How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? At least 50. A sexton to change the bulb. The rector, the deacon, and seminarian to lead the ceremony blessing the new bulb. The church secretary to make up the special bulletin insert with the bulb-blessing ceremony, including congregational responses: “Do you, the people of St. Peter’s, promise to support this bulb in its work on behalf of this church?” “We do!” The choirmaster/organist to write and arrange a special Blessing of the Bulb Anthem: the “Phos 100-Watt GE Soft White” and 12 specially-imported choir members to sing it. One parishioner to say to herself during the singing of the anthem, “Wait, my mother donated the old light bulb!” The remaining people in the pews thinking to themselves, “Is this service EVER going to end?” PLUS — six of those in the pews will form a Society for the Preservation of the Light Bulb, and two of those people will leave the parish and try to find someone who will let them use the Real Light Bulb of their forefathers.
Well, it’s easy to laugh at ourselves. In fact, it’s healthy to laugh at our ourselves, but there’s some truth in the joke, isn’t there? We Episcopalians have a tendency to get hung up on trivial issues. We sometimes behave as if we believe that a well-crafted liturgy will solve all our problems. We often look to the past instead of attending to the present. Most important, we tend to resist change, whether in how we use space – “You want to move the font??” – how, when, and in what language we worship, how we minister to the rest of the community, even what pew we sit in! Change is just plain difficult! And not only for us. That light bulb joke, with slight variations, can be told about every religious community, really most any group of people. In fact, we naturally fear change of almost any sort, of our living arrangements, our work, our health, our leaders, our friends, and family. Change is risky. Maybe it’s even adaptive to be suspicious of change.
Yet, Jesus forcefully reminds us in today’s Gospel that change we must. We’re still walking with Jesus towards Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus has been teaching his disciples and us about the cost of discipleship. He has reminded us that we must disentangle ourselves from the standards and values of this world and make our primary commitment to him and to life in the Spirit. Last week Jesus raised the standards for discipleship by exhorting his friends to remain “dressed and ready for action,” ready to respond to his call to deeper commitment whenever it comes. Today his charge is even more electrifying. His eyes are hard, and his words are angry: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already blazing.” Whatever they may have thought before, this is certainly not the cuddly baby whom the angels promised would bring peace on earth to those whom God favors. This is not the Prince of Peace. This is not Jesus the Good Shepherd, the gentle caretaker of the sheep? The Jesus whom his friends and we now see intensely, passionately longs to realize God’s kingdom. This Jesus longs to purify the earth, cleanse its people, destroy sin, and restore creation. This Jesus intensely, passionately wants to enable God’s people to produce the fruits of righteousness and justice expected of disciples. And this Jesus reminds us that if we take our commitment to him at all seriously, our life will not be sweetness and light. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” If we are deeply and truly committed to Jesus, if we are willing to answer his call, we will inevitably face opposition, especially from those who hold power and influence over us.
As he urges his friends to a deeper commitment, Jesus also turns to the wider crowd. Jesus challenges the crowd to read the signs, to see what God is doing in their midst, and to discern, if they can, what God calls them to do. “You can read the signs of changing weather,” he tells them, “but do you understand what is happening around you. Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Jesus challenges the crowd to focus on, to really look at what is happening right in their very midst, to see that God’s Kingdom has come near to them. And he warns them and us, that with his death and resurrection, all that is settled and stable will be changed, and the world will never be the same.
Do we somehow want to stop the train? Somehow tell Jesus to stop challenging God’s people to deeper life, stop calling us to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom? We know we can’t. Jesus has warned us. We know that we are called, every day of our lives, to grow in the Spirit and to change. Certainly, we are called to personal change. As life-changing as baptism was for all of us, even those of us baptized as infants, we know that baptism was just the beginning of our Christian lives. We are called to give up old sins and bad habits. Perhaps parts of our lives really need a cleansing or even a destructive fire. We are called to continue to grow in our intellectual understanding of our faith, in our spiritual lives, in our service to our neighbors, and in our efforts to spread God’s kingdom of love and righteousness. Sometimes we may feel that all that was easy and comfortable in our lives is being swept away as we follow Jesus into new and uncharted territory. If you feel that way sometimes, then give thanks to God, for that feeling is a sure sign that God is at work in your life.
We are called to change as a parish. We can no longer be content with the “same old, same old.” We must take on new forms, times, perhaps even places of worship. Perhaps we will have to make changes in how we understand sacred space. Perhaps we can make room in our busy, stressed-out lives for some spaces of silence, some intentional practice of contemplative prayer, some new ways of seeing God in our midst. We will have to find new ways of doing Christian formation. Perhaps not everything has to happen on Sunday. We must look hard at what, where, and when, we are engaging in mission and outreach. Are we engaging in mission that really serves our community? Are we reaching out in ways that show God’s love to others? Are we really partnering with God to help bring God’s Kingdom near, or are we only doing what feels easy and comfortable to us? What signs of the present time are we missing?
And we must consider well and deeply the kinds of changes in the wider community and world, whose birth we might help encourage. What is God saying to us in the events of our own day? Where are those in the military whom we pray for actually stationed? Do we know why they are there and what our nation is trying to accomplish through its military deployment? Can we do a better job of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, eliminating poverty, stamping out human trafficking, or caring for the earth? Are we taking the trouble to see where God might be at work in any of these areas? Come to Mountain Grace in October and see how God is at work in this region. Subscribe to the e-newsletter of the Episcopal Public Policy Network and begin reading the signs of the times in other areas of concern.
A century and a half ago, our country was called to make a great change in its social life.1 It almost seems incomprehensible to us today. Our country was called to abolish human slavery. The abolition movement was begun and continued by people of great faith, including women, who discovered that they too could be in the advance-guard of God’s kingdom. Difficult as it is for us to imagine, there were also people of faith who justified slavery. We know what happened: it took the bloodiest war in American history for us to do what Britain had done peacefully over thirty years earlier. But the outcome of that war, with the abolition of slavery, we took a baby step towards God’s reign of justice and righteousness. And what of now? “How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” What else needs to be set on fire? What are the evils in our own world that need our attention? To what else is Jesus pointing us? Dare we not notice what is happening in our world?
Change is difficult, painful, and sometimes destructive. Even so, God calls us to change so that God may accomplish God’s purposes, so that we may produce good fruit, and ultimately so that God’s kingdom of love and justice may be fully realized. Every time we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as in heaven,” we commit ourselves to being more attentive to where God is at work and to the tasks that God has appointed for us. O God, you call us to share your zeal for justice and righteousness. Give us courage to follow your servants and prophets and to look always to the perfecter of our faith, your Son, Jesus Christ.
1. Thanks to David Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit for reminding me of the pertinence of the abolition of slavery to this Gospel reading.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Awake, Alert, Dressed for Action
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return….”
Have many of you have ever been part of a trauma team? Probably there isn’t a person in this parish who hasn’t spent some time in an emergency room. But have any of you ever been part of the group of people in the ER who stand ready to treat traumatic cases when they come in? I have. As part of my chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, I had to be on 24-hour call in the Emergency Department. When my pager went off – often with only minutes to spare – with the rest of the trauma team I sprang into action, ready to meet the ambulance the minute it arrived. Everyone in the trauma room was dressed and ready for action. The physicians, EMTs, and nurses were in their scrubs, their stethoscopes around their necks. The pharmacist was already wheeling in a trolley of drugs. The operating room nurse was standing by ready to alert the surgical suite, the X-ray technicians were ready to prepare for a CRT or other test. The social worker and I, in my blue chaplain’s coat, stood ready to do our jobs. Between patients all of us might relax a little, chat, or get a drink, but we remained dressed and alert, ready to reassemble and spring into action the minute our pagers went off.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples to be like the Children’s Hospital trauma team: on the alert, ready, “dressed for action,” with “lamps lit.” All summer in Luke’s account, we have been on the road with Jesus. We have been hearing Jesus instruct his friends, the rest of the crowd, and us, about the demands of discipleship. What have we learned so far? We have learned that our commitment to Jesus is to be total, that we are to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, that we are to pray daily for even our most basic needs, and that we must put our commitment to God first in our lives. Now, Jesus shifts gears slightly. He continues his instruction by suggesting that we also must always be on the alert, “dressed for action,” ready for the “master’s return.” He uses two parables here to make his point. In the first he alludes to slaves being ready to greet their master when he comes home from a wedding banquet. In the other he warns us to guard against sudden theft. Both parables underscore the need to be on the alert. Perhaps Jesus is referring here to the final coming of God, what we call the parousia, or Second Coming, when God will finally bring in God’s Kingdom. We have no idea when that event might occur, but both parables suggest that we need to be ready for that moment when Christ will return.
