he is approached by some Pharisees who warn him that Herod is trying to kill him. Are you surprised? Weren’t the Pharisees Jesus’ implacable enemies? Actually, no, they were not. Like Jesus, they too were reformers of Judaism, although they and Jesus differed significantly about how reform might be accomplished. Many of them probably had some sympathy for Jesus, especially as the Roman puppet ruler Herod had already executed Jesus’ cousin John the Baptizer. And so they deliver their warning: “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Can Jesus turn back at this point? Can he say to himself, “Yeah, I’d better stay out of Jerusalem. It’s not safe there.” Jesus is undeterred. He understands his call, and he knows that his own personal survival is of no concern. He must continue to play the role for which he was sent. He must remain steadfast and committed to his purpose. Though he surely faces death in Jerusalem, he must nevertheless continue his ministry. He must continue to teach and heal, to finish his work, and to look ahead to what he trusts will occur on the third day after his death.
Paul echoed Jesus’ commitment to ministry when he wrote to the Christian community at Philippi. By the time he wrote this letter, Paul too could look ahead to possible death. It was the early ‘60s, and Paul was in prison. He was a Roman citizen and thus probably on his way to Rome for trial as an evangelist of the Way. Nero was persecuting Christians in Rome, and death was likely for Paul. Since Philippi was a Roman colony in Macedonia, the Philippian followers of Jesus were also facing persecution. To strengthen their faith, Paul advised them to be guided not only by his own commitment to Jesus but also by the commitment of steadfast Christians around them, “those who live according to the example you have in us.” As followers of Jesus, Paul told them, they were now the subjects of a ruler who had taken on the role of a slave for their sake. How should they exercise their new citizenship? By “standing firm in the Lord,” whatever the cost.
You and I are probably not called to martyrdom. We could conceivably be the victims of gun violence. How can we forget the children at Sandy Hook or the six people who had come to a Tucson supermarket to hear Gabrielle Giffords speak and were cut down by Jared Loughner’s shots? And there are those, even in the U.S., who have been murdered for their beliefs. We need only remember Barnett Slepian, a doctor who provided abortions, for example. In 1998 he had just returned from a synagogue service when he was murdered in his home by James Charles Kopp. Nor will most of us be itinerant evangelists like Paul, arrested by the state for spreading a pernicious new religion. Nor I hope will any of you end up writing letters to your friends from prison.
So how do we imitate Jesus or Paul in their stubborn and steadfast commitment to their identity in God? Like the Philippians, we too were baptized into Christ’s Body. We too are citizens of a different country, a country whose ruler is Christ not Caesar. We too are called to “stand firm in the Lord.” Easier said than done, you say. On a personal level, we may find ourselves having to defend even having faith at all. Haven’t you heard someone say, “You mean you still believe those old myths? Why on earth do I need God? Gravity is all the foundation my life needs!” Perhaps your faith has called you take a particular political stance, but those around you oppose your view. Can you follow the example of the Barredas and remain faithful to what you know to be true? Often crises affect our faith, and we find ourselves unwilling to trust a God who would let something tragic happen to our loved one – notwithstanding what happened to God’s Son – or who would let someone else betray us so badly. In the face of such pain and hurt, we may even turn our backs on God.
How about your commitment to prayer or worship? Our culture does not support either. In our noisy, 24/7 culture, we have to consciously detach from the world around us, to find a few minutes of quiet. And if you have to work or travel on Sundays, there goes worship. How about remaining true to a Lenten discipline, to prayer, fasting, alms-giving, or study? Given the temptations around us, it could be a real struggle.
On the parish level too we are called to imitate Jesus and Paul. We hear a lot of talk these days about “survival.” Our parishes are shrinking, and all our denominations have been steadily losing members for decades. “Members, more members,” cry clergy search committees. Yet fewer and fewer people – young or old – want to be part of the church. And isn’t the church in a transition period? Many observers think so. Phyllis Tickle, Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, and others tell us that we are in the middle of another five hundred-year shift. Just as those who experienced the Reformation could not predict what the church would eventually come to be, so we too cannot know what God is doing in the church now, and what the church will come to be.
Even so, as disciples of Jesus, as students of Paul, as faithful Christians, we have been called by God, we have been planted here at St. Peter’s, to continue ministry in this place. Like Jesus and Paul we must not be concerned about survival. Rather, we are called to live out our mission here as best we understand it. We are not a comfortable social club. Rather, we are a group called together, so we say, to “share the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” We are a community called to worship God, support and care for one another, and care for the needs of those around us.
So, my sisters and brothers, while we continue to pray for the health of this parish, what is more important, we also leave its survival in God’s hands. Meanwhile, we continue in mission, with our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. Lent is a good time to reflect on how well we are carrying out our mission. As you attend to your Lenten disciplines – whether you are fasting, praying, studying, or giving to charity – ponder also the mission of the church in this place. Are we faithful to what God has given us to do here?
1. The account that follows is based on Robert Ellsberg, “Felix and Mary Barreda,” All Saints (New York: Crossroad, 2000), pp. 18ff.
It wasn’t always so. In the late 1970s Felipe and Mary Barreda were ordinary middle-class people living in Nicaragua under the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.1 Felipe was a watchmaker and Mary was a hair stylist. Together they had raised six children. After participating in Cursillo and the base communities movement, they came to see that their Christian faith called them to serve the poor. When the Sandinistas came to power, the Barredas threw themselves into the work of reconstruction of the Nicaraguan economy and into programs that brought healthcare and literacy to poor communities. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s, the Sandinista reforms met increasing opposition from the Contra movement, which waged a war of terror from bases in Honduras. Because coffee was one of Nicaragua’s principle exports, coffee harvesters, especially those who tried to organize, became targets of Contra terror activities.
