“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It was about 54 AD. About eighteen months previously, Paul and others had founded a Christian community in the primarily Roman seaport of Corinth. After crossing the Aegean Sea and settling in Ephesus, Paul continued to write to the fledgling Corinthian community, advising them on their new life together. Then reports reached Paul about conflicts and divisions within the Corinthian community. There were conflicts between those who ate meat dedicated to the Greek and Roman gods and those who refused to eat meat from shrines, between those of higher social status and those of the working classes, between those who were married and those who remained celibate, and between those who had followed Apollos, one of the other evangelists, and those who had followed Paul. Worst of all were the reports that some of the Corinthians were aggravating others by claiming to have – and even boasting about – special spiritual gifts. Sighing, Paul called in his scribe and began to dictate yet another letter.
As was his wont, Paul began his letter by giving the Corinthians a theological grounding for understanding who they were as a community. Although he would address all their various conflicts specifically, he first wanted to make sure that the Corinthians had a theological foundation for their life as a community committed to Christ. And so, after greeting them, Paul reminds them that it is God who has brought them together as a community. In this reminder, he implies that, as a Christian community comprising a disparate group of people, not related to each other by blood, marriage, class, or ethnicity, they differ from almost every other human community. More important, they have been enriched with gifts by the grace of God. This grace now active among them is a dynamic power, given to them so that they may bear fruit as a community. Because grace is the source of their gifts, there is no room among them for boasting or division. Most important of all, as a community grounded not in human power or authority but in the grace of God, they are now an odd people in the midst of a divided world.
It is fitting that we hear such a reminder, that we are grounded in God’s grace, at the beginning of a new church year. It is fitting that the church reminds us, as we begin the holy season of Advent, that we are all here by God’s grace. The world around us – and I risk sounding like a Grinch for even saying it – has frantically begun preparing for, even celebrating, Christmas. Stores and online sites bid us celebrate Jesus’ birth by maxing out our credit cards, while we try to escape smiling Santas, decorated trees, and sentimental Christmas music. It’s enough to make me sympathize with old Scrooge and mutter, “Bah, humbug!”
We are not preparing for Christmas – not yet. We have entered a different season. In Advent, the church has given us a slower, more reflective time, a time when we can pause, turn toward God, and remember who we truly are. Our readings from Scripture, even our collect, remind us that we are an odd people, who, unlike the world around us, are actually living in more than one time zone at once. The prophet Isaiah wrote early in the fourth century BC to a people who had returned from exile in Babylon to find Jerusalem in ruins. We hear the prophet’s reminder to them – and by extension to us -- of all that God had done for them in the past and his anticipation of God’s help, both in the present and in the days ahead. The writer of the Gospel according to Mark similarly wrote during a time when Jerusalem was in turmoil – and indeed would be destroyed by the Romans shortly after the writing of this gospel. In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just before his arrest and execution. We hear Jesus’ prediction of God’s future intervention in the world and the eventual consummation of God’s reign. We too then hear Jesus bid his friends to stay alert in the present and wait patiently for God to complete God’s work.
Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth helps us to live faithfully in all three time zones. Reflect on your own lives and remember all that God has done for you personally. In fact, there’s no better spiritual exercise than to take the time at the end of the day and reflect on how God has been present to you in your day or to that point in your life. Then walk around this church, read the windows and the plaques, look at the pictures in the hallway, and remember all that God has done for this parish. God has blessed this place and the people who have worshipped here for more than 150 years!
More important, as we continue to hope for the coming of God’s reign, and as we commit ourselves to living faithfully in the present, we remember who we are as a community now. Like the Corinthian Christians, we have been brought together by God. Look around you. What a motley crew we are! We range in age from three to nine-ty three. We are of different ethnicities, different classes, different genders, and different sexual orientations. We have converged on this place from different parts of the country, maybe even the globe. God has given us many spiritual gifts: some are musicians, some are preachers, some are readers, some can tell others of their Christian journey, some are devoted in prayer, and some are the hands of the parish reaching out in service and ministry. Most important, all of us are grounded in grace, grace that bears fruit in good works. And what a wonderful day to celebrate that grace, as we continue a ministry in Loaves and Fishes that this parish has given to the surrounding community for over ten years. And, yes, we are called to be different from the rest of the world. Like the Corinthian Christians, we too are called to be an odd people in a divided world.
Yet, for all that, it’s all too easy to despair as we look around us. The divisions in our world are all too apparent. However you get your news, whether by newspaper, or television, or via tablet or smart phone, or even if you try to escape all the news media, we are bombarded by news of Israelis and Palestinians, terrorist bombings, violence against women and gays, and poverty in the US – no wonder food banks are thriving. Once again the deaths of John Crawford in a Dayton Walmart, Tamir Rice in a Cleveland park, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, remind us of the deep divisions in our world, our sad history as a nation, and our complicity in fostering racial and ethnic conflict.
Just when even I am ready to despair that God’s reign will ever be realized, I open the newspaper and God’s grace leaps out anew. Out from the Columbus Dispatch this week came the story of the Revs. Gerald Rice and Doug Duble.1 Twelve years ago Pastor Rice looked out at his predominantly black congregation and felt the Lord telling him that it was time to make his church more diverse. “I felt a real burden in my heart that our church was predominantly African-American, but that was not God’s heart for us to be,” he said. Meanwhile, Pastor Duble accepted the call of his predominantly white church, making sure the congregation understood his multicultural vision. A member of Rice’s congregation introduced the two. As they became friends, they realized they shared the same vision and began planning and dreaming. Two years later, the two congregations came together to form the nondenominational Judah Christian Community. Now, ten years later, the congregation numbers over 300 regular worshipers, about 65 percent black and 35 percent white. Bringing the two congregations together took time. Overcoming differences in worship style, music, and even dress, required effort, and some members in both groups were not ready to compromise or change. Now the congregation attracts those who are drawn to the mix, who have come to value the multicultural community. Most important is the love that permeates the community, love of God, and love of each other. “Every Sunday is like a celebration in our ministry,” Rice said. “The joy and love show in here, it’s just incredible. If you like being hugged, you will be hugged in this church. You will be hugged, and you will be welcomed.”
