Journeys

First, let’s hear some more of the story. The last we heard of Abraham’s story was, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him.” Actually, other people went too, so here’s a little more of the story. “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh…. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages towards the Negeb” (Gen. 12:4-9).

Abraham heard God’s call to move. Imagine it. He was seventy-five. Sarah was perhaps ten years younger. Although they had no children, they must have had many servants, animals, tents, cookware, clothing, and other possessions. They had lived all their lives in one place, among family and friends. They had welcomed their nieces and nephews, their great nieces and great nephews. They had walked their flocks and herds over the same hills and valleys for decades. They were respected elders in their clan. Now they were called to gather the flocks and herds, pack up all their goods, say their good-byes, and literally walk away. They faced a perilous journey. Would they survive the desert heat, the wild animals, and the bandits? Would they find sufficient food and water? And where was “the land that I will show you?” And all this on the strength of an absurd promise: “I will make of you a great nation.” Can’t you just imagine Abraham answering God, “You haven’t even given me kids. You’re going to make me a ‘great nation?’”

But, amazingly, they went. What a lot of courage, moxie, and faith, that journey must have taken. At each place along the way they stopped and recognized God’s presence with them. Did they eventually come to see that God was with them everywhere? On this arduous journey, did their trust in God deepen? Did the physical move from Ur to Canaan also turn out to be a spiritual journey? We’ll never know. We do know, though, that they continued to wander for some years, that they received God’s promise a second time, that Abraham argued with God, that they entertained angels unawares, that Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac, and that Abraham was even willing to sacrifice Isaac at God’s call. Ultimately, their story is too far back in time for us to know much more. Even so, God fulfilled God’s promises. Abraham did become a great nation, and he has become a paradigm of faith for three of the world’s major religious traditions.

Nicodemus was also on a journey, a journey that was more spiritual than physical. Imagine, if you will, what this visit to Jesus must have been like for Nicodemus, what courage it must have taken him to venture out. He was a respected elder of the Pharisees, a community that deeply revered the covenant that God had made with the Jews at Sinai and that tried diligently to live according to their understanding of the Law of Moses. No wonder Nicodemus came by night. He would have had much to lose if he had been seen by his fellows. Did he have to psych himself up for it? What excuse did he give his family for venturing out so late?

Even though he was a leader of his community, Nicodemus treated Jesus with great respect. Jesus was not of the priestly or scholarly clans, and had not been formally ordained, yet Nicodemus addressed him as “Rabbi.” He even acknowledged that Jesus had given signs that he had “come from God.” Nicodemus was clearly a spiritual seeker. And he wanted to know concretely who Jesus was and what God was up to.

Did Nicodemus get a straight answer to his query? Almost like a Zen master, Jesus challenged the realist Nicodemus, answering him in what surely sounded – and still sound – like riddles. Jesus invited Nicodemus to begin a journey of reflection and spiritual transformation. As the image of physical birth suggests, it would be a painful and arduous journey. It would be a journey as risky spiritually as Abraham’s journey was physically, and with an equally unknown destination. It would be a journey that would move Nicodemus beyond the certainties of the law toward recognition of God’s love for all people, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Did Nicodemus get it? It’s hard to tell from the gospel account, since the evangelist moves the camera away from Nicodemus and instead has Jesus launch into a lengthy speech. However, Nicodemus comes into the story twice more, when he later defends Jesus before the Sanhedrin, and then after Jesus’ death when he provides spices for Jesus’ burial. Some think that he then became a respected leader of the fledgling Christian community. Whether or not he did, with his courage in approaching Jesus, his questions, his confusion, and his honest seeking, Nicodemus too has become a paradigm of the spiritual life, especially of the transformation that an encounter with Jesus can provoke.

Wally Underwood was also on a journey, though he didn’t know it at first. As Fr. Lenny Stephens was enjoying a rare quiet evening at home, Wally’s eldest daughter Val knocked on Lenny’s door. After introducing herself, she announced to an astonished Lenny, “The baby, Father, the baby … the baby needs doin.’ Mum said I should get it sorted. So, here I am, wi’ the baby, to see when she can be done.” Finding his voice, Lenny got the baby’s name, Madonna Cheryl, asked when she’d been born, and got other needed details. Then he asked about Madonna’s father. “No idea,” was the unembarrassed reply. ‘Whoever he is’ll do nothin’ anyway. So no point in tryin’ to find out. Baby’ll just be part o’ the family, so ma mum says.” “Who can come with you to church and stand with you,” Lenny asked, “if there’s no father for the baby?” “Oh, that’s no bother,” Val replied. “Ah’ll tell ma dad to come.”

And so Madonna’s grandfather Wally Underwood showed up at church the following Sunday. He was a sight quite unlike anyone Lenny had seen before: rumpled suit, three-days growth on his face, hair only partly plastered down, and horn-rimmed glasses repaired with the proverbial Band-Aid. On subsequent Sundays, he fell asleep during the sermons, though he did wake up for the offering. He stood up and sat down at the wrong time, until he learned the system from the gracious folks who were always ready to help him. At the appropriate time Wally stood proudly beside his daughter on the day Madonna Cheryl Underwood was finally “done,” as the family had wished.

Val Underwood never came back to the church. But Wally did, even when he didn’t have to. He was still unshaven, and his suit was still rumpled. He began to stay awake for the sermons, and he joined a parish men’s group. He came to the annual parish retreat – in his rumpled suit. He became part of the church family.

Fr. Lenny was enjoying another rare quiet evening at home, when there came a knock on his door. It was Wally. “Wally,” Lenny asked, “what brings you here? Everything all right?” “Sure, everythin’s sorted, Father. It’s just that I needed to ask you something.” “Ask away,” Lenny replied. “Well, it’s like this,” Wally continued, “I heard you say in church on Sunday that there was to be a Confirmation Class soon, and I wondered if it would be OK to come along.”

