It was May, 2007. John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds, was addressing the MBA graduates of the McDonough School of Business of Georgetown University. He had been at a party, he told the graduates, given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. As he was chatting with the other guests, the late author Kurt Vonnegut took it upon himself to inform his friend, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its entire history. Heller responded, “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.” Bogle was stunned, so stunned that he proceeded to write a book with the title Enough, that indicted the greedy practices of the entire hedge fund industry of which the host was a part.
Enough. How much is enough? How much food, and of what kind, do we need? How much clothing? Designer or bargain basement? How big a house do we need? Modest ranch or McMansion? How big a car? How much money in the bank? When do we have enough so that we can begin to share? With whom should we share? And how? Are there more effective and less effective ways to share our resources with others? How can we be intentional about our use of all of God’s gifts to us? What is God calling us to do? In our Scripture readings for today, we are asked again to consider our relationship to wealth. We are asked to ponder how much we truly need, and, as disciples of the risen Christ, to discern what our obligations might be to our neighbors.
Enough. What is enough for an ordained person in the early second century? What is enough for a lay person? Our reading from the end of the first letter to Timothy gives us some clues to the answers to these questions. You remember that this letter was probably not written by Paul himself, but rather by a protégé or disciple. Much of this letter deals with the contrast between false and legitimate leadership. Scholars have suggested that this latter part, which deals especially with the qualifications and responsibilities of ordained ministers, could have been part of an ordination service or sermon. The emphasis here, as also in our own ordination services in the Book of Common Prayer, is on living a life patterned on the Gospel and focused on nurturing and building up God’s people. Especially for those ordained, a life patterned on the Gospel is a simple life of contentment with the basic necessities. When church leaders live in this way, they avoid the distractions caused by the pursuit of wealth. They can truly put God at the center of their lives, and they can cultivate the virtues of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Perhaps all Christians, ordained and lay, are called to live simpler lives, lives focused on God. However, the author also realizes that for those who are not ordained, at least, wealth is not itself sinful, so long as we do not regard it as an end in itself. Rather, wealth is a gift from God, with which we are to do God’s work. When we remember that “all things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee,” then we can use our wealth to be “rich in good works.” What is important is that we recognize that God is the source of our wealth and that we have a responsibility to use our wealth wisely, so that ultimately we can “take hold of the life that really is life.”
Enough. How much wealth, how much conspicuous consumption is too much? How can wealthy people use their wealth responsibly to serve the poor in their midst? Jesus’ parable in today’s Gospel reading illustrates the reversal of rich and poor that we have heard throughout Luke’s Gospel. Remember the reversals in the Song of Mary in chapter 1: “he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” Remember the reversals of the Beatitudes in chapter 6: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.” There are warnings here, no question about it. Even so, this parable is not about heaven and hell, not about the fate of the rich and the poor in the afterlife. Rather, the intention of this parable is to remind its hearers, especially the Pharisees who saw wealth as mark of God’s favor, but also the wealthy people who had joined the Christian community to whom Luke was writing, of their responsibility to use their wealth in this life for the good of others. In this parable we hear Jesus’ charge to be at work with God to alleviate poverty while we can , in this life. Rather than flaunting our purple and linen, the most expensive color and fabric in the ancient world, rather than dining sumptuously every day, we are to actually see the needy neighbor at our gate, the one that even the despised dogs lick, and we are to care for this neighbor now, while we still have the chance. Life is short and fragile, we are warned, and we are to be intentional about using God’s gifts to us to benefit those immediately around us. We are to ask ourselves, intentionally ask ourselves, “Do I have enough now? Do I need to latest gadget, the fanciest clothes, the priciest food, the largest house, the newest car? Can I justify using God’s gifts for my own benefit, even as I step over the person who is dressed in rags, who runs out of food before the end of the month, lacks adequate heating in the winter, and drives a beater to work, if they have a job and car at all? Do I have enough? Does my neighbor have enough? If the answer to the first question is “Yes,” and the answer to the second question is “No,” then we need to look honestly at our lives and see where we can be more intentional about sharing what we have.
