Signs

Suppose you were driving along, and you saw a sign that said, “Dual carriageway ends.” Would you know what was up ahead? George Bernard Shaw once remarked that the U.S. and U.K. were “two nations separated by a common language.” Americans who have the nerve to drive around the U.K. quickly discover the differences between American English and the “mother tongue.” “Dual carriageway ends” tells you that your four-lane road is about to become two-lane. How about a sign telling you to “give way?” That’s the equivalent of a “yield” sign. And one announcing a “zebra crossing?” Why, it’s a “pedestrian crossing.” Of course, even in the U.S. we need to heed the information provided by road signs. Who hasn’t been a little more cautious on seeing the orange and black sign announcing “road work ahead?” Even in a city whose roads you know well, to say nothing of places you’re visiting for the first time, and even guided by Samantha or Bob on your GPS, it’s helpful to have those large green and white signs that safely guide you through confusing interchanges. As good drivers know, we all need to watch for signs and attentively follow them.

We all need signs in the spiritual life too. I often think of the spiritual life as a journey. Sometimes on this journey, I feel as if I’m driving at night in the fog – as I recently did coming home from Columbus. Even so, more often than not, like the white edge lines on the right side of the road, God provides signs of God’s presence, and when needed, God even provides green and white highway signs to keep us going in the right direction.

We are now in the season of Epiphany. Epiphany is a season of signs. It’s a time for us to get clues as to Jesus’ identity and hints about where he may be at work. Actually, the clues and hints began at Christmas, as we remembered again the astonishing willingness of the Word to become human, of the transcendent, mysterious, unknowable God to take on human flesh inside the body of a woman and to come among us as vulnerable infant. We could meditate a lifetime on the unfathomable mystery announced in that sign! The visit of the gentile eastern astrologers, which we remembered on the day of Epiphany, reminded us that the Word had come to us for the sake of all people, not just for a chosen few. Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism gave another sign of who this Jesus might be: one who models for us solidarity with all people, dependence on prayer, and trust in God’s affirmation. Next week, we will learn that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s prophecies in Isaiah, the following week we will discover that Jesus’ presence is often destabilizing, and finally, on the last Sunday in Epiphany tide we will glimpse, perhaps just for a minute or two, Jesus’ glorious divine nature.

Meanwhile, this week, we have jumped back into the Gospel of John. Written almost at the turn of the first millennium, the Gospel of John addressed to a Jewish Christian community in conflict with the wider Jewish community. As such, it makes many allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures, but in a symbolic way. It also presents its readers with seven key signs that help them understand Jesus’ identity as God’s Son. In Scripture weddings often symbolize the great heavenly banquet and the joy that awaits us as God’s beloved. And so, in the wonderful story of the wedding at Cana, the gospel writer provides the first signs showing that Jesus might be more than just a Galilean carpenter. Three days earlier in the narrative, Andrew had left John the Baptizer and followed after Jesus. He had then persuaded his brother Simon to join him. The next day Jesus called out Philip and Nathanael. He even promised Nathanael that he would “see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Did these first disciples wonder if they were on the right road, following after this strange Galilean rabbi? The events at this wedding celebration – at which they, Jesus, and Jesus’ mother all happened to be guests – gave them their first clue that Jesus had extraordinary power. They could indeed begin to hope that he might truly be the Lamb of God, as John the Baptizer had called him. They could indeed entertain the possibility that he was God’s anointed one, and that perhaps they had made the right choice in following after him. What is more important, what the disciples saw at Cana opened up the possibility for them that God lovingly embraces people and provides for them with extravagant generosity. Can you even picture the amount of water that became wine – almost 600 bottles? Does that tell you something about God’s nature?

