The Eye Cannot Say to the Hand

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you….’” Those fractious Corinthians! They were certainly a diverse community of Jesus’ followers. Living in a Roman port city, they had heard the good news from both Paul and others. Members of their community included both gentiles and Jews – and remember how difficult it was for them to get along – rich and poor, slaves and free, men and women, all of different origins and ethnicities.

When Paul wrote to these Corinthian Christians in the mid ‘50s AD, it was clear that there was dissension and conflict among them. Paul’s responses suggest some of the things they were arguing about: who had baptized the different members and therefore which faction they belonged to; whether they should eat meat sacrificed in pagan temples – not a trivial matter; whether they should remain married to pagan spouses; how women should dress their hair – also not a trivial matter; and how to regard various spiritual gifts, especially the gift of “tongues.” Paul was especially distressed to learn that when these Corinthian Christians gathered for the Eucharist, their gathering included a meal, in which the rich inclined in an inner courtyard where slaves served them a sumptuous dinner, while the poor were forced to fend for themselves in an outer courtyard.

Last week, this week, and next week, we hear the sections of Paul’s letter, in which he addresses this way of gathering for the Eucharist. Paul’s approach is to provide a theological foundation, and then to provide specific instructions. We won’t hear the specific instructions – they are in chapter 14 – but from the three sections you do hear you can guess what they might be.

Last week’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians emphasized spiritual gifts. Paul reminded his hearers that whatever gifts we have come from the Holy Spirit at work within us. And, more important, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

Now Paul wants to make sure that his hearers understand what he is talking about. So he uses an image that would be very familiar to them: the human body. The image of the human body was actually commonly used in the ancient world to describe society and to justify the hierarchical nature of society. However, here Paul uses the image of the human body to suggest what a Christian community is – or should be. It is a community in which all have been joined to Christ. It is a community that is not stratified, and in which all are full members. All are needed, all are equally valuable, and all share in each other’s joys and sorrows. In such a community social differences are irrelevant, for all are empowered by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and all are nourished by Christ in the Eucharist.

Yet Paul also acknowledges the delicate balance in such a community: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Although the members of a Christian community are united by the Spirit, they retain their individual gifts and talents. Indeed the community is richer for such diversity. All are needed to build up the community, all are needed for wholeness, and all are needed to reflect the diversity and comprehensiveness of God. More important, the community reflects the inclusiveness of God: all are welcomed into the body of Christ. Indeed, not only are all welcomed, all are needed if the body is to function as it should.

Those fractious Christians! Sometimes I wonder if we have learned anything since the first century. We have been reading Paul’s letter to the Corinthians for two thousand years. But are we all that different from those Corinthians who needed so desperately to be reminded of their unity in Christ, who needed to be inspired again to live as God’s beloved children and not as each other’s sworn enemies? Don’t we still see around us deep divisions among those who claim to be followers of Jesus, among those who have been baptized into the body of Christ?

Of course, the divisions that Paul addressed among the Corinthians also existed among other early Christian communities. Certainly, the communities in Ephesus and Galatia struggled to bring together Jews and gentiles. The same was no doubt true for the communities that first heard the gospels of Matthew and John and the book of Revelation. As the church expanded, there were Christians who followed the distinctive teachings of Nestor, or Arius, or Marcion. Alas, there was probably never a period of perfect unity among Christians. Certainly, the great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries did their best to reconcile differences. The wording of the Nicene Creed and the canon of Scripture – the books that make up the Bible – represent the efforts of the early Church to come to some kind of basic unity, despite all their many differences.

The differences among the various Christian bodies continued to grow, especially theological differences. Finally, in 1054, what little unity there was in the church was shattered, as the eastern church, led by the patriarch of Constantinople, and the western church, led by Pope Leo IX, formally separated. There has been much nasty history between the two bodies since then. The Orthodox in particular, who still consider Constantinople, now Istanbul, to be their see city, have yet to forgive the Catholic crusaders for looting Constantinople in 1204. Thanks be to God, Catholics and Orthodox have begun inching back together, and we can continue to pray that this historic breach may yet be healed.

