Can a twenty first-century person be a Christian? Our language of Scripture, liturgy, and prayer mostly reflect a premodern understanding of the cosmos. Even if we understand that the language of Scripture and liturgy is poetic and metaphorical – in this church we are not, for example, asked to believe that the account of creation in Genesis is literal – how are we to follow Jesus in our own time and place? What does it mean for me as a twenty first-century person to commit myself to the revelation of Scripture, especially when the scientific discoveries of the last few centuries have given us a vastly different understanding of the world than the one that the writers of Scripture held?
Of course, these are not completely new questions. Scientists and religious thinkers through the centuries have been using their God-given reason to understand both creation and the revelation of God in Christ. When Galileo proposed that the earth was round, not flat, for example, and that the earth both rotated on its axis and revolved around the sun, his ideas were considered heretical and contrary to Scripture. He was even briefly imprisoned and forced to publicly recant his discoveries. Now, thanks to the work of astronomers we know that our corner of the universe is just a single small galaxy, that the universe is vaster than we can imagine and slowly expanding, and that the entire cosmos probably began about 13.6 billion years ago with a Big Bang.
Astronomers and biologists have also taught us that all existing matter was created in the Big Bang, that all the atoms in our bodies and everything around us are simply being recycled, and that all life, all things, are interconnected. We thus have a responsibility to respect and work with people, animals, the earth, all of creation, rather than to rape, pillage, and destroy. Mendel and Darwin, and host of other biologists and geneticists have taught us more about the mechanisms of life than ancient physicians, skilled as they were, could even begin to imagine. And more: for the writers of Scripture the known world consisted more or less of the Mediterranean world. Little, if anything, was known of sub-Saharan Africa or Asia. Nothing at all was known of the civilizations in central and South America that began to flourish well before the time of Christ, and whose ruins we are still discovering!
So how do we reconcile what we now know – what God has enabled us to know through the gift of reason – with Scripture? Must we take the Bible literally, as some “creationists” do, or do we have to throw it out altogether, as many atheists do? Worse yet, do we profess one thing when we come inside this building and something else altogether on the other side of the red doors? Perhaps today’s gospel reading helps answer these questions. Clearly, the disciples were confused and afraid – and asking lots of questions. It was their last night with Jesus in the account in John’s gospel. Talking a long time, Jesus had been explaining his reasons for leaving them and how they were to carry on once he was gone. He warned them that they wouldn’t understand right away what was happening. Then he made them a promise: the Spirit of truth would be with them and would guide them into all truth.
John’s gospel tells us a different story of Jesus’ last night with his friends than the story the other three gospels tell. Writing in the ‘90s or later, the evangelist was addressing a community that was separating from the wider Jewish community. These new followers of Jesus needed a deeper understanding of who Jesus was. They also needed reassurance that they had made the right choice in following him. For that reason, the gospel of John is less a historical account of Jesus’ life and more a theological study of Jesus. Seeking to explain for new followers who Jesus truly was, the gospel emphasizes throughout that Jesus is the Word made flesh, i.e., “God with skin on.” However, especially through Jesus’ words in today’s reading, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth,” the gospel writer also reassures these new followers that they don’t have to understand everything about Jesus all at once. The gospel writer assures the hearers of this gospel that, by following Jesus, they would be led by God’s Spirit to understand more deeply who God is, who Jesus is, and how God’s Spirit works in their lives. Most important, the gospel writer promises them that the Spirit of truth would continually help them to be transformed into faithful followers of Jesus, and that they – and by extension all faithful followers of Jesus – would continue to reinterpret, as individuals and as a community, the mission of Jesus and its meaning for their lives.
So can a twenty first-century person still follow this Jesus? Just as scientific understanding has changed over the centuries, so too has our understanding of Jesus. Thinkers in the earliest centuries after Christ wrestled with the question of how Jesus could be both human and divine. While orthodox Christianity asserts that Jesus was both, often the emphasis was on Jesus’ divinity. Indeed, the Nicene Creed, which we faithful recite as part of our Sunday worship, represents an attempt by the early leaders of the church to reach some consensus as to who Jesus was, and what his relationship was to God the creator and God the Spirit. Since the Renaissance, and especially since the eighteenth century, scholars and theologians have tended to emphasize the humanity of Jesus. Today, many interpreters of Scripture emphasize Jesus’ social teachings, emphasizing Jesus’ call to seek peace, end capital punishment, care for the poor, welcome the outcast in society, and end exclusion based on gender, sexuality, race, or socio-economic status.
Every era has been called on to reinterpret Jesus’ mission and relationship to God. Indeed, one writer suggests that continued reinterpretation of Jesus’ role is the very thrust of this part of John’s gospel. “What the text wants most to do,” this writer suggests, “is to encourage within the community an openness to fresh encounters with the revelation of Jesus. John intends to shape a community that is receptive to Spirit-guided growth. It is not that there will be new ‘truth’ beyond that of the ‘Word made flesh’…. John imagines a Christian community that is not locked into the past but understands what Jesus means for its own time. He anticipates that changing circumstances and the emergence of new questions – stem cell research, for example, or the ability to prolong life by artificial means, or growing religious pluralism – will require the community to think afresh.”
My friends, this is our call too. God has given us reason, and God has enabled us to understand Scripture, creation and each other more deeply than earlier centuries perhaps did. In our century we too are called to “think afresh.” Or maybe we need to ask ourselves is, do we really want to “think afresh?” Or would we rather let Jesus be a figure in some interesting stories, rather than someone to whom we have committed our lives? If we really want, as twenty first-century Christians, to continue to grow in our understanding of Jesus, how might we do that?