We are on a journey. Like the characters in all our stories, we are on physical and spiritual journeys. All of us are experiencing the physical changes wrought by time on our bodies. Many of us have moved physically, to new places, new jobs, new relationships, and new church communities. We understand the fear and courage such moves entail. As we make these changes, like Abraham we too discover that God is part of the transformations occurring in our lives. Many of us are also like Nicodemus. We wrestle with things of the Spirit. We wish for more clarity than we have, more certainty that we are in the right place spiritually. We know how difficult spiritual growth and transformation are. And some of us are like Wally. One day the Spirit reaches out to us and begins pulling us along to a perhaps unexpected place. And finally we find ourselves asking, perhaps timidly, “Would it be OK if I came along too?”

We can count on this: God will continue to lead us. Ultimately we can trust that God’s love is greater than anything we can imagine, and with Jesus as our travelling companion we will reach our final destination in God.

On Retreat

We are on retreat. On Ash Wednesday, I suggested that we might think of Lent as a time for all of us to be on retreat, a time for the church to withdraw from business as usual and seek a deeper relationship with God. How many of you have actually been on a retreat? I don’t mean what is called a “retreat” in corporate or academic circles. Those are usually just extended business meetings that happen to take place in a hotel or resort, where you have drinks and good meals instead of the usual coffee and doughnuts, and where the emphasis is often on “team-building.” True retreats are just the opposite of business “retreats.” They usually take place at retreat houses, perhaps monasteries or convents, with simple accommodations and meals. They can be corporate, but they emphasize vertical, not horizontal ties, i.e., our relationship with God rather than with each other. They are mostly silent. Many last a week, although some, especially those focused on the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, can last for thirty days.

My own first silent retreat was for two and half days at the convent of the Community of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal order of nuns whose motherhouse is in Glendale, near Cincinnati. That retreat was simply one of unstructured prayer and reflection. Since then, I have made two week-long silent retreats, both at Our Lady of the Pines, a Catholic retreat house in Fremont, Ohio. I will return there again this summer. Often we make retreats like these for discernment, i.e., we go asking God’s help with a decision, a question, or a request. And they usually include daily spiritual direction, i.e., conversation with a wise guide who can help us discern how God is acting in our lives. In the right place, with the right spiritual guide, such a week can be life-changing, or, at the very least, a deep experience of God’s presence and grace.

Jesus was on retreat. Just like all those who go to the desert, a monastery, or a retreat house surrounded by a pine forest, Jesus was on retreat. All three synoptic gospels record that he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. If you remember the video we watched during Lent last year, “In the Footsteps of Jesus,” you remember the barren hills above Jerusalem that Jesus must have wandered through and the caves where he must have spent the night while he was on retreat. Why, immediately after his baptism in the Jordan River, did the Spirit send him on retreat?

In the church, we tend to focus on Jesus’ divinity. After reciting “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” in the Nicene Creed, most of us slide right over “and was made man,” i.e., became a human being. We forget that Jesus really, truly, was a human being, and that he might have wrestled with doubts and questions about his identity and vocation, just as we do. If indeed Jesus was truly human, then he too entered into discernment as he hiked the Judean hills. As he sought God’s presence in deeper silence, perhaps he also sought to discern more clearly God’s will for him. Perhaps he especially wished to understand the words he had heard after his baptism, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” What could it mean to be God’s Beloved Son?

What might it been like for Jesus out there in the barren hills? Perhaps he had taken a knapsack with him. Well before forty days were past, though, he would surely have run out of the food he had brought with him. The caves might have provided shelter but little comfort, even if he had a blanket with him. Could he have bathed or washed his clothes? Unlike those of us who make retreats with others, Jesus was utterly alone. Perhaps he was also spiritually bereft. Perhaps he was experiencing a “dark night of the soul.” Perhaps he felt that God had utterly abandoned him. Perhaps he felt paralyzed, unable to discern what lay ahead and what might be demanded of him.

Mark provides no detail about what Jesus actually experienced on his wilderness retreat. Matthew and Luke suggest that, in this exhausted state, Jesus grappled with three deep questions, three temptations, if you will. The first question was whether he should be a miracle worker. Should he use his God-given powers to create food and other material objects? Should heal everyone who was sick? Should he exorcise all the demons that plagued people? The second question was whether he should call on God’s protective power to keep him safe from all harm. And the third question was whether he should seek to defeat the powers that be through exercise of superhuman political power. In other words, was Jesus really willing to be fully human? As Debie Thomas suggests, “If those forty days in the wilderness was a time of self-creation, a time for Jesus to decide who he was and how he would live out his calling, then here is what the Son of God chose: deprivation over power. Vulnerability over rescue. Obscurity over honor. At every instance in which he could have reached for the certain, the extraordinary, and the miraculous, he reached instead for the precarious, the quiet, and the mundane.” This is the paradox of Easter, she reminds us: that “Jesus’ ‘free gift’ to humankind is rooted not in his power but in his sacrifice.”1

Perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus didn’t come to an understanding of his vocation all at once. Perhaps it took him forty – or more – days of wrestling with it for him to understand his vocation and truly embrace it. However, the Gospel accounts tell us that, once his initial time of discernment was completed, he emerged from his retreat willingly embracing his human limitations and his vocation, and ready to follow God’s lead wherever it took him.

We are on retreat. We have not physically removed ourselves from our ordinary lives. We have not come away to a retreat house, although I heartily recommend the experience of extended retreat for anyone who has the chance to do it. We are not in silence, although silent prayer and contemplation are always commendable. But we do have the gift of Lent to go on a kind of retreat. We can perhaps let go, for a time at least, of those things that distract us from God. We can think about how we might simplify our lives. Even if all you do is clean out a closet or a drawer, or say no to some obligation that no longer feeds your spirit, or say the short form of prayer at the end of the day, you have come closer to a simpler life. We can take advantage of the opportunity to grow in faith together, through our Lenten study sessions. Most important, we can attempt to discern more clearly where God might be leading us.