One of the ways we prepare for that moment is by having faith that Christ actually will return, and that God will bring in God’s Kingdom. Our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests what such faith might look like. The passage holds up the figure of Abraham as the supreme model of faith. You remember that, although Abraham had no heir, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that Abraham and Sarah trusted God’s promises. Although Abraham and the others mentioned in today’s passage, could not actually see the fulfillment of God’s promises, nevertheless they trusted God and pressed on along the road marked out for them by God. So believing in God, trusting in God’s promises, seeing the Kingdom, if only from afar, is one of the ways that we await the Second Coming, one of the ways that we stand “dressed for action.”
But I think there is also another way. As the spiritual writer Barbara Crafton reminds us, Jesus’ coming is not just a future event. Jesus comes to us even in this middle time, this time between his Incarnation and his Second Coming. As Crafton tell us, “it could also be that Christ is coming into my life today. That Christ constantly comes into my life, steadily inhabiting every moment and every chance, consistently stands ready to fill the random things of my random life with meaning. It could be that Christ is in my life and I haven't noticed….” Indeed, Christ comes to us all the time, every day, throughout the day. We deepen our relationship with Christ and become more alert to Christ’s presence with us by cultivating disciplined practices of prayer and Scripture reading. We let Christ nourish us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. More importantly, we also let Christ come to us in our ethical choices and in our outreach to others. As he warns us, sometimes Christ comes when we least expect him. Sometimes Christ comes to help and support us, and sometimes Christ comes to urge us on to fuller participation in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom. However and whenever Christ comes to us, if we are living faithful, disciplined spiritual lives, we will be dressed and ready to let his grace change our lives.
Make no mistake. In commanding us to remain dressed for action, Jesus also suggests that when he comes into our lives he will call us to serve him. When the master finally arrives, the slaves leap up. When the ambulance arrives in the trauma bay, the team springs into action. When we hear Christ’s call, we too must be ready to do whatever he asks of us. And he may ask us to do something difficult or scary. He may even ask us to follow him all the way to the Cross, as he did Jonathan Myrick Daniels, whom the Church remembers this week. Daniels was a native of Keene, NH, the son of a Congregationalist physician. He became an Episcopalian during his high school years and began to sense a call to the priesthood. However, after graduating in 1961 at the top of his class from the Virginia Military Institute, he entered Harvard University with a fellowship to study English Literature. On Easter Day 1962 he had a profound conversion experience at the Church of the Advent in Boston. Hearing again, now strongly, the call to ordination, he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge in 1963, expecting to graduate in 1966.
In March 1965, Christ called to Daniels. Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to people to come to Selma to assist in a voting rights drive. Daniels went to Selma under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. He wrote of the moment of clarity about his decision that came to him during Evening Prayer at the chapel:
“…as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence that I have always felt for Mary’s glad song…. I found myself peculiarly alert…. Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma.”
Following a brief return to ETS in May, Daniels returned to Alabama to work with legal aid agencies. He was arrested with three other people on August 13 as part of group picketing local businesses. Shortly after their unexplained release from jail six days later, the four went to a local store to buy a soda. As one of them, Ruby Sales, a sixteen-year old African American girl, came up to the entrance, a deputy sheriff aimed a shotgun at her and cursed her. Daniels pushed her to the ground, saving her life. The shotgun blast killed Daniels instantly. Another of his companions, a Roman Catholic priest, was badly wounded. When Martin Luther King heard of Daniels’s death, he said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was alert and dressed for action. When Christ came to him that night at Evening Prayer, he was ready to carry out Christ’s command. What about us? Are we asleep or awake? Are we dressed in our scrubs or our pajamas? Is our pager turned on? Are we ready to receive Christ, ready to hear his call, ready to follow his bidding? Christ may not ask us to make the ultimate witness that he asked of Jonathan Daniels, but Christ does expect us to be ready to do our parts to help bring in God’s Kingdom. Are you willing to let him into your life? Are you willing to make space in your life for him? My friends, the good news is that Christ continually calls to us. Christ is continually present to us. If we remain alert, if we are “dressed for action,” he will transform us. He will give us the grace and strength to follow his commands and partner with him in the bringing in of his Kingdom.
Have many of you have ever been part of a trauma team? Probably there isn’t a person in this parish who hasn’t spent some time in an emergency room. But have any of you ever been part of the group of people in the ER who stand ready to treat traumatic cases when they come in? I have. As part of my chaplaincy internship at Children’s Hospital in Columbus, I had to be on 24-hour call in the Emergency Department. When my pager went off – often with only minutes to spare – with the rest of the trauma team I sprang into action, ready to meet the ambulance the minute it arrived. Everyone in the trauma room was dressed and ready for action. The physicians, EMTs, and nurses were in their scrubs, their stethoscopes around their necks. The pharmacist was already wheeling in a trolley of drugs. The operating room nurse was standing by ready to alert the surgical suite, the X-ray technicians were ready to prepare for a CRT or other test. The social worker and I, in my blue chaplain’s coat, stood ready to do our jobs. Between patients all of us might relax a little, chat, or get a drink, but we remained dressed and alert, ready to reassemble and spring into action the minute our pagers went off.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples to be like the Children’s Hospital trauma team: on the alert, ready, “dressed for action,” with “lamps lit.” All summer in Luke’s account, we have been on the road with Jesus. We have been hearing Jesus instruct his friends, the rest of the crowd, and us, about the demands of discipleship. What have we learned so far? We have learned that our commitment to Jesus is to be total, that we are to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God, that we are to pray daily for even our most basic needs, and that we must put our commitment to God first in our lives. Now, Jesus shifts gears slightly. He continues his instruction by suggesting that we also must always be on the alert, “dressed for action,” ready for the “master’s return.” He uses two parables here to make his point. In the first he alludes to slaves being ready to greet their master when he comes home from a wedding banquet. In the other he warns us to guard against sudden theft. Both parables underscore the need to be on the alert. Perhaps Jesus is referring here to the final coming of God, what we call the parousia, or Second Coming, when God will finally bring in God’s Kingdom. We have no idea when that event might occur, but both parables suggest that we need to be ready for that moment when Christ will return.
One of the ways we prepare for that moment is by having faith that Christ actually will return, and that God will bring in God’s Kingdom. Our reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews suggests what such faith might look like. The passage holds up the figure of Abraham as the supreme model of faith. You remember that, although Abraham had no heir, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, and that Abraham and Sarah trusted God’s promises. Although Abraham and the others mentioned in today’s passage, could not actually see the fulfillment of God’s promises, nevertheless they trusted God and pressed on along the road marked out for them by God. So believing in God, trusting in God’s promises, seeing the Kingdom, if only from afar, is one of the ways that we await the Second Coming, one of the ways that we stand “dressed for action.”
But I think there is also another way. As the spiritual writer Barbara Crafton reminds us, Jesus’ coming is not just a future event. Jesus comes to us even in this middle time, this time between his Incarnation and his Second Coming. As Crafton tell us, “it could also be that Christ is coming into my life today. That Christ constantly comes into my life, steadily inhabiting every moment and every chance, consistently stands ready to fill the random things of my random life with meaning. It could be that Christ is in my life and I haven't noticed….” Indeed, Christ comes to us all the time, every day, throughout the day. We deepen our relationship with Christ and become more alert to Christ’s presence with us by cultivating disciplined practices of prayer and Scripture reading. We let Christ nourish us with his Body and Blood in the Eucharist. More importantly, we also let Christ come to us in our ethical choices and in our outreach to others. As he warns us, sometimes Christ comes when we least expect him. Sometimes Christ comes to help and support us, and sometimes Christ comes to urge us on to fuller participation in the bringing in of God’s Kingdom. However and whenever Christ comes to us, if we are living faithful, disciplined spiritual lives, we will be dressed and ready to let his grace change our lives.
Make no mistake. In commanding us to remain dressed for action, Jesus also suggests that when he comes into our lives he will call us to serve him. When the master finally arrives, the slaves leap up. When the ambulance arrives in the trauma bay, the team springs into action. When we hear Christ’s call, we too must be ready to do whatever he asks of us. And he may ask us to do something difficult or scary. He may even ask us to follow him all the way to the Cross, as he did Jonathan Myrick Daniels, whom the Church remembers this week. Daniels was a native of Keene, NH, the son of a Congregationalist physician. He became an Episcopalian during his high school years and began to sense a call to the priesthood. However, after graduating in 1961 at the top of his class from the Virginia Military Institute, he entered Harvard University with a fellowship to study English Literature. On Easter Day 1962 he had a profound conversion experience at the Church of the Advent in Boston. Hearing again, now strongly, the call to ordination, he entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge in 1963, expecting to graduate in 1966.