If we believe Jesus’ promise in John’s gospel that the Spirit will guide us into all truth, then we have to be open to the work of the Spirit. We have to let the Spirit teach us, in our own private prayer. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll ask again: can you find a time in your day – busy as you are – to regularly place yourself in God’s presence and let the Spirit begin to work within you? The Spirit also nourishes us in Word and Sacrament. Have you ever felt, sitting here or in any worship service, that sudden shard of understanding, that sudden glimpse of the reality of Jesus in your life? The Spirit especially leads and guides us in our study – of Scripture, theology, science, history, and social justice, to name just a few. Again, I’ll risk sounding like a broken record: God was not done with you when the priest poured water on your head, or the bishop laid hands on you. No less than the first hearers of John’s gospel, we too are called to “think afresh” about Jesus and how our commitment to following him impacts our life. The Spirit also leads us in our practice of mission. Sometimes when we are acting as God’s hands, when we look deeply into the eyes of people striving for justice and hear their stories, we learn more about the reality of Jesus than any book can teach us. And one more thing: growth in our understanding of Jesus is not in the end a do-it-yourself project, important as private prayer and study are. Ultimately, we are called to grow as a community of Jesus’ followers, to be Jesus in the world as a fellowship, and to do his works to the best of our ability.
God has blessed us with reason and skill. Jesus has promised us that we will continue to grow in our understanding of him and of the cosmos. And so, this week I invite you to meditate on these questions. Who is Jesus for you? How has your understanding of Jesus changed over the years? How does your life reflect your commitment to Jesus? Are you open to “thinking afresh” about the work of the Spirit in your life? Rest assured that Jesus’ promise still stands: even with all the discoveries that we have made over the centuries, the Spirit is still at work within us, helping us to see anew, to understand more deeply, and to follow more faithfully.
Showing posts with label Trinity Sunday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trinity Sunday. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
I Saw the Lord
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty….” Can you imagine it? The year was 736 BC. It was a time of political conflict and turmoil. (Isn’t it always?) A man named Isaiah stood in the middle of a crowd worshipping in the temple. He could feel the heat from the roaring fire on the brazier, smell the burning flesh of the sacrificed animals, hear the sacred chanting of the priests, and see the rising of the clouds of incense. In the midst of the hubbub, Isaiah had an overwhelming vision of God’s presence. He could see God’s immensity, as just the hem of God’s robe filled the space of the temple. He could sense God’s power and holiness. He could hear the praise of the seraphs, those terrifying angels with three pairs of wings. He knew the world as God-filled, and he knew that he was in the presence of sheer and utter mystery.
Awed and terrified by his sense of God’s holiness, Isaiah immediately felt his own unworthiness. He knew that, despite all the sacrifices in which he had participated, that he himself was anything but holy. His people, still mourning the death of an arrogant king, were also unholy. “Woe is me,” he cried. What else could he say in the face of this totally unexpected vision? And then one of the angels, knowing his despair, transformed his mouth and his heart with a live coal from the sacrificial brazier. Still reeling from the angel’s touch, he heard God thunder, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And to his own surprise – but not to God’s – he answered, “Here am I; send me.” Converted, transformed by his encounter with the living God, Isaiah accepted God’s commission, without knowing what “here I am; send me” might entail, without any sense of the difficulties he would almost immediately face in his prophetic ministry. His life was changed forever by his encounter with God.
It’s hard not to gasp in awe ourselves as we share Isaiah’s sense of God’s overwhelming power and utter otherness. Perhaps we wonder what we would do if we had a similar experience. In fact, Scripture is full of similar stories of God’s breaking into the lives of humans. Samuel too had an encounter with God at the beginning of his ministry. As a young boy, serving the old priest Eli, he heard God calling to him at night in the temple. At first, he misunderstood and thought Eli was calling him. But then, instructed by Eli, Samuel finally answered God, saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Ezekiel too had a vision of God’s immensity, as he encountered God in a chariot surrounded by angels. He heard God’s command to go to the rebellious house of Israel, to speak God’s word to them. To reassure him that he would be speaking for God, Ezekiel was offered a scroll to eat. “Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was sweet as honey.” When God came to Jeremiah to commission him, Jeremiah tried to refuse God’s commission. He said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But you know what God said? God said, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy;’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you….” Then, just as the angel had touched Isaiah’s lips, God put God’s hand on Jeremiah’s mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”
Many saints have had similar unexpected encounters with God, grace-filled encounters that led them to understand in a new way God’s vision for their lives. Paul, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Francis and Clare, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John Wesley, Brother Lawrence, Therése of Lisieux, William Booth, Evelyn Underhill, and countless others experienced God’s presence in a new and profound way. All of them came away from their experiences knowing that God had transformed them and had commissioned them for new work on God’s behalf, even when they were not yet ready to accept God’s commission.
Many ordinary people also have life-changing encounters with God, encounters where they know God’s utter mystery and their own unworthiness, and yet they sense that God has initiated something transformative within them. I don’t often speak about myself in sermons. Worship is not about me, it’s about us and our encounter with God. Even so, today I want to share with you an experience of God from my own life. It was March, 1998. I had organized a Saturday morning Lenten Quiet day at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens. Three meditations, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, were offered by Sr. Eleanor from the Community of the Transfiguration. We had started out in the living room-like lounge. I stayed there after the first meditation and wrote in my journal in response. However, in response to the second meditation, I went into the nave and knelt in one of the pews. Some of you know that Good Shepherd is a Georgian colonial that was built in 1952. It has high ceilings and bare windows, and in daylight there is always a feeling of a lot of light in the nave.
I was kneeling in the pew praying about what Sr. Eleanor had said, something about going into the desert to experience God more intensely. As I knelt there, I had a distinct sense of God calling me and asking me to consider ordained ministry. In March 1998 I had been at Ohio University only two years, I was immersed in my academic career, I still had ambitions for another career move, and, to top it off, I had two children in college. Needless to say, I was not thinking about ordained ministry. And yet, this voice was insistent about ordained ministry. The longer I knelt there, the more insistent it became.