In Advent, we continue to hope that God’s grace will enable us to overcome our divisions and conflicts, that God’s grace will continue to bear fruit in us, that we may “do all such good works as [God has] prepared for us to walk in,” and that God’s reign has already begun in us and is even now coming closer. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. JoAnne Viviano, “Church has proved it’s serious about diversity,” Columbus Dispatch, November 28, 2104, B6.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Sunday, November 23, 2014
And the Righteous Will Answer
Have you ever been to one of the great Gothic cathedrals? Notre Dame or Canterbury or Westminster Abbey? If you have, or even if you’ve seen pictures of them, you know that they are literally sermons in glass and stone. In the great cathedrals, all the architectural details, all the windows, and all the sculpture are designed to tell us something about God and what God has done for us. Though not medieval, the Washington National Cathedral, the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, is also such a sermon in stone. Episcopal priest Frank Logue tells us that the entire building is designed to point us towards God and to remind us of God’s mighty works. As with the medieval cathedrals, the focal point of the national cathedral is the high altar. Behind the high altar the huge reredos depicts Christ in glory surrounded by over one hundred figures. But look closely: nearest the glorified Christ stand who? The great angels? The most exemplary saints? The apostles? The martyrs? None of these. Closest to the glorified Christ, at the very heart of this great cathedral, stand six allegorical figures, figures of people who are hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and imprisoned. You can’t miss the theme of the sermon: it is they, the poor, the needy, the weak, and the victims, whom Christ first embraces in paradise.
Are you surprised? Were you surprised that Jesus depicted the final judgment as a test of how we treated others, especially of how we treated “the least of these?” Jesus warned us, didn’t he? He told us that when he returned to begin his reign over all creation we would face a test. Not on whether we understood and professed every iota of the Nicene Creed. Not on whether we had read and understood the sermons of John Chrysostom or John Donne. Not on whether we had the most beautiful sanctuaries and vestments. He would test us, Jesus told us, on how visible our faith was, on how we had treated those who were poor, sick, hungry, oppressed, or in prison, on whether we had actively attended to their needs or ignored them. He would remind us that faith isn’t faith until it’s actualized, until it’s made concrete in the ways that we live out our lives. Even if we don’t always know exactly who the beneficiary of our good works is, even if we’re not always sure that those whom we help are part of the “deserving poor,” Jesus tells us that when we use our faith to benefit others, we show our love for Jesus himself.
Didn’t we already know that? Didn’t the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that? And hadn’t the writer of the Letter of James repeated the same message to his hearers when he asked, “What good is it to profess faith without practicing it?” What good is it if you ignore the needs of the naked or the hungry? Like Jesus, hadn’t James also warned us that “without good deeds faith is useless?” Or, as James Forbes, the former pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, put it, "Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor."
So Jesus’ parable – and the sermon in stone – remind us that whether we like it or not, God will ultimately hold us accountable for how we have lived our lives and how we have used God’s gifts to us. This Sunday, the very last Sunday of the liturgical year, as we recognize and give thanks to God that we are accountable to Christ rather than to any secular authority, perhaps this is a good time to pause and look at our own lives. How would you do on Jesus’ test? What do your datebook and checkbook say about you? Are you merely an admirer of Jesus, or do you truly try to do what he did? Does he nourish you in Scripture and sacrament? More important, does receiving Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist change the rest of your life? Do you notice the needs of only your closest family and friends and ignore the needs of those on the margins of your social circle? Do you know who “the least, the lost, and the left behind” in our world are, and are you concerned about them? Do you see Jesus in others, even in “difficult” people, in people you don’t like, in people who have hurt you? Do you look beyond the charitable handout and try to make a difference in the systems of injustice and inequity that trap people in poverty, disease, and disaster? Do the needs of our brothers and sisters in other countries have any claim on you?
Jesus isn’t posing these questions to us only or even primarily as individuals. All the pronouns in the parable are in the second person plural. So Jesus’ questions are also addressed to us corporately, to us here at St. Peter’s as a parish. And the questions are similar. This is a parish with many God-given gifts: physical plant, talented people, and financial resources. How are we using these gifts? If we were to lock the doors and all go our separate ways, would anyone miss us? Take a minute and think about it: where do you yearn to bring the good news to the wider community? Where does Jesus want us to go? If money were no object, and we had all the people we needed, what are we as a parish called to do in this community? What tugs at your heart? Do you think we need more money or more people to truly live out our faith? If we have the will to try to befriend the “least of these,” Jesus’ sisters and brothers whom we see around us, might not God provide the resources that we need?
Or, conversely, perhaps you find it hard to take this gospel seriously. We so easily blame the poor for their poverty. If they really wanted decent healthcare, education, housing, and a living wage, we think, they could get it. Jesus is just offering us pie-in-the-sky, isn’t he? The truth is that when we commit to following Jesus – not just admiring him, or giving intellectual assent to statements about him – we profess that the dispossessed, those on the margins of society, are the ones we are charged to care for. Most astonishing of all to us good folks is that, according to Matthew, if we really want a transformative, face-to-face experience of Jesus’ presence, we will find him in the faces of the poor. Like Fritz Eichenberg, the Quaker artist whose woodcuts frequently appeared in Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker newspaper, the truth is that if we truly seek Christ we will find him in the breadlines.
Are you beginning to feel that I am judging you and putting you on the spot? Do you fear the separation of the sheep and the goats depicted in Jesus’ parable? Where’s the good news? My brothers and sisters, here’s the good news. That Jesus holds us accountable for what we do means that our lives have consequences, and it matters to God and to those around us how we live them out. Our lives may be short, our scope of action may be limited, but our lives still matter. That Jesus also holds us accountable as a parish for how we use God’s gifts means that our life together as a community of faith also has value and meaning. It does – or it should – mean that our being here helps to advance God’s reign!
