Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
Early in the spring of 1905 Civilla Martin and her husband were visiting friends in Elmira, New York. The friends, Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle, were, as Civilla described them, “true saints of God.”1 Although Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for many years, and her husband was partially paralyzed and used a wheelchair, the couple “lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration to all who knew them.” One day Dr. Martin asked them for the secret of their “bright hopefulness.” Mrs. Doolittle’s answer was simple: “’His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.’” Reflecting on the boundless faith of the Doolittles, Civilla sat down and penned the hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” The day after she wrote it, she sent it Charles Gabriel, who supplied the music.
The song became a great favorite of Ethel Waters, the renowned jazz singer. Her rendition of it in the 1950 film “The Member of the Wedding” is still moving, and she often sang it in appearances with evangelist Billy Graham. The child of a thirteen year-old mother, Waters herself grew up in grinding poverty in Philadelphia. After a Baltimore entrepreneur discovered her magnificent voice when she was seventeen and working as a chambermaid, Waters began to gain renown as a blues artist. During the course of her career, she made many hit recordings, and she also gained fame as an actress. Reflecting her deep love of the song and confidence in God’s care, Waters titled her own autobiography His Eye is on the Sparrow.
All of our readings today remind us in different ways that “his eye is on the sparrow.” Just like the Doolittles and Ethel Waters, we too can trust that God cares for us in the midst of all of life’s challenges. We hear the good news of God’s care right in our opening collect. A prayer that is at least as old as the eighth century, the collect assures us that God “never fail[s] to help and govern us.”
Our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures also reinforces the message of God’s love and care, even for those who have been cast out. As our green paraments and vestments reflect, we are now in the growing season of Pentecost. From Advent through Pentecost we pondered the great events in Jesus’ life. Now in this season we begin unpacking just what it means to have received the Holy Spirit and committed ourselves as disciples of the risen Christ.
Today we begin semi-continuous readings from the books of Genesis and Exodus, the first two books of the Hebrew Bible, that will carry us through the rest of the church year, i.e., until mid-November. A little back story for today’s reading from Genesis. You may remember that God had made a covenant with Abraham to make a great nation of Abraham and Sarah, even though they were childless. Sarah was impatient, and so fifteen years before the events in today’s reading, she had Abraham father a child by her Egyptian slave Hagar. Now, Sarah herself has finally given birth to a child, Isaac. But she is worried that, as the elder, Hagar’s son Ishmael will take precedence over her son. So, as we heard, she forces Abraham to send Hagar away. However, the “chosen people” are not the only ones about whom God cares. God rescues Hagar and Ishmael and makes a promise to them also: “I will make a great nation of him.” And indeed, Hagar and Ishmael flourished, and in due course Hagar arranged Ishmael’s marriage with an Egyptian woman. Today, Ishmael is regarded as the ancestor of Muslims, who indeed would agree that God has made a “great nation of him.”
Our psalm could almost be Hagar’s response to God’s care for her and Ishmael. Lest we miss the message, the psalmist reminds us of God’s care for all who trust in God. Did you hear God’s love as you recited the psalm? “For you, O Lord,” we said, “are good and forgiving, and great is your love toward all who call upon you.” As the psalmist turns to God “in time of trouble,” the psalmist does so with the confidence that God will answer prayer, and that God will “save the child of your handmaid.”
For our Gospel readings during the season of Pentecost, we return to the Gospel of Matthew. Here too we will hear semi-continuous readings through the rest of the church year. Even though Matthew comes first in the Christian Scriptures, it was actually the second gospel to be written down. Matthew dates from some time after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. It was written largely for a community of Jewish Christians. In it, the evangelist’s goal was to reaffirm for these Jews that Jesus was the fulfillment of both the Law and the Prophets. Consequently, in this gospel we often hear references to the Hebrew Scriptures. We also encounter Jesus in conflict with the established religious leadership.