How might we do that in Gallipolis in 2010? No, I’m not suggesting that we sell all we have, give everything to the poor, and join a convent or monastery. Nor am I suggesting necessarily that we buy all our clothes at the Salvation Army and our food at the Dollar store. What I am suggesting is that we assess our lives in light of our relationship with God and honestly and intentionally ponder our use of our resources. Look at your own checkbook – or Quicken program. What does it tell you? On what are you really spending God’s gifts to you? What proportion of your income have you returned to God? What proportion have you given to benefit your neighbor in some way? After you’ve considered your use of your own resources, here are some other concrete things you can do. Intentionally engage in a ministry that feeds or clothes people, or that provides shelter or help with the needs of shelter. Join a ministry that distributes the necessities of life to those who lack them, the Lutheran Social Services mobile food pantry and diaper distribution, for example. Enable others to access needed services and government programs designed to alleviate poverty. Become an Ohio Benefit Bank counselor, for example, and help us expand our ministry of connecting people to such basic services as Medicaid, food stamps, supplemental food for women, infants, and children (WIC), heating assistance, and financial aid for post-secondary education. Beyond providing direct assistance, consider the political realities underlying poverty. Where can we make systemic changes, so that working people are more likely to have enough to live on, more likely to have access to adequate healthcare, less likely to need handouts. Would you like to partner with God to ensure that the hungry are “filled with good things?” Not just on the third Tuesday of the month, but all the time? Consider following the prompts of HungerNetOhio or Bread for the World to persuade our elected officials to address issues of hunger legislatively. At election time, ask your elected officials what they are doing to address hunger, or housing, or health care.
And finally, pray. Ask God to guide you in your assessments and choices. For ultimately, our own souls are at stake. These readings remind us that our time here is short, our chances to serve others are limited, and our economic choices really do shape our identities and our eternal destinies. We serve others not out of a sense of guilt, or ascetic renunciation, or because we are communists, or because the poor are more virtuous than we are. Rather, in serving the poor we care for our own souls by imitating our generous, gracious, and giving God. My brothers and sisters, the good news is that when we pray for God’s guidance in the use of God’s gifts to us, when we ask God to show us when we have enough and when others don’t, God will grant us the fullness of God’s grace. God will lead into a more generous life, a life that partakes of God’s own life.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Making Me an Example
How do we show forth our commitment to Jesus? How do our lives witness to the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord? How do we “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?” Christians have struggled with these questions since the very beginning of the church. Even though we made valiant promises at our baptisms, we too struggle with these questions in our own time and place.
The writer of the first letter to Timothy also struggled with these questions, most likely at the very beginning of the second century. Many scholars believe that this letter, the second letter to Timothy, and the letter to Titus, which we collectively call the Pastoral Epistles, were not written by Paul himself. Lots of internal evidence suggests that these letters were more likely written by a disciple of Paul’s who was writing in Paul’s name, which was not uncommon in the ancient world. Whoever wrote these letters, they were accepted by those who put together the “canon,” i.e., the collection of gospels, letters, and essays that we call the New Testament. Those who put together the canon understood that these letters give us important insights into questions about Christian witness, and they reflect some of the thinking about faith and order of the earliest Christian communities. As we hear parts of First and Second Timothy this month and next month, we’ll see some of the questions that engaged a church in transition – a church not unlike our own church today. Actually, try reading them of a piece yourself – you may discover some insights for our continuing life together at St. Peter’s!
In First Timothy therefore we have a letter based on Paul’s own life and written as if to Paul’s younger companion in evangelizing the various churches in which Paul worked. Casting the letter in Paul’s name, the writer uses Paul’s voice to rehearse Paul’s history, his conversion, and the meaning of his work. In the segment we heard this morning, we get our first clue as to what witnessing to our faith might mean. For “Paul” witnessing means, first of all, acknowledging to ourselves and others that we have been rescued from a life that draws us away from God and brought by God’s grace into a life and a community that allows us live in and for God. What is more important, witnessing means acknowledging that we have been rescued for a purpose. We have been rescued by Christ to serve as an example to others, a “template” which is one of the meanings of the Greek word the writer uses, or a model for what life lived in Christ might look like. Witnessing to our faith means enabling others to see in us, in the quality of life that we live, a glimpse of salvation, so that they too might be drawn into that deeper, more blessed life in Christ. Although in the mixed-ethnic world of the early 2nd century, drawing others into Christian community was not an easy job – just as it is not in our world – the writer is also confident that Christ has strengthened him for this work – just as God strengthens us for witness!