So here’s my invitation to you. Go on a virtual retreat. Follow Jesus into the wilderness. Take some time today to think or pray about what you might want to discern during this Lent. What question do you want to ask of God? What do want to request from God? With what decision do you seek God’s guidance? Write down somewhere, perhaps in a journal, your question, request, or object of decision. Find some extra time in your day or week to pray about it, and to deepen your trust in God’s leading. At the end of Lent, see whether you have any clarity about what is on your heart. If you need any special help with discernment, there are many different materials out there, which I’ll be happy to recommend. I can also provide, or direct you to, appropriate sources for spiritual direction and retreat centers. If it is helpful, use this prayer, perhaps even daily. Let’s pray it together.

O Lord
I do not know what to ask you.
You alone know my real needs,
and you love me more
than I even know how to love.
Enable me to discern my true needs
which are hidden from me.
I ask for neither cross nor consolation;
I wait in patience for you.
My heart is open to you.
For your great mercy's sake,
come to me and help me.
Put your mark on me and heal me,
cast me down and raise me up.
Silently I adore your holy will
and your inscrutable ways.
I offer myself in sacrifice to you
and put all my trust in you.
I desire only to do your will.
Teach me how to pray
and pray in me, yourself.2

Most important, accept God’s gift of Lent. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you into fuller acceptance of Jesus’ humanity and your own. Let God’s gift of Lent lead you into a deeper understanding of the One whom we profess to follow. Let God’s gift of Lent draw you closer to God’s heart and more deeply into God’s love.

1. “My Flannel-Graph Jesus,” Journey with Jesus, March 9, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/
2. Vasily Drosdov Philaret, c. 1780 – 1867, http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/special/discern.html

Turning Points

We are at a turning point. We are certainly at a turning point in the liturgical year. We are completing the first great cycle of the Christian year, the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, which begins in December as we contemplate Jesus’ second coming, continues through the twelve days of Christmas tide, and culminates in the glimpses we get of Jesus’ true identity during the weeks of Epiphany tide. This coming week we will enter the second great cycle of the Christian year, the Lent-Easter-Pentecost cycle, during which we will walk with Jesus to Jerusalem, experience both his death and rising to life again, and give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, during the long season of Pentecost, which stretches from early June through early December, we will grow and mature in our faith.

We’re also at a turning point in our contemplation of Jesus’ story. Although we’ve heard the story somewhat out of sequence, we celebrated the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, and we were with him and his family as old Simeon and Anna recognized him as God’s anointed one. When he emerged from his years of obscurity we were with him at his baptism. We heard him call Peter, Andrew, James, and John out of their lives as fishermen into new lives as his apprentices. We’ve heard portions of his sermons and teachings as the evangelist wove them together. When Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say that I am?” perhaps we weren’t shocked when Peter blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” But then, when Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from mentioning the Cross, perhaps we were stunned as Jesus rebuked Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block ….”

Now the story changes direction. After today, Jesus will turn his face toward Jerusalem. He has already mentioned the Cross and rebuked Peter for trying to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem. From here he will set his face toward the holy city, toward his triumphal entrance into the city, his last meal with his friends, his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his trial before the Jewish and Roman leaders, and his execution as a criminal.

At this turning point in the story, three of Jesus’ apprentices follow him up a mountain. There they have a great vision, and they see him as he truly is. Once they knew him as a man just like themselves. Now they see him in all his glory. Now the disciples know that they were right to leave all they most loved to follow Jesus. Now they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the old prophecies, and that to be like him is the goal of all the myriad laws that make up God’s covenant with the Jews. Now they hear that he is both God’s beloved and their own guiding star. Did they also have a foretaste of the true end of the story? Did they sense in their vision of Jesus that the story would not end with Jesus’ death on the Cross? Did they get an inkling of the possibility that in his second coming Jesus would look as he did then? Whatever they sensed, they tried to capture the moment of their great vision. But Jesus was way ahead of them. “Can’t be done,” he said. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there. Just don’t tell anyone what you experienced up here until the whole story has played out, and you truly understand what you saw today.”

The gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all relate Peter, James, and John’s great vision at the turning point of the story. Yet no one knows for sure what really happened. We only know that somehow the vision confirmed Peter’s confession. Perhaps Peter, James, and John told the rest of Jesus’ closest friends. Perhaps knowledge of that vision, even if they had no clue what really happened, sustained them through the walk to Jerusalem and the dark days of Jesus’ execution.

Ultimately, though, no one can really talk about a vision like the one the disciples had. No one can really understand them or fix them in stone. There are truly experiences of God’s presence, whether in visions or in worship, that elude our understanding, and that we simply cannot express in words, or even pictures. Barbara Brown Taylor relates a story told by the physicist Niels Bohr.1 It seems that a young rabbinical student heard three lectures by a famous rabbi. He related to his friends that, “The first talk was brilliant, clear and simple. I understood every word. The second was even better, deep and subtle. I didn’t understand much, but the rabbi understood it all. The third was by far the finest, a great and unforgettable experience. I understood nothing, and the rabbi didn’t understand much either.” God’s presence is inexpressible; God literally takes our words away.

Jesus’ first followers were certainly not the only ones who had great visions. The Desert Fathers and Mothers had visions after they left Alexandria and the other cities behind for the solitude of monastic communities. Francis of Assisi had a vision of Jesus in the Church of San Damiano, in which Jesus commanded him to rebuild his church. As Julian of Norwich lay mortally ill she had visions of Jesus’ Passion, of the Trinity, and of God as our great lover. She spent the next twenty years of her life reflecting on her visions and attempting to express their depth and meaning for her. Martin Luther King, Jr., had his own mountain top vision, foreseeing, ahead of his time, the possibility of racial equality and justice in this country.