The section of the gospel that we just heard is part of what is called the “missionary discourse,” in which Jesus sends out his followers to begin proclaiming the nearness of God’s reign. In the first part of the chapter, which precedes today’s reading, Jesus commissioned and authorized his disciples. Now he begins to outline the challenges of discipleship – and what the evangelist reports of his instructions are as applicable to us as to them. If you are serious in your commitment, Jesus tells his friends, you must acknowledge that you are not in charge. Ultimately, all efforts to bring God’s reign nearer are in God’s hands, and we do no more than work in partnership with God. While we are to be open and transparent in our dealings, at the same time we must expect that the establishment may demonize us. We might bring about conflict among those we attempt to evangelize, and we may even alienate those near and dear to us. Daunting as it may seem, we may be called to embark on a new way of life, or to turn away from comfortable thoughts and habits, sacred places, and ways of doing things. Indeed, Paul, in his letter to the Christians in Rome, reiterates Jesus’s teaching, suggesting that we are not to remain stuck inside old ways of life, but are to be open to continual growth. And it just may happen, Jesus warns his disciples and us, that we will be called upon, as he was, to give up our very lives in order to advance God’s reign, for “those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
And yet, here’s the good news: we are never alone in our struggles. God is always with us. Jesus forcefully reminded his hearers of God’s continual care in what we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount. Do you remember what Matthew relates of Jesus’ speech after the Beatitudes? Reminding his disciples not to worry about food or clothing, Jesus directed their gaze toward the birds of the air, who are fed by their heavenly Father, and the lilies of the field, so wondrously clothed by God. Now, on the point of sending out his disciples, having warned them of the challenges they will encounter, Jesus uses the same image of the precious birds to remind the disciples of God’s continual care for humans and for the rest of creation: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father …. So do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”
“His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.” Down through the centuries, millions of Jesus’ followers have taken Jesus’ reassurances to heart, and have courageously worked to bring God’s reign nearer. Fifty years ago this month, a great upheaval, led by people of deep faith, occurred in the United States. All of a sudden, we became aware of the civil rights movement. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had declared in 1954 that so-called “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional, it was only in 1964 that serious legislation outlawing segregation and discrimination came before the U.S. Senate. While the Senate was debating, college students in droves left their campuses, piled onto buses, and headed south to work with the Congress of Racial Equality to register voters. Most of them came in response to Jesus’ admonition to care for the “least of these.” They knew the risks they were taking, but they also trusted that God would protect them, that his eye was “on the sparrow.” Tragically, fifty years ago yesterday, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, who had joined CORE to help register voters, disappeared after investigating the burning of a church in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The discovery of their bodies in an earthen dam six weeks later roused deep public outrage and likely hastened the passage of the civil rights act.
We too are followers of the crucified one. We too have committed ourselves to his cause. Can we do any less than he did? Can we do any less than the Freedom Summer workers did? Do we trust that “his eye is on the sparrow?” Can we trust in God’s care for us as we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, courageously partnering with God in the bringing in of God’s realm?
1. http://cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/i/hiseyeis.htm
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Transformed by the Spirit
Why are you here? What blew you in through the red doors? Are you here because coming to church is what one does on Sunday? Are you here because you think that God expects you to come, and you want to please and serve God? Do you seek weekly nourishment in the Eucharist? Do you hope that, if you take in Christ’s Body and Blood, you will become more like him? Do you seek strength for the journey, the sustenance you need to keep going in life? Or are you perhaps hoping to satisfy some deeply-felt need for authentic community?
My friends, you are not here for any of these reasons. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here. No one will look down on you for not being here, and no one will pat you on the back for rousing yourself and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus has left us. We obeyed Jesus’ command. We prayed together, and we waited for him to make good on his promises. And then it happened! We crossed over the threshold, and discovered that God’s Spirit is now rampant in the world. But the Holy Spirit is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known.