At the same time that the writer of the Pastoral Epistles was struggling with the issue of witness, others in the early second century were called by God to proclaim their faith in Christ in a deeper way. It was the year 107. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was arrested by imperial authorities, condemned to death, and taken to Rome in order to die in the arena. On the way from Antioch to Rome, Ignatius spoke to groups of Christians in every town through which he passed, encouraging people to remain faithful. When Ignatius and his prison escort reached the west coast of Asia minor, where they would board a ship for Rome, delegations from several churches visited with Ignatius. They gave him provisions for the journey and commended him to God’s care. In return Ignatius wrote seven letters, five to the congregations of those who had greeted him, one to the church in Rome, and one to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who would himself face martyrdom. In his letters, Ignatius stressed the importance of maintaining Christian unity in love and sound doctrine, he held up the clergy as the symbol of Christian unity, and he embraced Christian martyrdom as a privilege and gift from God. He is remembered most especially for reminding the Christians in Rome that, “I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” In his letters and in his courageous death, Ignatius was surely a strong witness for Christ. In Greek the word for what Ignatius was is martyr. It was a generic word for witness, and could also mean “witness” in the legal sense. In English, of course, it has come to mean someone who tells what he believes, even though it results in his being killed for it, and more specifically, someone who dies while witnessing to faith in Christ, just as indeed Ignatius did. Is that what Christ expects of us? Are we too, like Ignatius, like some Christians in our own world, called to witness to Christ with our very lives?
Are there other ways to proclaim the good news of God in Christ? Yesterday, we remembered all those, Jews, Christians, Muslims, those of other faiths, and those of no faith, who died on September 11, 2001. Is burning a Qur’an the way to witness to our faith in Christ and to proclaim the good news? Our Jewish sisters and brothers, for whom this is the holiest week of the religious year, remember only too well the book burnings of the Inquisition and Nazi Germany. No, my friends, all of my clergy colleagues and I agree that burning the Qur’an is not the way to witness to the good news of God in Christ. Many clergy were ready to stand with members of the Muslim community in solidarity and recognition that this country at least grants freedom of religious expression to all its citizens. Here’s another way to witness to Christ. On my way home from Columbus on Friday morning, I heard this week’s Story Corps segment on NPR’s Morning Edition. The segment profiled two men who had been at Ground Zero, Jack Murray and John Romanowich. Perhaps you heard the segment too. Jack Murray was on the roof of his apartment building watching the disaster. “I can certainly say,” he tells us, “that if you were going to find somebody that day to go down there who was pragmatic and clearheaded, I was not that guy. I honestly thought the world was going to come to an end.” Murray went down to his neighborhood bar to see what other people were doing. He was a welder by trade and knew how to cut steel beams. So when a friend suggested he go down to the site he agreed. Sometime during that first night, as he cut through the twisted beams, he had an epiphany of sorts. He realized that he was standing on a gigantic funeral pyre and possibly breathing in the ashen remains of some of the dead. “It was kind of like a communion for me,” he said. For the next two weeks Murray stayed at the site cutting steel beams so that rescue workers could search for survivors.
John Romanowich came to Ground Zero as an employee of the Department of Design and Construction, the city agency charged with cleaning up Ground Zero. When he stepped off the bus, he said, he felt “like we crossed into a different reality.” He worked the 3 to 11 shift, which made it hard to see his wife and daughter. One day he couldn’t find his ID badge. His daughter had taken it to school so she could show everyone what a hero her Dad was. Romanowich spent four months at Ground Zero, from mid-September to mid-January. He found it hard to return to his former life. “We never felt right when we had to leave,” he remembered, “when we had to go home. So that was like you were getting cut from the team.” I don’t know what faith communities Jack Murray and John Romanowich belong to. But I do know that through their work and dedication they proclaimed in their bodies, by their example, God’s consoling love for humanity of all faith communities, ethnicities, and colors. They proclaimed God’s desire to rescue us all from destruction, hatred, and evil.