Meanwhile, our mother church, the Church of England, was born in the wake of the great schism of the Reformation. In England and in the rest of Europe, the sixteenth century was a bloody century among Christians. Indeed our wonderful Book of Common Prayer represents an attempt to resolve some of the conflicts among English Christians: if we can’t agree theologically, it was said, at least we can all worship with the same words. Of course the splintering of the church has continued to this day, with myriad denominations and independent Christian communities, each believing that they are following the lead of Christ. And I might say that they conflicts we see in the church are not unique to the church. Deep divisions exist among all the historic faith communities. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus all struggle with interpreting Scripture, ordering worship, and living within their respective cultures.

All this may be more history than you want, but it does provide a way of looking at recent events in the Anglican Communion and here in Gallipolis. The Anglican Communion currently comprises thirty-eight churches that descend from the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is one of them. Earlier this month the primates of the various provinces met in England under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In that meeting a majority of the primates voted to ask the Episcopal Church to bow out of certain councils, because of our embrace of same-gender marriage. Needless to say, the primates’ vote reveals differences in interpretation of Scripture and the different social conditions under which these churches, mostly from Africa and Asia, attempt to live out their vision of the Gospel.

As most of you are by now aware, also earlier this month, the pastor of Grace UMC, who served as unofficial convener of the churches that participated in the Community Lenten services, “uninvited” First Presbyterian Church of Gallipolis and St. Peter’s from continuing to participate in these services, ostensibly because of our embrace of same-gender marriage and welcome of lesbian and gay folks more generally. Neither First Presbyterian nor St. Peter’s has done anything illegal or contrary to the canons of our denominations. Nevertheless we were told that we were unwelcome. It appears that the UMC pastor has now gathered together several like-minded pastors and will go forward with Lenten services in some form without us. As I consider both these events, I feel strongly as if the eye has said to the hand, “I don’t need you.”

Paul gives us a different vision of Christian community. Instead of fragmentation and conflict, instead of dissension and “uninviting,” Paul reminds us of our essential unity as followers of Christ. As I think about these recent events, both in the Anglican Communion and locally, and especially as I try to view them charitably, I see them as perhaps reflecting the diversity of the body of Christ. And I pray that we can see that diversity as contributing to the wholeness of the body. I pray that the body of Christ is truly a body where all parts are needed, welcomed, and valued, and where all have their respective roles. I firmly believe that the Episcopal Church takes its lead from Jesus’ embrace of all. I believe we are on the side of justice. I believe that our role now is to witness to the rightness of full inclusion in our life of lesbian and gay folks, including the embrace of same-gender marriage. Most important, I believe that we must continue to remain a hospitable and welcoming community for all, while we continue to do the work in the world to which God has called us.

The Book of Common Prayer can help us with this call – as it has done since 1549. I invite you to turn to page 824 and pray with me, “O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

When Jesus was Praying

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened….” Picture it in your mind: Jesus out there on the bank of the Jordan with all the riff raff, all those people on the margins of society – the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the Roman soldiers, probably the pickpockets, swindlers, and adulterers – all those people who had listened to John, had obeyed John’s call for repentance and change of life, and had come out to symbolically wash away all the dirt in their lives. And there was Jesus among them, in solidarity with them, also going down into the water. It could have been John the Baptizer who had led the ritual that included Jesus, but it also might have been one of John’s disciples, since in the verses between John’s speech, and Luke’s allusion to Jesus’ baptism, we learn that John had been imprisoned by Herod. Whoever it was, after Jesus came up out of the water, he must have moved apart from the throngs around him. As Luke tells us, Jesus then began to pray.

Prayer is an important element in Luke’s writings, in both the gospel and the book of Acts, much more so than with Mark or Matthew. Just think about all the times the gospel of Luke mentions prayer. Right in the beginning of the gospel, John’s father Zechariah is praying when he learns that, although he and Elizabeth have been childless, Elizabeth is to have a son. Moreover, Jesus is at prayer at critical moments in his own ministry. He prays after a day spent healing the sick. He spends all night in prayer before calling the twelve. He has been at prayer, when he confronts the twelve and asks who people say he is. He is at prayer when he is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. He prays before offering the model of prayer that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. He prays in Gethsemane before his ordeal. Even in the agony of death, he prays, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His earliest disciples follow his example and continue to pray. As we heard in today’s reading from the book of Acts, Peter and John prayed that the Samarians might receive the Holy Spirit.

