Do you believe that God delivers on God’s promises? You should, after hearing today’s Scripture readings! Like “two sacred bookends,” as one writer calls them, our lessons from the book of Deuteronomy and from Mark’s Gospel complement each other. Together they remind us that God always fulfills God’s promises.
In the instructions of Moses in the lesson from Deuteronomy, we hear God’s promise to raise up from within the community another prophet like Moses himself. And God did just that! In the rest of the Hebrew Bible we hear the voices of many of those prophets sent by God to bring people back to God’s ways. In the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, Elisha, Nathan, and all the minor prophets, including Jonah, we hear God’s promise fulfilled, to send prophets like Moses.
God seems to have fallen silent – at least in Hebrew – in the fourth century BC. The last books in the Christian Bible are the minor prophets Zechariah and Malachi. (Jews order the Hebrew Bible differently.) Zechariah and Malachi were the last to speak authoritatively for God as prophets. So when Jesus appeared in Jerusalem, people were expectantly waiting for another prophet to reclaim Moses’ mantle. At first they thought that perhaps John the Baptizer might be that prophet. Do you remember the questions the priests and Levites from Jerusalem put to him in the Gospel of John? “Are you Elijah,” they asked. “Are you the prophet, the one promised by Moses?” John of course categorically denied that he was Elijah, the prophet, or the Messiah. However, when Jesus began his public ministry in the synagogue at Capernaum, some of those who heard him and witnessed what he did remembered John’s proclamation. They may have sensed that Jesus might be the one empowered to speak authoritatively for God. In fact, he spoke so authoritatively that even the evil spirits recognized him as the one charged by God with initiating God’s reign. Those people who recognized him also realized that God had indeed fulfilled God’s promise to Moses, that God had anointed Jesus and empowered him to speak for God.
Throughout the centuries following Jesus, God has continued to fulfill God’s promise to send prophets to us. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, countless men and women have spoken God’s truth. As the Book of Acts tells us, Stephen spoke boldly for God’s new order. In the third century of our era the Roman noblewoman Perpetua and her servant Felicity resolutely proclaimed their identity as Christians, despite the pressure of Perpetua’s family to renounce their faith. Thomas à Becket, twelfth-century archbishop of Canterbury, declared that his allegiance to Christ lay above that of his allegiance to King Henry II. Hildegard of Bingen in the twelfth century and Julian of Norwich in the fourteenth century proclaimed through their visions God’s unfathomable love for humanity.
Closer to our time, African-American preacher Sojourner Truth galvanized her hearers with her sermons against racial inequality. One of her most famous speeches, entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?”, still moves us today. As the Nazis engulfed Germany, Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer declared his solidarity with the victims of Nazi oppression and actively worked to keep alive his vision of true Christian community. Even when he was imprisoned by the Nazis, he continued to warn his followers of the need to resist evil. In India Mohandas Gandhi championed the rights of those at the bottom of the caste system. While the higher castes called them Untouchables Gandhi proclaimed that they were Harijans, Children of God. In El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero joined many others in defending the poor. In 1964, three young civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were white, and James Chaney, who was black, helped black Mississippians to claim their right to vote. In 1972 Lutheran Pastor Arthur Simon gathered together a group of Catholics and Protestants to explore how people of faith could influence government policies concerning hunger. The result: Bread for the World, a Christian voice that urges our governments to end hunger both in this country and abroad.
At this point you might be thinking, “This is a really diverse group of people. So what are prophets?” The Hebrew and Greek words for “prophet,” nabi and prophetes, respectively, both mean someone who announces a message from God, someone who is divinely empowered to speak for God. Prophets are not magicians, sorcerers, or fortune-tellers. Prophets do not engage in elaborate rituals to tease God into speaking or speak in strange ecstatic utterances. Rather, as Moses reminded his hearers, and us who hear his words, prophets are people whom we already know and trust. Prophets are those who can speak God’s word clearly to us in our own language, yet they who also ask us to look at our own context through new lenses. In their proclamations, prophets always proclaim God’s righteousness, God’s peace, God’s care for the least of these, and God’s fervent desire for justice. And prophets do more than speak. As Jesus, after his sermon at Capernaum, drove out the unclean spirit from the heckler, so prophets act on their proclamation. And finally, just as Jesus was ultimately rejected, condemned, and executed, prophets unflinchingly accept the possibility that they too will follow Jesus to the Cross. Of the prophets following Jesus whom I mentioned, only Hildegard, Julian, Sojourner Truth, and Art Simon, escaped martyrdom.