Some of us resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember the opening of the creation story in Genesis. “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus. “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions.
Others of us resonate with the disciples’ experience of being on fire. Fire, too, in Scripture is a signal for God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai. When the prophet Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and an enlivening, a sense of being invisibly, yet inexorably, transformed. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing.
Yet others of us feel the Spirit’s presence in a rush of deep emotion. Ricardo Avila lay prostrate on the floor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, waiting to be ordained a priest. As the congregation began to chant the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the traditional invocation of the Holy Spirit at ordinations, he felt tears gush from his eyes, and then he began to sob.1 Others of us experience that emotion as deep joy, joy that makes us so giddy that those around us may be sure that we are drunk – and we are, with the “new wine” that old wineskins cannot contain.
For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar rail of a strange church and suddenly knew that she was home. Back in his pew after taking Christ into his body, a man knew that God’s Spirit was lodged deep in his own heart. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” We are all here, because the Spirit needs us to be here. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that the Spirit had brought them together, because the community needed the abilities, talents, and gifts of many different people. All their various gifts had come from the same Spirit, and all were needed and important. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. I love the Episcopal Church. I have spent almost all my adult life drinking from its deep well. Even so, I know that we can partner with and learn from Lutherans and Roman Catholics, even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts that are needed to bring the reign of God nearer. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit brought us here, the Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there is both a mystery and a paradox here. The mystery is this: we don’t know the Holy Spirit works. We acknowledge the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, with God the Creator and God the Redeemer. We reaffirm our faith in the existence of the Spirit every time we say the Nicene Creed: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life ….” But we don’t know how the Spirit enables us to let go of old, destructive ways of life, helping us forgive and be forgiven, helping us to put on new ways of living. We don’t know how the Spirit transforms our lives and enables us to do more and more of what Jesus did. We don’t know how we allow the Spirit to grab our hand and take us down a path of ministry we had never before contemplated. We only know that, something has changed, that we have experienced transforming grace, and that we have discovered gifts within ourselves that we never knew we possessed.
And here is the paradox. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor so that we may feel at peace within ourselves, nor even as strength for the journey. As one writer has observed, the truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us. In fact, the Spirit may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After the disciples were blown over by the Spirit, they could not go back to their old lives. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in new directions.
We too are living in this paradox. Having been blown here by the Spirit, perhaps having been blown over by the Spirit, we know there is no going back to what our lives were before, no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young and old, women and men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we discern it. The Spirit calls all of us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “How can this parish use its diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove: descend on us, reveal your love. Word of God and inward light, wake our spirits; clear our sight. Surround us now with all your glory; speak through us that sacred story. Take our lips and make them bold. Take hearts and minds and make them whole. Stir in us that sacred flame, then send us forth to spread your name. Amen.
1. Pentecostal Praise,” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , June 8, 2014.
My friends, you are not here for any of these reasons. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here. No one will look down on you for not being here, and no one will pat you on the back for rousing yourself and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus has left us. We obeyed Jesus’ command. We prayed together, and we waited for him to make good on his promises. And then it happened! We crossed over the threshold, and discovered that God’s Spirit is now rampant in the world. But the Holy Spirit is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known.
Some of us resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember the opening of the creation story in Genesis. “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus. “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions.
Others of us resonate with the disciples’ experience of being on fire. Fire, too, in Scripture is a signal for God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai. When the prophet Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and an enlivening, a sense of being invisibly, yet inexorably, transformed. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing.
Yet others of us feel the Spirit’s presence in a rush of deep emotion. Ricardo Avila lay prostrate on the floor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, waiting to be ordained a priest. As the congregation began to chant the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the traditional invocation of the Holy Spirit at ordinations, he felt tears gush from his eyes, and then he began to sob.1 Others of us experience that emotion as deep joy, joy that makes us so giddy that those around us may be sure that we are drunk – and we are, with the “new wine” that old wineskins cannot contain.
