Playgrounds instead of War Zones

Metanoeite! Metanoeite! “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here.” Metanoeite and believe God’s Message. Can you hear the urgency in Jesus’ words? Can you hear the call to change? Of course we can’t you say, we don’t speak Koine Greek. What’s that Greek work Jesus used? Well, Jesus didn’t speak Greek either, he spoke Aramaic, but, since Mark was writing for a community that did speak Greek, he quoted what Jesus said in Greek instead of Aramaic. And he used the word metanoeite to convey something important about Jesus’ opening message.

So what does this word mean, and why should we take it seriously? To be honest – and I risk sounding pedantic here – “repent,” the word used by the NRSV, the translation of the Bible that we Episcopalians commonly use, does not begin to convey what the evangelist thought Jesus was saying. “Repent” sounds like something we do on Ash Wednesday, as we let the priest put an ash cross on our foreheads and say the Litany of Penitence. Or perhaps “repent” suggests confessing your sins to a priest and receiving absolution. That’s not what metanoeite means at all! The Message, a very contemporary translation of the Bible, comes a little closer to its meaning. “Change your life,” Jesus says in The Message.

Metanoeite. Let’s see if we can hear a little more clearly what Jesus actually said. First of all, metanoeite, is an imperative verb. Did you need to dust off your high school English? Remember that an imperative verb is a command. Jesus was commanding people to do something. He was not asking, requesting, inviting, or suggesting. He did not say, “If you have time,” or “when you feel like it,” or “if it interests you.” He commanded. And what did he command? He commanded people to change direction, to stop doing what they had always done and start behaving differently. He commanded them to stop looking back to old ways and old laws, to face forward, and to look to the future. He commanded people to realize that, with his coming, everything has to change, and, indeed, everything has already changed. He commanded people to embrace that change and to realize that God is doing a new thing.

Metanoeite. Secondly, metanoeite is in the present tense. In Greek that means an action that continues to go on. So Jesus was telling people that the kind of change he was calling for in their lives was not a one-off thing. It was not something they did once and never had to do again. It was a continuous process. Jesus was commanding people to reassess God’s work every day, and to accept and embrace daily the kinds of changes God was bringing about in the world.

And thirdly, and maybe most important, metanoeite is a plural verb. Jesus wasn’t commanding individual people to change, he wasn’t talking about “me and sweet Jesus,” he was commanding everyone, people everywhere to change their way of life, and to do it together. Hearing Jesus use that word, Mark’s community understood that being followers of Jesus meant that they were to follow Jesus together, that their new lives as Jesus’ disciples would always comprise both their relationship with him and their relationship with one another.

Can you hear the same call for change in Paul’s letter to the Christians in Corinth? Paul was writing a few years before Mark. He and the community to whom he was writing believed that Jesus would return within their own lifetimes, and that belief colors what he says in this part of the letter. We no longer share Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ return, but we still hear his call – his urgent call – to change. Paul himself had experienced the most radical possible change of perspective in his own life after encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus. Now, as he wrote to the fledgling disciples in Corinth, he understood that, because God had acted, because the Word had become flesh in Jesus, because God has established God’s reign, the Corinthians too were called to metanoeite, they too could no longer live as they once had. They were called, urged because the time is short, to see their lives differently. Paul called them to see their lives in a wider context, to understand, in the words of one of our wonderful old hymns, that “God is working God’s purpose out.” Because the Corinthian Christians had committed themselves to following Jesus, they needed to see their lives differently. They were put their relationship with Jesus above all earthly relationships. Consequently, Paul told them, they were to regard nothing and no one, not spouses, not possessions, not business associates, not rituals, not anything, as more important than their relationship with Jesus.

Even our reading from the strange and satirical book of Jonah embodies a call to change. First, Jonah was called by God to change. After refusing to do as God had asked him to do, he finally, grudgingly, accepted God’s call to “Get up, go to Nineveh … and proclaim.” Jonah’s proclamation did not explicitly call the Ninevites to change their ways. Nevertheless, hearing that their great city would be destroyed in forty days, the Ninevites understood their need to beg God’s forgiveness and reform their way of life. And, as Jonah had predicted, in response to the Ninevites’ repentance, God himself demonstrated a change of heart in refraining from destroying Nineveh after all.