So how do we respond to prophets? Were there prophets in the past among the community of St. Peter’s? Are there prophets among us now? When we first hear prophets we might be like those who first heard Jesus preach. We might respond with wonder and awe, mesmerized by the prophet’s message. Yet we are challenged by God to do more than just stand paralyzed and agape. Can we make room in our heads for the word of God? God’s word is often a disruptive presence among us, as prophets challenge us to hear God’s word in new and fresh ways or to apply God’s word to issues and needs in our communities. Are we willing to hear God’s word – and act on it?
And here’s the hardest question of all: do we dare to assume the prophetic role for ourselves? Jesus began his public ministry after his anointing by the Holy Spirit in his baptism. We too have been baptized. We too have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak – and act – in God’s name as disciples of Jesus. We too have been trusted to proclaim God’s reign and to partner with God to bring that reign closer. We too have been charged by God to challenge each other to see where and how God is doing a new thing in the world.
This past week the church remembered the ordination of Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman to be ordained priest in the Anglican Communion. The time was 1944. Tim-Oi was a deacon serving in the colony of Macau at the Macau Protestant Chapel. With the Japanese occupation of China, male priests were unable to come to Macau to preside at the Eucharist. Taking a bold step, Bishop Ronald Hall of Victoria ordained her ''a priest in the Church of God.” Since Tim-Oi was ordained thirty years before any Anglican church regularized the ordination of women, she was forced to resign her license to officiate (though not her priestly orders) after the end of the war. When Hong Kong ordained two further women priests in 1971, she was officially recognized as a priest in the diocese. After emigrating to Canada, she was appointed an assistant priest in Toronto in 1983, where she served until her death in 1992. In ordaining Tim-Oi in 1944, Bishop Hall knew that he was taking as momentous a step as Peter had taken when he baptized the gentile Cornelius. Yet he boldly proclaimed, that like St Peter, who had recognized that God had already given Cornelius the gift of the Holy Spirit, as bishop he was merely confirming that God had already given Tim-Oi the gift of priestly ministry. In living out that ministry, despite numerous hardships, Tim-Oi proclaimed again to the Anglican communion that, for those baptized into Christ, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Asking the church to hear God’s word afresh, to see that God is always doing a new thing, Bishop Hall and Li Tim-Oi taught us that all us are called to speak God’s word and be Christ for others in our own time.
And so when God calls us to speak for God, when God calls us to assume the prophetic role, can we boldly follow the lead of the prophets who have gone ahead of us? Can we trust God to enable us to speak God’s word clearly and courageously, even as we follow him who leads us to the Cross?
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
God is ...
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’” What is this Book of Jonah? A fable or a farce? A fish story or a joke? A tall story with a point? A prophetic book with just an eight-word message? All of the above?
The book of Jonah probably dates from the period after the Exile, i.e., between the fourth and second centuries BC in Judea. After seventy years in Babylon, the descendents of the Jewish exiles had returned to a Jerusalem in ruins. Their struggle to re-establish themselves as a distinct community and to rebuild Jerusalem seems to have led to extreme nationalism and parochialism among them. During this period of the Second Temple, for example, the religious establishment banned marriage with foreigners and moved to exile foreign wives. Perhaps the anonymous author of this book created the character of Jonah and depicted God’s urgent desire for him to preach repentance to the residents of Nineveh in order to reflect the parochialism of the Israelites and to persuade them to give up their narrow vision of God and God’s care. Let’s review the story this short book tells..