So how are we examples of Christ? How do our lives witness to Christ’s death and resurrection? How do we proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Who might see a glimpse of Christ in us? We all struggle with these questions, and there are no easy answers to them. I invite you, in your own prayer time, your own time alone with God, to reflect on your life through the lens of these questions. Is there a Ground Zero here where we might be called to serve? Or is our witness, our example, our proclamation less dramatic, less visible? Rest assured, God has called you too to be God’s witness, and in God’s good time, God will make clear to you how you are to respond to God’s claim on you. And when God calls you God will also strengthen you for God’s service.
The writer of the first letter to Timothy also struggled with these questions, most likely at the very beginning of the second century. Many scholars believe that this letter, the second letter to Timothy, and the letter to Titus, which we collectively call the Pastoral Epistles, were not written by Paul himself. Lots of internal evidence suggests that these letters were more likely written by a disciple of Paul’s who was writing in Paul’s name, which was not uncommon in the ancient world. Whoever wrote these letters, they were accepted by those who put together the “canon,” i.e., the collection of gospels, letters, and essays that we call the New Testament. Those who put together the canon understood that these letters give us important insights into questions about Christian witness, and they reflect some of the thinking about faith and order of the earliest Christian communities. As we hear parts of First and Second Timothy this month and next month, we’ll see some of the questions that engaged a church in transition – a church not unlike our own church today. Actually, try reading them of a piece yourself – you may discover some insights for our continuing life together at St. Peter’s!
In First Timothy therefore we have a letter based on Paul’s own life and written as if to Paul’s younger companion in evangelizing the various churches in which Paul worked. Casting the letter in Paul’s name, the writer uses Paul’s voice to rehearse Paul’s history, his conversion, and the meaning of his work. In the segment we heard this morning, we get our first clue as to what witnessing to our faith might mean. For “Paul” witnessing means, first of all, acknowledging to ourselves and others that we have been rescued from a life that draws us away from God and brought by God’s grace into a life and a community that allows us live in and for God. What is more important, witnessing means acknowledging that we have been rescued for a purpose. We have been rescued by Christ to serve as an example to others, a “template” which is one of the meanings of the Greek word the writer uses, or a model for what life lived in Christ might look like. Witnessing to our faith means enabling others to see in us, in the quality of life that we live, a glimpse of salvation, so that they too might be drawn into that deeper, more blessed life in Christ. Although in the mixed-ethnic world of the early 2nd century, drawing others into Christian community was not an easy job – just as it is not in our world – the writer is also confident that Christ has strengthened him for this work – just as God strengthens us for witness!
At the same time that the writer of the Pastoral Epistles was struggling with the issue of witness, others in the early second century were called by God to proclaim their faith in Christ in a deeper way. It was the year 107. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Trajan, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, was arrested by imperial authorities, condemned to death, and taken to Rome in order to die in the arena. On the way from Antioch to Rome, Ignatius spoke to groups of Christians in every town through which he passed, encouraging people to remain faithful. When Ignatius and his prison escort reached the west coast of Asia minor, where they would board a ship for Rome, delegations from several churches visited with Ignatius. They gave him provisions for the journey and commended him to God’s care. In return Ignatius wrote seven letters, five to the congregations of those who had greeted him, one to the church in Rome, and one to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who would himself face martyrdom. In his letters, Ignatius stressed the importance of maintaining Christian unity in love and sound doctrine, he held up the clergy as the symbol of Christian unity, and he embraced Christian martyrdom as a privilege and gift from God. He is remembered most especially for reminding the Christians in Rome that, “I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” In his letters and in his courageous death, Ignatius was surely a strong witness for Christ. In Greek the word for what Ignatius was is martyr. It was a generic word for witness, and could also mean “witness” in the legal sense. In English, of course, it has come to mean someone who tells what he believes, even though it results in his being killed for it, and more specifically, someone who dies while witnessing to faith in Christ, just as indeed Ignatius did. Is that what Christ expects of us? Are we too, like Ignatius, like some Christians in our own world, called to witness to Christ with our very lives?