The Barredas knew well the dangers that they faced. They were committed to the service of poor communities to which they knew that their faith had called them. Family members and friends tried to persuade them to leave their work with the poor. But they defended their decision to join the coffee harvest just before Christmas in 1982. They wrote to their friends, “We discovered that faith is not expecting that the Lord will miraculously give us whatever we ask, or feeling the security that we will not be killed and that everything will turn out as we want. We learned that faith is putting ourselves in His hands, whatever happens good or bad. He will help us somehow.” On December 28, as they were harvesting coffee, they and six other harvesters were surrounded by contras and forced to march to a camp in Honduras. Mary was repeatedly raped. On January 7, 1983, both were executed.
As committed disciples of Jesus, Felipe and Mary Barreda were doing no more than following where their master had gone before. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is on long walk from Galilee to Jerusalem. As he makes his way, he continues to teach and heal in all the small towns and villages through which he passes. Perhaps he has arrived at a place where he can see the holy city in the distance. Surrounded by his disciples, he is approached by some Pharisees who warn him that Herod is trying to kill him. Are you surprised? Weren’t the Pharisees Jesus’ implacable enemies? Actually, no, they were not. Like Jesus, they too were reformers of Judaism, although they and Jesus differed significantly about how reform might be accomplished. Many of them probably had some sympathy for Jesus, especially as the Roman puppet ruler Herod had already executed Jesus’ cousin John the Baptizer. And so they deliver their warning: “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”
Can Jesus turn back at this point? Can he say to himself, “Yeah, I’d better stay out of Jerusalem. It’s not safe there.” Jesus is undeterred. He understands his call, and he knows that his own personal survival is of no concern. He must continue to play the role for which he was sent. He must remain steadfast and committed to his purpose. Though he surely faces death in Jerusalem, he must nevertheless continue his ministry. He must continue to teach and heal, to finish his work, and to look ahead to what he trusts will occur on the third day after his death.
Paul echoed Jesus’ commitment to ministry when he wrote to the Christian community at Philippi. By the time he wrote this letter, Paul too could look ahead to possible death. It was the early ‘60s, and Paul was in prison. He was a Roman citizen and thus probably on his way to Rome for trial as an evangelist of the Way. Nero was persecuting Christians in Rome, and death was likely for Paul. Since Philippi was a Roman colony in Macedonia, the Philippian followers of Jesus were also facing persecution. To strengthen their faith, Paul advised them to be guided not only by his own commitment to Jesus but also by the commitment of steadfast Christians around them, “those who live according to the example you have in us.” As followers of Jesus, Paul told them, they were now the subjects of a ruler who had taken on the role of a slave for their sake. How should they exercise their new citizenship? By “standing firm in the Lord,” whatever the cost.
You and I are probably not called to martyrdom. We could conceivably be the victims of gun violence. How can we forget the children at Sandy Hook or the six people who had come to a Tucson supermarket to hear Gabrielle Giffords speak and were cut down by Jared Loughner’s shots? And there are those, even in the U.S., who have been murdered for their beliefs. We need only remember Barnett Slepian, a doctor who provided abortions, for example. In 1998 he had just returned from a synagogue service when he was murdered in his home by James Charles Kopp. Nor will most of us be itinerant evangelists like Paul, arrested by the state for spreading a pernicious new religion. Nor I hope will any of you end up writing letters to your friends from prison.
So how do we imitate Jesus or Paul in their stubborn and steadfast commitment to their identity in God? Like the Philippians, we too were baptized into Christ’s Body. We too are citizens of a different country, a country whose ruler is Christ not Caesar. We too are called to “stand firm in the Lord.” Easier said than done, you say. On a personal level, we may find ourselves having to defend even having faith at all. Haven’t you heard someone say, “You mean you still believe those old myths? Why on earth do I need God? Gravity is all the foundation my life needs!” Perhaps your faith has called you take a particular political stance, but those around you oppose your view. Can you follow the example of the Barredas and remain faithful to what you know to be true? Often crises affect our faith, and we find ourselves unwilling to trust a God who would let something tragic happen to our loved one – notwithstanding what happened to God’s Son – or who would let someone else betray us so badly. In the face of such pain and hurt, we may even turn our backs on God.
How about your commitment to prayer or worship? Our culture does not support either. In our noisy, 24/7 culture, we have to consciously detach from the world around us, to find a few minutes of quiet. And if you have to work or travel on Sundays, there goes worship. How about remaining true to a Lenten discipline, to prayer, fasting, alms-giving, or study? Given the temptations around us, it could be a real struggle.
On the parish level too we are called to imitate Jesus and Paul. We hear a lot of talk these days about “survival.” Our parishes are shrinking, and all our denominations have been steadily losing members for decades. “Members, more members,” cry clergy search committees. Yet fewer and fewer people – young or old – want to be part of the church. And isn’t the church in a transition period? Many observers think so. Phyllis Tickle, Diana Butler Bass, Brian McLaren, and others tell us that we are in the middle of another five hundred-year shift. Just as those who experienced the Reformation could not predict what the church would eventually come to be, so we too cannot know what God is doing in the church now, and what the church will come to be.
Even so, as disciples of Jesus, as students of Paul, as faithful Christians, we have been called by God, we have been planted here at St. Peter’s, to continue ministry in this place. Like Jesus and Paul we must not be concerned about survival. Rather, we are called to live out our mission here as best we understand it. We are not a comfortable social club. Rather, we are a group called together, so we say, to “share the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” We are a community called to worship God, support and care for one another, and care for the needs of those around us.
So, my sisters and brothers, while we continue to pray for the health of this parish, what is more important, we also leave its survival in God’s hands. Meanwhile, we continue in mission, with our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. Lent is a good time to reflect on how well we are carrying out our mission. As you attend to your Lenten disciplines – whether you are fasting, praying, studying, or giving to charity – ponder also the mission of the church in this place. Are we faithful to what God has given us to do here?
1. The account that follows is based on Robert Ellsberg, “Felix and Mary Barreda,” All Saints (New York: Crossroad, 2000), pp. 18ff.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Why Fast?