For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar rail of a strange church and suddenly knew that she was home. Back in his pew after taking Christ into his body, a man knew that God’s Spirit was lodged deep in his own heart. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” We are all here, because the Spirit needs us to be here. Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians that the Spirit had brought them together, because the community needed the abilities, talents, and gifts of many different people. All their various gifts had come from the same Spirit, and all were needed and important. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. I love the Episcopal Church. I have spent almost all my adult life drinking from its deep well. Even so, I know that we can partner with and learn from Lutherans and Roman Catholics, even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts that are needed to bring the reign of God nearer. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit brought us here, the Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there is both a mystery and a paradox here. The mystery is this: we don’t know the Holy Spirit works. We acknowledge the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, with God the Creator and God the Redeemer. We reaffirm our faith in the existence of the Spirit every time we say the Nicene Creed: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life ….” But we don’t know how the Spirit enables us to let go of old, destructive ways of life, helping us forgive and be forgiven, helping us to put on new ways of living. We don’t know how the Spirit transforms our lives and enables us to do more and more of what Jesus did. We don’t know how we allow the Spirit to grab our hand and take us down a path of ministry we had never before contemplated. We only know that, something has changed, that we have experienced transforming grace, and that we have discovered gifts within ourselves that we never knew we possessed.
And here is the paradox. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor so that we may feel at peace within ourselves, nor even as strength for the journey. As one writer has observed, the truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us. In fact, the Spirit may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After the disciples were blown over by the Spirit, they could not go back to their old lives. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in new directions.
We too are living in this paradox. Having been blown here by the Spirit, perhaps having been blown over by the Spirit, we know there is no going back to what our lives were before, no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young and old, women and men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we discern it. The Spirit calls all of us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “How can this parish use its diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove: descend on us, reveal your love. Word of God and inward light, wake our spirits; clear our sight. Surround us now with all your glory; speak through us that sacred story. Take our lips and make them bold. Take hearts and minds and make them whole. Stir in us that sacred flame, then send us forth to spread your name. Amen.
1. Pentecostal Praise,” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , June 8, 2014.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Waiting
A delightful cartoon, that appeared on Facebook this week, depicts Jesus surrounded by a cloud and rising upward. Below him, a bearded man is shouting, “Where?? Where?? I can’t see him!!” Pointing to the man is a large arrow which says, “Ascension Deficit Disorder.” Truth be told, all of us suffer from “Ascension Deficit Disorder.” For most twenty-first century Christians, including most Episcopalians, last Thursday was just like any other day. Yet, for most of Christian history, last Thursday, which was the fortieth day after Easter, was a major feast. It is the feast of the Ascension, and it marks a key transition for the earliest Christians in their experience of Jesus’ life among them.
Indeed, the Ascension of Jesus was so important that it is shown twice in the New Testament, once at the end of the gospel according to Luke, and once at the beginning of the Book of Acts. Had we gathered here on Thursday to celebrate the Ascension, we would have heard the lesson from the gospel. Today, we heard the lesson from Acts. And that’s not all. Allusions to Jesus’ ascension occur in the gospel according to John and in several of Paul’s letters. What’s more important, both the Apostles Creed, which we reaffirm at every baptism, and the Nicene Creed, which we say every Sunday, contain the statement, “he ascended into heaven.”
So why is this unnoticed feast important to us? More important, what are we affirming when we say these creedal statements? Are we affirming literally that what most representations of Jesus’ ascension, including this cartoon, seem to be suggesting? Is this one of the “seven impossible things” that Christians are “expected to believe before breakfast?” Are we saying that we believe that Jesus was pulled up into the sky until he vaporized somewhere?