Are there other ways to proclaim the good news of God in Christ? Yesterday, we remembered all those, Jews, Christians, Muslims, those of other faiths, and those of no faith, who died on September 11, 2001. Is burning a Qur’an the way to witness to our faith in Christ and to proclaim the good news? Our Jewish sisters and brothers, for whom this is the holiest week of the religious year, remember only too well the book burnings of the Inquisition and Nazi Germany. No, my friends, all of my clergy colleagues and I agree that burning the Qur’an is not the way to witness to the good news of God in Christ. Many clergy were ready to stand with members of the Muslim community in solidarity and recognition that this country at least grants freedom of religious expression to all its citizens. Here’s another way to witness to Christ. On my way home from Columbus on Friday morning, I heard this week’s Story Corps segment on NPR’s Morning Edition. The segment profiled two men who had been at Ground Zero, Jack Murray and John Romanowich. Perhaps you heard the segment too. Jack Murray was on the roof of his apartment building watching the disaster. “I can certainly say,” he tells us, “that if you were going to find somebody that day to go down there who was pragmatic and clearheaded, I was not that guy. I honestly thought the world was going to come to an end.” Murray went down to his neighborhood bar to see what other people were doing. He was a welder by trade and knew how to cut steel beams. So when a friend suggested he go down to the site he agreed. Sometime during that first night, as he cut through the twisted beams, he had an epiphany of sorts. He realized that he was standing on a gigantic funeral pyre and possibly breathing in the ashen remains of some of the dead. “It was kind of like a communion for me,” he said. For the next two weeks Murray stayed at the site cutting steel beams so that rescue workers could search for survivors.
John Romanowich came to Ground Zero as an employee of the Department of Design and Construction, the city agency charged with cleaning up Ground Zero. When he stepped off the bus, he said, he felt “like we crossed into a different reality.” He worked the 3 to 11 shift, which made it hard to see his wife and daughter. One day he couldn’t find his ID badge. His daughter had taken it to school so she could show everyone what a hero her Dad was. Romanowich spent four months at Ground Zero, from mid-September to mid-January. He found it hard to return to his former life. “We never felt right when we had to leave,” he remembered, “when we had to go home. So that was like you were getting cut from the team.” I don’t know what faith communities Jack Murray and John Romanowich belong to. But I do know that through their work and dedication they proclaimed in their bodies, by their example, God’s consoling love for humanity of all faith communities, ethnicities, and colors. They proclaimed God’s desire to rescue us all from destruction, hatred, and evil.
So how are we examples of Christ? How do our lives witness to Christ’s death and resurrection? How do we proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Who might see a glimpse of Christ in us? We all struggle with these questions, and there are no easy answers to them. I invite you, in your own prayer time, your own time alone with God, to reflect on your life through the lens of these questions. Is there a Ground Zero here where we might be called to serve? Or is our witness, our example, our proclamation less dramatic, less visible? Rest assured, God has called you too to be God’s witness, and in God’s good time, God will make clear to you how you are to respond to God’s claim on you. And when God calls you God will also strengthen you for God’s service.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
You Have Searched Me Out and Known Me
Oh, You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
He's gonna find out
who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
No, I haven’t taken leave of my senses. Nor have I forgotten the date. Of course Santa Claus is coming to town, and a lot sooner to our stores than most of us would like. But I’ve often wondered about that song. When our children were small, I wondered what they made of it. The song was written in 1934. The later, less familiar verses assure us that “the kids in Girl and Boy Land will have a jubilee” as they discover all the toys that Santa has brought. But it’s those middle verses that give me pause:
He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake.
So...You better watch out,
You better not cry
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He sees you when you’re sleeping? He knows when you’re awake? He knows when you’ve been bad or good? He knows if you cry or pout? Surely that doesn’t describe Nicholas, the 4th century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, from whom Santa Claus has descended? How could Santa see me and know me so well? Can anyone know me that well? Does even my spouse of 41 years know me that well? I doubt it.