Are you fasting? If so, from what? On Ash Wednesday, our liturgy reminded us of our mortality. The church then invited us, both individually and corporately, to begin a forty-day retreat, a retreat in which we are called to devote ourselves to “self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting and self-denial; and reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” While all of those actions are important elements of the spiritual life, fasting is perhaps the most perplexing one for modern Americans. Fasting from what and why? Our poorer neighbors, those who depend on food stamps, the Outreach Center, and Loaves and Fishes, may know something about fasting. But for most of us, with our overflowing supermarkets, refrigerators, and pantries, and with fast food outlets everywhere we turn, we’re more likely to overindulge than to feel the pain of waiting for the next meal. So why might we consider fasting, and what does it really mean for us?
Like throwing ashes on one’s head and wearing rough, plain clothing, the call to fast has long Scriptural roots. Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, and many others fasted as a way of purifying themselves. Even today, observant Jews fast on the Day of Atonement. For those of us who dare to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, the main reason to fast is so that we may follow his example. All three of the synoptic gospels tell us that, after Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days. Mark gives us no idea of the trials that he endured but notes that the wild animals and the angels waited on him. Following a somewhat different tradition, Mark and Luke provide details of the physical and spiritual struggles that Jesus experienced in the desert. Whether we understand the source of Jesus’ struggle as interior or exterior, i.e., in his mind or orchestrated by an external agent, in both accounts Jesus clearly struggled to understand who he was and the nature of his identity as God’s chosen one.
In the simplest terms, then, we fast for forty days during this time, as a way of identifying with Jesus, in preparation for walking with him to Jerusalem. In the ancient church, these forty days became a period of preparation for baptism, in which both those to be baptized and those already baptized joined in prayer and fasting. In the medieval church, the Lenten fast was especially rigorous. “Lent” is the Old English word for spring, i.e., the time when the days get longer. Some have suggested that in northern Europe food stocks were low at this time. Hence a religiously sanctioned fast made sense. Be that as it may, in Lent people typically ate only one substantial meal usually at mid-day, with a light “collation” in the evening. People also abstained from strong drink and from meat, milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. This abstinence is the source of Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday) and the Carnival (“carne wale,” good-bye to meat). People generally went to confession the day before Ash Wednesday and were “shriven,” i.e., absolved from their sins, hence Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday also became the day for pancake dinners, i.e., meals to use up the butter and eggs before Lent.
Many of these practices continued in our church well into the twentieth century. Turn to page 17 in the Book of Common Prayer. There you will see that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days, and that Ash Wednesday, the other weekdays of Lent, Good Friday, and all other Fridays of the year, with some exceptions, are days of special devotion. So if you want to give up meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, you will be in good company! Traditionally, too, Christians have “given up” something for Lent. Unlike our medieval forbears, many of us give up things that may or may not impact our lives significantly: chocolate, ice cream, music, or comic books were common. Are all these quaint customs? The truth is that any of these observances, even abstaining from chocolate, could have real spiritual meaning if done with the intention of pleasing God and strengthening our self-discipline, but they could just as easily devolve into meaningless “feel good” gestures.
So what does fasting really mean for us? What is the church calling us to do, either in our Ash Wednesday liturgy or the instructions for days of “special devotion?” The call to fasting could mean literally fasting, not eating anything, say, for twenty-four or even thirty-six hours. When my husband and I were younger we would fast from Maundy Thursday dinner through Good Friday, then break our fast with friends with a simple meal of what might have been eaten in the holy land, dates, fruits, nuts, cheeses, bread, and a little wine. Might we consider trying such a meal here at St. Peter’s? Eating less meat and more plant food during Lent might be a valuable way to begin taking better care of our bodies. We might donate the savings from eating less to a food pantry, to Outreach, to Loaves and Fishes, or to an organization that combats hunger like Bread for the World or Episcopal Relief and Development. During Lent, you might consider the two-cent challenge: put two cents in a jar for every person at the table, every day, say at dinner. If you live alone do it at every meal as you say grace. At the end of Lent, donate the money to an organization that fights hunger.
Are there other things we should fast from besides food? Jesus’ stripped down experience in the desert enabled him to gain a deeper understanding of his vocation as God’s chosen one. Cheryl Strayed’s mother died when Cheryl was only twenty-two. In the wake of that tragedy, she hiked the entire eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Coast trail, a trek she recounted in her book Wild. In the mountain wilderness, Strayed put her life back together and regained her soul. What are those aspects of our life that we need to leave behind so as to have a deeper sense of God’s reality and demands on us? What do we need to give up that distracts us from God? What impedes our transformation and growth in Christ? TV? Facebook? Texting? Shopping? Could we at least scale back on our purchases and entertainment during Lent and increase our donations to organizations serving the poor or our participation in ministry to others? Could we simplify our lives, clear out our calendars, create our own wilderness time, so that we might stand open to God, ponder our own spiritual identity, and let God get a word in edgewise?
What might this parish fast from, besides “alleluias” and the contemporary-language service? Might we fast from our comfortable isolation as a Christian community? We proclaim that our mission is to share “the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” It’s right there on your service bulletin and on our sign out front. What does that really mean to us? Are there people who should be here, and might be here through your invitation? Can we pray more intentionally for them, or for those who come to Loaves and Fishes? What else might we do to take God’s love outside the red doors?
And here’s yet another kind of fasting. We might call it a spiritual fast, although, in a sense, all our fasting can potentially be spiritual fasting. I invite you to consider fasting from all those attitudes, fears, worries, distractions, and sins that keep you from following Jesus’ example. Please take out the sheet in your bulletin. We’ll read each sentence responsively. Put the sheet on your fridge and look at it every day this Lent. Go through the fasts and feasts day by day, one fast and feast at a time. During the day, ask God for grace to help you truly live into that fast and feast. For example, for the first one: ask God to strengthen your willingness to not judge anyone and to see everyone whom you meet as someone in whom Christ dwells. Are you ready? Let’s read them. Then commit yourselves to them.
Fast from judging others. Feast on seeing all as Christ’s brothers and sisters.
Fast from emphasis on differences. Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from thoughts of illness. Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from cursing. Feast on blessing.
Fast from discontent. Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger. Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism. Feast on optimism.
Fast from worry. Feast on God’s providence.
Fast from complaining. Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives. Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures. Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility. Feast on peace-making.
Fast from bitterness. Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern. Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety. Feast on trust in God.