As we ponder Jesus’ last words to us, we come back to the question we have been wrestling with for the last several weeks, ever since, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus began his last sermon in Jerusalem. And that question is, how do we live in this middle time between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the full inauguration of his reign on earth? The answer is both simple and complicated. We heard Jesus himself give the answer to the question: “You must love the Most High God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God, love your neighbor: that is how we live in the middle time.
So what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of getting your hands dirty, of not knowing what to say, of wondering if someone will ask you about your faith? Are you afraid you might lose your faith when you listen to the needs of the poor? Put yourself on the line. Do more than write a check – although checks are always welcome! Tutor children. Join Deacon Carolyn and visit a nursing home. Come to Loaves and Fishes. Help deliver the meals to the First Holzer apartments. Sit down and talk with our diners, or just greet them. Think about others in your neighborhood – or your world – who are among the least, the lost, and the left behind. See them as those beloved of God and think about how you might begin caring for them.
Jesus was a great preacher. Here are his last words to us. If we want to live in his realm, both now and when his reign on earth is complete, we need only ask ourselves the most practical of questions. Did we feed the hungry? Did we shelter the homeless? Did we care for the sick and the imprisoned? And we will answer….
Are you surprised? Were you surprised that Jesus depicted the final judgment as a test of how we treated others, especially of how we treated “the least of these?” Jesus warned us, didn’t he? He told us that when he returned to begin his reign over all creation we would face a test. Not on whether we understood and professed every iota of the Nicene Creed. Not on whether we had read and understood the sermons of John Chrysostom or John Donne. Not on whether we had the most beautiful sanctuaries and vestments. He would test us, Jesus told us, on how visible our faith was, on how we had treated those who were poor, sick, hungry, oppressed, or in prison, on whether we had actively attended to their needs or ignored them. He would remind us that faith isn’t faith until it’s actualized, until it’s made concrete in the ways that we live out our lives. Even if we don’t always know exactly who the beneficiary of our good works is, even if we’re not always sure that those whom we help are part of the “deserving poor,” Jesus tells us that when we use our faith to benefit others, we show our love for Jesus himself.
Didn’t we already know that? Didn’t the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures tell us that? And hadn’t the writer of the Letter of James repeated the same message to his hearers when he asked, “What good is it to profess faith without practicing it?” What good is it if you ignore the needs of the naked or the hungry? Like Jesus, hadn’t James also warned us that “without good deeds faith is useless?” Or, as James Forbes, the former pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, put it, "Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor."
So Jesus’ parable – and the sermon in stone – remind us that whether we like it or not, God will ultimately hold us accountable for how we have lived our lives and how we have used God’s gifts to us. This Sunday, the very last Sunday of the liturgical year, as we recognize and give thanks to God that we are accountable to Christ rather than to any secular authority, perhaps this is a good time to pause and look at our own lives. How would you do on Jesus’ test? What do your datebook and checkbook say about you? Are you merely an admirer of Jesus, or do you truly try to do what he did? Does he nourish you in Scripture and sacrament? More important, does receiving Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist change the rest of your life? Do you notice the needs of only your closest family and friends and ignore the needs of those on the margins of your social circle? Do you know who “the least, the lost, and the left behind” in our world are, and are you concerned about them? Do you see Jesus in others, even in “difficult” people, in people you don’t like, in people who have hurt you? Do you look beyond the charitable handout and try to make a difference in the systems of injustice and inequity that trap people in poverty, disease, and disaster? Do the needs of our brothers and sisters in other countries have any claim on you?
Jesus isn’t posing these questions to us only or even primarily as individuals. All the pronouns in the parable are in the second person plural. So Jesus’ questions are also addressed to us corporately, to us here at St. Peter’s as a parish. And the questions are similar. This is a parish with many God-given gifts: physical plant, talented people, and financial resources. How are we using these gifts? If we were to lock the doors and all go our separate ways, would anyone miss us? Take a minute and think about it: where do you yearn to bring the good news to the wider community? Where does Jesus want us to go? If money were no object, and we had all the people we needed, what are we as a parish called to do in this community? What tugs at your heart? Do you think we need more money or more people to truly live out our faith? If we have the will to try to befriend the “least of these,” Jesus’ sisters and brothers whom we see around us, might not God provide the resources that we need?
Or, conversely, perhaps you find it hard to take this gospel seriously. We so easily blame the poor for their poverty. If they really wanted decent healthcare, education, housing, and a living wage, we think, they could get it. Jesus is just offering us pie-in-the-sky, isn’t he? The truth is that when we commit to following Jesus – not just admiring him, or giving intellectual assent to statements about him – we profess that the dispossessed, those on the margins of society, are the ones we are charged to care for. Most astonishing of all to us good folks is that, according to Matthew, if we really want a transformative, face-to-face experience of Jesus’ presence, we will find him in the faces of the poor. Like Fritz Eichenberg, the Quaker artist whose woodcuts frequently appeared in Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker newspaper, the truth is that if we truly seek Christ we will find him in the breadlines.
Are you beginning to feel that I am judging you and putting you on the spot? Do you fear the separation of the sheep and the goats depicted in Jesus’ parable? Where’s the good news? My brothers and sisters, here’s the good news. That Jesus holds us accountable for what we do means that our lives have consequences, and it matters to God and to those around us how we live them out. Our lives may be short, our scope of action may be limited, but our lives still matter. That Jesus also holds us accountable as a parish for how we use God’s gifts means that our life together as a community of faith also has value and meaning. It does – or it should – mean that our being here helps to advance God’s reign!