Perhaps we need to remember that the writer of Luke and Acts was trying to express something inexpressible. To do so, he or she used the imagery available at that time. Remember that when these books were written, and well into the 16th century, people believed in a geocentric universe, i.e., one in which the earth was at the center, the stars and planets rotated around it, and that “heaven” was literally “up there,” somewhere beyond the stars. I would be surprised if any of you thought that was an accurate depiction of the universe. Rather, in our century, we have come to understand the vast mystery of the universe, in which earth is no more than a micro-point. We have also come to understand that heaven is not “up there,” and that God is a holy and unfathomable mystery.
What is important is not the imagery that the ancient writers used. Rather, what is important is what they were trying to express with that imagery. So given our cosmology, given how we understand the university, Steven Davis of Claremont University gives us a different and helpful angle of vision. He says, “I do not believe that in the Ascension Jesus went up, kept going until he achieved escape velocity from the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space. The Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. Jesus changed in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm.”1 In other words, in showing Jesus ascending into “heaven” the earliest Christians were trying to express that Jesus now existed in a realm beyond his physical body, beyond time and space. And yet, even though Jesus existed in that realm, even though he was physically absent from us humans with limited vision, yet he was still somehow present to us, in some new and different way.
Once having had this revelation, once having understood this new reality of Jesus being both absent and present at the same time, the disciples could no longer continue to gaze upward, as if Jesus might parachute back down somehow. The angels rightly challenged them: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” More important, the angels reiterated Jesus’ promise that he would come again. Perhaps too they reminded the confused disciples of Jesus’ promise that they would be empowered to be Jesus’ witnesses throughout the entire world. With the angels’ challenge in their ears, the disciples came back down to earth. They understood that they were in a time of transition, that Jesus’ story was perhaps not yet finished. So they returned to Jerusalem. They gathered together, they prayed, and they waited, perhaps a little uncertain as to what might come next.
Aren’t we too in a time of transition? Liturgically, of course, the days of Resurrection and Ascension are behind us, and Pentecost is ahead of us. Advent, when we focus on Jesus’ promise to return, lies further ahead. In our personal lives, aren’t we also often in times of transition, when we must wait, perhaps feeling confused and uncertain, for God to act? Perhaps we are waiting to get married. Perhaps we are awaiting the birth or adoption of a child. Perhaps we are struggling through the seemingly endless requirements of a degree program, waiting for the credential that will allow us to answer God’s call to a new profession or ministry. Perhaps we are waiting for the results of medical tests or for the end of a prolonged course of treatment. We might be watching a loved one slowly slip away, wondering what awaits him and us when he is physically gone from us.
Sometimes I think that in this century our whole world is in a time of transition and waiting. We are witnessing the weakening of individual parishes and denominations, and the coming of new forms of church. Indeed, the church seems to be migrating away from Europe and North America toward the Global South. What will the church look like at the end of this century? Political changes continue unabated, and we wonder what forms of government and society will emerge in Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Thailand, Israel, and Palestine? Technological changes overwhelm us. What comes after the smart phone? What comes after the gasoline-powered engine? What comes after coal-fired power plants? And what will this fragile earth, our island home, look like as the glaciers and polar ice caps continue to recede? “What is God’s plan,” I frequently ask myself. Is Jesus’ second coming near at hand? Is this the time when Jesus will restore the kingdom? And, of course, Jesus’ answer, which is both unhelpful and reassuring at the same time, is the same one he gave the disciples: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses ….”
And so, what shall we do as we wait in this transition time, as we wait for God to make good on God’s promises. We do what Jesus’ friends did. We do not stand around “looking up to heaven,” seeing if we can figure out, or worse yet, predict, when Jesus will return. We accept the mystery: the coming of the Kingdom truly will be in God’s good time. We gather together with as many of Jesus’ friends as we can find, to tell the stories and to share his presence in bread and wine. We pray. We pray as we can, not as we can’t. All our prayers, corporate and individual, prayers of petition or thanksgiving, prayers of tears and of anger, prayers for peace and for healing, all our prayers are acceptable to God, wherever and whenever we open our hearts to God. All our prayers bind us more closely into Jesus’ ascended life.