In March 1965, Christ called to Daniels. Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to people to come to Selma to assist in a voting rights drive. Daniels went to Selma under the sponsorship of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity. He wrote of the moment of clarity about his decision that came to him during Evening Prayer at the chapel:
“…as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence that I have always felt for Mary’s glad song…. I found myself peculiarly alert…. Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma.”
Following a brief return to ETS in May, Daniels returned to Alabama to work with legal aid agencies. He was arrested with three other people on August 13 as part of group picketing local businesses. Shortly after their unexplained release from jail six days later, the four went to a local store to buy a soda. As one of them, Ruby Sales, a sixteen-year old African American girl, came up to the entrance, a deputy sheriff aimed a shotgun at her and cursed her. Daniels pushed her to the ground, saving her life. The shotgun blast killed Daniels instantly. Another of his companions, a Roman Catholic priest, was badly wounded. When Martin Luther King heard of Daniels’s death, he said, “One of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels.”
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was alert and dressed for action. When Christ came to him that night at Evening Prayer, he was ready to carry out Christ’s command. What about us? Are we asleep or awake? Are we dressed in our scrubs or our pajamas? Is our pager turned on? Are we ready to receive Christ, ready to hear his call, ready to follow his bidding? Christ may not ask us to make the ultimate witness that he asked of Jonathan Daniels, but Christ does expect us to be ready to do our parts to help bring in God’s Kingdom. Are you willing to let him into your life? Are you willing to make space in your life for him? My friends, the good news is that Christ continually calls to us. Christ is continually present to us. If we remain alert, if we are “dressed for action,” he will transform us. He will give us the grace and strength to follow his commands and partner with him in the bringing in of his Kingdom.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Transformed in Christ
How many of you can remember your baptism? You “cradle” Episcopalians were most likely baptized as infants. You’ve probably seen family photos – “See, there you are in your white baptismal gown!” – but you probably don’t have any direct memories of the event. Some of you were baptized as children old enough to speak for yourselves. You most likely do remember what it felt like to say “yes” to God at that moment. And those of us who were baptized as adults can clearly remember what it felt like to have “the holiest head in town.” A little damp, perhaps, but holy nonetheless. For many adults, even today, consenting to baptism involves a difficult and scary decision. Sara Miles, for example, who described the beginning of her spiritual journey in Take this Bread, led the food distribution ministry of St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco before she was able to commit herself to Christ and put her head under St. Gregory’s fountain-font. Whatever your age, whether you were baptized as an infant, as we will soon baptize little Jackson Boone, whether you were a school-age child, or whether you were an adult, whether consenting to baptism was an easy decision or a difficult one, your baptism was a transformative event. Baptism changed your life. Baptism changed your life more than anything else that has happened to you: more than graduation, marriage, or the birth of your own children, or even the deaths of your loved ones.
The writer of the letter to the fledgling Christian community at Colossae wanted to make sure that these new Christians remembered how decisively their own lives had been changed through baptism. We don’t know who wrote the letter, although scholars are now reasonably certain that it was not Paul himself. Nor do we know exactly when it was written. We do know that Colossae was a Roman city in the eastern part of the empire, the part now in Turkey. It is likely that both Jewish and Greek communities were presen in Colossae, and that the Colossian Christian community included members of different ethnic groups and social classes. From the letter itself we can surmise that, like many other early Christian communities, tensions existed among those attracted to Jewish or Greek philosophies and also within the community among different ethnicities and classes.
In addressing these various tensions, our letter writer had two aims: one was to give these new Christians a lesson in theology that would strengthen their resistance to other religious perspectives, and the other was to remind them of the kind of life to which Christ called them. We’ve had a chance to hear much of the theology in our Epistle readings for the last three weeks. Now in this lection – our last in this cycle from this letter – we hear again a summary of the writer’s theological perspective. The writer assures the Colossians that through the resurrection of Christ, which Christians now share through baptism and through continuing faith and trust, they have a source of their power to live a Christian life. In baptism we have experienced for ourselves, he tells them, the death and resurrection of Christ, and in that experience we too have been completely transformed. In the ancient church, people were baptized naked in big tanks or pools. As they came out of the water they were clothed in a set of new white clothes, symbolizing their new life in Christ. Our writer draws on that image, of the new clothes, to suggest how deep the transformation is that the Colossians have experienced in baptism: “you have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed according to the image of its creator.”
How does the transformation that Christians experience in baptism translate to a new and different life? Our letter writer answers that question in four different ways: maintain, reject, adopt, and place. First, the Colossian Christians are reminded to maintain a heavenly perspective. Realize that a transformation has occurred in your life. Realize that your allegiance therefore is no longer to this world, with its standards and values, but to Christ and his standards and values. Second, the Colossian Christians are reminded to reject the sins of a previous life, or of a life that conforms to the values of this world. Christians are to reject the sins of selfishness and greed, the sins that make my pleasure, my possessions, the sole focus of my life. They are also to reject all those emotions, speech habits, and ways of relating to each other that are hurtful and dishonest: anger, wrath, slander and abusive language. Third, the Colossian Christians are to adopt the virtues of the new life to which they have been called. They are to recognize that they are all one in the church, that ethnic and social differences no longer define them. They are to focus on others, forgiving others, and treating all with sacrificial love. They are to study Scripture, continuing to grow in their formation as Christians, and they are to be faithful in worship, so that Christ can continue to nurture them from week to week. Finally, as Christians they are to place Christ at the very center of their lives. They are to see Christ as the beginning and the end of their spiritual and temporal lives, and they are to express their continuing gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for them and for the world.
Maintain, reject, adopt, and place. Whoa! That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Jackson, are you sure you want to be baptized? Yes, as a community of those committed to Christ, as a community of those baptized into Christ’s Body, we too are called, just as surely as those Colossians were, to maintaining, rejecting, adopting, and placing – as individuals and as a parish. As individuals – and as a parish community – we are called to pursue lives focused not on our own self-aggrandizement, not on how many barns we can build, possessions we can own, or honors we can garner, but on our obligations to others. We are called to forgo all those destructive behaviors that tear a community apart. And we are called to find ways to minister to those around us, to welcome all into our midst, and to aspire to help our parish community begin to mirror the socio-ethnic diversity of the community around us. Most importantly, we are called to keep Christ at the center of our lives. As individuals we are called to nurture our relationship with him, finding those times in our day, week, month, and year when we may fully pay attention to him and his word for us. As a parish, we are to keep our relationship with Christ at the center of our planning and deliberation as a community. We will try to do just that at our parish visioning event on August 20th and 21st. I had a vision for St. Peter’s while I was at my Shalem residency: let St. Peter’s soar. By keeping Christ at the center of our visioning, and by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God willing we can share that vision! I invite all of you to come to our visioning event! And to the other opportunities we will have this fall to continue discerning the shape of our life together in Christ.
Some of you may have heard of Coventry Cathedral in England.1 It was completed in 1962 to replace the Gothic cathedral that was bombed in World War II. It’s a magnificent building. I have now seen it twice, first in 1964 when it was still very controversial because it was so contemporary, and again in 2005 when it was, if anything, even more magnificent. Towering over the altar of the present cathedral is a wonderful tapestry of the Risen Christ that draws our eyes ever upward, and that reminds us again and again into whose Body we have been graciously incorporated. When the cathedral was first built it was a parish church for the predominantly Christian community that surrounded it. Now its neighborhood includes people of all ethnic groups and faith communities, many of whom are not Christian. Nevertheless, as members of the Body of the Risen One, Coventry parishioners engage in a ministry of hospitality, reconciliation, and service to all. This is the mission to which all of us at St. Peter’s are called, as the rest of the world longs to meet the Risen One in us.
In a few minutes we will welcome Jackson Alexander Boone into that blessed company of all faithful people. Christ will call him, as he calls his parents, sponsors, and us, to accept the transformation wrought in us in baptism. We have all raised with Christ and changed by the waters of Baptism. Let yourself continue to be renewed and transformed into Christ. The old life in you has died, and you have been born again. You have been clothed with a new self. Embrace God’s call with joy.
___________________________
1. Thanks to John Shearman, who in his commentary on these lections, reminded me of my own visits to Coventry Cathedral.
The writer of the letter to the fledgling Christian community at Colossae wanted to make sure that these new Christians remembered how decisively their own lives had been changed through baptism. We don’t know who wrote the letter, although scholars are now reasonably certain that it was not Paul himself. Nor do we know exactly when it was written. We do know that Colossae was a Roman city in the eastern part of the empire, the part now in Turkey. It is likely that both Jewish and Greek communities were presen in Colossae, and that the Colossian Christian community included members of different ethnic groups and social classes. From the letter itself we can surmise that, like many other early Christian communities, tensions existed among those attracted to Jewish or Greek philosophies and also within the community among different ethnicities and classes.