The story begins with God’s instruction to Jonah to “Go at once to Nineveh,” and proclaim God’s judgment. Reluctant to go the capital of the hated Assyrian enemies, Jonah boarded a ship going in the opposite direction, to Tarshish. However, God sent a great storm, threatening the boat and all the sailors. After prayers to their own gods failed, the sailors turned to Jonah and his God. Jonah then directed them to throw him overboard. Of course, God rescued Jonah by causing him to be swallowed by a great fish. Although he had deliberately flouted God’s command, in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed earnestly to God, whereupon God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up on dry land. Once again commanded by God to go Nineveh, the reluctant Jonah went to Nineveh and preached the shortest sermon on record. When the Ninevites actually repented, Jonah was angry at God for changing his mind about destroying them. Tantalizing us forevermore, the story ends with God’s response to Jonah: “… should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons … and also many animals?”
So what kind of a book is this? In both the Jewish Study Bible and the New Revised Standard Version Bible – what we hear in worship – the book of Jonah is included among what are called the Twelve Minor Prophets. Even though the book focuses first on Jonah and his ultimate change of heart and then on the repentance of Nineveh, ultimately the book of Jonah is a book of prophecy. It is a book of prophecy, because, like other books of prophecy, it has something profound to tell us about God. Actually three things about God.
The first thing that the Book of Jonah tells us about God is that God is persistent. When Jonah deliberately disobeys God’s command and boards a ship bound in the opposite direction from where God wants him to go, God persists in reaching out to him. God finds several different ways to get Jonah to have a change of heart, to deliver God’s message to the Ninevites, and to understand that God’s will ultimately cannot be thwarted or ignored. What is most important, God gives Jonah a second chance to do God’s will. And God would probably have given Jonah several more chances to do the right thing if necessary. God is a God of second chances, and what God is most persistent about is expecting and rewarding faithfulness to God’s commands.
Secondly, the Book of Jonah shows us that God is gracious. When the Gentile sailors obey God’s command and throw Jonah overboard, God responds with mercy by stilling the storm and saving the sailors from destruction. When Jonah finally delivers his eight-word sermon, he says nothing about any possible reprieve from the threatened destruction of Nineveh. Yet when the king and the people respond by fasting and putting on sackcloth, even including their animals in their observance, God responds in kind. God acknowledges the Ninevites’ repentance and turns back from God’s threatened destruction of Nineveh.
Thirdly, the Book of Jonah reminds us that God is cares for all humanity. The great prophets had indeed continually reminded their hearers of God’s love for all people and of God’s eventual intent to bring all people into covenant with God. Even so, the ancient Israelites, like most people, behaved as if God’s power and mercy were reserved for them alone. Early in the story, God demonstrates God’s love for the Gentile sailors by saving them from the storm, even though they had first appealed to their own gods. Despite Jonah’s reluctance to approach the hated enemy – and who knew if the Ninevites would even understand his language – the Book of Jonah reminds us in no uncertain terms that God’s love and mercy also extended to Nineveh, that great city, and, by implication, to all the rest of the world. Although Christians believe that the walls separating Gentiles and Jews were finally broken down only in Christ, the story of Jonah reminds us that God offers salvation to both. As one of the ancient Jewish sages might have said in response to the question of why God would send Jonah to Nineveh of all places, “God chose to send Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh, because there is no place on earth bereft of the divine presence, not even among the foreigners in Nineveh.”
Such a tall story, such a farcical, even humorous tale as that of Jonah, has a lot to teach us about God! We learn that God is persistent, gracious, and merciful to all. We learn that God is a God of second – and third, or fourth, or tenth – chances, that God graciously responds to our attempts to seek God’s help or to repent, and that God cares not only for us and our in-group, our country, our ethnicity, our faith community, but ultimately for all humanity. Are you surprised that God is a God of second chances? Are you surprised that foreigners, that indeed all humanity, are included in God’s redemptive plan? Who might be included in God’s plans that would surprise and astound us? More to the point, to whom might we be called to go and preach God’s word? Does God’s persistence, graciousness, and care for all of humanity make a difference to us as Jesus’ disciples? Perhaps God might expect us to leave our comfort zones, go to Nineveh, fish for people, and experience the redemptive work of God in places and among people whom we might not expect to be included in God’s plan of salvation.