Fast from discouragement. Feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy. Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken. Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow. Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip. Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm. Feast on prayer that sustains.1
My sisters and brothers, as we travel the road to Jerusalem, to the Cross and beyond, may the fast of Lent draw you closer to God.
1. Adapted from Synthesis, February 17, 2013, p. 3.
Like throwing ashes on one’s head and wearing rough, plain clothing, the call to fast has long Scriptural roots. Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, and many others fasted as a way of purifying themselves. Even today, observant Jews fast on the Day of Atonement. For those of us who dare to call ourselves disciples of Jesus, the main reason to fast is so that we may follow his example. All three of the synoptic gospels tell us that, after Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness, where he fasted for forty days. Mark gives us no idea of the trials that he endured but notes that the wild animals and the angels waited on him. Following a somewhat different tradition, Mark and Luke provide details of the physical and spiritual struggles that Jesus experienced in the desert. Whether we understand the source of Jesus’ struggle as interior or exterior, i.e., in his mind or orchestrated by an external agent, in both accounts Jesus clearly struggled to understand who he was and the nature of his identity as God’s chosen one.
In the simplest terms, then, we fast for forty days during this time, as a way of identifying with Jesus, in preparation for walking with him to Jerusalem. In the ancient church, these forty days became a period of preparation for baptism, in which both those to be baptized and those already baptized joined in prayer and fasting. In the medieval church, the Lenten fast was especially rigorous. “Lent” is the Old English word for spring, i.e., the time when the days get longer. Some have suggested that in northern Europe food stocks were low at this time. Hence a religiously sanctioned fast made sense. Be that as it may, in Lent people typically ate only one substantial meal usually at mid-day, with a light “collation” in the evening. People also abstained from strong drink and from meat, milk, cheese, butter, and eggs. This abstinence is the source of Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday) and the Carnival (“carne wale,” good-bye to meat). People generally went to confession the day before Ash Wednesday and were “shriven,” i.e., absolved from their sins, hence Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday also became the day for pancake dinners, i.e., meals to use up the butter and eggs before Lent.
Many of these practices continued in our church well into the twentieth century. Turn to page 17 in the Book of Common Prayer. There you will see that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are fast days, and that Ash Wednesday, the other weekdays of Lent, Good Friday, and all other Fridays of the year, with some exceptions, are days of special devotion. So if you want to give up meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, you will be in good company! Traditionally, too, Christians have “given up” something for Lent. Unlike our medieval forbears, many of us give up things that may or may not impact our lives significantly: chocolate, ice cream, music, or comic books were common. Are all these quaint customs? The truth is that any of these observances, even abstaining from chocolate, could have real spiritual meaning if done with the intention of pleasing God and strengthening our self-discipline, but they could just as easily devolve into meaningless “feel good” gestures.
So what does fasting really mean for us? What is the church calling us to do, either in our Ash Wednesday liturgy or the instructions for days of “special devotion?” The call to fasting could mean literally fasting, not eating anything, say, for twenty-four or even thirty-six hours. When my husband and I were younger we would fast from Maundy Thursday dinner through Good Friday, then break our fast with friends with a simple meal of what might have been eaten in the holy land, dates, fruits, nuts, cheeses, bread, and a little wine. Might we consider trying such a meal here at St. Peter’s? Eating less meat and more plant food during Lent might be a valuable way to begin taking better care of our bodies. We might donate the savings from eating less to a food pantry, to Outreach, to Loaves and Fishes, or to an organization that combats hunger like Bread for the World or Episcopal Relief and Development. During Lent, you might consider the two-cent challenge: put two cents in a jar for every person at the table, every day, say at dinner. If you live alone do it at every meal as you say grace. At the end of Lent, donate the money to an organization that fights hunger.
Are there other things we should fast from besides food? Jesus’ stripped down experience in the desert enabled him to gain a deeper understanding of his vocation as God’s chosen one. Cheryl Strayed’s mother died when Cheryl was only twenty-two. In the wake of that tragedy, she hiked the entire eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Coast trail, a trek she recounted in her book Wild. In the mountain wilderness, Strayed put her life back together and regained her soul. What are those aspects of our life that we need to leave behind so as to have a deeper sense of God’s reality and demands on us? What do we need to give up that distracts us from God? What impedes our transformation and growth in Christ? TV? Facebook? Texting? Shopping? Could we at least scale back on our purchases and entertainment during Lent and increase our donations to organizations serving the poor or our participation in ministry to others? Could we simplify our lives, clear out our calendars, create our own wilderness time, so that we might stand open to God, ponder our own spiritual identity, and let God get a word in edgewise?
What might this parish fast from, besides “alleluias” and the contemporary-language service? Might we fast from our comfortable isolation as a Christian community? We proclaim that our mission is to share “the joy of God’s grace with the community and the world.” It’s right there on your service bulletin and on our sign out front. What does that really mean to us? Are there people who should be here, and might be here through your invitation? Can we pray more intentionally for them, or for those who come to Loaves and Fishes? What else might we do to take God’s love outside the red doors?
And here’s yet another kind of fasting. We might call it a spiritual fast, although, in a sense, all our fasting can potentially be spiritual fasting. I invite you to consider fasting from all those attitudes, fears, worries, distractions, and sins that keep you from following Jesus’ example. Please take out the sheet in your bulletin. We’ll read each sentence responsively. Put the sheet on your fridge and look at it every day this Lent. Go through the fasts and feasts day by day, one fast and feast at a time. During the day, ask God for grace to help you truly live into that fast and feast. For example, for the first one: ask God to strengthen your willingness to not judge anyone and to see everyone whom you meet as someone in whom Christ dwells. Are you ready? Let’s read them. Then commit yourselves to them.
Fast from judging others. Feast on seeing all as Christ’s brothers and sisters.
Fast from emphasis on differences. Feast on the unity of all life.
Fast from thoughts of illness. Feast on the healing power of God.
Fast from cursing. Feast on blessing.
Fast from discontent. Feast on gratitude.
Fast from anger. Feast on patience.
Fast from pessimism. Feast on optimism.