In addressing these various tensions, our letter writer had two aims: one was to give these new Christians a lesson in theology that would strengthen their resistance to other religious perspectives, and the other was to remind them of the kind of life to which Christ called them. We’ve had a chance to hear much of the theology in our Epistle readings for the last three weeks. Now in this lection – our last in this cycle from this letter – we hear again a summary of the writer’s theological perspective. The writer assures the Colossians that through the resurrection of Christ, which Christians now share through baptism and through continuing faith and trust, they have a source of their power to live a Christian life. In baptism we have experienced for ourselves, he tells them, the death and resurrection of Christ, and in that experience we too have been completely transformed. In the ancient church, people were baptized naked in big tanks or pools. As they came out of the water they were clothed in a set of new white clothes, symbolizing their new life in Christ. Our writer draws on that image, of the new clothes, to suggest how deep the transformation is that the Colossians have experienced in baptism: “you have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed according to the image of its creator.”
How does the transformation that Christians experience in baptism translate to a new and different life? Our letter writer answers that question in four different ways: maintain, reject, adopt, and place. First, the Colossian Christians are reminded to maintain a heavenly perspective. Realize that a transformation has occurred in your life. Realize that your allegiance therefore is no longer to this world, with its standards and values, but to Christ and his standards and values. Second, the Colossian Christians are reminded to reject the sins of a previous life, or of a life that conforms to the values of this world. Christians are to reject the sins of selfishness and greed, the sins that make my pleasure, my possessions, the sole focus of my life. They are also to reject all those emotions, speech habits, and ways of relating to each other that are hurtful and dishonest: anger, wrath, slander and abusive language. Third, the Colossian Christians are to adopt the virtues of the new life to which they have been called. They are to recognize that they are all one in the church, that ethnic and social differences no longer define them. They are to focus on others, forgiving others, and treating all with sacrificial love. They are to study Scripture, continuing to grow in their formation as Christians, and they are to be faithful in worship, so that Christ can continue to nurture them from week to week. Finally, as Christians they are to place Christ at the very center of their lives. They are to see Christ as the beginning and the end of their spiritual and temporal lives, and they are to express their continuing gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for them and for the world.
Maintain, reject, adopt, and place. Whoa! That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Jackson, are you sure you want to be baptized? Yes, as a community of those committed to Christ, as a community of those baptized into Christ’s Body, we too are called, just as surely as those Colossians were, to maintaining, rejecting, adopting, and placing – as individuals and as a parish. As individuals – and as a parish community – we are called to pursue lives focused not on our own self-aggrandizement, not on how many barns we can build, possessions we can own, or honors we can garner, but on our obligations to others. We are called to forgo all those destructive behaviors that tear a community apart. And we are called to find ways to minister to those around us, to welcome all into our midst, and to aspire to help our parish community begin to mirror the socio-ethnic diversity of the community around us. Most importantly, we are called to keep Christ at the center of our lives. As individuals we are called to nurture our relationship with him, finding those times in our day, week, month, and year when we may fully pay attention to him and his word for us. As a parish, we are to keep our relationship with Christ at the center of our planning and deliberation as a community. We will try to do just that at our parish visioning event on August 20th and 21st. I had a vision for St. Peter’s while I was at my Shalem residency: let St. Peter’s soar. By keeping Christ at the center of our visioning, and by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, God willing we can share that vision! I invite all of you to come to our visioning event! And to the other opportunities we will have this fall to continue discerning the shape of our life together in Christ.
Some of you may have heard of Coventry Cathedral in England.1 It was completed in 1962 to replace the Gothic cathedral that was bombed in World War II. It’s a magnificent building. I have now seen it twice, first in 1964 when it was still very controversial because it was so contemporary, and again in 2005 when it was, if anything, even more magnificent. Towering over the altar of the present cathedral is a wonderful tapestry of the Risen Christ that draws our eyes ever upward, and that reminds us again and again into whose Body we have been graciously incorporated. When the cathedral was first built it was a parish church for the predominantly Christian community that surrounded it. Now its neighborhood includes people of all ethnic groups and faith communities, many of whom are not Christian. Nevertheless, as members of the Body of the Risen One, Coventry parishioners engage in a ministry of hospitality, reconciliation, and service to all. This is the mission to which all of us at St. Peter’s are called, as the rest of the world longs to meet the Risen One in us.
In a few minutes we will welcome Jackson Alexander Boone into that blessed company of all faithful people. Christ will call him, as he calls his parents, sponsors, and us, to accept the transformation wrought in us in baptism. We have all raised with Christ and changed by the waters of Baptism. Let yourself continue to be renewed and transformed into Christ. The old life in you has died, and you have been born again. You have been clothed with a new self. Embrace God’s call with joy.
___________________________
1. Thanks to John Shearman, who in his commentary on these lections, reminded me of my own visits to Coventry Cathedral.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” It’s a familiar story. Martha is angry. Why wouldn’t she be? Like any good woman of her day, she has worked hard getting ready for the arrival of a friend of the family, Jesus of Nazareth. There’s been so much to do: slaughter, dress, and cook the meat, make the cakes, prepare the fruits and vegetables, set the table, heat the water for the bath that Jesus, dusty from the long road, would surely want. Now he’s here, but there’s still plenty to do. But where’s Mary? As soon as Jesus arrived, she joined the men, plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and began listening to Jesus’ teaching? Women don’t mix with men who are not relatives, they don’t study Torah, and they certainly don’t listen to a rabbi’s teaching. What is Mary doing? Why isn’t she helping?
What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?
On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.
Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.
And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.
What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.
And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.
*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.
What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?
On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.
Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.
And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.
What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.
And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.
*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Your Faith Has Saved You
In the summer of 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for kidnapping, torturing and murdering seventeen men. Even though there wasn’t the shadow of a doubt that he had not committed these crimes, in court he pled – as was his legal right – not guilty. In 1995 those who had bombed the Murrah office building in Oklahoma City denied their guilt, as did a former football player accused of murdering his wife. On a much larger scale, Serbian leader Slobadan Milošević, charged with organizing and executing a mass “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia, pled not guilty at his trial at the Hague, and even presented evidence to justify his actions. “Not guilty” is what many of our political leaders claim when the web of lies and evasions they have created unravels, and their marital infidelity comes to light. Mark Sandford on the Appalachian Trail? Right. And just in Thursday’s newspapers, we learned that BP’s 2009 regional response plan, which was approved by the federal government, vastly understated the dangers of a spill and overstated BP’s ability to respond. The answer of BP’s spokesman to queries about the plan’s glaring lies? The company is “reviewing” the plan. What’s wrong with this picture? Don’t any of our public figures accept responsibility for what they’ve done? Don’t any of them demonstrate humility and integrity?
Was St. Paul anything like these notorious public figures? Was Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel lesson? Surely not, you would answer. Wasn’t Paul a Pharisee of Pharisees, a highly educated member of his community? Neither Paul nor Simon had murdered anyone. As far as we know, they didn’t cheat on their taxes, they weren’t unfaithful to their wives, and they didn’t terrorize their servants. Indeed, if Paul and Simon were observant Pharisees, they worshipped regularly, tithed meticulously, kept away from notorious sinners, avoided any chance of ritual defilement, and followed a complicated rule of personal conduct. Sounds like some people that we know. Like me, you probably haven’t murdered anyone, cheated on your taxes, abused those who work for you, been unfaithful to your spouses, or knowingly broken the law. We worship regularly, support the church and worthy charitable organizations, engage in outreach to those less fortunate, do our best to follow Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbors, and know how to behave in various social situations. Clearly we’re not like Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson, or Mark Sandford. So, like Paul and Simon, having followed all the rules, are we righteous in God’s sight? Are we acceptable to God? Have we bought our way into heaven?
Absolutely not, says Paul! He was writing to new Christians in Galatia, a region of Asia Minor, in about 55 AD. The early church was still struggling with the question of whether new Gentile Christians had to in effect become Jews and adopt all the tenets of Mosaic law. Before his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul himself was sure that following every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law and the Pharisaic code would make him right with God. After that life-changing experience, Paul learned that salvation was God’s gift to all. In the strongest possible terms he reminded the Galatian Christians that all have been made acceptable to God, not through observance of the law, of rules and regulations, but through Jesus’ death and resurrection. It wasn’t that Paul denigrated the law, it was rather that he realized that it wasn’t sufficient to make us acceptable to God. On our own, however closely we follow all the rules, we cannot meet God’s standards. But by God’s grace and with faith and trust in God, Christ transforms us, so that we begin to become the people we were truly created to be, not through our own actions, but through Christ’s power working within us.