In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just at the beginning of his ministry. The birth stories and Jesus’ visit with the scholars in the temple in Jerusalem are behind us. Jesus is now a fully adult male. Indeed in the verse immediately following the end of the today’s reading, verse 23, Luke tells us that, “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.” Having drawn apart some distance from the noise of the crowds, sensing perhaps that his life was about to change, what would Jesus have prayed for? The text invites us to wonder. Would he have prayed for illumination to understand the road that lay ahead of him? Might he have asked God to deepen his trust that God would be with him on that road? Perhaps he prayed for a deeper understanding of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Perhaps he prayed for discernment as he made his way through the clamor and crowds around him, and for the guidance of God’s Spirit in the choices he would inevitably face. Perhaps he prayed for reassurance. Perhaps he even remembered the verses from Isaiah that we heard earlier and understood that, while these verses originally applied to the exiled Israelites, now they might also apply not only to him, but also to all those who would follow him. And perhaps after all that, Jesus just silently rested in God’s presence.

Of course, Luke tells us none of this. In wonderfully symbolic language, Luke only tells us that Jesus had some kind of epiphany, some “aha” moment, some sense of being in a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is briefly parted. And in this epiphany, Jesus understood that he was truly God’s anointed one, and that God’s Spirit was indeed at work in him. He knew that he was God’s beloved, and that he was indeed empowered for the ministry and work that lay ahead.

Fast forward to 2016. We have been baptized. We too have been empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. As followers of Jesus, commissioned to do Jesus’ work in the world, how do we pray? Perhaps as children, we began praying by learning rote prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” or the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps we learned to say grace before meals or prayers before bedtime. Perhaps we learned prayers in Sunday school or youth groups. Depending on your tradition, perhaps you even learned to pray spontaneously in public.

Of course, for Episcopalians, prayer is what is found in the Book of Common Prayer. We’re a “wordy” bunch, and we have lots of beautiful prayers – the Book of Common Prayer is literally a treasure trove of prayers. Many Episcopalians equate prayer with the Eucharist, or with one of the four daily offices, Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer, and Compline. When we learn about prayer, we often learn about the four traditional forms of formal prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and intercession.

All of this is important, but all this is only the tip of the iceberg of prayer. When we discover more contemplative prayer – you will have a taste of it at our Lenten Quiet day on Saturday, February 20th – we discover that there are many other ways to pray: breath prayer, lectio divina, centering prayer, Ignatian prayer, prayer with icons, meditative journaling, prayer with music, with dancing, with art, even with mandalas, prayer in nature, and the list goes on and on.

None of these forms of prayer, whether formal or more contemplative, are ends in themselves. They are all simply practices that enable us to sense, as Jesus did, that we too are God’s beloved children, that we are God’s beloved daughters and sons, not by virtue of where we were born, our skin color, our family, our wealth, or even our piety, devotion, and generosity, but simply because we have always been, are, and always will be called into being by a God of love. Our prayer too helps us to remember that all are God’s beloved children, not only those of us privileged to follow Jesus’ way. In prayer we too realize that God’s Spirit is at work within us, that we too are empowered for ministry in the world. In prayer, we realize that God lives and works through us. Ultimately, we sense that our lives have a deeper dimension than we realize, and our prayer becomes a way of life that is centered in God.

Benedictine sister Joan Chittister relates a delightful Sufi story. One night a seeker – who could be any of us – hears a voice saying, “Who’s there?” The Sufi seeker answers with great excitement, “It is I, it is I, Lord! I am right here!” And the voice disappears. Years later, the Sufi again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” Excited to hear the voice again, the Sufi answers, “It is I, Lord, and I seek you with all my heart!” Again the voice disappears. Finally, years later, the seeker again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” And this time the Sufi replies, “Thou Lord, only Thou!” This is prayer: to let oneself be drawn into the mind, heart, and consciousness of God. God may draw us only very slowly into God’s life, but sometimes, in the silence, when we pray without words, we too can find ourselves in that thin place, when we know ourselves to be irrevocably joined to God.