During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, God called Swiss missionary Philippe Galliard to tend to the sick, the suffering, and the starving survivors of the conflict. American relief worker Christine Darcas served in Chad. Of her time there, Darcas said, “As drought spread across the Sahara, I finally had the opportunity to roll up my sleeves and get into the field, to abandon my role as a bystander and make a difference.” British nurse Iain Levine worked in famine-struck areas of the Sudan and Mozambique. John Sifton, an American human rights attorney, has offered humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In May 2011, Lee Hogan, co-chair of the Anglican Health network, went to Tanzania, to help establish links between St Luke’s Episcopal Health System in Houston and the hospital of the Diocese of Morogoro in Berega, Tanzania. As a result of this trip, next month, medical officers from St. Luke’s and the Baylor College of Medicine will travel to Tanzania to establish closer ties between the Houston medical centers and their Tanzanian counterparts. Closer to home, after their regular worship service, members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Columbus go out every Sunday, rain or shine, into a vacant lot a block or two from the church. As members of the nearby homeless community gather together with them, the Rev. Lee Anne Reat presides over the Eucharist. After the service, parish members hand out sandwiches and soup to the gathered congregation. As Galliard, Darcas, Levine, Sifton, the representatives from St. Luke’s, and the parishioners of St. John’s follow God’s call, they have the assurance and the experience of the depth and breadth of God’s love for all people that Jonah conceded only reluctantly, but that we, as Jesus’ disciples, daily know deep in our hearts.
To whom is God calling you? To what is God calling this parish? Where is our persistent, gracious, and merciful God commanding us to go? “O God, you call us. We are here, not so much because we have sought you, but more because you have found us, called us, claimed us, and commanded us. Help us to have the faith in ourselves, the courage, and the trust in you, that we can board ship in the direction that you would have us go.” Amen.
The book of Jonah probably dates from the period after the Exile, i.e., between the fourth and second centuries BC in Judea. After seventy years in Babylon, the descendents of the Jewish exiles had returned to a Jerusalem in ruins. Their struggle to re-establish themselves as a distinct community and to rebuild Jerusalem seems to have led to extreme nationalism and parochialism among them. During this period of the Second Temple, for example, the religious establishment banned marriage with foreigners and moved to exile foreign wives. Perhaps the anonymous author of this book created the character of Jonah and depicted God’s urgent desire for him to preach repentance to the residents of Nineveh in order to reflect the parochialism of the Israelites and to persuade them to give up their narrow vision of God and God’s care. Let’s review the story this short book tells..
The story begins with God’s instruction to Jonah to “Go at once to Nineveh,” and proclaim God’s judgment. Reluctant to go the capital of the hated Assyrian enemies, Jonah boarded a ship going in the opposite direction, to Tarshish. However, God sent a great storm, threatening the boat and all the sailors. After prayers to their own gods failed, the sailors turned to Jonah and his God. Jonah then directed them to throw him overboard. Of course, God rescued Jonah by causing him to be swallowed by a great fish. Although he had deliberately flouted God’s command, in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed earnestly to God, whereupon God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up on dry land. Once again commanded by God to go Nineveh, the reluctant Jonah went to Nineveh and preached the shortest sermon on record. When the Ninevites actually repented, Jonah was angry at God for changing his mind about destroying them. Tantalizing us forevermore, the story ends with God’s response to Jonah: “… should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons … and also many animals?”
So what kind of a book is this? In both the Jewish Study Bible and the New Revised Standard Version Bible – what we hear in worship – the book of Jonah is included among what are called the Twelve Minor Prophets. Even though the book focuses first on Jonah and his ultimate change of heart and then on the repentance of Nineveh, ultimately the book of Jonah is a book of prophecy. It is a book of prophecy, because, like other books of prophecy, it has something profound to tell us about God. Actually three things about God.
The first thing that the Book of Jonah tells us about God is that God is persistent. When Jonah deliberately disobeys God’s command and boards a ship bound in the opposite direction from where God wants him to go, God persists in reaching out to him. God finds several different ways to get Jonah to have a change of heart, to deliver God’s message to the Ninevites, and to understand that God’s will ultimately cannot be thwarted or ignored. What is most important, God gives Jonah a second chance to do God’s will. And God would probably have given Jonah several more chances to do the right thing if necessary. God is a God of second chances, and what God is most persistent about is expecting and rewarding faithfulness to God’s commands.