In our story of Simon the Pharisee we have a vivid example of what Paul was talking about. As we see him in today’s story, although Simon had invited Jesus to his house, he seems to have treated Jesus disrespectfully. Simon seems to have believed that in his scrupulous observance of the law and the customs of the Pharisees he was righteous in God’s sight. In contrast to Simon, the unnamed woman who barged into this all-male gathering knew that she was not righteous in God’s sight, that she was desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Unlike Simon, she threw herself at Jesus’ feet and ministered lovingly to him, showing her repentance with her streaming tears. In turn, Jesus praised her great love, the love that sprang out of her realization that God had accepted and forgiven her. Jesus’ assurance to her that her sins had indeed been forgiven, and her faith had saved her, were spoken to Simon and his guests as well as to her. Salvation, he reminded them cannot be earned, even by the holiest and most righteous men. Rather, forgiveness and salvation are God’s gifts to us, gifts which we receive when we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses and accept God’s forgiveness in faith. The story doesn’t tell us what happened to Simon and the woman after this encounter. But we can hope that both of them, and the other guests as well, were transformed by Jesus’ declaration of God’s forgiveness and grace.
That message is for us too. We may not be murderers or thieves. We may not be drug addicts or prostitutes. We may not have cheated on our spouses or our taxes. But the truth is, whether we admit it or not, whether we think about it from one Ash Wednesday to another, we are all sinners. We are all as capable as Paul, Simon, and the “woman of the city” of greed, sloth, lust, avarice, gluttony, wrath, envy, and pride, to say nothing of others not included in the Seven Deadly sins list. Collectively, we may be doing as much harm to the environment as BP. But the good news is that we are already forgiven for our “manifold sins and offenses.” Whenever we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses, we discover that in Christ God has already forgiven us. What is more important, when we acknowledge who we are, and have faith in God’s saving power to heal and strengthen us, God begins to work in us. God begins to change our lives from the inside out, so to speak. God begins to transform us more and more into Christ’s likeness.
This is our proclamation as a church. This is the message we need to share with the world: that we don’t have to buy our way into heaven, that there are no sins we can commit that will make God hate us, and that through Christ’s action we have all been made acceptable to God. Is this what the rest of the world hears from us? Sometimes I wonder. With our wrangling over property, sexuality, abortion, and God knows what else, I wonder whether a message about God’s unconditional acceptance of us ever gets through. Sometimes I wonder whether anyone else thinks that the church is a place of forgiveness and acceptance.
Here’s what I would like our message to be. Evangelical writer Tony Campolo tells the story of a trip to Hawaii for a conference.1 Jet-lagged and hungry, he woke up at 3:00 AM and decided to leave his hotel and go out looking for something to eat. The only place open at that hour was a hole-in-the wall dive. Tony quickly found out that at that hour most of the patrons were streetwalkers. That particular night, one of them, a woman named Agnes, mentioned that the next day would be her 39th birthday, and that she had never ever had a birthday party. The counter man confirmed that all the women were regulars. So Tony came back at 2:30 the next night. He decorated the joint and put up a big sign saying “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” The counter man had found a cake and told all the girls. Right at 3:30, in walked Agnes. Everyone shouted “Happy Birthday,” and Agnes nearly fainted. Then Tony suggested that they all pray. With half the prostitutes in Honolulu listening, Tony prayed that Agnes’s life would be changed, and that God would bless her. When he had finished, the counter man said somewhat angrily, “Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?” The Holy Spirit must have been at Tony’s elbow when he said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” “No you don’t,” said the man. “There ain’t no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.”
You and I did join a church like that. God help us to be that church.
1The story is from Campolo’s The Kingdom of God Is a Party. It was retold by David E. Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2009).
Was St. Paul anything like these notorious public figures? Was Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel lesson? Surely not, you would answer. Wasn’t Paul a Pharisee of Pharisees, a highly educated member of his community? Neither Paul nor Simon had murdered anyone. As far as we know, they didn’t cheat on their taxes, they weren’t unfaithful to their wives, and they didn’t terrorize their servants. Indeed, if Paul and Simon were observant Pharisees, they worshipped regularly, tithed meticulously, kept away from notorious sinners, avoided any chance of ritual defilement, and followed a complicated rule of personal conduct. Sounds like some people that we know. Like me, you probably haven’t murdered anyone, cheated on your taxes, abused those who work for you, been unfaithful to your spouses, or knowingly broken the law. We worship regularly, support the church and worthy charitable organizations, engage in outreach to those less fortunate, do our best to follow Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbors, and know how to behave in various social situations. Clearly we’re not like Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson, or Mark Sandford. So, like Paul and Simon, having followed all the rules, are we righteous in God’s sight? Are we acceptable to God? Have we bought our way into heaven?
Absolutely not, says Paul! He was writing to new Christians in Galatia, a region of Asia Minor, in about 55 AD. The early church was still struggling with the question of whether new Gentile Christians had to in effect become Jews and adopt all the tenets of Mosaic law. Before his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul himself was sure that following every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law and the Pharisaic code would make him right with God. After that life-changing experience, Paul learned that salvation was God’s gift to all. In the strongest possible terms he reminded the Galatian Christians that all have been made acceptable to God, not through observance of the law, of rules and regulations, but through Jesus’ death and resurrection. It wasn’t that Paul denigrated the law, it was rather that he realized that it wasn’t sufficient to make us acceptable to God. On our own, however closely we follow all the rules, we cannot meet God’s standards. But by God’s grace and with faith and trust in God, Christ transforms us, so that we begin to become the people we were truly created to be, not through our own actions, but through Christ’s power working within us.
In our story of Simon the Pharisee we have a vivid example of what Paul was talking about. As we see him in today’s story, although Simon had invited Jesus to his house, he seems to have treated Jesus disrespectfully. Simon seems to have believed that in his scrupulous observance of the law and the customs of the Pharisees he was righteous in God’s sight. In contrast to Simon, the unnamed woman who barged into this all-male gathering knew that she was not righteous in God’s sight, that she was desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Unlike Simon, she threw herself at Jesus’ feet and ministered lovingly to him, showing her repentance with her streaming tears. In turn, Jesus praised her great love, the love that sprang out of her realization that God had accepted and forgiven her. Jesus’ assurance to her that her sins had indeed been forgiven, and her faith had saved her, were spoken to Simon and his guests as well as to her. Salvation, he reminded them cannot be earned, even by the holiest and most righteous men. Rather, forgiveness and salvation are God’s gifts to us, gifts which we receive when we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses and accept God’s forgiveness in faith. The story doesn’t tell us what happened to Simon and the woman after this encounter. But we can hope that both of them, and the other guests as well, were transformed by Jesus’ declaration of God’s forgiveness and grace.
That message is for us too. We may not be murderers or thieves. We may not be drug addicts or prostitutes. We may not have cheated on our spouses or our taxes. But the truth is, whether we admit it or not, whether we think about it from one Ash Wednesday to another, we are all sinners. We are all as capable as Paul, Simon, and the “woman of the city” of greed, sloth, lust, avarice, gluttony, wrath, envy, and pride, to say nothing of others not included in the Seven Deadly sins list. Collectively, we may be doing as much harm to the environment as BP. But the good news is that we are already forgiven for our “manifold sins and offenses.” Whenever we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses, we discover that in Christ God has already forgiven us. What is more important, when we acknowledge who we are, and have faith in God’s saving power to heal and strengthen us, God begins to work in us. God begins to change our lives from the inside out, so to speak. God begins to transform us more and more into Christ’s likeness.
This is our proclamation as a church. This is the message we need to share with the world: that we don’t have to buy our way into heaven, that there are no sins we can commit that will make God hate us, and that through Christ’s action we have all been made acceptable to God. Is this what the rest of the world hears from us? Sometimes I wonder. With our wrangling over property, sexuality, abortion, and God knows what else, I wonder whether a message about God’s unconditional acceptance of us ever gets through. Sometimes I wonder whether anyone else thinks that the church is a place of forgiveness and acceptance.