Metanoeite. Do you hear the urgency in it? Do you hear the call to change? Is this the time to truly commit yourself to turning around, to changing your orientation, to following Jesus more closely? The time is short: now is the time to accept Jesus’ command. Is faith just an add-on to your life? Now is the time to commit to letting Christ nourish you in the Eucharist regularly, not just when you feel like it, or when you have time. Now is the time to pay attention to your spiritual life – regularly, daily, throughout the day. Now is the time to have what Buddhist monks call “a beginner’s mind,” or to follow the Franciscans in their commitment to always begin again. Now is the time to acknowledge that nothing and no one have a higher claim on you than Jesus and your relationship to him – not your spouse, not your relatives, not your work, not your play, not your politics, not your business. Now is the time to change your life and act as if you believe that God’s reign has already begun.

Can you change the way you see things, can you look to the future and see the possibilities for change that the full coming of God’s reign might bring? “Listen to a young Cambodian, Chath Piersath, praying for his country: There will be playgrounds instead of war zones. There will be more schools instead of brothels and nightclubs. The children will sing songs of joy instead of terror. They will learn how to read love instead of hate.”1

Or hear the story of small farmers in Nicaragua. They too have embraced change. In a recent post for Episcopal Relief and Development, Sara Delaney described attending a workshop on sustainable agricultural development in Nicaragua sponsored by ERD and the Council of Protestant Churches.2 As part of the program, Juana Francisa Saldaña and Octavio Delgadillo have learned new techniques in planting and in soil and water management. They then have shared the new techniques with five “disciples” among their group, staying with them as they try out the methods on their own farms. Everyone involved in the program could see that patience was needed before they could see change. But change did happen! One of the women had lost her land when her husband unexpectedly died. “Undeterred, she has worked to slowly build up her new land, digging trenches, using compost and planting fruits and vegetables. She told [Sara] that she is hoping for the day, in two or three years, when – ‘I can see the fruits on the trees, my children can go and eat, and we can share in solidarity with our brothers and sisters.’

What would it take to bring Chath Piersath’s vision closer to reality? What would it take to help the Nicaraguans continue to change their way of life to develop more sustainable agricultural practices? More important, what are our visions? How is Jesus calling us to change ourselves, our families, this parish, our community? I have visions of a people nourished by Jesus and sent out to be Christ for the world. I have visions of adequate food and healthcare for all and of people of different races, ethnicities, and faith communities working and living in harmony with each other. I have visions of the increased use of sustainable agricultural techniques in this country and the development of sustainable energy sources, so that we may stop our rape of the earth. I look forward to the day when “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Metanoeite! “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the Message.”

1. Elizabeth Rogers and Elias Amidon, eds. Prayers for a Thousand Years (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 4-5, quoted in Synthesis, January 25, 2015, 3.
2. “The Art of Patience – From the Garden to the Subway Platform,” http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=671f8d0cc20ebfcdbef7f9c19&id=b4671f08c4&e=74e7ab0bc8, January 23, 2015.

Baptized in Water

Let’s travel back in memory a ways. I want you to remember your baptism. If you were baptized as an older child or adult, this shouldn’t be too difficult. If you were baptized as an infant and can’t remember your own baptism, then think back to the baptism of someone close to you, or perhaps a baptism in which you participated, or one you witnessed in this church. Where did your baptism take place? Was it outside, perhaps in a river, pond, or stream? Or was it inside, perhaps in a tub or pool. Was it in a church like this one, with a font and pitcher? When you were baptized were you fully immersed, or were you sprinkled on the head with water from the font? When did your baptism take place? How old were you? Who was there? Were you surrounded by family, friends, and parish members? And what did you feel when it was all over? A friend of mine who was baptized as an adult said that afterwards he felt as if he had “the holiest head in town.” Did you feel like that?