Finally, I had to answer. Unlike Isaiah, Samuel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Paul, Francis, Julian, Teresa, William Booth, and all the others, I said, “Forget about it, Lord. Not me. Priest? Who me? You gotta be kidding!” I remember clearly what I felt: not such deep commitment to my career that I couldn’t leave it, nor concern about two private-college tuitions. I felt what Isaiah had felt: I felt unworthy, totally unfit for the work of ordained ministry. “Leave me alone, Lord,” I cried. And God did. However, unlike other quiet days, in which I had experienced joy and peace, on that day, even after the third meditation, I felt destabilized and unbalanced, as if something in my world had suddenly shifted. Then in January 2004, God came back….
A true sense of God’s presence. Sometimes it is huge and overwhelming, and we are overawed by the immensity, otherness, and mystery of God. Sometimes we can sense the reality of Jesus’ presence in our lives, as many of us do when we share Jesus’ Body and Blood with each other. And sometimes God comes to us in silence, when God the Holy Spirit whispers to us. In our incessant 24/7 world, can we clear away some of the noise that hides the voice of God: the jangling of cell phones, the shouting commentators on talk radio, the deafening drones of leaf blowers and riding mowers, and the ugly shouts of partisan politics? Can we pause, sit, breathe, and listen? Although we can never control when God will show up, when we open our ears for even a bit, God may just take advantage of our openness, just as God did with Isaiah in the temple. God may just initiate in us an ultimately life-changing transformation.
In seminary I spent an entire semester studying the nature of the Trinity. And even though I now wear a collar, God is still, and will always be, ultimately a mystery. There is so much I still don’t know. But I do know this. We may not be able to put into words any coherent articulation of who God is. But we can point to our own experiences. We have sensed God as the ground of all creation, of all that is, seen and unseen, as the source of all. We have known God in the Word made Flesh and in the Body and Blood. And we have heard God in the silences of our own heart, as God’s Spirit nudges us and urges us into action for God’s sake.
And I know this too. God loves us so much that God relentlessly pursues us. God is “the hound of heaven,” as Francis Thompson called God, whom Thompson fled “down the nights and down the days;” “down the arches of the years; “down the labyrinthine ways/ Of my own mind…” I know that God always shows up unexpectedly, unbidden, always at God’s own initiative, to shower us with grace. And I know that God comes to transform us, to bid us partner with God in continuing God’s creation and renewal of the world.
As we stand in awe at the ultimate mystery of God, we can still join the seraphs, the saints who have gone before us, and the saints among us, as we say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Awed and terrified by his sense of God’s holiness, Isaiah immediately felt his own unworthiness. He knew that, despite all the sacrifices in which he had participated, that he himself was anything but holy. His people, still mourning the death of an arrogant king, were also unholy. “Woe is me,” he cried. What else could he say in the face of this totally unexpected vision? And then one of the angels, knowing his despair, transformed his mouth and his heart with a live coal from the sacrificial brazier. Still reeling from the angel’s touch, he heard God thunder, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And to his own surprise – but not to God’s – he answered, “Here am I; send me.” Converted, transformed by his encounter with the living God, Isaiah accepted God’s commission, without knowing what “here I am; send me” might entail, without any sense of the difficulties he would almost immediately face in his prophetic ministry. His life was changed forever by his encounter with God.
It’s hard not to gasp in awe ourselves as we share Isaiah’s sense of God’s overwhelming power and utter otherness. Perhaps we wonder what we would do if we had a similar experience. In fact, Scripture is full of similar stories of God’s breaking into the lives of humans. Samuel too had an encounter with God at the beginning of his ministry. As a young boy, serving the old priest Eli, he heard God calling to him at night in the temple. At first, he misunderstood and thought Eli was calling him. But then, instructed by Eli, Samuel finally answered God, saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” Ezekiel too had a vision of God’s immensity, as he encountered God in a chariot surrounded by angels. He heard God’s command to go to the rebellious house of Israel, to speak God’s word to them. To reassure him that he would be speaking for God, Ezekiel was offered a scroll to eat. “Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was sweet as honey.” When God came to Jeremiah to commission him, Jeremiah tried to refuse God’s commission. He said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But you know what God said? God said, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy;’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you….” Then, just as the angel had touched Isaiah’s lips, God put God’s hand on Jeremiah’s mouth and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”
Many saints have had similar unexpected encounters with God, grace-filled encounters that led them to understand in a new way God’s vision for their lives. Paul, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Francis and Clare, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John Wesley, Brother Lawrence, Therése of Lisieux, William Booth, Evelyn Underhill, and countless others experienced God’s presence in a new and profound way. All of them came away from their experiences knowing that God had transformed them and had commissioned them for new work on God’s behalf, even when they were not yet ready to accept God’s commission.
Many ordinary people also have life-changing encounters with God, encounters where they know God’s utter mystery and their own unworthiness, and yet they sense that God has initiated something transformative within them. I don’t often speak about myself in sermons. Worship is not about me, it’s about us and our encounter with God. Even so, today I want to share with you an experience of God from my own life. It was March, 1998. I had organized a Saturday morning Lenten Quiet day at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens. Three meditations, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, were offered by Sr. Eleanor from the Community of the Transfiguration. We had started out in the living room-like lounge. I stayed there after the first meditation and wrote in my journal in response. However, in response to the second meditation, I went into the nave and knelt in one of the pews. Some of you know that Good Shepherd is a Georgian colonial that was built in 1952. It has high ceilings and bare windows, and in daylight there is always a feeling of a lot of light in the nave.
I was kneeling in the pew praying about what Sr. Eleanor had said, something about going into the desert to experience God more intensely. As I knelt there, I had a distinct sense of God calling me and asking me to consider ordained ministry. In March 1998 I had been at Ohio University only two years, I was immersed in my academic career, I still had ambitions for another career move, and, to top it off, I had two children in college. Needless to say, I was not thinking about ordained ministry. And yet, this voice was insistent about ordained ministry. The longer I knelt there, the more insistent it became.