Actually, that God might be extravagantly generous is not a new message in Scripture. Our reading from Isaiah tells us something similar. Taken from the last third of the book, this section was written to a people who have returned from seventy years of exile and are now trying to rebuild Jerusalem. Through the prophet, God promises that they will be “a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Alluding to the joy of the participants in a wedding feast, God assures the dispirited people that the Lord delights in them and that, “just as the bridegroom rejoices in the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” In the psalm we encounter a God at least as extravagantly generous as Jesus at Cana. God’s love is priceless and beyond human imagining, God’s righteousness cannot be scaled, and God’s justice is unfathomable. All of us will feast at the great messianic banquet . Stay with that image for a moment. Do you wonder what such a great banquet would be like? Who do you think would be seated around the table? And what did Paul tell the Corinthian Christians about the gifts of God’s spirit? That a generous Spirit had spread them around to everyone, The only condition? That they be used for the common good.

Are you getting the picture? Do the signs lead you to a different or clearer idea about Jesus and the God who sent him? If nothing else, see that the God whom we worship is not a stern lawmaker, ready to cut us off at the slightest infraction – not that recognition of our shortcomings isn’t healthy and necessary. See also that God does not need to be placated with punctilious adherence to myriad rules and observances – not that a rule of life and spiritual disciplines aren’t good. Most important, see in Jesus, and the things that he does, the extravagant, generous love of God, a love that embraces us all. And when you begin to see those signs, do what Jesus’ first disciples did: follow after him and know that you are on the right road.

So where are the signs of God’s presence in your life? Where are the signs that help you stay on the road that leads ever closer to God? Where are the signs that assure you that you are God’s beloved child – just as you are this minute? Have you seen them? Well, what do you do when you travel to a strange city? You slow down and pay attention to the green and white signs. To see the signs of God’s presence, to check whether we are still on the right road, we have to slow down a little, we have to take time, and we have to allow God the chance to get a word in edgewise. We have to pray, reflect on our lives, and take the time to express gratitude for all that God gives us.

Would you like a way to begin doing that? If you don’t already do so, take a few minutes every evening, to do a spiritual self-examination. Begin by asking God for light, for God’s light to show you your day. Then, review your day in your mind. Don’t beat yourself up for what you did or for not doing this or that. Rather, thank God for everything that has transpired, good or bad. Notice what part of your day evokes strong feelings. Pray about that. Look ahead to the next day and pray for God’s leading. Then rest in God’s presence.

My brothers and sisters, be assured that following our generous, loving God is not like driving in the U.K. Our extravagant God, who loves all of us as his beloved children, who sent Jesus to make sure we knew that, will give you the signs you need, in a language that you can understand. Even if you are driving at night in the fog, if you are open to God’s presence, God will indeed lead you.

Was It Really That Easy?

Was it really that easy? We’ve left the Gospel according to Mark for this week and are hearing another story from early in Jesus’ ministry from the Gospel according to John. In John’s account, following his baptism, Jesus called Andrew and Simon as his disciples. Jesus then decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Apparently Philip tagged right along with Jesus in the walk back to Bethsaida, in Galilee. No questions asked, just followed Jesus. Then he found his friend Nathanael and enthusiastically declared, “We found him! He’s the promised one, Jesus of Nazareth!” Nathanael wasn’t buying at first. He was more skeptical than Philip, and he knew his Scriptures. He knew that the messiah was to come from Jerusalem, not Nazareth. But apparently it didn’t take much to convince him otherwise. Once he met Jesus, all Jesus had to say was, “I saw you under the fig tree,” and Nathanael too enthusiastically declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” Was it really that easy? Didn’t he struggle at all? Didn’t he wonder about this young rabbi? Were all his doubts really gone, so that he could go on to follow Jesus for the rest of his life? Was it really that easy?

For most of us, faith often isn’t that easy. For most of us, faith is often a struggle. In the book of Genesis we hear the stories about the patriarch Jacob. Do you remember them? Jacob’s coming to faith involved awe, terror, and even physical struggle. While camping out in the wilderness after having cheated his brother Esau, Jacob dreamt of a ladder joining heaven and earth on which angels ascended and descended. He heard God renew the covenant that God had made with Jacob’s ancestor Abraham, and he heard God’s promise that “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.” Struck with terror, all Jacob could say was, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." Jacob spent another night in the wilderness as he was returning home to confront Esau. That night he wrestled with an angel of God who dislocated his thigh. At daybreak the angel blessed him and gave him a new name. Despite his pain, Jacob realized that, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