You might be thinking, in our 24/7, busy, busy, noisy world, can we ever really find ourselves in that place? Sr. Joan would say “absolutely.” She’s a prolific writer and a popular speaker, and yet she maintains a contemplative way of life. Her first suggestion to us is begin to think the way Jesus thought. Think about life, people, issues, everyday incidents the way Jesus might have thought about them. Have an attitude of graciousness and welcome for all, and a willingness to put the needs of those around us before our own. And then follow Jesus’ lead in spending time apart, time with God, so that you slowly, slowly begin to see the presence of God everywhere in the world, so that you are conscious of the presence of God and able to let God work through you.

Spiritual writer Henry Nouwen reminds us that, “The One who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gave us being. God not only says, “You are my Beloved.” God also asks, “Do you love me?” and offers us countless chances to say “Yes.”

In these weeks of Epiphany, I invite you to sit with these questions: what do you truly seek? Do you seek illumination and understanding? Do you seek reassurance and courage? Do you seek a deeper knowledge of God? Do you seek to know in your own heart that God’s love for you is real and true?

I pray that God will enable all of us to know ourselves as truly beloved, and with Jesus, Chittister, Nouwen, and all the holy ones, to let God’s love fill all our nights and days.

Growing in Wisdom and Favor

In 1106 Hildebert and Mechthilde of Bingen gave their eight year-old daughter Hildegard to the church. Hildegard was their tenth child, and her parents gave her as a tithe to the Benedictine community at Disibodenberg, near present day Mainz in Germany. Little is known of Hildegard’s life between then and 1136, although she seems to have been something of a prodigy in the religious life. Unlike most children of her time, she grew and developed within a small closed circle. Indeed, in her first years at Disibodenberg, she was literally “enclosed” with an older nun, Jutta, and interacted with very few people. Later she related that the vivid visions of God that she had throughout her life began during those early years. As she came of age under the Benedictine rule, Hildegard learned how to read and write and studied Scripture and theology. She also learned to play and compose music. In 1136, at the age of thirty-eight, she was named a magistra, a “teacher” of the church, and became prioress of a new Benedictine community.

Hildegard lived until 1179. As an adult, she founded other communities, lobbied princes and senior prelates, including popes, in support of her communities, counseled abbots and abbesses, and travelled widely in Europe. She composed music that is still sung today, invented an alternative alphabet, and wrote three books of her visions, a drama, and a treatise on the physical sciences, all while leading the various communities that she had founded. When she died at the age of eighty-one, Hildegard was one of the best known women in central Europe.

Today’s gospel story suggests that Jesus may also have been something of a religious prodigy, and that Hildegard and he shared similar early experiences. Curiously, Luke is the only one to tell us anything of Jesus’ “hidden years,” the years between his birth, which we celebrated on Christmas Eve, and his baptism at about the age of thirty, which we will celebrate next week. As he relates Jesus’ first spoken words in the gospels, Luke clearly suggests that there is something different about this twelve year-old boy. He can engage in theological debate with religious scholars and impress them. He understands that his true father is not Joseph but God. Most important, he senses, even at this young age, what his true calling is, as he reminds his parents that, “I must be in my Father’s house.”

However, in Luke’s narrative, Jesus is still clearly an adolescent boy. Unlike the other evangelists, Luke emphasizes Jesus’ humanity. Throughout his narrative, Luke wants his readers to understand that Jesus may be the Word made flesh, but he is also fully human. Although he is aware of his calling, Jesus here is also a surly adolescent who causes his parents great anxiety and then arrogantly chides them when they express that anxiety. However, having made his point, Jesus then becomes obedient to his human parents, even if they don’t understand who he is or what his calling might be. To ready himself for his public ministry as an adult, he returns to Nazareth to continue growing. As with Hildegard, none of the evangelists tells us what else happened during these “hidden years,” except that, like Hildegard, Jesus “grew in wisdom and years, and in divine and human favor.”