Finally, I had to answer. Unlike Isaiah, Samuel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Paul, Francis, Julian, Teresa, William Booth, and all the others, I said, “Forget about it, Lord. Not me. Priest? Who me? You gotta be kidding!” I remember clearly what I felt: not such deep commitment to my career that I couldn’t leave it, nor concern about two private-college tuitions. I felt what Isaiah had felt: I felt unworthy, totally unfit for the work of ordained ministry. “Leave me alone, Lord,” I cried. And God did. However, unlike other quiet days, in which I had experienced joy and peace, on that day, even after the third meditation, I felt destabilized and unbalanced, as if something in my world had suddenly shifted. Then in January 2004, God came back….
A true sense of God’s presence. Sometimes it is huge and overwhelming, and we are overawed by the immensity, otherness, and mystery of God. Sometimes we can sense the reality of Jesus’ presence in our lives, as many of us do when we share Jesus’ Body and Blood with each other. And sometimes God comes to us in silence, when God the Holy Spirit whispers to us. In our incessant 24/7 world, can we clear away some of the noise that hides the voice of God: the jangling of cell phones, the shouting commentators on talk radio, the deafening drones of leaf blowers and riding mowers, and the ugly shouts of partisan politics? Can we pause, sit, breathe, and listen? Although we can never control when God will show up, when we open our ears for even a bit, God may just take advantage of our openness, just as God did with Isaiah in the temple. God may just initiate in us an ultimately life-changing transformation.
In seminary I spent an entire semester studying the nature of the Trinity. And even though I now wear a collar, God is still, and will always be, ultimately a mystery. There is so much I still don’t know. But I do know this. We may not be able to put into words any coherent articulation of who God is. But we can point to our own experiences. We have sensed God as the ground of all creation, of all that is, seen and unseen, as the source of all. We have known God in the Word made Flesh and in the Body and Blood. And we have heard God in the silences of our own heart, as God’s Spirit nudges us and urges us into action for God’s sake.
And I know this too. God loves us so much that God relentlessly pursues us. God is “the hound of heaven,” as Francis Thompson called God, whom Thompson fled “down the nights and down the days;” “down the arches of the years; “down the labyrinthine ways/ Of my own mind…” I know that God always shows up unexpectedly, unbidden, always at God’s own initiative, to shower us with grace. And I know that God comes to transform us, to bid us partner with God in continuing God’s creation and renewal of the world.
As we stand in awe at the ultimate mystery of God, we can still join the seraphs, the saints who have gone before us, and the saints among us, as we say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Holy, Holy, Holy
“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee: Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!” What a grand old hymn – one of my favorites for this day. Lutherans sing it, as do Presbyterians and many others. It was written by English priest and missionary bishop Reginald Heber, who was born in 1783 and died in India in 1826. Heber actually wrote more than fifty hymns during his life, of which four others besides this one are in our hymnal, but this one is probably his best known.
But why are we singing this grand old hymn at all? What on earth are we celebrating today? We’re halfway through the church year. In the first half of the year, from Advent to Pentecost, our Sundays mark events in the life of Jesus: his birth, his discovery by gentiles, his baptism, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and, finally, his gift of the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow we begin the second half of the church year. Episcopalians call this time, “Sundays after Pentecost.” Roman Catholics and others call this “ordinary time.” However we name it, this second half of the year is a time of spiritual growth, a time in which we support each other in strengthening our bonds to God and serving the world.
Today we stand poised between the two halves of our year, celebrating not an event, or even a holy person, but an idea. Today is the only day in the church year when we are asked to pay attention to a paradox, the “mystery of faith”: that the God whom we worship is a Trinity, one God in three “persons.” From the time that the framers of the Nicene Creed agreed on its wording in the fourth century – and maybe even before that – the church has been wrestling with this mystery. The number of treatises and books about the Trinity would fill this sanctuary. I myself spent a semester in seminary reading some of them, but I’m not going to treat you to a learned disquisition on the Trinity – or impress you with all the wonderful Greek words I learned to describe it. I will leave that to the theologians! Of course, even for the most learned theologians, God is still ultimately a mystery. Try as we might to find words to describe our experiences of God, God will always be, in Walter Brueggemann’s phrase, “One who is other than us.”
Even so, we still feel compelled to use this language of “trinity.” After the events of Jesus’ life, after his death and resurrection, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christians began to try to put words to what they had discovered about God through these events. Since Greek was the common language of the early church, they used Greek words to express their new understanding. One of the words they used is translated into English as “person.” Hence, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Now the word “person” is problematic for us, since in modern English, “person” connotes a distinct individual. So, do we believe in three Gods, as some think? Barry Howard suggests that it might be helpful to think about the three ways of experiencing God as three divine roles, rather than distinct personalities.1 He turns to Marcus Borg, who reminds us that the word translated as “person” originally meant a mask, i.e., a mask worn by an actor in a Greek theater that identifies the character that the actor is playing. Thinking about God this way, we realize that we know God in three different ways: as God the Source of All Being, as God the Word made flesh in Jesus, and as God the abiding Spirit. Since God is one personality, one God behind the three masks, these three roles are in complete unity with each other and eternally interact with each other in complete love.
These roles are all analogies to be sure, but perhaps they are not totally incomprehensible to us. God the Source of All Being, is God the Creator, the unknowable origin of all that is, God beyond all gender, beyond all attributes that we can think of, God who gave birth to all creation. This is the God of Genesis and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible. This is the God who spoke to Moses, whose name could only be rendered as “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” Every culture has a creation story, for we instinctively realize that some other power besides ourselves must be the source of all life. Even scientists, who relentlessly probe the origin of the universe, and who have given us the Big Bang as a plausible explanation, admit that ultimately the source of matter, the source of the laws of the cosmos, and the source of the principle of evolution by which the development of life on earth been guided, is still a mystery.