Many of us have also had such numinous experiences. Perhaps you felt God’s presence as you walked deep into a forest, or as you stood on a cliff looking out at the miles and miles of rocks and boulders below you. Perhaps you had a vision of Jesus as you sat in a quiet church, meditating on the stained glass windows or humming a familiar hymn. Perhaps you felt yourself drawn into the mystery of the Eucharist and knew yourself sitting at that long-ago table with Jesus and his friends. Perhaps you heard God speaking to you in the silence of your own prayer. Perhaps a psalm phrase leapt out at you as you read one of the daily offices. Perhaps a reading from Scripture caught you off guard, and you knew yourself directly addressed by God. All of sudden, you found yourself in a “thin place,” where the veil that separates us from the divine was suddenly lifted, where the cloud that conceals God’s reality was momentarily parted.

When we have such experiences, we too try to capture the moment. We may want to photograph the wonderful natural scene. We may want to journal about what we experienced in the church, in worship, or in prayer. We may want to use the psalm as a talisman, repeating it whenever we need assurance of God’s reality. Ultimately, Jesus says the same thing to us that he said to his friends. “Can’t be done,” he reminds us. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there.”

And the reason is this: God gives us mountain-top experiences – or quiet pew experiences – so that we can be transformed. After we have had a vision of God’s reality we see the world and ourselves differently. You cannot go along doing the same old same old once you have glimpsed the nearness of God’s kingdom. When you have glimpsed Jesus’ true identity, your faith and confidence are deeper, and you have deeper trust in your ability to face whatever it is you must face.

Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” that almost didn’t happen. Everything that could go wrong did. Coming home after rehearsals that seemed to go nowhere, with choir members at odds with each other, Morag felt as if she were on a mountain climb with no end in sight. She needn’t have worried. On the night of the performance, the choir scaled the mountain. The performance was glorious. No one knew quite why. Was it the quality of the paid soloists? Was it the beaming smile of the former director sitting in the very first row? Was it somehow the work of God’s Holy Spirit? After the performance was over, and most of the musicians and singers had left, Morag sat in the dressing room, staring into space. “Not going home?” one of the tenors asked. “I don’t want to go home,” she replied. “I’d like to stay here, to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible. This is too good to let go.” The tenor smiled. “Aye, lass, it was good right enough. But you can’t stay here forever – none of us can. We’ll remember tonight for sure, and we’ll get a buzz out of our memories when we think back. But it’s time to go now. And there’ll always be another year.”2

We are at a turning point, a turning point from life as we knew it to life as Jesus’ friends. What visions of divine reality come to you in this place? When you have felt the nearness of God’s kingdom, will you go back down the mountain to be a healing presence to those around you?

1. From The Luminous Web (Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000), 79, quoted in Synthesis, 27, 3, March 2, 2014.

2. “I Want to Stay,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow, Wild Goose Publications, 2010), 87-89.

Be Perfect

Have any of you read the Old Testament straight through? I’d guess that even those of you who have read a lot of the Bible have not read Leviticus straight through. In our Sunday lections we now hear significant parts of the Hebrew Bible. We hear Genesis and Exodus, and some from Deuteronomy, and we pray a lot of the Psalter. We hear parts of Job, parts of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and parts of other prophets. Leviticus is a difficult book, especially after all the stories of bad boys and family feuds in Genesis, and the deliverance from Egyptian oppression followed by forty years in the wilderness in Exodus. Perhaps that’s why this Sunday is one of the very few Sundays in the three-year lectionary that we hear a reading from Leviticus.

We should hear Leviticus more often – despite its difficulty. The Old Testament, as Christians call it, is a compilation of a lot of different kinds of writings. It’s really like a library, reflecting all the ways the Jews debated, argued about, and experienced God’s covenant with them. Leviticus is the middle book of the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. It contains four main sections dealing with how to perform sacrifices, how to ordain priests, a section that is called the Holiness Code, and an appendix. And I don’t recommend reading any of it without a commentary! The Holiness Code, chapters 17 through 26, is where today’s reading comes from.

Our reading begins with a startling pronouncement: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Then, still speaking through Moses, God lays out for the people what a holy life looks like. The people hear that holy people treat God’s people with justice and integrity. They share their wealth with the poor and the alien, and are honest. They even treat their employees fairly! They care for the disabled, pursue justice, and practice righteousness within their families and communities. They forgo vengeance and love their neighbors as themselves. Here in a nutshell is the whole law: all the rest really is commentary. And the main thesis is simple: love of God and love of neighbor are integrally entwined. How are the people to reflect God’s holiness? By loving their neighbors!

Five centuries Leviticus was compiled, the disciples gathered around Jesus heard much the same thing from him. Unquestionably, Jesus knew his Leviticus! But to the perspective of Leviticus Jesus added another element, the awareness that love goes beyond what is strictly required. Most particularly, Jesus added the declaration that the disciples were to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them – much as he himself would do on the Cross. And then we discover that the reason for doing all these things is the same for Jesus’ disciples as it was for the people who heard God speaking through Moses: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

“You shall be holy.” “Be perfect.” Can these words possibly have any relevance for us? Now we know why we haven’t read Leviticus. Yes, it’s a dense book filled with references to ancient social practices. But the real reason is that we don’t trust God to really transform us. Look at all the different ways in which the psalmist begged for God’s help in becoming more holy: “Teach me, give me, make me, incline my heart, turn my eyes, fulfill your promise….” Perhaps too we are afraid of what might happen to our lives if we really did become holier. Worse yet, are we afraid that might lose God’s love if we fail to live up to God’s standards of holiness? For sure, in this broken and sinful world, there’s no way we can “be perfect.” O.K. maybe a few saintly people have been able to live up to such standards. People like the Desert Fathers and Mothers, like Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, the Mennonite peacemakers, or Mother Teresa. But does God also expect the rest of us to be holy and perfect?