Fast from worry. Feast on God’s providence.
Fast from complaining. Feast on appreciation.
Fast from negatives. Feast on affirmatives.
Fast from unrelenting pressures. Feast on unceasing prayer.
Fast from hostility. Feast on peace-making.
Fast from bitterness. Feast on forgiveness.
Fast from self-concern. Feast on compassion for others.
Fast from personal anxiety. Feast on trust in God.
Fast from discouragement. Feast on hope.
Fast from lethargy. Feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from thoughts that weaken. Feast on promises that inspire.
Fast from shadows of sorrow. Feast on the sunlight of serenity.
Fast from idle gossip. Feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from problems that overwhelm. Feast on prayer that sustains.1
My sisters and brothers, as we travel the road to Jerusalem, to the Cross and beyond, may the fast of Lent draw you closer to God.
1. Adapted from Synthesis, February 17, 2013, p. 3.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Changed into His Likeness
“O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory on the holy mountain: grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory….” Does the prayer book ask the impossible of us? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” What is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?
Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. For starters, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have been trying to capture his “likeness” since probably the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males. Then can we hope to what Jesus did? Probably none of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, probably none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that we cannot be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be like Jesus, no one will ever be terrified of me that way,” we would all say.
So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, what can we learn from looking at the way he lived out his human life? To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read closely the gospel of Luke, is that Jesus had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus’ deep relationship with God began at his conception. He received again God’s affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. Thereafter Jesus’ connection with God permeated all of his adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry for prayer. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were at prayer.
That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! Our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, is the result of a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering experience of God’s reality, presence, and demands on us, an experience that profoundly alters our lives. For others of us, conversion may begin with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to find our way back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we may feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.
And are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation is God’s work in us, and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive as Jesus was. And God does God’s work in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Moreover, transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But continued growth in the Christian life must be done in community. Our growth as disciples takes place in a shared community of commitment to the Christian Way. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer, when we all take time to be in solitude with God, God will transform us.
What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They came down the mountain! What is more important, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry follows mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach. The gospel account does not say whether the disciples had any clue as to what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. But we can infer that they had not yet been changed enough into Jesus’ likeness to replicate the work of his ministry. Even so, for Jesus, the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, and he set his face for Jerusalem and what would await him there.
And so it is for us also. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s love, and of God’s desire to transform us, there may possibly be something outwardly visible in our appearance. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,
“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1
Though the world – and we ourselves – may look and feel different, perhaps even fresh and new after an encounter with God, we and others may also see God’s transformative power at work within us in the quality of our relationships with loved ones friends, in our concern for the needs of others, or in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, it is the essence of Christian life that we must come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not solitariness. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2
Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life a prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.
John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Himself unable to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.
This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our brothers and sisters. By God’s grace we will be truly transformed into Christ’s likeness.
1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark: Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.
3. “Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH:CSS, 2012),
Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. For starters, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have been trying to capture his “likeness” since probably the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males. Then can we hope to what Jesus did? Probably none of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, probably none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that we cannot be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be like Jesus, no one will ever be terrified of me that way,” we would all say.
So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, what can we learn from looking at the way he lived out his human life? To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read closely the gospel of Luke, is that Jesus had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus’ deep relationship with God began at his conception. He received again God’s affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. Thereafter Jesus’ connection with God permeated all of his adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry for prayer. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were at prayer.
That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! Our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, is the result of a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering experience of God’s reality, presence, and demands on us, an experience that profoundly alters our lives. For others of us, conversion may begin with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to find our way back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we may feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.
And are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation is God’s work in us, and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive as Jesus was. And God does God’s work in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Moreover, transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But continued growth in the Christian life must be done in community. Our growth as disciples takes place in a shared community of commitment to the Christian Way. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer, when we all take time to be in solitude with God, God will transform us.
What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They came down the mountain! What is more important, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry follows mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach. The gospel account does not say whether the disciples had any clue as to what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. But we can infer that they had not yet been changed enough into Jesus’ likeness to replicate the work of his ministry. Even so, for Jesus, the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, and he set his face for Jerusalem and what would await him there.
And so it is for us also. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s love, and of God’s desire to transform us, there may possibly be something outwardly visible in our appearance. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,
“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1
Though the world – and we ourselves – may look and feel different, perhaps even fresh and new after an encounter with God, we and others may also see God’s transformative power at work within us in the quality of our relationships with loved ones friends, in our concern for the needs of others, or in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, it is the essence of Christian life that we must come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not solitariness. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2
Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life a prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.
John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Himself unable to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.
This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our brothers and sisters. By God’s grace we will be truly transformed into Christ’s likeness.
1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark: Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.
3. “Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH:CSS, 2012),
Sunday, February 3, 2013
St. Peter's in Two Parts
This is a sermon in two parts, both about St. Peter’s. In Part I you’ll hear the highlights of my annual report, which is not about me but about us partnering with God in God’s work. You’ll get a copy of the report at the Annual Meeting, so you might snooze through this part and read it later. Wake up for Part II, though, for you’ll hear about how our parish compares with those contentious Christians in Corinth.
By God’s grace we have done a lot this year at St. Peter’s! Regular worship is what nourishes us and knits us together as a Christian community. So, as your priest in charge, I preside at the Eucharist every Sunday, except when I am on vacation, and at least one weekday. In our weekday Eucharists, we use an informal style and the Great Thanksgiving from Enriching Our Worship. Last year we celebrated our patronal festival, the Confession of St Peter, though, for different reasons, not this year. During Holy Week we offered Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday with foot-washing, and a contemplative Good Friday service. We welcomed Bishop Tom Breidenthal in October. On the last Sunday in Advent, we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas pageant that included a dozen children.
As your priest, I also conducted special services, including a memorial for Wanda Parsons and other burials. I’m a volunteer chaplain at Holzer Medical Center, where I make rounds one morning a month and attend periodic continuing education sessions. I visit parishioners at home or in the hospital. I also trained two more Eucharistic ministers to bring communion on Sundays to the housebound. I meet monthly for breakfast with the clergy of our Deanery. Since last August two other Episcopal priests and two Lutheran pastors and I, all serving along the Ohio River, have been meeting to share ministry. In August I started the Wellstreams program for training as a spiritual director. Spiritual companioning is an ancient ministry of the church, and meeting regularly with a spiritual director or companion is an excellent avenue for spiritual growth.