So what lessons do we take from the life of Hildegard of Bingen and the gospel lesson for today? The first lesson is obvious to all parents and to all who look seriously at their own lives: growth takes time. Hildegard spent thirty years, from eight to thirty-eight, living in the convent at Disibodenberg. Jesus also went through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood in Nazareth. At least eighteen years elapsed between the time of the story we just heard and the time that Jesus was baptized and began his public ministry, years during which he presumably continued to study Torah, perhaps learned Joseph’s trade of carpentry, and observed his family and friends.

Growth takes time, even if you’re Jesus or Hildegard. Sometimes we want to skip the long phase of growing. Don’t we all know children who are twelve going on twenty? Or we think we have to be fully formed spiritually from the get go. When the priest pours the water on our heads, or the bishop lays on hands, we will understand every sentence of the Nicene Creed! When we learn a new spiritual discipline, we want to do it perfectly right away. When we try a new ministry, we want to get it right immediately. But God is not in a hurry. Instead, God works with us patiently, training us and helping us as we continue to grow. Often God works within us secretly, and we discover that the growth that we long for has actually somehow happened. Indeed, some spiritual writers even suggest that, if we knew God were at work in us, transforming and changing us, we would resist God or try to control the process!

Here’s the second lesson: sometimes in order to grow we have to submit ourselves to our inferiors, or to people who don’t really understand us. Hildegard’s first caretaker Jutta had nowhere near Hildegard’s spiritual abilities, yet she was an able teacher for the little Hildegard. Later, Hildegard was subject to the discipline and teaching of the other nuns, abbots, and prelates. Jesus too was subject to his parents, even though they didn’t understand who their son truly was. Yet, they were able to see that he studied Torah and had the skills necessary for his adult ministry.

All of us, of course, were subject to our own parents, even though they often didn’t understand us, and even though some of us did not become the people they expected us to become. Often we find that we must obey employers, spouses, coaches, military commanders, spiritual directors, and others. Read sometime Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, for a delightful account of Twain’s training as a river boat pilot, and all he had to endure under the various pilots under whom he served. We may feel that those to whom we are subject are not our spiritual, moral, or intellectual equals. Yet unless we experience physical or psychological abuse, we may have much to learn from those who have authority over us.

The third lesson: we need God’s grace. Throughout her life, Hildegard knew herself to be deeply dependent on God’s grace. Although the gospels do not always say so explicitly, Jesus too knew himself to be dependent on God’s grace. We are not alone. We can prepare the way for God’s leading and God’s deepening influence in our lives, but we cannot manufacture growth – any more than a child or a tree can cause itself to grow. Without God we can do virtually nothing; with God we can grow and develop beyond what we might expect or even imagine.

And finally: our growth is always for a purpose. Ultimately, any growth and development for good that we experience, any growth that is led by God, fits us to be stronger partners in God’s mission, in bringing God’s reign closer. Hildegard grew during her “hidden years” and became a great foundress, counselor, theologian, musician, and artist. The church is still benefiting from her legacy. Jesus grew into his public ministry and all that that ministry entailed. He could not stay in the Temple but was eventually sent by God into the world to announce the nearness of God’s reign and to demonstrate in the flesh what God’s reign looks like.

We too are meant to grow into our own ministries. That’s really what Christian formation is all about. Just as almost all of us have continued to mature since we left our parents’ houses, so too are we called to continue to grow in our Christian lives. We are called both to deepen our relationship with God and, through our relationship with God, to be better equipped to minister to others, both inside the church and outside the church, both individually and corporately. How are we doing? Are we growing and maturing as individuals? As a parish? What has God been fitting us to do?

It is a new secular year, and a relatively new church year. Instead of your usual new year’s resolutions, I invite you to take some time to sit with these questions. How do you envision God helping you to grow this year? What do you ask of God to help you as you grow in a new year? What would you like God to teach you?

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for those who believe.” Living and growing in Disibodenberg, Hildegard would have studied these words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians. As she took these words to heart and grew as God’s servant, may we too be ready to grow in our ability and desire to follow where God leads us.