As we ponder Jesus’ last words to us, we come back to the question we have been wrestling with for the last several weeks, ever since, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus began his last sermon in Jerusalem. And that question is, how do we live in this middle time between Jesus’ death and resurrection and the full inauguration of his reign on earth? The answer is both simple and complicated. We heard Jesus himself give the answer to the question: “You must love the Most High God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.” Love God, love your neighbor: that is how we live in the middle time.
So what are you afraid of? Are you afraid of getting your hands dirty, of not knowing what to say, of wondering if someone will ask you about your faith? Are you afraid you might lose your faith when you listen to the needs of the poor? Put yourself on the line. Do more than write a check – although checks are always welcome! Tutor children. Join Deacon Carolyn and visit a nursing home. Come to Loaves and Fishes. Help deliver the meals to the First Holzer apartments. Sit down and talk with our diners, or just greet them. Think about others in your neighborhood – or your world – who are among the least, the lost, and the left behind. See them as those beloved of God and think about how you might begin caring for them.
Jesus was a great preacher. Here are his last words to us. If we want to live in his realm, both now and when his reign on earth is complete, we need only ask ourselves the most practical of questions. Did we feed the hungry? Did we shelter the homeless? Did we care for the sick and the imprisoned? And we will answer….
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Faithful Disciples
What does it mean to be a faithful disciple? We are now in the last weeks of the liturgical year. Three weeks from now it will be the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year. The long growing season of Pentecost that began on June 15th is now drawing to a close. Soon we will exchange our green paraments and vestments, which symbolize our growth in faith, for blue ones. What have we learned in the long season about being a faithful disciple?
Our Scripture readings for this morning give us hints as to how we might answer that question by speaking to how we are to look at the past, how we regard the future, and how we are to live in the present. Together, our readings also remind us in the strongest possible terms that, both as individuals and as a gathered community of those committed to Jesus, we face choices in our spiritual lives, choices that challenge us to live intentionally.
Our first reading, from the Old Testament, comes from the book of Joshua. This is the sixth book of the Hebrew Bible, coming immediately after Deuteronomy, the last book in the Torah. Unlike the Torah, whose five books embody Jewish law, Joshua is the first of a series of books that lay out the history of the Israelites, through kings David and Solomon and on through the exile in Babylon and the subsequent return to Israel. In the book of Joshua, Moses has died, and Joshua is now the leader of the community. As we pick up the story Joshua and the people have followed God’s commands: they have crossed the Jordan, displaced the indigenous peoples, and settled in Canaan.
Now gathering the assembled people, Joshua provides a summary of their history and a way of understanding who they are in relationship to God. He reminds them of God’s initiative in leading Abraham from his original home beyond the Euphrates and of God’s promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation. Joshua then reminds the people that God has delivered them from Egyptian oppression and sustained them in their long trek. Having experienced all that, they now face two choices. The first choice is whether or not to renounce any former gods, whether they were gods of their ancestors or gods of their Egyptian neighbors. Second, and more important, they are called to choose whether to honor their past by remembering all that God has done for them and committing themselves, as individuals and as a community, to God’s commandments.
So here is our first lesson in faithful discipleship. We are to remember all that God has done for us, and we are to give up all the old gods, idols, and loyalties that come between us and God. Most important, we are to consciously and intentionally commit ourselves to God’s way.
Our second lesson in discipleship comes from Paul’s first letter to the Christian community at Thessaloniki. This was Paul’s very first letter. He wrote it before 50 AD, i.e., about twenty years before Mark wrote the first gospel. At the time he wrote it, Thessaloniki was the capital of Macedonia, and one of the crossroads of the ancient world. These first Christians believed that they would see Jesus return in their lifetimes. However, as Christians began to die, those remaining began to worry that those who had died would not be part of the Resurrection when Jesus returned. In this letter Paul answers their concerns in two ways. First, he reminds them of what has already happened: Jesus has died and has risen. He reassures them that those who have already died will indeed share in Christ’s resurrection. In his reassurance he uses apocalyptic language that would have been familiar to them, i.e., intentionally symbolic language that was not meant to be taken literally – despite what believers in “the rapture” may think. Second, and more important, Paul asks the Thessalonian Christians to look ahead with hope, and to embody their trust in God as a group of believers.
So here is our second lesson in faithful discipleship. We are to regularly gather as a community to encourage either other in spiritual growth. We are to remember all that God has done. We are to trust that God has done and will do a new thing, and that, most important, we are to ground ourselves in the hope that our lives with God will continue on the other side of death.
The third lesson in faithful discipleship comes from the gospel according to Matthew. Called “the great teaching gospel,” Matthew was written between thirty and forty years after Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. As you know, we’ve been hearing this gospel all summer and fall. As a vehicle for teaching, it is organized into five great discourses, which would have reminded its audience of Jewish Christians of the five books of the Torah. The five discourses of Jesus in this gospel begin with the Beatitudes, those hallmarks of a Christian community, which we heard again last week. Along the way, the discourses provide instruction on how to organize the community and resolve conflicts within it. The fifth discourse, which we are now hearing, ends with several parables, i.e., allegorical teaching stories, specifically addressing how Jesus’ followers should live while they wait for his return.
The parable we have just heard reflects the wedding customs of Jesus’ time, in which the groom and members of his family go to the bride’s house, collect her, and bring her to the groom’s house, where the wedding ceremony will take place. Meanwhile, the bridesmaids wait at the groom’s house ready to greet the happy couple when they finally show up. The bridesmaids can’t be sure when the groom’s party will arrive, since there may be many different ceremonies at the bride’s house before the couple can leave. They are expected to wait patiently and to be ready even if the groom’s party comes at an unexpected hour.
Can you hear what the evangelist is saying through this parable? The community of the faithful is called to wait patiently, attentively, and intentionally for Jesus’ return. They are take responsibility for their spiritual lives, and, in all that they do, they are to ensure that they are open to Jesus’ call wherever and whenever he appears. And what might that openness require of them? As faithful hearers of the gospel, they are to embrace the counter-cultural ethos of the Beatitudes, they are to love their enemies and forsake violence, they are to focus on heartfelt devotion to God rather than outward piety, they are to trust God to provide, and they are to attend to the needs of those around them.