Continuing formation, for children and adults is as important to the health of the parish as worship is. This year we created a separate Sunday school group for older children. Several children also serve as acolytes. A youth group has begun, with activities planned for children ten and older. Children are hosting the upcoming Souper Bowl, and are beginning to renovate the church’s old youth group room. For adult formation, last Lent the weekday Eucharist was followed by discussion of Your Faith Your Life. Some of you joined Erin and Paul Polcyn, who were preparing for confirmation. Erin and Paul were confirmed at a regional confirmation held at Good Shepherd Athens on May 5th. During Easter tide the adult formation class studied an introduction to Christian spirituality.
The parish undertook significant renovation this past year. If you haven’t seen the newly refurbished nursery and Sunday school rooms, go back and look at them. Then peek into the conference room, which was completely cleaned out, repainted, and redecorated. The prayer room was also cleaned, repainted, and given new carpet. And we now have our own icon! A lovely icon of St. Anna, traditionally the mother of Mary, hangs in the prayer room, along with plaques recognizing our members of the Society of St. Simeon and St. Anna. We now have comfortable and welcoming spaces for meetings, classes, prayer, and spiritual direction.
We continued our participation in the Common Ministry project, joining with five other parishes in the diocese in order to intentionally explore our mission here. A team composed of Carolyn Anderson, Christina Cogar, Jon Krastes, Bob Morris, and I, attended five meetings at the Procter Center in 2012. India Cullen also joined the team in the fall. The Common Ministry project continues through May.
Despite our size we are God’s instruments in service to our neighbors. Stay one Sunday for Loaves and Fishes, always the last Sunday of the month. We put out tablecloths, silverware, china, and table decorations. We also put out prayer request cards and pray for the requests in the weekday Eucharist. You may be surprised at how many people sit down to eat with us – nowadays a minimum of 75, sometimes as many as 90. Fifty meals go next door to residents of First Holzer apartments, and over two hundred meals are taken away, most by people who have come in to eat. We continue to distribute diapers at the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry, along with clothes sent to us by a parish on Long Island. You generously contribute to the Snack Pack program, the Outreach Center, and Souper Bowl Sunday. And we continue to host a number of different “anonymous” groups in our downstairs parish hall.
We may feel like a traditional parish, but we are also part of the 21st century. We have a parish web site maintained by a parishioner at St. Mary’s Hillsboro. We have a Facebook page, now seen by over one hundred people. I send out a weekly e-mail newsletter. Every Sunday evening I post my sermons on a blog, Word for Us.
O.K., if you’ve been snoozing, it’s time to wake up. We’ve done a lot as a parish. We’re not like those contentious Christians in Corinth, are we? You just heard some more of Paul’s first letter to them. Paul’s letter actually deals with very real issues facing a particular community that was diverse in ethnicity, gender, class, and whether they were slaves or free. Some of them thought they were superior to others because of their spiritual gifts. In the part before today’s reading, Paul reminded them that the Spirit gives gifts to whomever the Spirit chooses, for the purpose of building up the Christian community. No gift was superior to any other. To underscore his point, he compared the Christian community to the human body. The human body contains a variety of limbs and organs, all different but all very much needed. In the same way, the members of a Christian community play a variety of roles, all different, but all vitally needed.
And that’s where you come in. As a parish we accomplished a lot in 2012. But to continue to do God’s work in 2013, we need all of you, working together. As those baptized into Christ, we too all received gifts from the Holy Spirit. And we all have work to do in this community. If you are sitting up and breathing, you have a role to play! None of us can do everything, not even the priest. Yet all of us were gifted by the Holy Spirit to do the work that God has given us.
What is that work? All of us must be generous with our resources – that goes without saying. Some of us were called to lead worship. Only the priest can read the Gospel, preside at the Eucharist, pronounce absolution, and give a blessing. But others can read the lessons, serve the chalice, and, when trained, preach. Some must lead the parish in education, both of children and adults. Some are called to promote fellowship, through organizing potlucks, picnics, youth outings, and other social gatherings. Some are called to proclaim the good news and invite their friends, neighbors, or relatives into the fellowship of Christ’s body. Some are called to offer pastoral care to others: providing meals when needed, visiting the sick and the shut-ins, remembering those in prison, or sending out birthday cards.
Some of called to service within the parish: Altar Guild members, junior warden, and treasurer. Some are called to spur us to mission, to organize and work in the diaper ministry and Loaves and Fishes, and to collect food for the Outreach Center and Snack Pack program. Some draw our attention to wider issues. They encourage us to ask why people are hungry, why people can’t afford diapers, or how we can be better stewards of the earth. Some remind us of the ties we have to other Christian bodies and encourage ecumenical efforts. Some are called to pray for others. And some are called to what I call a ministry of witness, to work for the kingdom simply by sitting – in the pew week after week. They cheer up the priest and they encourage others who see their loyalty to God. David Leininger tells the story of a man who came to worship week after week without fail, even though he was profoundly deaf and could not hear what was happening. Finally, the pastor asked him why he came, when surely he wasn’t getting much out of the service. The man replied, “I just want to show the world whose side I’m on.” That is as important a role as any other!
My friends, you are all part of the body, and you have all been called to this place by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit needs every one of you to carry out God’s plan in this place. Don’t think the body doesn’t need you! Everyone matters in this place: babies, children, parents, those actively employed, retirees, and even the disabled. Don’t amputate the body. Don’t sit back and let others play their roles without you. The Holy Spirit has called you and endowed you with a unique set of gifts and talents. Accept your gifts!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Team Needs All of Us
Imagine that it’s a week from today, and we’re in the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans. The place is packed with fans from both the San Francisco ‘49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, all breathlessly waiting for this historic matchup. We’ve just finished singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” Everyone is ready for the opening kickoff. It’s 6:29! Here we go! And it’s wonderful.1 As his eyes watch the ball, the kicker’s brain registers its speed, and then tells his arms and hands how to catch it. His ears pick up his teammates’ shout as to where to send the return kick. His brain tells his legs to move, and they do, both in the same direction! And all the while his heart and lungs are pounding away. Whew! Thank heavens! If any of the parts of the kicker’s body decided to call it quits, his team would be done for.