Our psalm for today, Psalm 139, beloved of both Jews and Christians, suggests that there is someone who knows us that well, knows us even more fully than Santa. God knows us knows us through and through, God knows us even more deeply than the songwriters could ever have imagined. When we include verses 6-12, left out of our reading this morning, we are reminded that God knew us at our conception, perhaps even before that. God perhaps even marked us out for some special work. God knows us through and through now: “You have searched me out and known me, you know my sitting down and my rising up. You discern my thoughts from afar.” Moreover, and what is more important, there is nowhere we can escape God’s presence, for there is no realm where God isn’t present: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” At the limits of east or west, God’s hand still guides the psalmist. Even in the depths of darkness, “Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.” God is with us everywhere, and there is neither place nor thing that can separate us from God. Echoing Psalm 139, Paul even assured the Christians in Rome that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God is with us, in us, behind us, and before us, at all times, and in all places.
Like children who get caught up in the holiday rush, most of us are scarcely aware of God’s presence in our lives. Perhaps we’re oblivious to God’s presence, or perhaps we choose to ignore God’s presence. We’re “just too busy” to take the time for God. Yet God constantly takes the initiative to come more deeply into our world, and especially to those who earnestly seek God. As the psalmist reminds us, “You have searched me out….” We can experience God’s presence in our lives if we open the door to God even just a little. Rest assured, God will get through that crack! Certainly, we experience God’s presence in worship. Our experience of God is mediated or filtered through hymns, written prayers, and actions, but God is most definitely present to us here. And certainly we Episcopalians believe that Christ is especially present to us in the bread and wine that become his Body and Blood.
But is it possible for us to have an even more direct experience of God’s presence, what some have called a “mystical” experience? Many shy away from that word. I once heard an Episcopal priest say in a sermon that he had never, in forty years of being a Christian, ever had a “mystical” experience. Personally, I would doubt that, since he was a man of prayer. And there is nothing about the word “mystical” that should frighten or upset us. A mystical experience is simply a deep sense of God’s presence, a sense perhaps of direct communion with God (or Christ) that takes us to deeper levels of awareness of God’s presence. For some, mystical experiences may even include visions of Jesus or Mary or the Trinity. For almost all of us, such experiences are ineffable and indescribable. We might say with the psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” Yet such experiences are real, and they can transform our lives in unimaginable ways.
Some of you good Protestant folk may again be wondering if I’ve taken leave of my senses. For many good historical reasons, and with some exceptions, Protestants have largely abandoned the pursuit of direct experiences of God’s presence. Yet the mystical experience has a long and honorable tradition in the church. In the 3rd and 4th century desert Fathers and Mothers, who lived in the deserts of Egypt as an act of devotion and commitment to God, in the medieval mystics, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, whom we heard about two weeks ago, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, in the 20th century English mystic Evelyn Underhill, and in the members of the World Community for Christian Meditation, just to name a few, we have a “great cloud of witnesses” of those who have sought and been granted more direct experience of God’s presence.
We don’t have to be monks or nuns. We don’t have to be spiritually adept or steeped in the faith. This is the good news: if we just leave the door slightly ajar, God will take the initiative and make Godself more deeply present to us. There are any number of ways, any number of “thin places” in which we may seek a deeper sense God’s presence. For some people, God seems especially present in nature, in a sunset or on a mountain top or watching animals or birds by a river or a lake, or at night contemplating the vastness of the stars. Sometimes we experience God’s presence in service to others, when we look deeply into another’s eyes or listen intently to another’s story. Many of us have a deeper awareness of God’s presence in sacred and blessed places, especially churches and monasteries where prayer has been offered for centuries. For some, praying with an icon can deepen our sense of God’s presence, as we let the picture be a window through which we can glimpse a bit of divine reality. For some, our own quiet places, wherever they are, can be places where, when we truly open ourselves to God, God graces us with a deeper sense of God’s presence. And for many of us, the various practices of contemplative prayer, and the various forms of prayer preserved in the Celtic tradition, help lead us into that deeper place. All of these ways of experiencing God’s presence more deeply are potentially open to all of us, if we would but take a deep breath and slow down long enough for God to get a word in edgewise. And indeed these paths to experiencing God’s presence more deeply are available to those of other faith communities too. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all have rich mystical traditions. To our surprise and perhaps delight, when we seek God contemplatively, when we seek to experience God’s presence more deeply and more directly, we often find that we are on common ground with those of other faith communities who are also genuinely seeking God’s deeper presence.