God the Incarnate Word, God the Word made Flesh, is a little more familiar to us, since, as Christians, our central claim is that God the Word deigned to take human form in Jesus of Nazareth. As all the Gospels assert, and especially the Gospel according to John, which we heard through Eastertide, Jesus is God with skin on. Indeed many of us are so aware of Jesus’ divinity that we often find it hard to reckon with Jesus’ humanity. Next week we return to readings from the Gospel according to Luke. As you hear them, try to remember that the Word made Flesh was truly both, Word and Flesh.
God the Holy Spirit is perhaps the least known to us. Unlike the Eastern Church, the Western Church scarcely mentions the Holy Spirit after the day of Pentecost itself. And yet in some ways it is God the Holy Spirit who is most central to our lives as followers of Jesus. For in essence the Holy Spirit is God within us, inspiring and empowering us in our attempts to live out our faith. The idea of God within us is not something that Christians invented. The Hebrew Bible is full of examples of God’s Spirit at work within either individuals or the community. Here’s just one example: in the midst of exile, the prophet Isaiah reminds his people that, “Though YHWH may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide from you anymore; your eyes will see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way – walk in it’” (30:20-21, The Inclusive Bible).
What Christians discovered after Jesus left them – and here is the really good news – is that Jesus did not leave them alone. They discovered that God the Spirit is now within us, within us as individual disciples of Jesus, and, what is more important, within the community of the followers of Jesus. As Jesus promised his friends after his last meal with them, and as his friends discovered, either on Easter Even or Pentecost, depending on whether you read John or Acts, God the Holy Spirit now resides within the church, within the community of believers. We do not flounder about on our own. Indeed, the Holy Spirit works within us just as Jesus would if he were still physically present to us. The Holy Spirit brings God’s care and compassion for us into our midst. Through the Holy Spirit we come, as individuals and as a body, to deeper understanding of who Jesus is and who we are called to be as his disciples. Sanctification, i.e., perfection in holiness, both for individuals and the church as a body, is still an ongoing process, is still unfinished. God still “has yet more truth to reveal.” It is God the Holy Spirit who continues to guide us, to teach us, to inspire us to do things we never thought possible, and to lead us into an ever-deepening relationship with God.
Are there ways to glimpse the Holy Spirit at work among us? Last week we exuberantly celebrated the Spirit’s power to upend us by wearing red, sporting fancy hats, singing “Happy Birthday” to the church, and being a little bit silly. Yes, the Spirit does call us to joy and energy, to singing, dancing, hugging, shouting, and proclaiming, as she did among Jesus’ first friends. But we can also begin to notice the Spirit at work among us in daily prayer, in being still, in silently listening for the Spirit’s faint notes. This week, take a few minutes in your own prayer to silently reflect on ways you have sensed the Spirit at work in your life. Take a few minutes in silence in church to reflect on how the Spirit has guided the life of this parish.
In the end, we run out of words in the face of the ineffable mystery of God. As we acknowledge our limited understanding of God’s true nature, of the reality and meaning of the Trinity, we can still join hands in the Spirit. We can still draw nearer to God together. We can still grow in our understanding of God’s purposes and strengthen our bonds with each other. We can still cry, “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea; Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”
1. “Reflections on the Lectionary, Christian Century, 130, 10, May 15, 2013, p. 21.
But why are we singing this grand old hymn at all? What on earth are we celebrating today? We’re halfway through the church year. In the first half of the year, from Advent to Pentecost, our Sundays mark events in the life of Jesus: his birth, his discovery by gentiles, his baptism, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and, finally, his gift of the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow we begin the second half of the church year. Episcopalians call this time, “Sundays after Pentecost.” Roman Catholics and others call this “ordinary time.” However we name it, this second half of the year is a time of spiritual growth, a time in which we support each other in strengthening our bonds to God and serving the world.
Today we stand poised between the two halves of our year, celebrating not an event, or even a holy person, but an idea. Today is the only day in the church year when we are asked to pay attention to a paradox, the “mystery of faith”: that the God whom we worship is a Trinity, one God in three “persons.” From the time that the framers of the Nicene Creed agreed on its wording in the fourth century – and maybe even before that – the church has been wrestling with this mystery. The number of treatises and books about the Trinity would fill this sanctuary. I myself spent a semester in seminary reading some of them, but I’m not going to treat you to a learned disquisition on the Trinity – or impress you with all the wonderful Greek words I learned to describe it. I will leave that to the theologians! Of course, even for the most learned theologians, God is still ultimately a mystery. Try as we might to find words to describe our experiences of God, God will always be, in Walter Brueggemann’s phrase, “One who is other than us.”
Even so, we still feel compelled to use this language of “trinity.” After the events of Jesus’ life, after his death and resurrection, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christians began to try to put words to what they had discovered about God through these events. Since Greek was the common language of the early church, they used Greek words to express their new understanding. One of the words they used is translated into English as “person.” Hence, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” Now the word “person” is problematic for us, since in modern English, “person” connotes a distinct individual. So, do we believe in three Gods, as some think? Barry Howard suggests that it might be helpful to think about the three ways of experiencing God as three divine roles, rather than distinct personalities.1 He turns to Marcus Borg, who reminds us that the word translated as “person” originally meant a mask, i.e., a mask worn by an actor in a Greek theater that identifies the character that the actor is playing. Thinking about God this way, we realize that we know God in three different ways: as God the Source of All Being, as God the Word made flesh in Jesus, and as God the abiding Spirit. Since God is one personality, one God behind the three masks, these three roles are in complete unity with each other and eternally interact with each other in complete love.