Secondly, the Book of Jonah shows us that God is gracious. When the Gentile sailors obey God’s command and throw Jonah overboard, God responds with mercy by stilling the storm and saving the sailors from destruction. When Jonah finally delivers his eight-word sermon, he says nothing about any possible reprieve from the threatened destruction of Nineveh. Yet when the king and the people respond by fasting and putting on sackcloth, even including their animals in their observance, God responds in kind. God acknowledges the Ninevites’ repentance and turns back from God’s threatened destruction of Nineveh.
Thirdly, the Book of Jonah reminds us that God is cares for all humanity. The great prophets had indeed continually reminded their hearers of God’s love for all people and of God’s eventual intent to bring all people into covenant with God. Even so, the ancient Israelites, like most people, behaved as if God’s power and mercy were reserved for them alone. Early in the story, God demonstrates God’s love for the Gentile sailors by saving them from the storm, even though they had first appealed to their own gods. Despite Jonah’s reluctance to approach the hated enemy – and who knew if the Ninevites would even understand his language – the Book of Jonah reminds us in no uncertain terms that God’s love and mercy also extended to Nineveh, that great city, and, by implication, to all the rest of the world. Although Christians believe that the walls separating Gentiles and Jews were finally broken down only in Christ, the story of Jonah reminds us that God offers salvation to both. As one of the ancient Jewish sages might have said in response to the question of why God would send Jonah to Nineveh of all places, “God chose to send Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh, because there is no place on earth bereft of the divine presence, not even among the foreigners in Nineveh.”
Such a tall story, such a farcical, even humorous tale as that of Jonah, has a lot to teach us about God! We learn that God is persistent, gracious, and merciful to all. We learn that God is a God of second – and third, or fourth, or tenth – chances, that God graciously responds to our attempts to seek God’s help or to repent, and that God cares not only for us and our in-group, our country, our ethnicity, our faith community, but ultimately for all humanity. Are you surprised that God is a God of second chances? Are you surprised that foreigners, that indeed all humanity, are included in God’s redemptive plan? Who might be included in God’s plans that would surprise and astound us? More to the point, to whom might we be called to go and preach God’s word? Does God’s persistence, graciousness, and care for all of humanity make a difference to us as Jesus’ disciples? Perhaps God might expect us to leave our comfort zones, go to Nineveh, fish for people, and experience the redemptive work of God in places and among people whom we might not expect to be included in God’s plan of salvation.
During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, God called Swiss missionary Philippe Galliard to tend to the sick, the suffering, and the starving survivors of the conflict. American relief worker Christine Darcas served in Chad. Of her time there, Darcas said, “As drought spread across the Sahara, I finally had the opportunity to roll up my sleeves and get into the field, to abandon my role as a bystander and make a difference.” British nurse Iain Levine worked in famine-struck areas of the Sudan and Mozambique. John Sifton, an American human rights attorney, has offered humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In May 2011, Lee Hogan, co-chair of the Anglican Health network, went to Tanzania, to help establish links between St Luke’s Episcopal Health System in Houston and the hospital of the Diocese of Morogoro in Berega, Tanzania. As a result of this trip, next month, medical officers from St. Luke’s and the Baylor College of Medicine will travel to Tanzania to establish closer ties between the Houston medical centers and their Tanzanian counterparts. Closer to home, after their regular worship service, members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Columbus go out every Sunday, rain or shine, into a vacant lot a block or two from the church. As members of the nearby homeless community gather together with them, the Rev. Lee Anne Reat presides over the Eucharist. After the service, parish members hand out sandwiches and soup to the gathered congregation. As Galliard, Darcas, Levine, Sifton, the representatives from St. Luke’s, and the parishioners of St. John’s follow God’s call, they have the assurance and the experience of the depth and breadth of God’s love for all people that Jonah conceded only reluctantly, but that we, as Jesus’ disciples, daily know deep in our hearts.