And so here is our third lesson in faithful discipleship. While looking in hope to God’s future, we are to live fully in the present. We are to pay attention to our spiritual lives now, not procrastinating, not expecting that we can become holier at some later date, that we can borrow someone else’s holiness, or that someone else will bail us out. And we are to take seriously the lessons of Scripture about what following Jesus truly requires of us.
So, my brothers and sisters, here is the spiritual life in a nutshell. First, we are to know our story. We are to know what God has done for us, both individually and collectively. For most of us, that means looking at our own lives and seeing reflections in them of God’s grace. Actually, this is a good exercise for prayer or journaling: ask yourself, “Where do I see God at work in my life?” Second, we are to look ahead with hope to the eventual coming of God’s reign, committing ourselves to partnering with God in bringing God’s reign closer. For most of us, that means actively working for peace and justice in our communities, choosing that place or that issue, where we sense God at work and joining with others to follow God’s lead. Third, we are to live attentively in the present moment, ready to serve Christ wherever he turns up, whether it be in the face of a child, a Loaves and fishes diner, a fellow member of the parish, a friend, a family member, or even a complete stranger. And, most important of all, we are to live each day as if it were our last.
Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells the story of a funeral he attended at Baptist country church.1 The coffin was brought in. The preacher began to preach. He shouted, fumed, and flailed his arms. “It’s too late for Joe,” he screamed. He might have wanted to do this or that in life, but it’s too late for him. He might have wanted to straighten his life out, but he can’t now. It’s over …. But it ain’t too late for you! … Now is the day of decision. Now is the time to make your life count for something. Give your life to Jesus!” On the way home, Willimon told his wife how awful he thought the sermon was. “Can you imagine a preacher doing that kind of thing to a grieving family?” he asked her. “I’ve never heard of anything so manipulative, cheap, and inappropriate. I would never preach a sermon like that.” Willimon’s wife agreed. “Of course,” she added, “the worst part of all is that what he said was true.”
Dear people, can we live faithfully in the present, knowing that each day may indeed be our last, yet sharing the hope that God is bringing in a new heaven and new earth?
1. Related in Synthesis, November 9, 2014, 4.
Our Scripture readings for this morning give us hints as to how we might answer that question by speaking to how we are to look at the past, how we regard the future, and how we are to live in the present. Together, our readings also remind us in the strongest possible terms that, both as individuals and as a gathered community of those committed to Jesus, we face choices in our spiritual lives, choices that challenge us to live intentionally.
Our first reading, from the Old Testament, comes from the book of Joshua. This is the sixth book of the Hebrew Bible, coming immediately after Deuteronomy, the last book in the Torah. Unlike the Torah, whose five books embody Jewish law, Joshua is the first of a series of books that lay out the history of the Israelites, through kings David and Solomon and on through the exile in Babylon and the subsequent return to Israel. In the book of Joshua, Moses has died, and Joshua is now the leader of the community. As we pick up the story Joshua and the people have followed God’s commands: they have crossed the Jordan, displaced the indigenous peoples, and settled in Canaan.
Now gathering the assembled people, Joshua provides a summary of their history and a way of understanding who they are in relationship to God. He reminds them of God’s initiative in leading Abraham from his original home beyond the Euphrates and of God’s promise to Abraham to make of him a great nation. Joshua then reminds the people that God has delivered them from Egyptian oppression and sustained them in their long trek. Having experienced all that, they now face two choices. The first choice is whether or not to renounce any former gods, whether they were gods of their ancestors or gods of their Egyptian neighbors. Second, and more important, they are called to choose whether to honor their past by remembering all that God has done for them and committing themselves, as individuals and as a community, to God’s commandments.
So here is our first lesson in faithful discipleship. We are to remember all that God has done for us, and we are to give up all the old gods, idols, and loyalties that come between us and God. Most important, we are to consciously and intentionally commit ourselves to God’s way.
Our second lesson in discipleship comes from Paul’s first letter to the Christian community at Thessaloniki. This was Paul’s very first letter. He wrote it before 50 AD, i.e., about twenty years before Mark wrote the first gospel. At the time he wrote it, Thessaloniki was the capital of Macedonia, and one of the crossroads of the ancient world. These first Christians believed that they would see Jesus return in their lifetimes. However, as Christians began to die, those remaining began to worry that those who had died would not be part of the Resurrection when Jesus returned. In this letter Paul answers their concerns in two ways. First, he reminds them of what has already happened: Jesus has died and has risen. He reassures them that those who have already died will indeed share in Christ’s resurrection. In his reassurance he uses apocalyptic language that would have been familiar to them, i.e., intentionally symbolic language that was not meant to be taken literally – despite what believers in “the rapture” may think. Second, and more important, Paul asks the Thessalonian Christians to look ahead with hope, and to embody their trust in God as a group of believers.
So here is our second lesson in faithful discipleship. We are to regularly gather as a community to encourage either other in spiritual growth. We are to remember all that God has done. We are to trust that God has done and will do a new thing, and that, most important, we are to ground ourselves in the hope that our lives with God will continue on the other side of death.
The third lesson in faithful discipleship comes from the gospel according to Matthew. Called “the great teaching gospel,” Matthew was written between thirty and forty years after Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. As you know, we’ve been hearing this gospel all summer and fall. As a vehicle for teaching, it is organized into five great discourses, which would have reminded its audience of Jewish Christians of the five books of the Torah. The five discourses of Jesus in this gospel begin with the Beatitudes, those hallmarks of a Christian community, which we heard again last week. Along the way, the discourses provide instruction on how to organize the community and resolve conflicts within it. The fifth discourse, which we are now hearing, ends with several parables, i.e., allegorical teaching stories, specifically addressing how Jesus’ followers should live while they wait for his return.