Here’s what I would like our message to be. Evangelical writer Tony Campolo tells the story of a trip to Hawaii for a conference.1 Jet-lagged and hungry, he woke up at 3:00 AM and decided to leave his hotel and go out looking for something to eat. The only place open at that hour was a hole-in-the wall dive. Tony quickly found out that at that hour most of the patrons were streetwalkers. That particular night, one of them, a woman named Agnes, mentioned that the next day would be her 39th birthday, and that she had never ever had a birthday party. The counter man confirmed that all the women were regulars. So Tony came back at 2:30 the next night. He decorated the joint and put up a big sign saying “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” The counter man had found a cake and told all the girls. Right at 3:30, in walked Agnes. Everyone shouted “Happy Birthday,” and Agnes nearly fainted. Then Tony suggested that they all pray. With half the prostitutes in Honolulu listening, Tony prayed that Agnes’s life would be changed, and that God would bless her. When he had finished, the counter man said somewhat angrily, “Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?” The Holy Spirit must have been at Tony’s elbow when he said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” “No you don’t,” said the man. “There ain’t no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.”
You and I did join a church like that. God help us to be that church.
1The story is from Campolo’s The Kingdom of God Is a Party. It was retold by David E. Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2009).
Sunday, June 6, 2010
When the Lord Saw Her
“I can’t believe this happened to them!”1 Sixth-grader Elizabeth Kowalsky, a member of St. Andrew’s Church in Colchester, Connecticut, had just learned of the earthquake that struck Haiti this past January. She and her friends already knew a lot about Haiti. The church had had a relationship with Haiti for many years, and its high school youth group had hosted annual “rock-a-thons” to benefit the Haitian Health Foundation. Last fall, without being asked or prompted by adults, last fall the middle-schoolers decided they wanted to do something too. “It felt like the right thing to do,” Elizabeth said. The kids decided to collect shoes and supplies for Haiti and created a project called “Flip-Flops for Education.” Word got around, and soon students in other schools were collecting shoes and money. By the end of the project, on October 24th of last year, the St. Andrews children had collected 2,000 items and $1900.
Had the St. Andrews middle-schoolers heard today’s lessons? In starting their “Flip-Flops for Education” project, could they have been wanting to follow in the footsteps of Elijah and Jesus? Could they have been led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work? Did they see a need and act on what they saw? The story about them in a recent USA Weekend article doesn’t tell us, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were inspired by Scripture to reach out to others without being asked. For both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons for today give us powerful examples of reflections of God’s compassion for “the least of these.” Both of our stories highlight the plight of widows. In ancient Israel, both in Elijah’s time and 900 years later in Jesus’ time, most widows were in very desperate straits. There was no life insurance back then, and widows did not inherit their husbands’ property. Unless they had grown sons, they were dependent on the charity of their husbands’ families or other relatives. No wonder the Scriptures of both Jews and Christians condemn those who neglect or abuse widows and praise God for defending widows and their children.
In our story from 1 Kings, Elijah first encountered the gentile widow from Zarephath as she and her son were on the point of death from starvation. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, speaking God’s words of assurance. Then he announced that God would continue to feed them all, the widow, her son, and Elijah himself. Later, when the son, lay mortally ill, Elijah again reached out to her. He prayed – fervently – and begged the Lord to restore her son. When her son was restored, the widow – remember she was not an Israelite – understood that in the healing of her son, God had come to her through Elijah’s pleading. She also understood that Elijah’s power to heal was a sign of his authority as a spokesperson for God. “Now I know that you are a man of God,” she said, “and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
The story of Elijah’s healing of the son of the widow of Zarephath would surely have been in the minds of the hearers of Luke’s Gospel. And they probably would have seen the obvious parallels. The situation was similar in Nain: a widow facing destitution because of the death of her only son. As the procession of mourners came toward him, Jesus saw her. He really looked at her. He didn’t turn away. He didn’t cross to the other side of the road to avoid her and the procession. He looked at her and knew how desperate her situation was. And his response was similar to Elijah’s. His heart went out to her. “Don’t cry,” he said. However, here is where this story is a little different from Elijah’s story. Luke has told us from the beginning that Jesus is more than simply a prophet. His identity as God come among us was foretold to his mother even before he was conceived. His birth was attended by angels. At his baptism, he visibly and publicly received the Holy Spirit. When he preached his first sermon, he indirectly identified himself as the Messiah. Just before this episode in Nain, when a centurion – another gentile – asked him to heal his slave, Jesus did so. Now, without the widow’s even asking, Jesus reached out with compassion to her. He disregarded the possibility of ritual pollution by touching the bier. He didn’t need to pray to God to heal her son. He simply commanded the boy to “rise,” demonstrating that he was himself the Lord of life. Then Jesus, like Elijah, gave the boy back to his joyful mother, thus also restoring her hope for the future. And as in the story of the widow of Zarephath, the people here, the disciples and the crowd, got it. They acknowledged that Jesus was a great prophet, like Elijah. But what is more important, they understood that Jesus was more than a prophet, that indeed “God has looked favorably upon his people.”
What do we learn from these two stories? First of all we learn that God cares deeply for “the least of these.” The mission of Jesus – and ours – is about addressing real human need, and it is about compassion, compassion for all, especially the poor. As we read through Luke’s Gospel, Luke will remind us again and again of God’s concern for the “least, the lost, and the left behind.” These stories also show us that God sees, truly sees, human need, that God answers prayer, and, what is most important, that God graciously takes the initiative to heal us, irrespective of who we are or what we have done. Ultimately, by God’s grace and as a true gift, God offers us new life in Jesus.
We’ve entered the long season of Pentecost, the green season, the season of growing in discipleship, of being more and more transformed into Christ’s likeness. We will be hearing about Elijah and his successor Elisha for the next several weeks. We will be reading Luke’s Gospel through the end of November. We will have many other opportunities to ponder what God expects of us as disciples of Jesus. What can we, who seek to continue growing in Christ, apply from today’s lessons to our life here at St. Peter’s? For me, these lessons suggest three verbs: look, pray, and act. Let’s start with look. As Jesus’ disciples, we are first called to truly look at human need. As Jesus’ disciples, we cannot look away, cross the road, ignore, refuse to see. Instead, we are called to look need squarely in the face. I see a little of the need in this community in the faces of those who ask for help from my discretionary fund. As most of you probably know, I’ve fed people at the Golden Corral, put people up at motels, bought a gas cylinder, a bus ticket, and groceries, and paid water and electric bills. Those of you who have gotten to know the people who come to Loaves and Fishes, or those who take diapers from us as they gather food, also see something of local needs. I wonder how we can get closer to the other needs in this community, and not only the need for material help, but also the need for real human connection and for spiritual sustenance. What are we still failing to see? Where does Jesus want us to look next?
Perhaps we also need to pray. Of course, we always need to pray. All prayer is important, our own personal prayer, and our prayer as a community. Could St. Peter’s become known as a place of prayer, a place that actively prays for the needs of individuals? Perhaps in addition to my writing a check, I need to pray for those who seek help from us. Perhaps we need to pray for those who come to Loaves and Fishes. Perhaps we need to pray with them. Perhaps we can pray for a deeper vision of how we can respond even more effectively to the needs around us. And perhaps too we can continue to go deeper in our own contemplative prayer lives, so that as we grow in our love of God, we can better radiate that love out to others.
And finally, we need to act – or support those who act with both our goods and our prayers. In Loaves and Fishes and in our diaper ministry, we are already faithfully doing God’s work. Several of us have trained as Benefit Bank counselors and our site is officially open. More of you can train! Last week two of us met with Ariel Miller, the director of the Episcopal Community Services Foundation, to launch a new project of working with Rio Grande students in submitting on line the required federal forms for financial aid. We are also considering extending the program to local high schools. Can we involve some of you in that effort? And where else are we called to model God’s compassion? Where else can we be bearers of God’s grace?
We pray to you today, O God, that you will continue your transformation of us and of this parish. As we cooperate with you in our ongoing conversion, help us to be attentive to the wonders and miracles that you work in our lives and through us in the lives of those around us.
1 This story appeared in the April 18, 2010 issue of USA Weekend.
Had the St. Andrews middle-schoolers heard today’s lessons? In starting their “Flip-Flops for Education” project, could they have been wanting to follow in the footsteps of Elijah and Jesus? Could they have been led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work? Did they see a need and act on what they saw? The story about them in a recent USA Weekend article doesn’t tell us, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were inspired by Scripture to reach out to others without being asked. For both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons for today give us powerful examples of reflections of God’s compassion for “the least of these.” Both of our stories highlight the plight of widows. In ancient Israel, both in Elijah’s time and 900 years later in Jesus’ time, most widows were in very desperate straits. There was no life insurance back then, and widows did not inherit their husbands’ property. Unless they had grown sons, they were dependent on the charity of their husbands’ families or other relatives. No wonder the Scriptures of both Jews and Christians condemn those who neglect or abuse widows and praise God for defending widows and their children.