Let’s look a little more closely at what those words really mean. The basic meaning of the word that Jesus uses is “complete, having fully attained its purpose, mature.” Aren’t God in the Hebrew Bible and Jesus calling us to grow from where we are into a more mature faith, a holier way of life? Like it or not, isn’t Jesus calling us to be different from the world around us? God was certainly calling the Jews to be a community different from the cultures around them. The word holy, which Leviticus uses, means “set apart.” When the word is applied to things, it means dedicated to God’s use – like our communion vessels, or this building, or even us. When the word is applied to God, it reminds us that God is “other,” different from humanity. One writer has suggested that a good synonym for holy would be “odd.” Perhaps God was really saying, “You shall be odd, for I the Lord your God am odd.” What? That’s the last thing some of us want to be. We want to fit in, to be normal, to conform to the culture around us. Perhaps God was calling the Israelites, and Jesus is calling us, to be something new and different.

So hear again the words from Leviticus: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Yes there is an implied command in the words, but this is also a declarative sentence. Could God be telling us, that in God’s company we become more like God? Perhaps we’ve not only been created in God’s image, but are also called to be other, apart, a separate community, just as God is other. Even as God fills all things yet is wholly other, so God’s people are part of humanity, yet also set apart. God’s people are called to a way of life that is different from that of rest of the world. Being holy or perfect means swimming against the tide of the ways of the world and straining towards being more like God. We know being more like God is hard work, but ultimately it is not a do-it-yourself project. Yet when we feel tempted to give up, we can remember God’s promise of holiness and trust that God is at work in us.

And how can we continue to experience God’s transforming grace, so that we can grow in holiness and become more mature Christians? You know the sacraments are important. We grow in holiness when we allow Jesus to nourish us with his Body and Blood week by week. You also know how important mission is, showing our love of God through our care for others. But hear again God’s promise: “In My presence you become more like Me.” The holiness and maturity to which both these lections call us ultimately grows out of an internal change of heart that then can be seen in a changed life – just as we heard Jesus remind us in last week’s Gospel reading. As we deepen our relationship with God, as we are led further and further into the heart of God, as God continues to gracefully transform us, the standards of this world fade in importance. The desire to imitate God by loving others – even our enemies – grows in us.

What’s an easy way to begin deepening our relationship with God? Seeking God every day of our lives. Finding times and ways to pray every day. If you do nothing else, here’s a simple way to seek God on a daily basis. Open your prayer books to p. 138. Spend a minute or two in silence, then pray the brief Noonday prayer. It takes about two minutes and can be done anywhere. And you can even access the Book of Common Prayer electronically, on your smart phone or e-reader. If you want the five-minute version of Noonday prayer, it can be found on p. 103. Lent is coming – Ash Wednesday is on March 5th. Here’s a Lenten discipline to consider: praying Noonday prayer every day in Lent. You could even start it tomorrow, even though it’s still Epiphany tide! I guarantee you that daily Noonday prayer will do more for your souls than giving up chocolate or alcohol! And if noon doesn’t work for you, notice that the prayer book provides brief forms of prayer for the morning, the early evening, and the close of day.

In addition to these prayers, find some time in your day for silence with God, even it’s just sitting in the parking lot for a minute or two before leaving the car or just opening you day with God before you get out of bed. You’ll be surprised what the Holy Spirit can do if you listen attentively for just five minutes. And five minutes twice a day? Even better. You may or may not have any high “ecstatic” experiences. That’s not the point. The point is to draw nearer to God, to let God begin to shape and mold you, to let God continue the process of growth into holiness and completeness that began with your baptism. I assure you, that once we place ourselves in God’s company, God will make good God’s promises to us. Out of our silence, God will help us to live with simplicity, forgive others, pursue social justice, pray for our enemies, and seek peace. God will help us to grow in holiness and lead us into a deeper faith. Thanks be to God!

But I Say to You

A friend of mine was a new faculty member in history at a Midwestern university. As she began to get know people, she discovered that a fellow faculty member in art was a nationally known painter. When she finally saw his work at the winter faculty art show, she fell in love with his paintings. His use of color and light was phenomenal! The paintings made her spirit soar. The artist himself was surprisingly friendly and personable. It was easy to see why other faculty members and even students spoke so highly of him. As she talked with him at the show, she discovered that they were about the same age and had grown up in the same county in Iowa. No wonder she liked him! One day, a few weeks after the show, she ran into him on campus. When she said how much she had enjoyed seeing his paintings, he invited her up to his studio to see his latest work. As they walked around the studio, he explaining his various goals in the paintings, and she enjoying seeing his ideas come to life, an electric spark began to jump between them. He became more animated. She connected more deeply with his paintings. Would something more happen between them? There was only one obstacle. They were both married. They both loved their spouses and intended to keep the promises they had made to them. They let the electricity die down, as they backed away from the paintings. She gave him a light pat on the arm, thanked him for showing her his work, turned around, and walked down the stairs.

Perhaps when my friend and the artist gracefully backed away from the attraction they had suddenly felt for each other they remembered the passage from Matthew’s gospel we just heard. We are still in the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in chapters five through seven. Scripture scholars surmise that the historical Jesus didn’t sit down on the mountain and spout off all these prescriptions of moral theology in one go. Rather, it is likely that the evangelist carefully collected remembered teachings and sayings of Jesus and wove them together into the sermon.

Why would the evangelist have done this? Unlike the other gospels, Matthew was written to a community of mostly Jewish Christians. They would probably have been observant Jews who differed from their fellow Jews only in their allegiance to Jesus. Most likely too they lived outside Israel, having been forced to leave Jerusalem with other Jews when the Romans destroyed the city in 70 AD.

As the leaders of these dispersed Jewish communities adapted to life outside Israel, they debated how the Law of Moses could be kept in Gentile societies. What was important and must be retained? What could be reinterpreted or changed? What way of life does God expect of the faithful? What was the true intent of the Law beyond its surface commands? The goal was not to abandon the Law but rather to understand its importance in new circumstances. Indeed in our gospel reading last week, Jesus had said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” In showing that Jesus gave his followers a new way to be faithful to God’s commands, the evangelist thus reassured his hearers that they could observe the Law and still follow Jesus. All that was needed was to understand the Law in a way appropriate to their new situation.