These roles are all analogies to be sure, but perhaps they are not totally incomprehensible to us. God the Source of All Being, is God the Creator, the unknowable origin of all that is, God beyond all gender, beyond all attributes that we can think of, God who gave birth to all creation. This is the God of Genesis and most of the rest of the Hebrew Bible. This is the God who spoke to Moses, whose name could only be rendered as “I Am Who I Am,” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” Every culture has a creation story, for we instinctively realize that some other power besides ourselves must be the source of all life. Even scientists, who relentlessly probe the origin of the universe, and who have given us the Big Bang as a plausible explanation, admit that ultimately the source of matter, the source of the laws of the cosmos, and the source of the principle of evolution by which the development of life on earth been guided, is still a mystery.
God the Incarnate Word, God the Word made Flesh, is a little more familiar to us, since, as Christians, our central claim is that God the Word deigned to take human form in Jesus of Nazareth. As all the Gospels assert, and especially the Gospel according to John, which we heard through Eastertide, Jesus is God with skin on. Indeed many of us are so aware of Jesus’ divinity that we often find it hard to reckon with Jesus’ humanity. Next week we return to readings from the Gospel according to Luke. As you hear them, try to remember that the Word made Flesh was truly both, Word and Flesh.
God the Holy Spirit is perhaps the least known to us. Unlike the Eastern Church, the Western Church scarcely mentions the Holy Spirit after the day of Pentecost itself. And yet in some ways it is God the Holy Spirit who is most central to our lives as followers of Jesus. For in essence the Holy Spirit is God within us, inspiring and empowering us in our attempts to live out our faith. The idea of God within us is not something that Christians invented. The Hebrew Bible is full of examples of God’s Spirit at work within either individuals or the community. Here’s just one example: in the midst of exile, the prophet Isaiah reminds his people that, “Though YHWH may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide from you anymore; your eyes will see your Teacher. And when you turn to the right and when you turn to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way – walk in it’” (30:20-21, The Inclusive Bible).
What Christians discovered after Jesus left them – and here is the really good news – is that Jesus did not leave them alone. They discovered that God the Spirit is now within us, within us as individual disciples of Jesus, and, what is more important, within the community of the followers of Jesus. As Jesus promised his friends after his last meal with them, and as his friends discovered, either on Easter Even or Pentecost, depending on whether you read John or Acts, God the Holy Spirit now resides within the church, within the community of believers. We do not flounder about on our own. Indeed, the Holy Spirit works within us just as Jesus would if he were still physically present to us. The Holy Spirit brings God’s care and compassion for us into our midst. Through the Holy Spirit we come, as individuals and as a body, to deeper understanding of who Jesus is and who we are called to be as his disciples. Sanctification, i.e., perfection in holiness, both for individuals and the church as a body, is still an ongoing process, is still unfinished. God still “has yet more truth to reveal.” It is God the Holy Spirit who continues to guide us, to teach us, to inspire us to do things we never thought possible, and to lead us into an ever-deepening relationship with God.
Are there ways to glimpse the Holy Spirit at work among us? Last week we exuberantly celebrated the Spirit’s power to upend us by wearing red, sporting fancy hats, singing “Happy Birthday” to the church, and being a little bit silly. Yes, the Spirit does call us to joy and energy, to singing, dancing, hugging, shouting, and proclaiming, as she did among Jesus’ first friends. But we can also begin to notice the Spirit at work among us in daily prayer, in being still, in silently listening for the Spirit’s faint notes. This week, take a few minutes in your own prayer to silently reflect on ways you have sensed the Spirit at work in your life. Take a few minutes in silence in church to reflect on how the Spirit has guided the life of this parish.
In the end, we run out of words in the face of the ineffable mystery of God. As we acknowledge our limited understanding of God’s true nature, of the reality and meaning of the Trinity, we can still join hands in the Spirit. We can still draw nearer to God together. We can still grow in our understanding of God’s purposes and strengthen our bonds with each other. We can still cry, “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty! All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea; Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”
1. “Reflections on the Lectionary, Christian Century, 130, 10, May 15, 2013, p. 21.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Here Am I, Send Me
“‘The swiftest horse cannot overtake a word once spoken’…. A Chinese saying … take it to heart.” So begins Tom Gordon’s story about Georgina, a student in Mr. Bannerman’s English class.1 The students all called Mr. Bannerman “Proverb Professor,” because of his frequent use of proverbs to drive home his counsel to them. That day, the subject was gossip. On other days Professor Proverb had expressed gratitude for a volunteer (“One volunteer is worth two pressed men”), noted when the class arrived at a similar conclusion from different starting points (“All roads lead to Rome”), or announced a new topic in the syllabus (“There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world; and that is an idea whose time has come”). Often he would challenge the students to search out the origin of a proverb. Of course, his advice went in one ear and out the other for most of the students, including Georgina.
Until the day that Georgina learned she had done badly in the practice exams for the A-levels, the final exams needed in the UK for high school graduation and university entrance. There were surely extenuating circumstances, but even so Georgina dreaded the proverbs Mr. Bannerman would fling at her (“‘You’ve made your bed, so you can lie in it’ … English – 16th century,…”; or “‘Sow much, reap much; sow little, reap little… Chinese’ – you understand what I’m getting at?”). She nervously stepped into his office. To her surprise Mr. Bannerman was sympathetic and helpful. He told her about someone who had visited a wise teacher. “You have to be born again,” the teacher had said. The visitor didn’t get it: he knew that no one could be born again physically. “No,” the teacher had said, “You have to be born again on the inside, you have to begin again from the inside out.” Mr. Bannerman then said to Georgina, “Of course the visitor was confused and had to go away and work it all out. And you can do the same. You can start again from the inside, you can get another chance. You’ll see. Now I know you students call me ‘Professor Proverb,’ and really, I don’t mind. I quite like it. And since I know that you were expecting a proverb, here’s one to help you remember that you can change, you can start again, ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight …’ Japanese – 7th century …”
Transformation from the inside out. As we enter the long growing season following Pentecost, today’s readings give us some clues as to how God’s transformation of us might happen. For some of us, God’s transformation begins with an overwhelming experience of God’s glory and transcendence, a mystical experience, if you will. Often such experiences happen at worship, at times and in places when we know instinctively that we are in God’s presence. Isaiah had a vision of the hem of God’s robe – about all any mortal could see of the incomprehensible, unknowable, mysterious God and survive. Utterly shattered by the experience, Isaiah was painfully aware of his own and his people’s sinfulness. In the twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen similarly experienced God’s presence in especially intense ways. Julian of Norwich, through her visions, sensed more deeply God’s love for us. Francis of Assisi was called to a life of holy poverty by a vision in the Church of San Damiano. The first time I knelt at the altar rail of an Episcopal church, I felt as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A friend of mine walked into an old church, breathed in the scent of the incense that had seeped into the wood there over the centuries, and knelt down in the pew, knowing he was in God’s presence.