The first Sunday of October we blessed our animal companions in honor of the 13th century saint Francis of Assisi. Francis too struggled to accept God’s call. The heir of a wealthy merchant family, Francis had from early on wanted to serve the poor. But he also liked his adventurous and exciting life as a soldier and a rich man’s son. One day he heard Jesus calling to him in the church of San Damiano near his home town. Three times an icon of the crucified Jesus said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." Thinking this meant the ruined church in which he was praying, Francis sold his horse and some cloth from his father's store and gave the money to the priest at San Damiano. Of course, his father was furious. Nevertheless, Francis defied his family, renounced his inheritance, and embraced a life of poverty and service to the poor.

Even for people like us, coming to faith can be a real struggle. A friend of mine in graduate school – let’s call him Joe – went to a Eucharist in an Episcopal church with one of his friends. Although Joe had never been baptized he admired his friend and was curious about what Episcopalians did in church. Although Joe could not receive communion, his friend invited him to kneel at the altar rail and receive a blessing. As Joe knelt there, he had such an overwhelming sense of God’s presence that he knew he had found his spiritual home. However, that wasn’t the end of Joe’s struggle. It took him another nine months of reading, talking with a priest, thinking, and praying before he was ready to be baptized and confirmed. For many people, faith is a struggle – it isn’t that easy.

And so too for you? Are you struggling with your faith? Perhaps you are wondering whether you ought to be baptized or confirmed. Perhaps you have already been baptized and confirmed. You know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit, and you know that you have been transformed and sent by God. But you are still struggling with God’s call to you, with what you think God wants you to do next. “OK, God, what is your plan for me?” Or perhaps you think that God has abandoned you. “I’m here, God, every week, but where are you?” Perhaps you wonder about this parish. “What’s next for us in this place, Lord? What ministry do you have for us?” No, it isn’t that easy.

We’re in good company when we struggle with our faith, if we struggle to make out God’s call to us. We’re in good company if we wonder if God will truly stay with us. Jacob, Samuel in today’s Hebrew Bible lesson, Nathanael, St. Francis, and Joe all had trouble hearing God’s call in the first place and then following through on what God seemed to be asking of them. So, should we even bother? Is the reward for responding to God’s call worth the struggle? The answer to that question has to be an emphatic “yes.” For, as our examples suggest, God promises that ultimately our struggles to trust God will be bountifully rewarded. And God always delivers on God’s promises. In his first encounter not only did God grant Jacob a vision of heaven and earth coming closer together, God also gave Jacob a promise: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” God kept God’s promise. As Jacob limped into Canaan, he encountered not the battle that he had expected but a peaceful, generous reception from Esau. And indeed, Jacob did go on to become a great nation, so great that God was obliged to deliver the nation from slavery in Egypt.

Similarly for Nathanael. Whatever internal struggle he had, Nathanael overcame his initial skepticism. He let Philip bring him to Jesus. Once there, he heard Jesus promise him a rich life, a richer life than anything he had known to that point. He heard Jesus promise him that he would see what Jesus himself had seen, “the heavens opened.” He heard Jesus promise him a life in which through Jesus he would see the visions that Jacob saw, that he would know God in a deeper, richer way.

And similarly for Francis. Empowered by God, Francis gained acceptance from the pope for his new order and established many houses of friars devoted to the poor. He attracted to his work a wealthy young woman friend named Clare, who founded a parallel Franciscan order for women, the Poor Clares. Both orders, and a third order for lay associates, still exist to this day, indeed still serve the poor right here in southern Ohio. Two years before he died in 1226, Francis had another vision of God. As the brother with him described it, "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." Having blessed so many and been blessed richly by God, Francis was declared a saint of the church in 1228. He is remembered and honored to this day on October 4th.

Even my friend Joe experienced the fulfillment of God’s promises to him. Having finally been baptized and confirmed, Joe married, had a family, and pursued a successful career in government service. Like most of us, his spiritual life had its ups and downs. In his early ‘50s, Joe went through another struggle as he sensed a call from God to ordained ministry. Joe wrestled with God for several years, but finally God won, as God always does. Today Joe is a deacon and is serving God and the people around him in ways that he could never have imagined the day he first knelt at the altar rail in his friend’s church.