The evangelist also had another concern. He was writing to a small group of Jesus’ followers who were beginning to draw away from their fellow Jews. Their way of life also differed significantly from that of the Gentiles among whom they lived. So the evangelist was also concerned to help his hearers strengthen their communities, so that they could truly begin to experience God’s realm in them.

As you hear the evangelist portray Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law, can you also hear that Jesus has shifted the focus from individual personal punctilious observance of the law to care and concern for the people our actions affect? It is not enough, for example, to observe the sixth of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not murder,” by refraining from taking up a knife or gun against someone. Haven’t we all felt “the urge to kill?” Anger is such a basic human emotion, one we need to recognize and acknowledge when we actually feel it. But if we care about the people we live with, if we really want to build up our communities, if we really want to grow in love, we will also realize how destructive anger can be. We will find ways of managing our anger that do not lead to physical violence or verbal abuse. More to the point, we will pursue forgiveness and reconciliation when we have been wronged or have ourselves wronged someone.

What about Jesus’ reinterpretation of the last commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife ….”? Do you only disobey the commandment when you actually sleep with someone else’s spouse? No, says, Jesus. If you care about the promises and covenants that married people have made with each other, you might admire a married person, but you will not seriously entertain asking him or her to violate their relationship with their spouse. When my friend and the artist realized that they might do just that, i.e., break their promises to their spouses, they wisely backed away from each other.

In his teaching on divorce, Jesus is referring not to one of the Ten Commandments but to a prescription in Deuteronomy. In the ancient world, there was virtually no place for a divorced woman, other than to return in disgrace to her parents’ house. Here perhaps Jesus is reminding men that, if they care for the women with whom they have made a covenant, they will remain faithful to that covenant and not force their wives to become socially, morally, or economically bereft. Scholars and church people have debated over the centuries the intention behind Jesus’ reinterpretation here of common ancient practice concerning divorce. We now live in a different culture from that of the ancient world. And so we have come to realize that perhaps not all marriages are made in heaven. We may need to sorrowfully acknowledge our human frailty and our inability to keep our promises. We may come to understand that they may be times when dissolving the marriage will be a more compassionate choice than forcing partners to remain together in misery. But the underlying concern, then and now, is compassion for the spouses, children, and families of all those involved in the dissolution of a covenanted relationship.

In the last part of today’s reading, the evangelist addresses Jesus’ prohibition of oaths. Scholars disagree as to whether he was reinterpreting the third commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” or the ninth, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The ancient world, in both the Jewish and Greek communities, had a complicated system of oaths. Suffice it to say, that Jesus was advocating maintaining personal integrity and compassion for others by speaking the truth without any external restraints. For us, the issue is not the taking of oaths, since we seldom take formal oaths in our culture. Most of us encounter oaths only in a court of law or if we are elected to public office, although there are those who take Jesus’ words here so strictly, including most Quakers, that they refuse to swear even in those circumstances. However, it’s not hard to see all the ways in which we engage in deceptive speech: distorting or bending the truth, gossip, or making promises we don’t mean to keep, for example. Doesn’t such speech undermine our personal relationships? Think of the political talk shows and advertisements. Many of us believe that the pundits, talk show participants, and advertisement voice-overs, who bandy about outrageous untruths, have all contributed to the current deeply polarized political climate. And how about the lies embedded in marketing? Will the latest gizmo, that the ads urge us to buy, really make us smarter, nicer, better looking, or richer?

At the heart of all of Jesus’ reinterpretations of the Law of Moses is compassion. Indeed, the same is true of much of the reinterpretation of the law undertaken by the rabbis since Jesus’ time. We are faithful to God when we share deep care for those around us and when we work to strengthen the bonds among us in our various communities. More important, our compassion and concern is ultimately grounded in the intents of our hearts. For me, Margaret Thatcher’s words in the film The Iron Lady indeed ring true: “Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become.”

God’s desire for all of us is that we grow in wholeness, trust, and personal integrity, and that our human communities reflect God’s realm. As disciples of Jesus we hope, pray, and trust that the Holy Spirit will lead us more and more deeply into that blessed place.

You are Salt and Light

Do you take Scripture seriously? In its earliest books, the Bible goes back at least eight centuries B.C. Its last book, Revelation, was written no later than the early second century A.D. So does this library, or the words of the God its books proclaim, offer us any meaningful teaching? Yes, Scripture is one of the three legs of the Anglican stool on which our faith rests – along with tradition, which we explored last week, and reason. But do we really live by it? More to the point, does what we hear on Sunday have any bearing on what we do on Monday and the rest of the week? Do we do anything on Sunday that changes how we live or how we treat others? Do we even think about our relationship with God during the rest of the week? Or have we completely separated our “spiritual life” from the rest of our life? Are these important and real questions for you? If so, today’s Scripture has startling answers to them, answers which might disturb us – or just might move us out of our comfort zone.

Our reading from the Gospel according to Matthew provides what might be the most startling passage of today’s four Scripture portions. We are in the first part of Jesus’ first great discourse in Matthew – altogether there are five. In this first discourse, the writer lays out what Jesus has to say about the new identity and way of life that characterize the community of Jesus’ disciples. The discourse begins after the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John, which we heard two weeks ago. As they follow after Jesus, watching him cure the sick and proclaim the good news of God’s reign, the crowds of Jesus’ followers begin to swell. Jesus stops on a hillside and begins what we have come to call the “Sermon on the Mount.” If we had not observed the feast of the Presentation last week, we would have heard the opening lines of the sermon. But you know them: this is the sermon that begins, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In these opening lines, which we have come to call the Beatitudes, Jesus begins to describe the community of his disciples, and shows us how it contrasts with communities in the world around it.

Jesus then makes two very startling statements. “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. “You are the light of the world.” “You are salt and light?” “Salt” and “light,” are two very potent metaphors for discipleship. Why would Jesus use these metaphors? More important, if we really want to take Scripture seriously, what are we hearing? I studied linguistics in another life. So let’s takes these statements apart.