We have begun Epiphany tide. You can see the change from the celebratory time of Christmas tide to the growing time of Epiphany tide reflected in the change from the joyful white and gold paraments of Christmas to the calmer green paraments of Epiphany. Epiphany is an important season in the liturgical year. Epiphany gives us the chance to focus on several key occasions in which those around Jesus began to see who he really was. In the gospels of Matthew and Luke we hear of the circumstances surrounding the births of John the Baptizer and Jesus, and in Luke we even hear of an incident from Jesus’ early adolescence. The gospel according to John begins with statements about Jesus identity couched in the language of Greek philosophy. However, the writer of the gospel according to Mark, much of which we will hear during this liturgical year, begins his account with the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. This event, at the beginning of Jesus’ work as an adult, is for the evangelist, as it should be us, an important first sign, among many that are to come, of who Jesus really is.

The community to whom Mark was writing learned several things from Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism. First, they learned that what happened to Jesus that day in the Jordan River was not a private event. Jesus did not come out under cover of darkness and have John immerse him secretly. Instead, Jesus’ baptism was a public event, witnessed by many. Second, Jesus slipped into the gathering along the river without any fanfare and was baptized along with many other people. All the others allowed themselves to be baptized as a sign of repentance after confessing their sins. Although we believe that Jesus had no need to repent, he allowed himself to be baptized to demonstrate his solidarity with those around him. In so doing, he experienced all that other human beings of his day were experiencing.

The evangelist’s community also came to realize through Jesus’ baptism – and perhaps through their own – that God’s grace does not come to us out of the air. It is not something ethereal. Rather, God’s grace is always mediated to us through concrete people. You could not get more concrete and down to earth than John the Baptizer: dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and honey, proclaiming God’s word. More important, God’s grace comes to us through the things of nature, through water, earth, light, and sky. The evangelist’s community also learned that by God’s grace Jesus was empowered by God’s Spirit and affirmed by God as both anointed ruler and prophet. God’s declaration, “You are my beloved Son,” echoes psalm 2:7, a psalm of David addressed to a king. God’s declaration that God is “well pleased” with Jesus echoes Isaiah 42:1, and suggests that Jesus is also destined to assume the prophetic role of speaking out for and caring for those who are poor, marginalized and victims of injustice. Finally, the evangelist’s community learns from Mark’s account that in baptism God has called Jesus into ministry. Immediately after his baptism, God’s Spirit drove Jesus into the desert surrounding Jerusalem where he wrestled with how to make real the vision which God had given him.

Fast forward twenty centuries. Are there lessons for us, as Jesus’ followers, in Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism? Go back again to your own baptism or that of someone close to you. Like Jesus’ baptism, our baptisms too are – or should be – public events. The Book of Common Prayer, always our standard for appropriate practice, is clear that, “Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other feast.” The BCP also notes that the most appropriate days on which to administer baptism are today, i.e., the Sunday of the Baptism of our Lord, the vigil of Easter, the vigil of Pentecost, All Saints Day, and the Sunday following All Saints Day. Just as Jesus demonstrated solidarity with his own people, our practice of baptism reminds us that baptism welcomes us into a community, that we are all part of a Body, and that the Christian life is always lived in common – even by monks, nuns, and hermits!

As in Jesus’ baptism, God’s grace is mediated to us through people and things. Some of you may have come from traditions where baptism was only offered to children old enough to consent to it. Nevertheless, most of us did not walk up to a river, pool, or font, and immerse ourselves. Someone brought us to the water, and someone poured it over us. And, of course, God continues to supply us with more grace than we can possibly imagine, through the people around us, through the sacraments, and through God’s good creation.

Perhaps more important, just as God did with Jesus, God also affirms us in our baptisms. God acknowledges and accepts our imperfection, our brokenness, and our incompleteness as God’s creatures. But God also empowers us by God’s Spirit. It’s not so much that we receive God’s Spirit – as people created in God’s image, we already share in God’s Spirit. We have what Quakers call “that of God in every man.” I like to think instead that in baptism God awakens God’s Spirit within us, so that we can then be open to God’s presence in our lives. God also affirms as God’s beloved children. Henri Nouwen, the great Dutch spiritual teacher, tells us that the the spiritual life, our life, is a “life of the beloved.” Pause a minute. Hear God saying to you, “You are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son.”