The parable we have just heard reflects the wedding customs of Jesus’ time, in which the groom and members of his family go to the bride’s house, collect her, and bring her to the groom’s house, where the wedding ceremony will take place. Meanwhile, the bridesmaids wait at the groom’s house ready to greet the happy couple when they finally show up. The bridesmaids can’t be sure when the groom’s party will arrive, since there may be many different ceremonies at the bride’s house before the couple can leave. They are expected to wait patiently and to be ready even if the groom’s party comes at an unexpected hour.
Can you hear what the evangelist is saying through this parable? The community of the faithful is called to wait patiently, attentively, and intentionally for Jesus’ return. They are take responsibility for their spiritual lives, and, in all that they do, they are to ensure that they are open to Jesus’ call wherever and whenever he appears. And what might that openness require of them? As faithful hearers of the gospel, they are to embrace the counter-cultural ethos of the Beatitudes, they are to love their enemies and forsake violence, they are to focus on heartfelt devotion to God rather than outward piety, they are to trust God to provide, and they are to attend to the needs of those around them.
And so here is our third lesson in faithful discipleship. While looking in hope to God’s future, we are to live fully in the present. We are to pay attention to our spiritual lives now, not procrastinating, not expecting that we can become holier at some later date, that we can borrow someone else’s holiness, or that someone else will bail us out. And we are to take seriously the lessons of Scripture about what following Jesus truly requires of us.
So, my brothers and sisters, here is the spiritual life in a nutshell. First, we are to know our story. We are to know what God has done for us, both individually and collectively. For most of us, that means looking at our own lives and seeing reflections in them of God’s grace. Actually, this is a good exercise for prayer or journaling: ask yourself, “Where do I see God at work in my life?” Second, we are to look ahead with hope to the eventual coming of God’s reign, committing ourselves to partnering with God in bringing God’s reign closer. For most of us, that means actively working for peace and justice in our communities, choosing that place or that issue, where we sense God at work and joining with others to follow God’s lead. Third, we are to live attentively in the present moment, ready to serve Christ wherever he turns up, whether it be in the face of a child, a Loaves and fishes diner, a fellow member of the parish, a friend, a family member, or even a complete stranger. And, most important of all, we are to live each day as if it were our last.
Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells the story of a funeral he attended at Baptist country church.1 The coffin was brought in. The preacher began to preach. He shouted, fumed, and flailed his arms. “It’s too late for Joe,” he screamed. He might have wanted to do this or that in life, but it’s too late for him. He might have wanted to straighten his life out, but he can’t now. It’s over …. But it ain’t too late for you! … Now is the day of decision. Now is the time to make your life count for something. Give your life to Jesus!” On the way home, Willimon told his wife how awful he thought the sermon was. “Can you imagine a preacher doing that kind of thing to a grieving family?” he asked her. “I’ve never heard of anything so manipulative, cheap, and inappropriate. I would never preach a sermon like that.” Willimon’s wife agreed. “Of course,” she added, “the worst part of all is that what he said was true.”
Dear people, can we live faithfully in the present, knowing that each day may indeed be our last, yet sharing the hope that God is bringing in a new heaven and new earth?
1. Related in Synthesis, November 9, 2014, 4.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Transformed by God
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” … and all the rest of Jesus’ “Blessed are” declarations. Such familiar words. Most Christians have heard them a zillion times. In fact, they’re so familiar that they can even be satirized. In the movie The Life of Bryan, the Monty Python crew shout, “Blessed are the Greeks” and “Blessed are the cheesemakers,” knowing their audience will catch the joke.
Although the Beatitudes, these “Blessed are” declarations are so familiar, we might be surprised to hear them today. It’s All Saints Sunday, the day when we thank God for those who’ve gone before us in faith, especially those who’ve been recognized by the church. It’s year A in our three-year cycle of Scripture readings, the year when most of our Gospel readings are from the Gospel according to Matthew. If a Gospel reading for All Saints is required, wouldn’t the parable of the Sheep and the Goats be more appropriate? Or perhaps we could hear about the saintly women who bankrolled Jesus’ ministry and were the first witnesses of his resurrection. Yet, every third year, on All Saints Sunday, we hear this passage from the fifth chapter of Matthew.
If you think about it, this passage is even a surprise in the world of the gospel itself. The very first words in Matthew’s gospel are, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David ….” (1:1). Right away, we are set up to expect an encounter with the one who, like his ancestor David, would deliver Israel from Roman oppression. As the story progresses, we see aging King Herod so terrified about the birth of this Jesus that he orders the massacre of all boys in Jerusalem under the age of two. Then, as Jesus, as an adult, is poised to begin his ministry, along comes the fiery John the Baptist proclaiming of him, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (3:11). After hearing all this, we are sure we will meet the Jesus who will be a cross between David and Elijah, who will oust the Romans, and who will bring down God’s wrath on all the sinful.
So when Jesus makes his first public address – up on a mountain no less, like his forebear Moses – what do we hear? We hear that you’re blessed if you admit that you’re dependent on God, even for your very life. You’re blessed if you lament the current state of the world and long for the day when you can live in God’s realm. You’re blessed when you actively, hungrily and thirstily, pursue justice. You’re blessed when you engage in mission, in concrete acts of mercy and charity. You’re blessed when no one but God has a claim on you, and when you can do God’s work with gladness and singleness of heart. You’re blessed when you actively pursue peace. You’re blessed when you stand in the shoes of the prophets and speak out against hatred, war, and injustice, even though you know that speaking truth to power will bring down on you the wrath of the rulers of this world. You’re blessed if you’re prepared to suffer Jesus’ fate of execution as a common criminal. You’re blessed if you can hold fast to God’s promise, that God’s realm will become real, and that all of us will be part of that great community worshipping God eternally.