We’re in good company if we struggle with our faith. We’re in good company if wrestle with God’s call to this parish. It isn’t that easy. Struggle with God is part of an adult spiritual life. Struggle with God is part of the lives of all the great saints and of all ordinary Christians who take their relationship with God seriously. But we also have God’s promises. We have God’s promise to be with us forever, no matter what happens to us. We have Jesus’ promise that through him we will grow into a deeper richer knowledge of God. We have the Holy Spirit’s promise to us in baptism that we have been transformed and empowered, that we are different and can make a difference in the world. Can we acknowledge our struggles? Can we open our ears and our hearts to hear God’s response? Can we believe God’s promises to us?

I Saw the Spirit Descending

In his seventies, the great Italian sculptor Michelangelo wrote a letter to his nephew Lionardo. Alluding to all the sculptures, paintings, and poetry that he had created, he told his nephew, “Many believe – and I believe – that I have been designated by God for this work. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of the love of God in whom I put all my hope.” Inspired by his love of God, Michelangelo embodied in marble flesh the towering figures of Moses and David, the inspiring figure of Christ carrying his Cross, the heart-wrenching scene of Jesus lying across Mary’s lap in the Pietà,. Inspired by his love of God, Michelangelo filled the ceiling of the papal Sistine chapel with glorious paintings illuminating stories from Scripture. One of the best known of these paintings is the breath-taking fresco of the Last Judgment that is behind the altar. Showing the Second Coming and the judgment that comes with it, the fresco depicts men and women without any symbols of earthly rank or status and presents them as equals now before Christ. In the center of the fresco stands a radiant Christ surrounded by the saved who rejoice in light and joy, while the damned are carried into darkness.

In creating this great art, which still inspires our own faith, Michelangelo might have felt that he was just doing a job or executing another commission. Instead, Michelangelo understood his work as a vocation, a way of life to which he was called by God for a purpose, in which his art was inspired by God, and in which he was sustained by God throughout his long life. Michelangelo knew that if the work was great, it was because God’s greatness was reflected in it. He also knew that however great his own work was, however much it was acclaimed by others, it paled in comparison to the saving work of God in Christ. In the end, drawing others into a deeper relationship with God, into a deeper understanding of what God has done for us in Christ, was the purpose for which God had called Michelangelo, the vocation to which Michelangelo remained faithful throughout his life.

John the Baptist and his two disciples, Andrew and his friend, also knew something about drawing others into a deeper relationship with God. As always John’s Gospel, the last of the Gospels to be written, gives us a different take on the events of Jesus’ ministry. Last week in our reading from Matthew’s Gospel we witnessed Jesus’ baptism. Here, we hear about Jesus’ baptism from the testimony of John the Baptizer. Still a fiery preacher of repentance who had collected many disciples and drawn many others to the Jordan for baptism, John knew that he was only a forerunner of the Messiah, God’s Anointed one, or God’s Chosen one. However, initially he did not know who that person was. Through the act of baptizing Jesus, John’s eyes were opened, and he gained a deeper understood his role: his role was to see the Spirit descend on Jesus and to proclaim the coming of the Messiah in Jesus. Thereafter John forthrightly related his own experiences to all would hear him: “I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” “I myself.” Called to proclaim the coming of the Messiah, called to point to his coming, called to decrease as the Messiah increased, through his declaration of his own experience, John faithfully began leading others into closer community with Jesus.

Andrew and his friend, perhaps the Beloved Disciple mentioned later in this Gospel, were among those who heard John’s proclamation. Perhaps they had been among John’s disciples. When John proclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” they heard John’s implicit suggestion that they leave him and become a disciple of Jesus instead. They ran off in Jesus’ direction and asked where he was staying. In response to Jesus’ invitation to “Come and see,” Andrew and his friend followed Jesus, stayed with him, and listened intently to his teaching. Then they turned around and did the same thing that John the Baptizer had done: they spoke of their own experience. They went to Andrew’s brother Simon and declared, “We have found the Messiah.” And then they took one more step: they went back to where Jesus was staying, bringing Simon with them. Imagine how it might have been: Andrew and the other disciple might have said, “That was nice,” and never said another word to anyone about what they had heard from Jesus. Instead they enthusiastically proclaimed what they had seen, “We have found the Messiah,” and they brought Simon to Jesus. And thereafter lives were changed for all eternity! Simon, Andrew, and the other disciple now understood that they too had a vocation, a God-given role: to tell of their own experiences of Jesus and to bring others into closer relationship with Jesus.