Come and experience what I’m talking about for yourself. Every Wednesday that I am here, from 12:00 to 12:30 here in the church, I will be praying contemplatively. If someone else joins me I will take the first 10 minutes of that time to teach a particular approach to contemplative prayer. We will also return to a contemplative approach in the Eucharist on the 4th Tuesday evening of the month. I plan some Quiet Saturday mornings later in the fall and winter, and I hope soon to begin offering a contemplative Eucharist later on Sunday afternoons. But don’t think of any of this as another task to be undertaken in order to be right with God. God is not commanding or demanding that you undertake any spiritual discipline. God is inviting us all into God’s presence. Anything that we may do, any way in which God makes Godself more deeply known to us, is God’s gift to us, a gift that helps us deepen our love for God and our gratitude for God’s great love for us.
I mentioned the Celtic spiritual tradition. I want to close by giving you just a little taste of what that tradition has to offer by sharing with you a prayer for Sunday morning.
I watch this morning
for the light that the darkness has not overcome.
I watch for the fire that was in the beginning
and that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun.
I watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth
and glistens in sea and sky.
I watch for your light, O God,
in the eyes of every living creature
and in the ever-living flame of my own soul.
If the grace of seeing were mine this day
I would glimpse you in all that lives.
Grant me the grace of seeing this day.
Grant me the grace of seeing.1
1. J. Philip Newell, Celtic Benediction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p 2.
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
He's gonna find out
who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
No, I haven’t taken leave of my senses. Nor have I forgotten the date. Of course Santa Claus is coming to town, and a lot sooner to our stores than most of us would like. But I’ve often wondered about that song. When our children were small, I wondered what they made of it. The song was written in 1934. The later, less familiar verses assure us that “the kids in Girl and Boy Land will have a jubilee” as they discover all the toys that Santa has brought. But it’s those middle verses that give me pause:
He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake.
He knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake.
So...You better watch out,
You better not cry
You better not pout,
I'm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He sees you when you’re sleeping? He knows when you’re awake? He knows when you’ve been bad or good? He knows if you cry or pout? Surely that doesn’t describe Nicholas, the 4th century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, from whom Santa Claus has descended? How could Santa see me and know me so well? Can anyone know me that well? Does even my spouse of 41 years know me that well? I doubt it.
Our psalm for today, Psalm 139, beloved of both Jews and Christians, suggests that there is someone who knows us that well, knows us even more fully than Santa. God knows us knows us through and through, God knows us even more deeply than the songwriters could ever have imagined. When we include verses 6-12, left out of our reading this morning, we are reminded that God knew us at our conception, perhaps even before that. God perhaps even marked us out for some special work. God knows us through and through now: “You have searched me out and known me, you know my sitting down and my rising up. You discern my thoughts from afar.” Moreover, and what is more important, there is nowhere we can escape God’s presence, for there is no realm where God isn’t present: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” At the limits of east or west, God’s hand still guides the psalmist. Even in the depths of darkness, “Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.” God is with us everywhere, and there is neither place nor thing that can separate us from God. Echoing Psalm 139, Paul even assured the Christians in Rome that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God is with us, in us, behind us, and before us, at all times, and in all places.
Like children who get caught up in the holiday rush, most of us are scarcely aware of God’s presence in our lives. Perhaps we’re oblivious to God’s presence, or perhaps we choose to ignore God’s presence. We’re “just too busy” to take the time for God. Yet God constantly takes the initiative to come more deeply into our world, and especially to those who earnestly seek God. As the psalmist reminds us, “You have searched me out….” We can experience God’s presence in our lives if we open the door to God even just a little. Rest assured, God will get through that crack! Certainly, we experience God’s presence in worship. Our experience of God is mediated or filtered through hymns, written prayers, and actions, but God is most definitely present to us here. And certainly we Episcopalians believe that Christ is especially present to us in the bread and wine that become his Body and Blood.