Jesus’ first followers must surely have gasped, hearing these words. They were expecting a conquering king. Was this the way of life to which God’s anointed one, their savior, was calling them? Do we too gasp when we hear Jesus’ declarations? Do we even hear them? Isn’t it much more exciting to worship superheroes? Don’t the leaders of victorious armies, even Super Bowl heroes, command more of our attention than a messiah who calls us to depend on God, engage in service to others, and actively work for peace and justice?
My brothers and sisters, God’s ways are always different from our ways. God always astounds us. God always does the unexpected. Eight centuries before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah warned his followers that, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9). Jesus’ proclamation of the good life went against everything that his followers expected. And yet, throughout the centuries, a few have caught that vision, and have followed Jesus into unexpected places.
Today, on All Saints Sunday we remember especially those who gained public recognition for being willing to follow Jesus’ vision, to let God overturn all theirs and others’ expectations for their lives. The Episcopal Church, in its wonderful volume Holy Women, Holy Men, offers an entire year’s worth of such followers of Jesus. Some were officially recognized by the undivided church, and some have been added to our calendar since the Reformation. If you’ve ever come to a Tuesday evening Eucharist, you’ve helped us remember these extraordinary individuals.
And what a surprising and wonderful “cloud of witnesses” these holy women and holy men are! Take, for example, Benedict of Nursia, who in the chaos of the sixth century, when the Roman Empire had all but fallen apart, brought together a group of monks and wrote a rule for their common life. His rule, emphasizing work, prayer, and study, endures to this day. Read it sometime with Joan Chittister’s commentary. It will surprise and inspire you. How about Francis and Clare of Assisi? In twelfth-century Italy, they turned their backs on their families’ wealth to found communities dedicated to serving the poor. In sixteenth-century Spain, Teresa of Avila also abandoned her wealthy family to found communities dedicated to contemplative prayer. Closer to our own time, William Wilberforce heard Jesus’ call to defy his contemporaries’ expectations and vigorously worked for the abolition of the English slave trade.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Vida Dutton Scudder joined the Episcopal Church after hearing Philips Brooks preach in Boston. She too heard Jesus’ call, to risk her position as a faculty member at Wellesley College by supporting striking textile workers in 1912. For the rest of her life, she continued to pursue both justice for workers and world peace. Or how about an Albanian nun named Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu? When she began teaching wealthy girls at a school in the foothills of India, few would have predicted that Mother Teresa, as she came to be known, would spend her life on the streets of Calcutta, found numerous orders dedicated to care of the poor and dying, and be awarded the Nobel peace prize. Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Born into a secular family in Germany, he followed Jesus’ call, becoming a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and founding member of the Confessing Church. In April 1945, at the age of thirty-nine, Bonhoeffer followed his master and was hanged by the Nazis.
The cloud of witnesses to God’s power and grace also includes many who are not on our calendar. Msgr. William O’Brien, a Catholic parish priest in New York City, became painfully aware of how the “war on drugs” was failing the addicts in his parish. Against all the prevailing wisdom of the day, he founded Daytop Village in 1963, one of the first and most successful drug and alcohol treatment programs in the U.S.
And then there are those who could not be considered “saints” by any stretch of the imagination and yet were able to become instruments of God’s grace. Bryan Stevenson tells the story of his first visit to death row.1 He was visiting a convicted murderer. He began by apologizing to the man for being only a student. Continuing to apologize, he told the prisoner that, because no lawyer had yet been appointed for him, he would not be executed any time in the next year. Astonished, Stevenson heard the prisoner say, “Thank you, man. I mean, really, thank you!” Now the prisoner knew that he could arrange a visit for his wife and children without fear that he would have an execution date before they could get there. Then Stevenson and the prisoner began talking. Their lives were remarkably similar, and they ended up talking for three hours. When the guard finally signaled an end to the conversation, the prisoner asked Stevenson to come back and see him again. As Stevenson struggled to say something appropriate, the prisoner smiled. Then he astonished Stevenson. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and, with a strong baritone, began to sing, “Lord, lift me up and let me stand,/ By faith on heaven’s tableland;/ A higher plane than I have found,/ Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.” It was an old hymn that Stevenson had sung growing up, and the prisoner continued to sing it as he was led away. Contrary to all Stevenson’s expectations, the prisoner had shown him generosity and compassion. Stevenson never forgot the man or the hymn.
And so, my friends, on this day of remembrance, on this morning when we remember those whose lives are known to many, and this evening when we remember those whose lives are known only to us, whom we loved and see no longer, we give thanks to God for surrounding us with a great cloud of witnesses. With that multitude that no man can number, we give thanks to the God of surprises, who works God’s transforming power in all our lives. Even now, God’s transforming power is at work in us, and we too can trust that we will join the saints in feasting at the heavenly banquet.
1. The High Road,” New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2014, 74.
Although the Beatitudes, these “Blessed are” declarations are so familiar, we might be surprised to hear them today. It’s All Saints Sunday, the day when we thank God for those who’ve gone before us in faith, especially those who’ve been recognized by the church. It’s year A in our three-year cycle of Scripture readings, the year when most of our Gospel readings are from the Gospel according to Matthew. If a Gospel reading for All Saints is required, wouldn’t the parable of the Sheep and the Goats be more appropriate? Or perhaps we could hear about the saintly women who bankrolled Jesus’ ministry and were the first witnesses of his resurrection. Yet, every third year, on All Saints Sunday, we hear this passage from the fifth chapter of Matthew.
If you think about it, this passage is even a surprise in the world of the gospel itself. The very first words in Matthew’s gospel are, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David ….” (1:1). Right away, we are set up to expect an encounter with the one who, like his ancestor David, would deliver Israel from Roman oppression. As the story progresses, we see aging King Herod so terrified about the birth of this Jesus that he orders the massacre of all boys in Jerusalem under the age of two. Then, as Jesus, as an adult, is poised to begin his ministry, along comes the fiery John the Baptist proclaiming of him, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (3:11). After hearing all this, we are sure we will meet the Jesus who will be a cross between David and Elijah, who will oust the Romans, and who will bring down God’s wrath on all the sinful.