To whom is God calling you? To what is God calling this parish? Where is our persistent, gracious, and merciful God commanding us to go? “O God, you call us. We are here, not so much because we have sought you, but more because you have found us, called us, claimed us, and commanded us. Help us to have the faith in ourselves, the courage, and the trust in you, that we can board ship in the direction that you would have us go.” Amen.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Was It Really That Easy?
Was it really that easy? We’ve left the Gospel according to Mark for this week and are hearing another story from early in Jesus’ ministry from the Gospel according to John. In John’s account, following his baptism, Jesus called Andrew and Simon as his disciples. Jesus then decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Apparently Philip tagged right along with Jesus in the walk back to Bethsaida, in Galilee. No questions asked, just followed Jesus. Then he found his friend Nathanael and enthusiastically declared, “We found him! He’s the promised one, Jesus of Nazareth!” Nathanael wasn’t buying at first. He was more skeptical than Philip, and he knew his Scriptures. He knew that the messiah was to come from Jerusalem, not Nazareth. But apparently it didn’t take much to convince him otherwise. Once he met Jesus, all Jesus had to say was, “I saw you under the fig tree,” and Nathanael too enthusiastically declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” Was it really that easy? Didn’t he struggle at all? Didn’t he wonder about this young rabbi? Were all his doubts really gone, so that he could go on to follow Jesus for the rest of his life? Was it really that easy?
For most of us, faith often isn’t that easy. For most of us, faith is often a struggle. In the book of Genesis we hear the stories about the patriarch Jacob. Do you remember them? Jacob’s coming to faith involved awe, terror, and even physical struggle. While camping out in the wilderness after having cheated his brother Esau, Jacob dreamt of a ladder joining heaven and earth on which angels ascended and descended. He heard God renew the covenant that God had made with Jacob’s ancestor Abraham, and he heard God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” Struck with terror, all Jacob could say was, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." Jacob spent another night in the wilderness as he was returning home to confront Esau. That night he wrestled with an angel of God who dislocated his thigh. At daybreak the angel blessed him and gave him a new name. Despite his pain, Jacob realized that, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
The first Sunday of October we blessed our animal companions in honor of the 13th century saint Francis of Assisi. Francis too struggled to accept God’s call. The heir of a wealthy merchant family, Francis had from early on wanted to serve the poor. But he also liked his adventurous and exciting life as a soldier and a rich man’s son. One day he heard Jesus calling to him in the church of San Damiano near his home town. Three times an icon of the crucified Jesus said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Thinking this meant the ruined church in which he was praying, Francis sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store and gave the money to the priest at San Damiano. Of course, his father was furious. Nevertheless, Francis defied his family, renounced his inheritance, and embraced a life of poverty and service to the poor.
Even for people like us, coming to faith can be a real struggle. A friend of mine in graduate school – let’s call him Joe – went to a Eucharist in an Episcopal church with one of his friends. Although Joe had never been baptized he admired his friend and was curious about what Episcopalians did in church. Although Joe could not receive communion, his friend invited him to kneel at the altar rail and receive a blessing. As Joe knelt there, he had such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that he knew he had found his spiritual home. However, that wasn’t the end of Joe’s struggle. It took him another nine months of reading, talking with a priest, thinking, and praying before he was ready to be baptized and confirmed. For many people, faith is a struggle – it isn’t that easy.
And so too for you? Are you struggling with your faith? Perhaps you are wondering whether you ought to be baptized or confirmed. Perhaps you have already been baptized and confirmed. You know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, and you know that you have been transformed and sent by God. But you are still struggling with God’s call to you, with what you think God wants you to do next. “OK, God, what is your plan for me?” Or perhaps you think that God has abandoned you. “I’m here, God, every week, but where are you?” Perhaps you wonder about this parish. “What’s next for us in this place, Lord? What ministry do you have for us?” No, it isn’t that easy.