“You.” Who is the “you” in these statements? At least three circles of hearers are included in this “you.” First, there are the inner circle, those first four whom we heard Jesus call, and, presumably some others, plus possibly some women followers whom this gospel does not name. Second, there are the crowds who looked to Jesus for healing and avidly attended to his words. And then there are all those who heard the gospel, its original audience, and all those who heard it down the centuries, including us. As we recognize ourselves included in this “you,” as we learn who we truly are and what our mission as Jesus’ followers is, we also learn that no one is excluded from this community of disciples. All of you are part of it.

“Are.” Jesus did not say “should be,” “might be,” or “will be.” Jesus did not command us to be something or hope that we might become something. He said that we are something, we are salt and light. We may not be sure where Jesus is leading us, any more than his first followers were. Even so, at the outset of his ministry, Jesus takes pains to tell his followers that, just by virtue of being his disciples, they are already members of a beloved community. That was certainly a startling statement to the first hearers of this gospel, to a community of believers that was small, weak, and persecuted by the surrounding religious and political leadership. Is it startling to us? Mainline Protestant churches have been steadily declining in membership for the last generation. Now it’s the turn of white Evangelical churches to suffer decline, as more and more people under the age of twenty-five declare that they are “nones,” i.e., they have no religious affiliation. We here at St. Peter’s are certainly part of that trend. As a congregation we are much smaller, weaker, and probably less influential than we were thirty years ago. Even so, Jesus doesn’t allow any of us to say, “Oh, poor us.” Instead, he reminds us that “you are.” He says to all of us, “If you profess to follow me, then you are.”

So what are you? “You are salt.” Sodium gets a bad rap these days, as the healthcare media tell us that we eat too much of it. However, in the ancient world, salt was a precious and necessary commodity. It was needed to preserve food. It was part of the commonly-used dung fuel, for which it was also necessary as a fire-starter. It was – and still is – essential to enhancing the taste of food, chiefly by intensifying other flavors. Salt has also been historically important. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, from which comes our word “salary.” Salt production was so important that it was often a government monopoly. Mahatma Gandhi began the Indian independence movement by marching his followers to the sea, in order to make salt from salt water, thus undoing the government monopoly. Perhaps this winter we’ve gained a little more respect for salt, as we’ve watched our road crews open the roads drawing on a now dwindling supply of road salt. “You are salt.” You, Jesus’ first disciples, Matthew’s first hearers, and you, you are precious and needed, especially to enhance the lives of others.

“You are light.” Does this need much explanation? We know that light is an essential element for all human life. Along with plants and other animals, we need sunlight for health. We need daylight for ordinary human activity. Before artificial life, people virtually hibernated during the winter months, sleeping during the long dark hours. With artificial light, we have extended our time for work, though when the power goes out, we gain an enhanced understanding of the necessity of light. Light also guides us safely to our various destinations. Viewing the “city on the hill” from afar, or the lighthouse on the beach, travelers and mariners know how to avoid danger.

So Jesus offers us two potent images for ourselves as his disciples. We are salt and light. We are, by God’s grace, precious and essential to God’s plan. And our role? To be life-giving for others.

Now the real question. How do you “let your light shine before others,” so that they might give glory to God? Actually, no one has to re-invent the wheel to answer this question. As they did for Jesus and the hearers of Matthew’s gospel, the prophetic books of Scripture, together with many of the psalms, offer us the guidance we need in how to live a salty and light-filled life.

Today’s reading from the last third of the prophecy attributed to Isaiah offers us especially good guidance. What do we hear? Worship is important, the prophet acknowledges. We are nourished by worship and hear God speaking to us through the words of Scripture. The spiritual practices that we undertake are also helpful in forming us to be God’s people. But neither worship nor pious practices are ends in themselves. We must not just hear God’s words and perform our rites. We must reach out to the poor and needy. We must share our bread. We must find clothing and shelter for those who lack these essentials of life, and we must recognize that we are kin to the entire human family. We must work to “loose the bonds of injustice.” Whatever that meant in Isaiah’s day, or Jesus’ day, in our day that means we are called to rescue women and children from trafficking. We are called to bring home our soldiers and care for those with PTSD. We are called to reduce our incarceration rates and do away with capital punishment. We are called to see that all have access to adequate food, healthcare and education. We are called to ensure that this country has just immigration policies, especially for those brought here as children. Clearly, we have no shortage of guidance as to how we can be a “light to the world.”

We’re a small parish, you’re thinking, what can we’re do? We feed the hungry. Have we ever asked why people are hungry? Have we asked our elected representatives to support the SNAP (food stamps) program? Thanks be to God, we are clothing the naked, through our offering of diapers, and winter hats, scarves, and gloves. We have a wonderful building. Can it be used for disaster relief, or for respite from extreme cold or heat? Do God’s commands inform your personal dealings? Try this. As you begin your day, pray that God may enable you to be salt and light for all those whom you encounter in your day.

In a church bulletin I saw recently, at the beginning of the service, it said, “Enter to worship.” At the end of the service, it said, “Depart to serve.” If you take Scripture seriously, as you depart from this place, “Go in peace, to love and serve God and God’s people.”

Traditions

What are some of the traditions of your family? Take a minute to think back to your own childhood. What traditions did your family have when you were growing up? Were there traditions that you can look back on with joy and thanksgiving? Do you think of certain people when you recall these traditions? [Pause] How about now? What family traditions have those of you with younger children created? What about those of you who are grandparents? Do those of you with distant adult children or no children at all have meaningful traditions in your lives? Have your traditions changed over the years? Are there traditions you’ve happily abandoned? Are there traditions you vow you’ll never give up? All of us have traditions, whether we realize it or not, and, for most of us, even in this secular age, traditions still play important roles in our lives.