But is it possible for us to have an even more direct experience of God’s presence, what some have called a “mystical” experience? Many shy away from that word. I once heard an Episcopal priest say in a sermon that he had never, in forty years of being a Christian, ever had a “mystical” experience. Personally, I would doubt that, since he was a man of prayer. And there is nothing about the word “mystical” that should frighten or upset us. A mystical experience is simply a deep sense of God’s presence, a sense perhaps of direct communion with God (or Christ) that takes us to deeper levels of awareness of God’s presence. For some, mystical experiences may even include visions of Jesus or Mary or the Trinity. For almost all of us, such experiences are ineffable and indescribable. We might say with the psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.” Yet such experiences are real, and they can transform our lives in unimaginable ways.
Some of you good Protestant folk may again be wondering if I’ve taken leave of my senses. For many good historical reasons, and with some exceptions, Protestants have largely abandoned the pursuit of direct experiences of God’s presence. Yet the mystical experience has a long and honorable tradition in the church. In the 3rd and 4th century desert Fathers and Mothers, who lived in the deserts of Egypt as an act of devotion and commitment to God, in the medieval mystics, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, whom we heard about two weeks ago, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, in the 20th century English mystic Evelyn Underhill, and in the members of the World Community for Christian Meditation, just to name a few, we have a “great cloud of witnesses” of those who have sought and been granted more direct experience of God’s presence.
We don’t have to be monks or nuns. We don’t have to be spiritually adept or steeped in the faith. This is the good news: if we just leave the door slightly ajar, God will take the initiative and make Godself more deeply present to us. There are any number of ways, any number of “thin places” in which we may seek a deeper sense God’s presence. For some people, God seems especially present in nature, in a sunset or on a mountain top or watching animals or birds by a river or a lake, or at night contemplating the vastness of the stars. Sometimes we experience God’s presence in service to others, when we look deeply into another’s eyes or listen intently to another’s story. Many of us have a deeper awareness of God’s presence in sacred and blessed places, especially churches and monasteries where prayer has been offered for centuries. For some, praying with an icon can deepen our sense of God’s presence, as we let the picture be a window through which we can glimpse a bit of divine reality. For some, our own quiet places, wherever they are, can be places where, when we truly open ourselves to God, God graces us with a deeper sense of God’s presence. And for many of us, the various practices of contemplative prayer, and the various forms of prayer preserved in the Celtic tradition, help lead us into that deeper place. All of these ways of experiencing God’s presence more deeply are potentially open to all of us, if we would but take a deep breath and slow down long enough for God to get a word in edgewise. And indeed these paths to experiencing God’s presence more deeply are available to those of other faith communities too. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism all have rich mystical traditions. To our surprise and perhaps delight, when we seek God contemplatively, when we seek to experience God’s presence more deeply and more directly, we often find that we are on common ground with those of other faith communities who are also genuinely seeking God’s deeper presence.
Come and experience what I’m talking about for yourself. Every Wednesday that I am here, from 12:00 to 12:30 here in the church, I will be praying contemplatively. If someone else joins me I will take the first 10 minutes of that time to teach a particular approach to contemplative prayer. We will also return to a contemplative approach in the Eucharist on the 4th Tuesday evening of the month. I plan some Quiet Saturday mornings later in the fall and winter, and I hope soon to begin offering a contemplative Eucharist later on Sunday afternoons. But don’t think of any of this as another task to be undertaken in order to be right with God. God is not commanding or demanding that you undertake any spiritual discipline. God is inviting us all into God’s presence. Anything that we may do, any way in which God makes Godself more deeply known to us, is God’s gift to us, a gift that helps us deepen our love for God and our gratitude for God’s great love for us.
I mentioned the Celtic spiritual tradition. I want to close by giving you just a little taste of what that tradition has to offer by sharing with you a prayer for Sunday morning.
I watch this morning
for the light that the darkness has not overcome.
I watch for the fire that was in the beginning
and that burns still in the brilliance of the rising sun.
I watch for the glow of life that gleams in the growing earth
and glistens in sea and sky.
I watch for your light, O God,
in the eyes of every living creature
and in the ever-living flame of my own soul.
If the grace of seeing were mine this day
I would glimpse you in all that lives.
Grant me the grace of seeing this day.
Grant me the grace of seeing.1
1. J. Philip Newell, Celtic Benediction (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p 2.
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