We’re in good company when we struggle with our faith, if we struggle to make out God’s call to us. We’re in good company if we wonder if God will truly stay with us. Jacob, Samuel in today’s Hebrew Bible lesson, Nathanael, St. Francis, and Joe all had trouble hearing God’s call in the first place and then following through on what God seemed to be asking of them. So, should we even bother? Is the reward for responding to God’s call worth the struggle? The answer to that question has to be an emphatic “yes.” For, as our examples suggest, God promises that ultimately our struggles to trust God will be bountifully rewarded. And God always delivers on God’s promises. In his first encounter not only did God grant Jacob a vision of heaven and earth coming closer together, God also gave Jacob a promise: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” God kept God’s promise. As Jacob limped into Canaan, he encountered not the battle that he had expected but a peaceful, generous reception from Esau. And indeed, Jacob did go on to become a great nation, so great that God was obliged to deliver the nation from slavery in Egypt.
Similarly for Nathanael. Whatever internal struggle he had, Nathanael overcame his initial skepticism. He let Philip bring him to Jesus. Once there, he heard Jesus promise him a rich life, a richer life than anything he had known to that point. He heard Jesus promise him that he would see what Jesus himself had seen, “the heavens opened.” He heard Jesus promise him a life in which through Jesus he would see the visions that Jacob saw, that he would know God in a deeper, richer way.
And similarly for Francis. Empowered by God, Francis gained acceptance from the pope for his new order and established many houses of friars devoted to the poor. He attracted to his work a wealthy young woman friend named Clare, who founded a parallel Franciscan order for women, the Poor Clares. Both orders, and a third order for lay associates, still exist to this day, indeed still serve the poor right here in southern Ohio. Two years before he died in 1226, Francis had another vision of God. As the brother with him described it, "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." Having blessed so many and been blessed richly by God, Francis was declared a saint of the church in 1228. He is remembered and honored to this day on October 4th.
Even my friend Joe experienced the fulfillment of God’s promises to him. Having finally been baptized and confirmed, Joe married, had a family, and pursued a successful career in government service. Like most of us, his spiritual life had its ups and downs. In his early ‘50s, Joe went through another struggle as he sensed a call from God to ordained ministry. Joe wrestled with God for several years, but finally God won, as God always does. Today Joe is a deacon and is serving God and the people around him in ways that he could never have imagined the day he first knelt at the altar rail in his friend’s church.
We’re in good company if we struggle with our faith. We’re in good company if wrestle with God’s call to this parish. It isn’t that easy. Struggle with God is part of an adult spiritual life. Struggle with God is part of the lives of all the great saints and of all ordinary Christians who take their relationship with God seriously. But we also have God’s promises. We have God’s promise to be with us forever, no matter what happens to us. We have Jesus’ promise that through him we will grow into a deeper richer knowledge of God. We have the Holy Spirit’s promise to us in baptism that we have been transformed and empowered, that we are different and can make a difference in the world. Can we acknowledge our struggles? Can we open our ears and our hearts to hear God’s response? Can we believe God’s promises to us?
For most of us, faith often isn’t that easy. For most of us, faith is often a struggle. In the book of Genesis we hear the stories about the patriarch Jacob. Do you remember them? Jacob’s coming to faith involved awe, terror, and even physical struggle. While camping out in the wilderness after having cheated his brother Esau, Jacob dreamt of a ladder joining heaven and earth on which angels ascended and descended. He heard God renew the covenant that God had made with Jacob’s ancestor Abraham, and he heard God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” Struck with terror, all Jacob could say was, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." Jacob spent another night in the wilderness as he was returning home to confront Esau. That night he wrestled with an angel of God who dislocated his thigh. At daybreak the angel blessed him and gave him a new name. Despite his pain, Jacob realized that, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
The first Sunday of October we blessed our animal companions in honor of the 13th century saint Francis of Assisi. Francis too struggled to accept God’s call. The heir of a wealthy merchant family, Francis had from early on wanted to serve the poor. But he also liked his adventurous and exciting life as a soldier and a rich man’s son. One day he heard Jesus calling to him in the church of San Damiano near his home town. Three times an icon of the crucified Jesus said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Thinking this meant the ruined church in which he was praying, Francis sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store and gave the money to the priest at San Damiano. Of course, his father was furious. Nevertheless, Francis defied his family, renounced his inheritance, and embraced a life of poverty and service to the poor.