In our story from 1 Kings, Elijah first encountered the gentile widow from Zarephath as she and her son were on the point of death from starvation. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, speaking God’s words of assurance. Then he announced that God would continue to feed them all, the widow, her son, and Elijah himself. Later, when the son, lay mortally ill, Elijah again reached out to her. He prayed – fervently – and begged the Lord to restore her son. When her son was restored, the widow – remember she was not an Israelite – understood that in the healing of her son, God had come to her through Elijah’s pleading. She also understood that Elijah’s power to heal was a sign of his authority as a spokesperson for God. “Now I know that you are a man of God,” she said, “and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
The story of Elijah’s healing of the son of the widow of Zarephath would surely have been in the minds of the hearers of Luke’s Gospel. And they probably would have seen the obvious parallels. The situation was similar in Nain: a widow facing destitution because of the death of her only son. As the procession of mourners came toward him, Jesus saw her. He really looked at her. He didn’t turn away. He didn’t cross to the other side of the road to avoid her and the procession. He looked at her and knew how desperate her situation was. And his response was similar to Elijah’s. His heart went out to her. “Don’t cry,” he said. However, here is where this story is a little different from Elijah’s story. Luke has told us from the beginning that Jesus is more than simply a prophet. His identity as God come among us was foretold to his mother even before he was conceived. His birth was attended by angels. At his baptism, he visibly and publicly received the Holy Spirit. When he preached his first sermon, he indirectly identified himself as the Messiah. Just before this episode in Nain, when a centurion – another gentile – asked him to heal his slave, Jesus did so. Now, without the widow’s even asking, Jesus reached out with compassion to her. He disregarded the possibility of ritual pollution by touching the bier. He didn’t need to pray to God to heal her son. He simply commanded the boy to “rise,” demonstrating that he was himself the Lord of life. Then Jesus, like Elijah, gave the boy back to his joyful mother, thus also restoring her hope for the future. And as in the story of the widow of Zarephath, the people here, the disciples and the crowd, got it. They acknowledged that Jesus was a great prophet, like Elijah. But what is more important, they understood that Jesus was more than a prophet, that indeed “God has looked favorably upon his people.”
What do we learn from these two stories? First of all we learn that God cares deeply for “the least of these.” The mission of Jesus – and ours – is about addressing real human need, and it is about compassion, compassion for all, especially the poor. As we read through Luke’s Gospel, Luke will remind us again and again of God’s concern for the “least, the lost, and the left behind.” These stories also show us that God sees, truly sees, human need, that God answers prayer, and, what is most important, that God graciously takes the initiative to heal us, irrespective of who we are or what we have done. Ultimately, by God’s grace and as a true gift, God offers us new life in Jesus.
We’ve entered the long season of Pentecost, the green season, the season of growing in discipleship, of being more and more transformed into Christ’s likeness. We will be hearing about Elijah and his successor Elisha for the next several weeks. We will be reading Luke’s Gospel through the end of November. We will have many other opportunities to ponder what God expects of us as disciples of Jesus. What can we, who seek to continue growing in Christ, apply from today’s lessons to our life here at St. Peter’s? For me, these lessons suggest three verbs: look, pray, and act. Let’s start with look. As Jesus’ disciples, we are first called to truly look at human need. As Jesus’ disciples, we cannot look away, cross the road, ignore, refuse to see. Instead, we are called to look need squarely in the face. I see a little of the need in this community in the faces of those who ask for help from my discretionary fund. As most of you probably know, I’ve fed people at the Golden Corral, put people up at motels, bought a gas cylinder, a bus ticket, and groceries, and paid water and electric bills. Those of you who have gotten to know the people who come to Loaves and Fishes, or those who take diapers from us as they gather food, also see something of local needs. I wonder how we can get closer to the other needs in this community, and not only the need for material help, but also the need for real human connection and for spiritual sustenance. What are we still failing to see? Where does Jesus want us to look next?
Perhaps we also need to pray. Of course, we always need to pray. All prayer is important, our own personal prayer, and our prayer as a community. Could St. Peter’s become known as a place of prayer, a place that actively prays for the needs of individuals? Perhaps in addition to my writing a check, I need to pray for those who seek help from us. Perhaps we need to pray for those who come to Loaves and Fishes. Perhaps we need to pray with them. Perhaps we can pray for a deeper vision of how we can respond even more effectively to the needs around us. And perhaps too we can continue to go deeper in our own contemplative prayer lives, so that as we grow in our love of God, we can better radiate that love out to others.
And finally, we need to act – or support those who act with both our goods and our prayers. In Loaves and Fishes and in our diaper ministry, we are already faithfully doing God’s work. Several of us have trained as Benefit Bank counselors and our site is officially open. More of you can train! Last week two of us met with Ariel Miller, the director of the Episcopal Community Services Foundation, to launch a new project of working with Rio Grande students in submitting on line the required federal forms for financial aid. We are also considering extending the program to local high schools. Can we involve some of you in that effort? And where else are we called to model God’s compassion? Where else can we be bearers of God’s grace?
We pray to you today, O God, that you will continue your transformation of us and of this parish. As we cooperate with you in our ongoing conversion, help us to be attentive to the wonders and miracles that you work in our lives and through us in the lives of those around us.
1 This story appeared in the April 18, 2010 issue of USA Weekend.
Monday, May 31, 2010
He Will Guide You Into All Truth
What do you think of when you hear the word “learning?” Does the word conjure up good feelings, memories of stimulating teachers and interesting projects? Were you like me, eagerly awaiting the first day of a new school year, going to school in new clothes, wondering what was in this year’s workbooks and textbooks? Later on, did you like your French, and music, and algebra classes? Were you surprised to discover that a good essay should have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Or does the word “learning” evoke negative feelings, memories of critical teachers and boring work? When this time of year came round, did you loudly chant, “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks?” Did you breathe a huge sigh of relief when you finally graduated from high school graduation? When you were baptized or confirmed, did you think that your formal learning in the faith was finally done? Do you believe the church should proclaim “the faith once delivered to the saints,” the saints of – pick your date – the first century, or the fourth century, or the Middle Ages, or the Reformation, or the 1928 prayer book? Should we as Christians and the church as a body be static and unchanging?
Once again this morning – and the for the last time this liturgical year – we hear Jesus’ speech to his disciples before his crucifixion, as recorded in the Gospel according to John. For the last two weeks, we have been reassured by Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after his resurrection. Now we begin to get some clue as to what the Holy Spirit might actually do. We learn that, although the disciples had followed Jesus closely and had heard his teaching, they were still beginners in their new life of faith. They still had a lot to learn! “I still have many things to tell you,” Jesus told them, “but you cannot bear them now.” Can’t you hear them saying to themselves, “Say what, Lord? Haven’t we been through enough already?” Actually, they were just at the beginning of a faith journey. Jesus’ leaving them would not stop their learning. When Jesus did breathe his Spirit on them on Easter Evening, they were just at the beginning of growth in the life of the Spirit, growth that would last the rest of the lives. They didn’t have to understand everything all at once. The Spirit, they learned that last night, would guide them into all truth. The Spirit, the continuing guide by their side, would remind them of what Jesus had taught them. The Spirit would explain things to them, would share Jesus’ ongoing life with them, and would lead them forward into whatever God had prepared for them. Most importantly, the Spirit would draw them closer to Jesus, who would draw them more deeply into his own life with the Father, so that they too would be included in the community of divine love.
As fellow disciples of the same risen Lord, we too, with those first disciples, are called to be members of a learning community. Indeed the whole church is called to be a learning community – and has been since its very beginning. It took nearly four centuries for the early church to understand and clarify the meaning of God’s coming among us in Jesus. Although we now have creeds and a doctrine of the Trinity, for example, it wasn’t until late in the fourth century that the leaders of the church were able to say with some clarity that Jesus had shown us that we encounter God in three different ways, as God the mysterious creator of all that exists, as God the redeemer who died on the cross for us, and as God the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us and guide us. And throughout the rest of its history, right up to the present day, the church continues to be a learning community. As a church we have learned to value and appreciate the contemplative life, and we have deepened in our sense of responsibility to the poor. We have learned that all people, not just learned clergy, can and should worship and read the Scriptures in their own languages. We have learned that slavery is a sin. In our own day, we have learned that women and gay people can be ordained. The Spirit continues to remind us of our responsibilities to the poor, and that we too are called to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s kingdom of life and love.