The role of tradition is a significant theme in our reading from the Gospel of Luke. Tradition was important for Mary, Joseph, the infant Jesus, Simeon, and Anna. In our Gospel account, Luke tells us that, “when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses,” Jesus’ parents came with him to the temple in Jerusalem, from wherever they were staying in Bethlehem, to make a sacrifice and have the child blessed. Most scholars would question whether Luke got the traditions correct in this account, since it is likely that Luke was not a Jew, and since the quotations from Scripture don’t match up with what is in the Torah. That is probably less important than Luke’s intent here, which was to show that Jesus’ family lived and worshipped firmly within Jewish tradition, and that he and his parents observed all the demands of the law. Jesus, Luke reminds his readers, grew up and came out of that life of tradition. As such, in his life and ministry, though he was often at odds with the religious leadership, he was speaking as an insider to his own people, as one who understood all that God and the Law demanded of them.

Tradition also played an important role in the lives of Simeon and Anna. In Jesus’ time many thoughtful and pious Jews expected that God’s anointed one might come soon, especially to deliver them from the hated Romans. They knew the prophetic writings well. They trusted that God would fulfill God’s promises. As they waited for the anointed one, they remembered that during the time of Exile, Isaiah had promised that a voice crying in the wilderness would announce God’s coming. Did they remember that the prophet Malachi also wrote during a time of discouragement, after the return from exile? About 450 BC, Malachi had also called the people to prepare for a Day of the Lord. He suggested that a messenger – the prophet himself? Elijah? – would come before the Day, to announce its coming. Echoing the prophecy of Amos, he described the Lord’s coming as a time of purification and judgment and foretold that the day would come when all the arrogant and evildoers would be burnt to stubble, but “for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.”

Inspired by God’s word and spirit, perhaps Simeon and Anna came to see John the Baptizer, as we now see him, i.e., as God’s promised messenger who prepared for God’s coming by proclaiming a message of repentance and purification through water. As Simeon and Anna patiently waited, the Lord whom they sought did suddenly come to his temple, in the arms of his parents. By God’s grace, Simeon and Anna were able to recognize Jesus as the anointed one for whom they had spent their lives waiting. They were given the grace of a vision of the fulfillment of God’s promises. As they looked in the face of the holy child, their hearts overflowed and they broke out with songs of God’s praise.

But there is something more here. Both Simeon and Anna also saw, in a nascent sense, that this child would be different from what their traditions had led them to expect. In looking at the child, Simeon already saw the Cross. He foresaw that the child would provoke deep conflict, and that he would expose the true intentions of those around him, especially those among the religious and political leadership. He saw only too plainly that, because of Jesus, Mary would experience the deepest possible grief. Perhaps Anna could see even farther ahead, to the final fulfillment of God’s promises, as she praised God and spoke “about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

Tradition, of course, has also played a vital role in the history of the church. We Episcopalians say that our faith is like a three-legged stool. We depend on Scripture, tradition, and reason. Our founder grounded his message in the Hebrew Scriptures. Although our arrangement of them differs from that of modern Jews, we still need them to understand the workings of God. In the fourth century, we agreed on the writings that would specifically inform our lives as followers of Jesus, the writings that we now call the New Testament. Reason is our God-given capacity for making judgments and is essential to a mature faith and a mature church life.

In the twenty-first century, perhaps we wonder what the role of tradition in the church should be. Some of our traditions go back to the earliest centuries of the church. The ashes of repentance with which we mark each other on Ash Wednesday go back to the Hebrew Scriptures. The Solemn Collects that we recite on Good Friday are the oldest prayers of the church. Do you know why the priest receives the bread and wine first? It is not because the priest is the holiest person in the room or the most exalted. It comes from the days before vestments, when Christians were being persecuted. By receiving first, the leader identified himself or herself to any spies present. Do you know why we receive the consecrated host by cupping our hands? We recall how Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms, and so we do something of the same with the host. As you heard, a Candlemas procession was known in the fourth century. Frescoes and mosaics tell us that bishops and priests wore vestments very similar to what we wear now, from at least the fourth century. Elevating the Gospel book, using candles on the altar, creating icons and stained-glass windows, making the sign of the cross, using incense, bowing, and many other things that we now do are also practices with ancient roots. Indeed, we Episcopalians may actually have a fourth leg to our stool, the body.

The Reformation was a difficult period for the Church of England. For a time during and after the Reformation we lost some of our traditions and much of our rich liturgical life. Indeed, there is still a strain in Protestantism that believes in sola scriptura, “Scripture alone.” If you look at old pictures from the Church of England or colonial times in this country, you will see priests in plain black cassocks presiding at unadorned tables. Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century Anglicans, including Episcopalians, came to see that we could reclaim our ancient traditions without losing our distinctive history, polity, and way of following Jesus. Vestments, the use of different liturgical colors, candles, ashes, foot-washing on Maundy Thursday, processions, incense, confession, and the Eucharist as the principle Sunday service all represent a reclaiming of the traditions that once nourished the entire church.

As a church, we have also had to abandon some traditions. In the late nineteenth century we understood the injustice of forcing black people to sit in the balcony. In 1976 the Episcopal Church finally came to realize that women should be ordained priest. In bringing forward the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal Church made the difficult decision to abandon the sixteenth-century language that so many had come to love. Many of our dioceses, including this one, have adopted a form for the blessing of same-gender unions. As we live into the twenty-first century, we are still wrestling with our traditions: which old ones to keep or reclaim, which old ones to let go of that no longer serve us, and which new ones to adopt that will reflect the new places to which we believe the Holy Spirit is leading us.

And we might ask the same questions of our own personal spiritual lives. What nourishes us spiritually? What helps us to see where Jesus might be leading us? Bishop Curry suggested that praying daily is a way of hearing Jesus’ call more clearly. Is that a tradition that you are willing to adopt? As a church we have a very rich heritage of spiritual life on which to draw. I am always willing to suggest or teach practices, many of which have very ancient roots, that may open your eyes afresh to God’s presence.

We are midway between Christmas and Ash Wednesday. Stop. Pause. What are your spiritual traditions? What might change?