So when Jesus makes his first public address – up on a mountain no less, like his forebear Moses – what do we hear? We hear that you’re blessed if you admit that you’re dependent on God, even for your very life. You’re blessed if you lament the current state of the world and long for the day when you can live in God’s realm. You’re blessed when you actively, hungrily and thirstily, pursue justice. You’re blessed when you engage in mission, in concrete acts of mercy and charity. You’re blessed when no one but God has a claim on you, and when you can do God’s work with gladness and singleness of heart. You’re blessed when you actively pursue peace. You’re blessed when you stand in the shoes of the prophets and speak out against hatred, war, and injustice, even though you know that speaking truth to power will bring down on you the wrath of the rulers of this world. You’re blessed if you’re prepared to suffer Jesus’ fate of execution as a common criminal. You’re blessed if you can hold fast to God’s promise, that God’s realm will become real, and that all of us will be part of that great community worshipping God eternally.
Jesus’ first followers must surely have gasped, hearing these words. They were expecting a conquering king. Was this the way of life to which God’s anointed one, their savior, was calling them? Do we too gasp when we hear Jesus’ declarations? Do we even hear them? Isn’t it much more exciting to worship superheroes? Don’t the leaders of victorious armies, even Super Bowl heroes, command more of our attention than a messiah who calls us to depend on God, engage in service to others, and actively work for peace and justice?
My brothers and sisters, God’s ways are always different from our ways. God always astounds us. God always does the unexpected. Eight centuries before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah warned his followers that, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9). Jesus’ proclamation of the good life went against everything that his followers expected. And yet, throughout the centuries, a few have caught that vision, and have followed Jesus into unexpected places.
Today, on All Saints Sunday we remember especially those who gained public recognition for being willing to follow Jesus’ vision, to let God overturn all theirs and others’ expectations for their lives. The Episcopal Church, in its wonderful volume Holy Women, Holy Men, offers an entire year’s worth of such followers of Jesus. Some were officially recognized by the undivided church, and some have been added to our calendar since the Reformation. If you’ve ever come to a Tuesday evening Eucharist, you’ve helped us remember these extraordinary individuals.
And what a surprising and wonderful “cloud of witnesses” these holy women and holy men are! Take, for example, Benedict of Nursia, who in the chaos of the sixth century, when the Roman Empire had all but fallen apart, brought together a group of monks and wrote a rule for their common life. His rule, emphasizing work, prayer, and study, endures to this day. Read it sometime with Joan Chittister’s commentary. It will surprise and inspire you. How about Francis and Clare of Assisi? In twelfth-century Italy, they turned their backs on their families’ wealth to found communities dedicated to serving the poor. In sixteenth-century Spain, Teresa of Avila also abandoned her wealthy family to found communities dedicated to contemplative prayer. Closer to our own time, William Wilberforce heard Jesus’ call to defy his contemporaries’ expectations and vigorously worked for the abolition of the English slave trade.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Vida Dutton Scudder joined the Episcopal Church after hearing Philips Brooks preach in Boston. She too heard Jesus’ call, to risk her position as a faculty member at Wellesley College by supporting striking textile workers in 1912. For the rest of her life, she continued to pursue both justice for workers and world peace. Or how about an Albanian nun named Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu? When she began teaching wealthy girls at a school in the foothills of India, few would have predicted that Mother Teresa, as she came to be known, would spend her life on the streets of Calcutta, found numerous orders dedicated to care of the poor and dying, and be awarded the Nobel peace prize. Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Born into a secular family in Germany, he followed Jesus’ call, becoming a Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and founding member of the Confessing Church. In April 1945, at the age of thirty-nine, Bonhoeffer followed his master and was hanged by the Nazis.
The cloud of witnesses to God’s power and grace also includes many who are not on our calendar. Msgr. William O’Brien, a Catholic parish priest in New York City, became painfully aware of how the “war on drugs” was failing the addicts in his parish. Against all the prevailing wisdom of the day, he founded Daytop Village in 1963, one of the first and most successful drug and alcohol treatment programs in the U.S.
And then there are those who could not be considered “saints” by any stretch of the imagination and yet were able to become instruments of God’s grace. Bryan Stevenson tells the story of his first visit to death row.1 He was visiting a convicted murderer. He began by apologizing to the man for being only a student. Continuing to apologize, he told the prisoner that, because no lawyer had yet been appointed for him, he would not be executed any time in the next year. Astonished, Stevenson heard the prisoner say, “Thank you, man. I mean, really, thank you!” Now the prisoner knew that he could arrange a visit for his wife and children without fear that he would have an execution date before they could get there. Then Stevenson and the prisoner began talking. Their lives were remarkably similar, and they ended up talking for three hours. When the guard finally signaled an end to the conversation, the prisoner asked Stevenson to come back and see him again. As Stevenson struggled to say something appropriate, the prisoner smiled. Then he astonished Stevenson. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and, with a strong baritone, began to sing, “Lord, lift me up and let me stand,/ By faith on heaven’s tableland;/ A higher plane than I have found,/ Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.” It was an old hymn that Stevenson had sung growing up, and the prisoner continued to sing it as he was led away. Contrary to all Stevenson’s expectations, the prisoner had shown him generosity and compassion. Stevenson never forgot the man or the hymn.
And so, my friends, on this day of remembrance, on this morning when we remember those whose lives are known to many, and this evening when we remember those whose lives are known only to us, whom we loved and see no longer, we give thanks to God for surrounding us with a great cloud of witnesses. With that multitude that no man can number, we give thanks to the God of surprises, who works God’s transforming power in all our lives. Even now, God’s transforming power is at work in us, and we too can trust that we will join the saints in feasting at the heavenly banquet.
1. The High Road,” New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2014, 74.
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