For others of us, God’s transformation is more gradual. In a night of confusion and doubt, we approach Jesus, but, like Nicodemus, we don’t understand what he has to say: the message seems garbled – or lost in translation! We question Jesus and hear only more riddles, then perhaps even a long speech! Perhaps we may sense that inner transformation is possible, but we’re still doubtful and confused. Yet, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we begin to work things out. Jesus’ words take root in us, gradually begin to flower, and eventually bear fruit. Both ways of transformation are common and valid. In a lifetime, many of us will experience God’s presence in both ways, perhaps more than once. For, as the designation of this Sunday as Trinity Sunday reminds us, God is transcendent, wholly mysterious other, God is incarnate Word, i.e., God with a human face, and God is Holy Spirit, God living within us. Whatever way we need to encounter God, God will come to us – of that we may be sure. And we may be sure that God’s encounter with us will produce growth and fruit.
Growth and fruit: God’s working of our transformation, whether shattering or gradual, always has a purpose. Like Isaiah and Nicodemus, we may be disoriented by our encounter with God. But, God willing, we are also reoriented and ready to be remade into God’s instruments. Isaiah’s response to God’s commission is immediate: “Who’s willing to speak for me?” God asks. Isaiah doesn’t consult a soothsayer, or his family, or his financial advisor, or his discernment committee, nor does he ponder the pros and cons of responding to God. He just blurts out, “Here am I; send me!” Some of us have had that experience: we open our mouths and say, “I’m thinking of …” and off we go, led into a merry dance by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, perhaps we are more like Nicodemus. It took Nicodemus longer to accept God’s commission. He disappears from the story we hear this morning, but he turns up two more times in John’s Gospel, first to defend Jesus against the charges of the rest of the religious leaders, and then to anoint Jesus’ body after Jesus’ death. We don’t know Nicodemus’s fate after that, but we can guess that his life was never the same after that first conversation with Jesus. Perhaps the same is true for some of us. After our first encounter with Jesus, we know that God has called us, but the Holy Spirit has to work in us a while before we can see what our gifts and abilities are, before we can understand just what God has commissioned us to be or do.
Today we have a God-given opportunity to let God continue our transformation as Jesus’ friends and disciples. During the coffee hour we will, through a very user-friendly, non-threatening exercise, ponder our spiritual gifts and the ways in which God might be leading us. The focus of most of today’s exercise will be on our individual personal gifts. But I’d like to plant a few seeds of a different kind. I’d like us to begin thinking about our transformation as a parish community. This parish has existed in this county since at least 1841. This building has stood on this spot since 1858. What should we be offering this county? How might we be distinctive as Episcopalians in Gallia County? Yes, we have a distinctive liturgy. On May 29th, those following the Church calendar celebrated the first Book of Common Prayer, which came into use on Pentecost, June 9, 1549. Largely the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Book gave the English church, and ultimately the entire English-speaking world, new offices through which clergy and laity alike could enrich their spiritual lives and felicitous translations and paraphrases of the old Latin Mass. Might God be helping us to transform this gift, so that we may speak more clearly twenty-first century people?
We also have a proud tradition of service and outreach. The Church of England and the Episcopal Church have long histories of serving the needy. In England, nineteenth-century “slum priests,” moved by their devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of communion, went out into the poorest neighborhoods. In the East End of London, long a working class and immigrant area, St. John’s Bethnal Green still has a lively ministry to drug addicts and prostitutes. In this country at the turn of the twentieth century, lay people like Vida Dutton Scudder founded settlement houses. Religious communities like the Community of the Holy Spirit and the Community of the Transfiguration founded schools, nursing homes, and retreat centers. Parishes in this diocese minister to the homeless, provide worship services for those in nursing homes and mental hospitals, feed the hungry, support overseas ministries, care for the earth, and advocate for the poor. This our legacy too. Yet I wonder: is God transforming our heritage of service? Might God be leading us, as Episcopalians, to some new work in Gallia County? Into what kind of a Christian community is God waiting to transform us? Where do we need to change in order to become even more effective instruments of God in this place and time?
My brothers and sisters, the good news is that God continues to work in us, through us, and among us. God continues to work God’s transforming power on us. Holy God, holy and Strong One, holy and Mighty One, You give us life, you give us love, you give us yourself; help us to give our lives, our love, and ourselves to you. Amen.2
1. "Starting Over," With an Open Eye (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2011), 205-08.