And here’s the most important lesson for us. In our baptisms, God also calls us to discern our ministries, to ask how we too are called to help bring God’s reign nearer. And we too are warned that we might end up following Jesus to the cross. Indeed, one writer suggests that we should issue warnings with our baptismal certificates: “This is a passport to places you never thought you would go, to be an emissary of the living God in the desert and the wilderness, to plant seeds of hope and healing and life.”1

Are there concrete ways we can continue the process begun by God in our baptisms? To begin with, we can remember that we have been baptized. Most of you know that there is blessed water in our font. I invite you, as you enter the church, to dip your fingers into it and either touch your forehead or make the sign of the cross to remind yourself of what God has done to you and for you in baptism. I invite you also to remember the anniversary of your baptism. Light a candle, thank God for those who brought you to baptism, and pray for them. Let the Spirit drive you into the wilderness. No, I don’t mean backpacking in the mountains – although for some people, that might be just the right place to listen to God. Find some time, even just a few minutes, for silence in your life. Read Morning or Evening Prayer, or any other material that turns you back to God, and then let God’s Spirit speak to you. Consider a more formal quiet day, a day in which you can join others in learning some prayer practices and awakening more fully to God’s presence. I would even invite you to consider a silent retreat at a convent, monastery, or retreat center – they are not just for clergy! Continue to let God’s grace become part of your physical body in the Eucharist and to allow God to lead you more deeply into God’s life. Finally, continue to pray for a vision of the ministry to which God is calling you. Anne Lamott has a lovely little book on prayer entitled Help, Thanks, Wow. After bringing your needs before God, thanking God, and praising God, add one more word: “how.” Ask God, “How can I continue to know myself as beloved, how can I share your love with others, and how can I follow in Jesus’ footsteps?”

Then trust that God has indeed awakened God’s Spirit within you, and rejoice that God has empowered you to bring God’s love to the world.

1. Diane Roth, “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, January 7, 2015, 20.

Seekers

I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. It was a long time ago, but I can still remember it all: the journey, Herod, the house, the child. There are days when I still can’t believe we really did it, really actually saw the child, especially since we had such a hard time finding him. But it was all worth it. My life has never been the same since. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

We were astrologers. Well, I was really an apprentice, but I was far enough along that my master slipped me into the travelling party. We lived in Persepolis, in the eastern part of the Persian Empire. We were Zoroastrians at that time. As astrologers, we diligently studied the skies. We read all the old treatises and knew exactly where all the stars, comets, and galaxies were. We knew how the Sumerians, the Greeks, and the Buddhists had mapped out the constellations. About that time, we’d had some inkling that some kind of shift or transformation was about to take place in the cosmos, but no one was sure what it was, or how we would know that it had happened.

One night my master came running in from the observation room. “The House of the Jews,” he shouted, “It’s in the house of the Jews!” “What is, master?” I asked. “It’s a star I’ve never seen before in that constellation,” he shouted. “Call the others!” After the others had studied the House of the Jews, they tentatively agreed that there seemed to be a new star there. None of them could say for sure the meaning of such a sign. My master, though, was sure that this star was the sign of the transformation we had been expecting. He said, “I feel a stirring, deep down. Some of us most go to Jerusalem, to the center of the land of the Jews and find out what this star means.” Most of the others looked at my master doubtfully. Jerusalem? Travel a thousand miles just because you think you see a new star?

My master was determined. He doggedly pursued his friends, and finally a few other astrologers agreed to go with him. They had to raise funds for the trip. They had to buy the provisions and equipment. They had to arrange for the camels and the camel drivers. My master had to get a letter of introduction to the government in Jerusalem. Finally, we were able to leave Persepolis. It should have taken us about two months to get to Jerusalem. Even though my master had maps, we got lost several times. Some of the roads were washed out. The camels got sick, and one even died. And the camel drivers demanded that we spend longer than just one night whenever we stopped at a caravanserai. And, of course, none of us knew exactly where we were going. My master had figured out that we were looking for “the king of the Jews,” but he had no idea where this king might actually be.

At last we reached Jerusalem. We took our letters of introduction to Herod’s palace. We knew that Herod was an evil king – people said he had actually murdered members of his own family – but we asked for an audience with him anyway. My master asked him point blank, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” Herod and his courtiers went white. Herod actually trembled. Then he called for his priestly advisors. His voice shook as he asked them what Scripture had foretold about the birth of the Messiah. “Bethlehem,” they said, “the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem.” With that, Herod sent us on our way, reminding us to come back and let him know where this child was, so that he too could worship him. I was skeptical. Herod had called himself the “king of the Jews.” Would he really let someone else, even a child, usurp his power?