If Paul were writing today to those pesky Christians in Corinth, he could have used that image of the Super Bowl opening kick. So what was the problem in Corinth, and why was Paul so exercised in the part of his letter to them that we just heard? Paul had been one of the founders of that community, and he knew how diverse it was. Some of its members were wealthy, among the elite of this new Roman city, while others were merchants or artisans, and some were even slaves. There were Gentiles and Jews, and, of course, both women and men. They had different ideas about eating meat sacrificed in the temples, about whether they should marry or not, and how they would eat their holy meal together. They also seemed to have been given different gifts by the Holy Spirit. In particular, some people seemed to have the gift of ecstatic speech in an unknown language, “speaking in tongues.” Those who had this gift also seemed to think they were superior to those who didn’t have this gift.
Certainly Paul understood – and acknowledged – the differences among the members of this community. Even so, Paul looked at the human body, with its 206 bones, 639 muscles, and 6 pounds of skin, together with its ligaments, cartilage, veins, arteries, blood, fat, and more. And he used the image of the body – actually a common image for society in Paul’s day – to remind the Corinthians that, despite their differences, they were now part of a single organism. To be sure, they had been gifted by the Holy Spirit in their baptisms with different gifts, but, what is more important, they were now part of a single community that must work together as harmoniously as the myriad parts of the human body at its best. Just as the eye and mouth are as necessary to the body as the ear and nose, so no part of the community is more needed than any other part. Just as the stomach, intestines, and genitals are as necessary to the body as the brain, so no one in the Corinthian community, whether they can speak in tongues or not, is superior to any other member.
Yet Paul also understood well that, like the parts of the body, the members of a Christian community do not all have the same role in the community. They all work for the same purpose to build up of the community, but the Spirit has given them different gifts to help the community grow. To press home his point, Paul gives a few examples of the roles members of the community may play: apostles to proclaim the good news, prophets to pronounce God’s judgment and consolation, teachers to help Christians grow in their faith, healthcare workers to heal, servers and leaders, and speakers in tongues. No one can play all roles – not even Jesus did everything during his earthly ministry – nor should anyone envy those with different roles from their own.
Of course, we understand that players have different roles when we watch two football teams face off against each other. The quarterbacks specialize in passing, while the receivers are especially good at receiving. The player making the opening kick, and all the kickers, are excellent at kicking, while the linemen are the best blockers. What’s more important, each member of the team depends on the others to play their role as perfectly as possible. Each has specialized in the skills needed for their particular role, and each is necessary for successful play.
And are we here at St. Peter’s any different from those Christians in Corinth, or from the ‘49ers and Ravens? We too are part of a living organism. To be sure, we have our differences: in ethnicity, gender, age, occupation, history in the parish, and other aspects of our lives. But like the Corinthians, we too were all baptized into Christ, all of us received gifts from the Holy Spirit, and all of us are now part of Christ’s team. And here’s the important part: all of us have work to do so that this community may flourish. If you are sitting up and breathing, you have a role to play! None of us can do everything – even the priest – and no role is superior to any other. Yet all of us were gifted by the Holy Spirit to play the role for which God chose us.
What are some of those roles we are called to play? All of us are called to be generous with our resources – that goes without saying. Some of us were called to lead worship. Only the priest can read the Gospel, preside at the Eucharist, give absolution, and pronounce blessing. But others are needed to read the lessons, serve the chalice, and, when trained, to preach. Some are called to lead the parish in education, both of children and adults, and some are called to help form others in Christ, through sharing in smaller group settings. Equally important are those who are called to promote fellowship, through organizing potlucks, picnics, youth outings, and other social gatherings. Some are called to proclaim the good news and invite their friends, neighbors, or relatives into the fellowship of Christ’s body. Some are called to offer pastoral care to others: providing meals when needed, visiting the sick and the shut-ins, remembering those in prison, or sending out birthday cards.
Some of called to service within the parish: there would be no Eucharist without the Altar Guild, the building would fall apart without a junior warden, and our accounts – and our standing within the diocese – would be in chaos without a treasurer. Some are called to spur us to mission, to organize and work in activities such as the diaper ministry and Loaves and Fishes, to collect and deliver food to the Outreach Center, to support the Snack Pack program. Some are called to draw our attention to wider issues: to encourage us to ask why people are hungry, why people can’t afford diapers on their own, or how we can be better stewards of the earth. Some are called to remind us of the ties we have to other Christian bodies and to draw us into greater cooperation with other faith communities. Some are called to pray for others, both those needing prayer within the parish and those who are farther off. And some are called to what I call a ministry of witness, to work for the kingdom simply by sitting – in the pew week after week. They cheer up the priest and they encourage others who see their loyalty to God. David Leininger tells the story of a man who came to worship week after week without fail, even though he was profoundly deaf and could not hear what was happening. Finally, the pastor asked him why he came, when surely he wasn’t getting much out of the service. The man replied, “I just want to show the world whose side I’m on.”2 That is as important a role as any other!
My friends, you are all part of the body, you are all on the team, and you have all been called to this place by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit needs every one of you to carry out God’s plan in this place. Do you think the body doesn’t need you? Everyone matters in this place: babies, children, parents, those actively employed, those who are retired, and even those who are disabled. Don’t amputate the body. Don’t desert the team. Don’t sit back and let others play their roles without you. Don’t envy the gifts of others and wish you had their role. The Holy Spirit has called you and endowed you with a unique set of gifts and talents.
Teach us your ways, Lord,
that we may accept our own talents openly,
nurture them hopefully,
develop them faithfully,
And give them freely.3
1. I’m grateful to David E. Leininger, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, Series VI, Cycle C (Lima: OH, CSS, 2009), 52ff. for this analogy.