We trust that we are not left alone. Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus reassure us, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Last week, we heard Jesus’ promise that, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” And we are prepared to be surprised by the God who may call us with tongues of flames or in the sound of sheer silence.
Most important, we continue to live in hope, with the hope that the reign proclaimed by the risen and ascended Jesus has already begun. Trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us, we go out and do the work that has been given us to do as best we can, committing ourselves to bringing God’s reign ever nearer. Knowing that even in the “changes and chances of this world” God is with us, we wait patiently for God’s next move.
1. Quoted by Daniel B. Clendinen, “Exalted at the Right Hand of God: ‘He Ascended into Heaven,’” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , accessed May 26, 2014.
Indeed, the Ascension of Jesus was so important that it is shown twice in the New Testament, once at the end of the gospel according to Luke, and once at the beginning of the Book of Acts. Had we gathered here on Thursday to celebrate the Ascension, we would have heard the lesson from the gospel. Today, we heard the lesson from Acts. And that’s not all. Allusions to Jesus’ ascension occur in the gospel according to John and in several of Paul’s letters. What’s more important, both the Apostles Creed, which we reaffirm at every baptism, and the Nicene Creed, which we say every Sunday, contain the statement, “he ascended into heaven.”
So why is this unnoticed feast important to us? More important, what are we affirming when we say these creedal statements? Are we affirming literally that what most representations of Jesus’ ascension, including this cartoon, seem to be suggesting? Is this one of the “seven impossible things” that Christians are “expected to believe before breakfast?” Are we saying that we believe that Jesus was pulled up into the sky until he vaporized somewhere?
Perhaps we need to remember that the writer of Luke and Acts was trying to express something inexpressible. To do so, he or she used the imagery available at that time. Remember that when these books were written, and well into the 16th century, people believed in a geocentric universe, i.e., one in which the earth was at the center, the stars and planets rotated around it, and that “heaven” was literally “up there,” somewhere beyond the stars. I would be surprised if any of you thought that was an accurate depiction of the universe. Rather, in our century, we have come to understand the vast mystery of the universe, in which earth is no more than a micro-point. We have also come to understand that heaven is not “up there,” and that God is a holy and unfathomable mystery.
What is important is not the imagery that the ancient writers used. Rather, what is important is what they were trying to express with that imagery. So given our cosmology, given how we understand the university, Steven Davis of Claremont University gives us a different and helpful angle of vision. He says, “I do not believe that in the Ascension Jesus went up, kept going until he achieved escape velocity from the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space. The Ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location. Jesus changed in the Ascension from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity, in the transcendent heavenly realm.”1 In other words, in showing Jesus ascending into “heaven” the earliest Christians were trying to express that Jesus now existed in a realm beyond his physical body, beyond time and space. And yet, even though Jesus existed in that realm, even though he was physically absent from us humans with limited vision, yet he was still somehow present to us, in some new and different way.
Once having had this revelation, once having understood this new reality of Jesus being both absent and present at the same time, the disciples could no longer continue to gaze upward, as if Jesus might parachute back down somehow. The angels rightly challenged them: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” More important, the angels reiterated Jesus’ promise that he would come again. Perhaps too they reminded the confused disciples of Jesus’ promise that they would be empowered to be Jesus’ witnesses throughout the entire world. With the angels’ challenge in their ears, the disciples came back down to earth. They understood that they were in a time of transition, that Jesus’ story was perhaps not yet finished. So they returned to Jerusalem. They gathered together, they prayed, and they waited, perhaps a little uncertain as to what might come next.