Because of Simon, Andrew, and the other disciple, because of the others who heard what they said about their own experiences with Jesus, and because of the communities of faith that formed around them, people are still being drawn into deeper relationship with God and into a deeper understanding of what God has done for us in Christ. Today this is especially true in Africa, where churches are still growing rapidly, even as the churches of Europe and North America seem to be slowly dying. Can we learn anything from African Christians about how to speak of our own experiences with Jesus and how to draw others into closer relationship with him?

In 1973 Roman Catholic Christians of the Mafa ethnic group in Cameroun in western Africa began looking for ways to fulfill their own vocation to make Jesus more understandable to those around them and to bring others into closer relationship with Jesus. They formed a committee to select the stories from Scripture they knew to be most important in drawing people to Christ. Then they photographed and sketched village people living out their lives. The committee gave the photos and sketches to a French artist who created a series of 63 paintings depicting scenes from the Annunciation to Pentecost, using the lives of the rural Mafa as the context.1 You can see one painting depicting Jesus’ invitation to Andrew and his friend on your bulletin cover. Can you see how such a picture might help Mafa people understand better who Christ was? In a way, these paintings are somewhat like medieval stained glass windows or manuscripts, which show Jesus, Peter, Andrew, and others often in the context of medieval life. The Jesus Mafa paintings depict Jesus in the context of Mafa life, and so they help catechists and teachers make Christ more accessible to people as they hear the Scriptures and stories about his life. Since their initial production, the paintings have been widely distributed to Christian communities of all kinds in Africa, to catechists, churches, missionaries, schools, libraries, booksellers, and private individuals. You yourself can even buy them through the Jesus Mafa website!

Do these Jesus Mafa paintings speak to us? They speak to me. They remind me that through my commitment to Jesus, I am charged to speak of my own experiences of him in my own language, and to draw people into closer relationship with him. Indeed that responsibility belongs to all of us, by virtue of our own baptisms, not just to those who wear clerical collars. Along with John the Baptizer we too are charged with saying, “I saw it myself.” Along with Andrew and the other disciple, we too are charged with saying, “We have seen the Messiah.” How do we do that? It’s not easy. Episcopalians don’t like the e-word. We thinks of zealots spouting hell fire and brimstone, of fanatics like those of the Westboro Baptist church in Kansas who picket military and other funerals and spout their message of a hateful God.

My friends, that’s not what evangelism is. Evangelism actually means using the i-word or the w-word, “I experienced this as a disciple of Jesus. We have seen Jesus in this person or place or offering of ministry.” Evangelism means using language, images, and pictures of Jesus that come out of our own mouth, time and place, not the mouths, times and places of other centuries and countries, beloved as they may be. Let me be clear. I am most decidedly not urging that we neglect our traditions or abandon ancient forms that still nourish us. What I am talking about is understanding that the Gospel message is for us, our time, and our community too, that indeed Christ came for people of every “language, tribe and nation.” But the Gospel message is best heard through the testimony of real people speaking of their own actual experiences. When we can say, “I have experienced Jesus when…” or “I see Jesus in…” or, “Here is what Jesus looks like to me…” then we are following in the footsteps of Michelangelo, John the Baptizer, Andrew and the other disciple, and the creators of the Jesus Mafa paintings. And here is the good news: God continues to enhance our ability to make Christ known to others. God has given us models of how to speak of our experiences of Christ. When we open our mouths to begin doing so, God will be there with us, just as God was with all those who have come before us. Are you up for it? Can you open your mouth and say, “I saw…?” Can you say, “We have seen…?” May it be so!

1. More information about the Jesus Mafa paintings is available at http://www.jesusmafa.com/index.htm .