Although Bethlehem was only six miles away from Herod’s palace, again we got lost. We couldn’t find the right gate out of the city. When we got to Bethlehem we wandered around for a while. Then we reached a small house on the street of the carpenters. “This is it!” my master shouted. “Are you sure?” the others said. “This little house? We thought we were looking for another king.” My master gingerly knocked. I held my breath. A man ushered us in. And there he was, the most beautiful child I had ever seen, a toddler, maybe eighteen months old or so, sitting on his mother’s lap. Seeing us, he leapt up and ran to us. He laughed and crowed and opened his arms to welcome us. We were awe-struck. For several minutes we couldn’t do anything but kneel there gazing at him. Then he laughed some more. We unfroze and began to unpack our bags and pull out the gifts we had carefully carried all the way from Persepolis, gold, incense and myrrh. Even now, I wonder how my master actually found the child. I wonder if the child knew who we were. The gifts we had brought were what one would bring to a new king, but I wonder what his mother thought when she saw them.

We found a place to stay for a few days. Then we knew it was time to go back. The night before we were to leave my master had a dream. “We’re not going back to Herod,” he said, “that old fox is up to no good.” My master consulted his maps and figured out how to get back to Persia without going through Jerusalem. Later, I shuddered as I heard that Herod, instead of worshipping the holy child, had ordered his soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or younger. “Don’t worry,” said my master. “Herod didn’t find him. His parents had already taken him to safety in Egypt.”

I’m an old man now. I have children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. They are all wonderful people. But something about that child made him more wonderful than any other child I’ve ever known. And my life changed forever the day I saw him. I knew myself as loved and accepted by God in a way I had never known before. I knew that the covenant God had made with the Jews now included all people, even us Zoroastrians. How grateful I am that my master saw that miraculous sign and persuaded us all to join him on that wondrous journey.

Only Matthew tells us this story. And what a wonderful story it is. How can it be that foreigners, people from Iran, a country from which the U.S. is currently estranged, were the first to sense the true identity of the holy child? Could it be that God’s revelations sometimes come to outsiders, not only to faithful Christians or Jews? Is it possible that God’s revelations even come to our enemies or to those we think undeserving of God’s love? How could it be that the Persian astrologers were led not by Scripture, but by a celestial phenomenon? Could it be that God speaks through the non-human world as well as through the human world? Could it be that birds and fish and bears and deer, even our own companion animals, reveal something to us of God? And how could it be that God spoke to the astrologers through dreams? Could God be speaking to us too through our dreams, through our hopes, wishes, fears, and joys?

How could it be that the astrologers trusted God to lead them back home by an alternate route? As 2015 begins, many of us are not where we thought we might be. Perhaps unexpected changes have occurred in our families, in our health, and in our relationships. Perhaps someone has lost a loved one or been forced to change living arrangements. Perhaps good things have happened. Perhaps we’ve changed jobs, joined a new church community, or taken on new roles. Perhaps we have a deeper sense of God’s love for us. At the very least, by virtue of being a year older, we are travelling by a different road than we travelled last year. Even so, like the Persian astrologers we too can trust God to continue to reveal Godself to us and to lead us on the challenging alternate roads of our lives.

Laura Sumner Truax reminds us that, “The Magi are traveling companions for us in our information-rich age and especially good for us to emulate as we put one year to bed and once again hold out hope for the new one.”1 We may think we know where we are headed, but just as 2014 took many of us in new directions, so will 2015. And as we set forth, we may not have any better information than the astrologers. Even though we have diligently read the Bible, faithfully worshipped, and fervently prayed, we still may have only a dim sense of who God is and what God desires for us. We still may not know exactly where God is leading us. We still may get stuck or discouraged and wonder who can give us accurate directions. We still may encounter detours and alternate routes, even to return home. We still may have to endure losing companions along the way.

Here is the good news: God is with us. Wherever we are on our spiritual journey, beginner, wanderer, wonderer, or old soul, God is with us. God will lead us, sustain us, and bring us home. And we can be sure that, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

1. “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, 130, 26, Dec. 25, 2013, p. 19.