2. Leininger, 56.
3. Adapted from Ted Loder, “Teach Me Your Ways,” Guerillas of Grace (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2005), 109
If Paul were writing today to those pesky Christians in Corinth, he could have used that image of the Super Bowl opening kick. So what was the problem in Corinth, and why was Paul so exercised in the part of his letter to them that we just heard? Paul had been one of the founders of that community, and he knew how diverse it was. Some of its members were wealthy, among the elite of this new Roman city, while others were merchants or artisans, and some were even slaves. There were Gentiles and Jews, and, of course, both women and men. They had different ideas about eating meat sacrificed in the temples, about whether they should marry or not, and how they would eat their holy meal together. They also seemed to have been given different gifts by the Holy Spirit. In particular, some people seemed to have the gift of ecstatic speech in an unknown language, “speaking in tongues.” Those who had this gift also seemed to think they were superior to those who didn’t have this gift.
Certainly Paul understood – and acknowledged – the differences among the members of this community. Even so, Paul looked at the human body, with its 206 bones, 639 muscles, and 6 pounds of skin, together with its ligaments, cartilage, veins, arteries, blood, fat, and more. And he used the image of the body – actually a common image for society in Paul’s day – to remind the Corinthians that, despite their differences, they were now part of a single organism. To be sure, they had been gifted by the Holy Spirit in their baptisms with different gifts, but, what is more important, they were now part of a single community that must work together as harmoniously as the myriad parts of the human body at its best. Just as the eye and mouth are as necessary to the body as the ear and nose, so no part of the community is more needed than any other part. Just as the stomach, intestines, and genitals are as necessary to the body as the brain, so no one in the Corinthian community, whether they can speak in tongues or not, is superior to any other member.
Yet Paul also understood well that, like the parts of the body, the members of a Christian community do not all have the same role in the community. They all work for the same purpose to build up of the community, but the Spirit has given them different gifts to help the community grow. To press home his point, Paul gives a few examples of the roles members of the community may play: apostles to proclaim the good news, prophets to pronounce God’s judgment and consolation, teachers to help Christians grow in their faith, healthcare workers to heal, servers and leaders, and speakers in tongues. No one can play all roles – not even Jesus did everything during his earthly ministry – nor should anyone envy those with different roles from their own.
Of course, we understand that players have different roles when we watch two football teams face off against each other. The quarterbacks specialize in passing, while the receivers are especially good at receiving. The player making the opening kick, and all the kickers, are excellent at kicking, while the linemen are the best blockers. What’s more important, each member of the team depends on the others to play their role as perfectly as possible. Each has specialized in the skills needed for their particular role, and each is necessary for successful play.
And are we here at St. Peter’s any different from those Christians in Corinth, or from the ‘49ers and Ravens? We too are part of a living organism. To be sure, we have our differences: in ethnicity, gender, age, occupation, history in the parish, and other aspects of our lives. But like the Corinthians, we too were all baptized into Christ, all of us received gifts from the Holy Spirit, and all of us are now part of Christ’s team. And here’s the important part: all of us have work to do so that this community may flourish. If you are sitting up and breathing, you have a role to play! None of us can do everything – even the priest – and no role is superior to any other. Yet all of us were gifted by the Holy Spirit to play the role for which God chose us.
What are some of those roles we are called to play? All of us are called to be generous with our resources – that goes without saying. Some of us were called to lead worship. Only the priest can read the Gospel, preside at the Eucharist, give absolution, and pronounce blessing. But others are needed to read the lessons, serve the chalice, and, when trained, to preach. Some are called to lead the parish in education, both of children and adults, and some are called to help form others in Christ, through sharing in smaller group settings. Equally important are those who are called to promote fellowship, through organizing potlucks, picnics, youth outings, and other social gatherings. Some are called to proclaim the good news and invite their friends, neighbors, or relatives into the fellowship of Christ’s body. Some are called to offer pastoral care to others: providing meals when needed, visiting the sick and the shut-ins, remembering those in prison, or sending out birthday cards.
Some of called to service within the parish: there would be no Eucharist without the Altar Guild, the building would fall apart without a junior warden, and our accounts – and our standing within the diocese – would be in chaos without a treasurer. Some are called to spur us to mission, to organize and work in activities such as the diaper ministry and Loaves and Fishes, to collect and deliver food to the Outreach Center, to support the Snack Pack program. Some are called to draw our attention to wider issues: to encourage us to ask why people are hungry, why people can’t afford diapers on their own, or how we can be better stewards of the earth. Some are called to remind us of the ties we have to other Christian bodies and to draw us into greater cooperation with other faith communities. Some are called to pray for others, both those needing prayer within the parish and those who are farther off. And some are called to what I call a ministry of witness, to work for the kingdom simply by sitting – in the pew week after week. They cheer up the priest and they encourage others who see their loyalty to God. David Leininger tells the story of a man who came to worship week after week without fail, even though he was profoundly deaf and could not hear what was happening. Finally, the pastor asked him why he came, when surely he wasn’t getting much out of the service. The man replied, “I just want to show the world whose side I’m on.”2 That is as important a role as any other!
My friends, you are all part of the body, you are all on the team, and you have all been called to this place by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit needs every one of you to carry out God’s plan in this place. Do you think the body doesn’t need you? Everyone matters in this place: babies, children, parents, those actively employed, those who are retired, and even those who are disabled. Don’t amputate the body. Don’t desert the team. Don’t sit back and let others play their roles without you. Don’t envy the gifts of others and wish you had their role. The Holy Spirit has called you and endowed you with a unique set of gifts and talents.
Teach us your ways, Lord,
that we may accept our own talents openly,
nurture them hopefully,
develop them faithfully,
And give them freely.3
1. I’m grateful to David E. Leininger, Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit, Series VI, Cycle C (Lima: OH, CSS, 2009), 52ff. for this analogy.
2. Leininger, 56.
3. Adapted from Ted Loder, “Teach Me Your Ways,” Guerillas of Grace (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2005), 109
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