Even for people like us, coming to faith can be a real struggle. A friend of mine in graduate school – let’s call him Joe – went to a Eucharist in an Episcopal church with one of his friends. Although Joe had never been baptized he admired his friend and was curious about what Episcopalians did in church. Although Joe could not receive communion, his friend invited him to kneel at the altar rail and receive a blessing. As Joe knelt there, he had such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that he knew he had found his spiritual home. However, that wasn’t the end of Joe’s struggle. It took him another nine months of reading, talking with a priest, thinking, and praying before he was ready to be baptized and confirmed. For many people, faith is a struggle – it isn’t that easy.
And so too for you? Are you struggling with your faith? Perhaps you are wondering whether you ought to be baptized or confirmed. Perhaps you have already been baptized and confirmed. You know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, and you know that you have been transformed and sent by God. But you are still struggling with God’s call to you, with what you think God wants you to do next. “OK, God, what is your plan for me?” Or perhaps you think that God has abandoned you. “I’m here, God, every week, but where are you?” Perhaps you wonder about this parish. “What’s next for us in this place, Lord? What ministry do you have for us?” No, it isn’t that easy.
We’re in good company when we struggle with our faith, if we struggle to make out God’s call to us. We’re in good company if we wonder if God will truly stay with us. Jacob, Samuel in today’s Hebrew Bible lesson, Nathanael, St. Francis, and Joe all had trouble hearing God’s call in the first place and then following through on what God seemed to be asking of them. So, should we even bother? Is the reward for responding to God’s call worth the struggle? The answer to that question has to be an emphatic “yes.” For, as our examples suggest, God promises that ultimately our struggles to trust God will be bountifully rewarded. And God always delivers on God’s promises. In his first encounter not only did God grant Jacob a vision of heaven and earth coming closer together, God also gave Jacob a promise: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” God kept God’s promise. As Jacob limped into Canaan, he encountered not the battle that he had expected but a peaceful, generous reception from Esau. And indeed, Jacob did go on to become a great nation, so great that God was obliged to deliver the nation from slavery in Egypt.
Similarly for Nathanael. Whatever internal struggle he had, Nathanael overcame his initial skepticism. He let Philip bring him to Jesus. Once there, he heard Jesus promise him a rich life, a richer life than anything he had known to that point. He heard Jesus promise him that he would see what Jesus himself had seen, “the heavens opened.” He heard Jesus promise him a life in which through Jesus he would see the visions that Jacob saw, that he would know God in a deeper, richer way.
And similarly for Francis. Empowered by God, Francis gained acceptance from the pope for his new order and established many houses of friars devoted to the poor. He attracted to his work a wealthy young woman friend named Clare, who founded a parallel Franciscan order for women, the Poor Clares. Both orders, and a third order for lay associates, still exist to this day, indeed still serve the poor right here in southern Ohio. Two years before he died in 1226, Francis had another vision of God. As the brother with him described it, "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." Having blessed so many and been blessed richly by God, Francis was declared a saint of the church in 1228. He is remembered and honored to this day on October 4th.
Even my friend Joe experienced the fulfillment of God’s promises to him. Having finally been baptized and confirmed, Joe married, had a family, and pursued a successful career in government service. Like most of us, his spiritual life had its ups and downs. In his early ‘50s, Joe went through another struggle as he sensed a call from God to ordained ministry. Joe wrestled with God for several years, but finally God won, as God always does. Today Joe is a deacon and is serving God and the people around him in ways that he could never have imagined the day he first knelt at the altar rail in his friend’s church.
We’re in good company if we struggle with our faith. We’re in good company if wrestle with God’s call to this parish. It isn’t that easy. Struggle with God is part of an adult spiritual life. Struggle with God is part of the lives of all the great saints and of all ordinary Christians who take their relationship with God seriously. But we also have God’s promises. We have God’s promise to be with us forever, no matter what happens to us. We have Jesus’ promise that through him we will grow into a deeper richer knowledge of God. We have the Holy Spirit’s promise to us in baptism that we have been transformed and empowered, that we are different and can make a difference in the world. Can we acknowledge our struggles? Can we open our ears and our hearts to hear God’s response? Can we believe God’s promises to us?
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