2. David Adam, Traces of Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1999), 82
Until the day that Georgina learned she had done badly in the practice exams for the A-levels, the final exams needed in the UK for high school graduation and university entrance. There were surely extenuating circumstances, but even so Georgina dreaded the proverbs Mr. Bannerman would fling at her (“‘You’ve made your bed, so you can lie in it’ … English – 16th century,…”; or “‘Sow much, reap much; sow little, reap little… Chinese’ – you understand what I’m getting at?”). She nervously stepped into his office. To her surprise Mr. Bannerman was sympathetic and helpful. He told her about someone who had visited a wise teacher. “You have to be born again,” the teacher had said. The visitor didn’t get it: he knew that no one could be born again physically. “No,” the teacher had said, “You have to be born again on the inside, you have to begin again from the inside out.” Mr. Bannerman then said to Georgina, “Of course the visitor was confused and had to go away and work it all out. And you can do the same. You can start again from the inside, you can get another chance. You’ll see. Now I know you students call me ‘Professor Proverb,’ and really, I don’t mind. I quite like it. And since I know that you were expecting a proverb, here’s one to help you remember that you can change, you can start again, ‘Fall seven times, stand up eight …’ Japanese – 7th century …”
Transformation from the inside out. As we enter the long growing season following Pentecost, today’s readings give us some clues as to how God’s transformation of us might happen. For some of us, God’s transformation begins with an overwhelming experience of God’s glory and transcendence, a mystical experience, if you will. Often such experiences happen at worship, at times and in places when we know instinctively that we are in God’s presence. Isaiah had a vision of the hem of God’s robe – about all any mortal could see of the incomprehensible, unknowable, mysterious God and survive. Utterly shattered by the experience, Isaiah was painfully aware of his own and his people’s sinfulness. In the twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen similarly experienced God’s presence in especially intense ways. Julian of Norwich, through her visions, sensed more deeply God’s love for us. Francis of Assisi was called to a life of holy poverty by a vision in the Church of San Damiano. The first time I knelt at the altar rail of an Episcopal church, I felt as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A friend of mine walked into an old church, breathed in the scent of the incense that had seeped into the wood there over the centuries, and knelt down in the pew, knowing he was in God’s presence.
For others of us, God’s transformation is more gradual. In a night of confusion and doubt, we approach Jesus, but, like Nicodemus, we don’t understand what he has to say: the message seems garbled – or lost in translation! We question Jesus and hear only more riddles, then perhaps even a long speech! Perhaps we may sense that inner transformation is possible, but we’re still doubtful and confused. Yet, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we begin to work things out. Jesus’ words take root in us, gradually begin to flower, and eventually bear fruit. Both ways of transformation are common and valid. In a lifetime, many of us will experience God’s presence in both ways, perhaps more than once. For, as the designation of this Sunday as Trinity Sunday reminds us, God is transcendent, wholly mysterious other, God is incarnate Word, i.e., God with a human face, and God is Holy Spirit, God living within us. Whatever way we need to encounter God, God will come to us – of that we may be sure. And we may be sure that God’s encounter with us will produce growth and fruit.
Growth and fruit: God’s working of our transformation, whether shattering or gradual, always has a purpose. Like Isaiah and Nicodemus, we may be disoriented by our encounter with God. But, God willing, we are also reoriented and ready to be remade into God’s instruments. Isaiah’s response to God’s commission is immediate: “Who’s willing to speak for me?” God asks. Isaiah doesn’t consult a soothsayer, or his family, or his financial advisor, or his discernment committee, nor does he ponder the pros and cons of responding to God. He just blurts out, “Here am I; send me!” Some of us have had that experience: we open our mouths and say, “I’m thinking of …” and off we go, led into a merry dance by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, perhaps we are more like Nicodemus. It took Nicodemus longer to accept God’s commission. He disappears from the story we hear this morning, but he turns up two more times in John’s Gospel, first to defend Jesus against the charges of the rest of the religious leaders, and then to anoint Jesus’ body after Jesus’ death. We don’t know Nicodemus’s fate after that, but we can guess that his life was never the same after that first conversation with Jesus. Perhaps the same is true for some of us. After our first encounter with Jesus, we know that God has called us, but the Holy Spirit has to work in us a while before we can see what our gifts and abilities are, before we can understand just what God has commissioned us to be or do.
Today we have a God-given opportunity to let God continue our transformation as Jesus’ friends and disciples. During the coffee hour we will, through a very user-friendly, non-threatening exercise, ponder our spiritual gifts and the ways in which God might be leading us. The focus of most of today’s exercise will be on our individual personal gifts. But I’d like to plant a few seeds of a different kind. I’d like us to begin thinking about our transformation as a parish community. This parish has existed in this county since at least 1841. This building has stood on this spot since 1858. What should we be offering this county? How might we be distinctive as Episcopalians in Gallia County? Yes, we have a distinctive liturgy. On May 29th, those following the Church calendar celebrated the first Book of Common Prayer, which came into use on Pentecost, June 9, 1549. Largely the work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Book gave the English church, and ultimately the entire English-speaking world, new offices through which clergy and laity alike could enrich their spiritual lives and felicitous translations and paraphrases of the old Latin Mass. Might God be helping us to transform this gift, so that we may speak more clearly twenty-first century people?
We also have a proud tradition of service and outreach. The Church of England and the Episcopal Church have long histories of serving the needy. In England, nineteenth-century “slum priests,” moved by their devotion to Jesus in the sacrament of communion, went out into the poorest neighborhoods. In the East End of London, long a working class and immigrant area, St. John’s Bethnal Green still has a lively ministry to drug addicts and prostitutes. In this country at the turn of the twentieth century, lay people like Vida Dutton Scudder founded settlement houses. Religious communities like the Community of the Holy Spirit and the Community of the Transfiguration founded schools, nursing homes, and retreat centers. Parishes in this diocese minister to the homeless, provide worship services for those in nursing homes and mental hospitals, feed the hungry, support overseas ministries, care for the earth, and advocate for the poor. This our legacy too. Yet I wonder: is God transforming our heritage of service? Might God be leading us, as Episcopalians, to some new work in Gallia County? Into what kind of a Christian community is God waiting to transform us? Where do we need to change in order to become even more effective instruments of God in this place and time?
My brothers and sisters, the good news is that God continues to work in us, through us, and among us. God continues to work God’s transforming power on us. Holy God, holy and Strong One, holy and Mighty One, You give us life, you give us love, you give us yourself; help us to give our lives, our love, and ourselves to you. Amen.2
1. "Starting Over," With an Open Eye (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2011), 205-08.
2. David Adam, Traces of Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1999), 82
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