In our individual parishes, we are also learning communities, or should be. Next week the paraments and liturgical color will change to green. We are now entering the season of Pentecost, the long season of growing in our life in the Spirit. Are we being led by the Spirit? Are we letting the Spirit guide us into all truth? If we are, then the first thing we have to do is to quit fighting with each other about interpretations of faith and Scripture. Jesus has promised us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. We can trust that God will eventually show us how to reconcile our now differing understandings and practices as Christian bodies. Secondly, we as individuals need to acknowledge that our formation as Christians, our transformation into Christ, wasn’t completed at our baptisms or confirmations. The kind of learning that the Spirit leads us into takes a lifetime to master. Most of us probably cannot explain exactly what every line of the Nicene or Apostles Creed means. Many of us may not be sure that we even believe them all. That’s OK. The creeds represent what the church has come to understand as a faith community. We as individuals, as our faith deepens, evolve in our understanding of the teachings and doctrines of the church. Our understanding will change over a life time. What is important is that we continually stretch ourselves and allow ourselves to grow in our knowledge of God.
What is most important is that we realize that our knowledge of God isn’t primarily head-knowledge. To be sure, intellectual formation is important. Lay folks also need to know when and for whom the Scriptures were written. Lay folks need to know the history of the church. Lay folks also need to know something about theology, and especially what contemporary writers think about God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the church. But ultimately, if we are to deepen our knowledge of God, if we are to grow “into all truth,” then we must grow through our experience of Jesus at work in our lives. And we must let the Spirit lead us into those practices that help deepen us, that help us evolve into more faithful disciples of Jesus. We must allow ourselves to grow spiritually. That can only happen if a congregation offers regular opportunities for its members to grow in the spiritual life. What are some of those opportunities? Some of them may sound quite familiar, as they are really the classic spiritual disciplines that have sustained the church, and through which the Holy Spirit has been working, for two thousand years. We need to learn how to pray – not just the beautiful formal prayers of our Book of Common Prayer, but our own prayers, our own conversation with God. We might consider fasting, a very ancient discipline indeed, which is also a way to enlarge our insights into what much of the rest of the world experiences. We grow through service, as we follow our Lord’s model of caring for the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the unloved. We grow through experiencing the joy of giving, of helping individuals and groups, and of returning to God a small portion of what God has given us. We grow through confession, through acknowledging our sins and limitations to God and asking God to heal and strengthen us. We grow through experiencing God in silence, in creating a quiet space in our lives and our minds where God can do and be for us whatever God chooses. Finally, we grow through remembering that in God “we live and move and have our being,” through acknowledging, however briefly, God’s presence in all our minutes, hours, weeks, and years.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine, was skeptical of business school graduates. In interviewing them over the years, he found that they knew the jargon of systems analysis, financial manipulation, and quantitative management. But he thought that most of them had no appreciation for the importance of technical knowledge, experience, and hard work. "What it takes to do the job will not be learned from management courses," said Rickover. "It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense -- none of which can be taught in a classroom."
Experience, attitude, and common sense. None of them can be taught in a classroom. Experience of God working in us, transformation of life, and deeper love for God. None of them can be taught in a classroom or a sermon. And none of them just happens. The Spirit will guide us into all truth – we have Jesus’ promise for that. When we as congregations and individuals engage in those practices through which the Spirit can teach us, we can be assured of the Holy Spirit’s working within us, and through God’s Spirit we will be led more deeply into God’s own life. And by God’s grace, at the end of it all, we will be Christ’s own forever.
Once again this morning – and the for the last time this liturgical year – we hear Jesus’ speech to his disciples before his crucifixion, as recorded in the Gospel according to John. For the last two weeks, we have been reassured by Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after his resurrection. Now we begin to get some clue as to what the Holy Spirit might actually do. We learn that, although the disciples had followed Jesus closely and had heard his teaching, they were still beginners in their new life of faith. They still had a lot to learn! “I still have many things to tell you,” Jesus told them, “but you cannot bear them now.” Can’t you hear them saying to themselves, “Say what, Lord? Haven’t we been through enough already?” Actually, they were just at the beginning of a faith journey. Jesus’ leaving them would not stop their learning. When Jesus did breathe his Spirit on them on Easter Evening, they were just at the beginning of growth in the life of the Spirit, growth that would last the rest of the lives. They didn’t have to understand everything all at once. The Spirit, they learned that last night, would guide them into all truth. The Spirit, the continuing guide by their side, would remind them of what Jesus had taught them. The Spirit would explain things to them, would share Jesus’ ongoing life with them, and would lead them forward into whatever God had prepared for them. Most importantly, the Spirit would draw them closer to Jesus, who would draw them more deeply into his own life with the Father, so that they too would be included in the community of divine love.
As fellow disciples of the same risen Lord, we too, with those first disciples, are called to be members of a learning community. Indeed the whole church is called to be a learning community – and has been since its very beginning. It took nearly four centuries for the early church to understand and clarify the meaning of God’s coming among us in Jesus. Although we now have creeds and a doctrine of the Trinity, for example, it wasn’t until late in the fourth century that the leaders of the church were able to say with some clarity that Jesus had shown us that we encounter God in three different ways, as God the mysterious creator of all that exists, as God the redeemer who died on the cross for us, and as God the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us and guide us. And throughout the rest of its history, right up to the present day, the church continues to be a learning community. As a church we have learned to value and appreciate the contemplative life, and we have deepened in our sense of responsibility to the poor. We have learned that all people, not just learned clergy, can and should worship and read the Scriptures in their own languages. We have learned that slavery is a sin. In our own day, we have learned that women and gay people can be ordained. The Spirit continues to remind us of our responsibilities to the poor, and that we too are called to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s kingdom of life and love.
In our individual parishes, we are also learning communities, or should be. Next week the paraments and liturgical color will change to green. We are now entering the season of Pentecost, the long season of growing in our life in the Spirit. Are we being led by the Spirit? Are we letting the Spirit guide us into all truth? If we are, then the first thing we have to do is to quit fighting with each other about interpretations of faith and Scripture. Jesus has promised us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. We can trust that God will eventually show us how to reconcile our now differing understandings and practices as Christian bodies. Secondly, we as individuals need to acknowledge that our formation as Christians, our transformation into Christ, wasn’t completed at our baptisms or confirmations. The kind of learning that the Spirit leads us into takes a lifetime to master. Most of us probably cannot explain exactly what every line of the Nicene or Apostles Creed means. Many of us may not be sure that we even believe them all. That’s OK. The creeds represent what the church has come to understand as a faith community. We as individuals, as our faith deepens, evolve in our understanding of the teachings and doctrines of the church. Our understanding will change over a life time. What is important is that we continually stretch ourselves and allow ourselves to grow in our knowledge of God.
What is most important is that we realize that our knowledge of God isn’t primarily head-knowledge. To be sure, intellectual formation is important. Lay folks also need to know when and for whom the Scriptures were written. Lay folks need to know the history of the church. Lay folks also need to know something about theology, and especially what contemporary writers think about God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the church. But ultimately, if we are to deepen our knowledge of God, if we are to grow “into all truth,” then we must grow through our experience of Jesus at work in our lives. And we must let the Spirit lead us into those practices that help deepen us, that help us evolve into more faithful disciples of Jesus. We must allow ourselves to grow spiritually. That can only happen if a congregation offers regular opportunities for its members to grow in the spiritual life. What are some of those opportunities? Some of them may sound quite familiar, as they are really the classic spiritual disciplines that have sustained the church, and through which the Holy Spirit has been working, for two thousand years. We need to learn how to pray – not just the beautiful formal prayers of our Book of Common Prayer, but our own prayers, our own conversation with God. We might consider fasting, a very ancient discipline indeed, which is also a way to enlarge our insights into what much of the rest of the world experiences. We grow through service, as we follow our Lord’s model of caring for the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the unloved. We grow through experiencing the joy of giving, of helping individuals and groups, and of returning to God a small portion of what God has given us. We grow through confession, through acknowledging our sins and limitations to God and asking God to heal and strengthen us. We grow through experiencing God in silence, in creating a quiet space in our lives and our minds where God can do and be for us whatever God chooses. Finally, we grow through remembering that in God “we live and move and have our being,” through acknowledging, however briefly, God’s presence in all our minutes, hours, weeks, and years.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine, was skeptical of business school graduates. In interviewing them over the years, he found that they knew the jargon of systems analysis, financial manipulation, and quantitative management. But he thought that most of them had no appreciation for the importance of technical knowledge, experience, and hard work. "What it takes to do the job will not be learned from management courses," said Rickover. "It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense -- none of which can be taught in a classroom."
Experience, attitude, and common sense. None of them can be taught in a classroom. Experience of God working in us, transformation of life, and deeper love for God. None of them can be taught in a classroom or a sermon. And none of them just happens. The Spirit will guide us into all truth – we have Jesus’ promise for that. When we as congregations and individuals engage in those practices through which the Spirit can teach us, we can be assured of the Holy Spirit’s working within us, and through God’s Spirit we will be led more deeply into God’s own life. And by God’s grace, at the end of it all, we will be Christ’s own forever.
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