Aren’t we too in a time of transition? Liturgically, of course, the days of Resurrection and Ascension are behind us, and Pentecost is ahead of us. Advent, when we focus on Jesus’ promise to return, lies further ahead. In our personal lives, aren’t we also often in times of transition, when we must wait, perhaps feeling confused and uncertain, for God to act? Perhaps we are waiting to get married. Perhaps we are awaiting the birth or adoption of a child. Perhaps we are struggling through the seemingly endless requirements of a degree program, waiting for the credential that will allow us to answer God’s call to a new profession or ministry. Perhaps we are waiting for the results of medical tests or for the end of a prolonged course of treatment. We might be watching a loved one slowly slip away, wondering what awaits him and us when he is physically gone from us.
Sometimes I think that in this century our whole world is in a time of transition and waiting. We are witnessing the weakening of individual parishes and denominations, and the coming of new forms of church. Indeed, the church seems to be migrating away from Europe and North America toward the Global South. What will the church look like at the end of this century? Political changes continue unabated, and we wonder what forms of government and society will emerge in Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria, Thailand, Israel, and Palestine? Technological changes overwhelm us. What comes after the smart phone? What comes after the gasoline-powered engine? What comes after coal-fired power plants? And what will this fragile earth, our island home, look like as the glaciers and polar ice caps continue to recede? “What is God’s plan,” I frequently ask myself. Is Jesus’ second coming near at hand? Is this the time when Jesus will restore the kingdom? And, of course, Jesus’ answer, which is both unhelpful and reassuring at the same time, is the same one he gave the disciples: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses ….”
And so, what shall we do as we wait in this transition time, as we wait for God to make good on God’s promises. We do what Jesus’ friends did. We do not stand around “looking up to heaven,” seeing if we can figure out, or worse yet, predict, when Jesus will return. We accept the mystery: the coming of the Kingdom truly will be in God’s good time. We gather together with as many of Jesus’ friends as we can find, to tell the stories and to share his presence in bread and wine. We pray. We pray as we can, not as we can’t. All our prayers, corporate and individual, prayers of petition or thanksgiving, prayers of tears and of anger, prayers for peace and for healing, all our prayers are acceptable to God, wherever and whenever we open our hearts to God. All our prayers bind us more closely into Jesus’ ascended life.
We trust that we are not left alone. Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus reassure us, “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Last week, we heard Jesus’ promise that, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” And we are prepared to be surprised by the God who may call us with tongues of flames or in the sound of sheer silence.
Most important, we continue to live in hope, with the hope that the reign proclaimed by the risen and ascended Jesus has already begun. Trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us, we go out and do the work that has been given us to do as best we can, committing ourselves to bringing God’s reign ever nearer. Knowing that even in the “changes and chances of this world” God is with us, we wait patiently for God’s next move.
1. Quoted by Daniel B. Clendinen, “Exalted at the Right Hand of God: ‘He Ascended into Heaven,’” Journey with Jesus, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml , accessed May 26, 2014.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
We Are Like Him
On the wall in our family room hangs a picture of my paternal grandfather, who died before I was born. Every time I go by the picture, I stop for a moment. Hard as I try to discern my father’s face in the face of my grandfather, I can’t do so. Apparently my father resembled his mother, who was so superstitious that she would never allow anyone to take her picture. I favor my father’s side of the family and apparently also look like her. Alas, I will never know whether I do or not, at least on this side of the grave. On the other hand, I once saw a picture of one of my father’s cousins. Although I had never met him, I knew him immediately as a member of my father’s family. By the same token, anyone meeting our younger daughter would know immediately that we were mother and daughter. Our older daughter and son? They tend to favor Jack’s side of the family.
It’s a favorite game, isn’t it, especially among extended families, and especially at family gatherings, or when we look through old photograph albums. Who is like whom? Who favors whom? Is that Uncle Phil around the eyes? From which family member did he inherit his musical talent? Is she as good an athlete as Aunt Phyllis was? Who will the baby favor when he is grown?
Our readings for today invite us to look at resemblances in another way, to look through a different lens. Besides our natal families, as Christians, as human beings really, we are all members of a much larger family. As baptized Christians, we are members of Christ’s family – we are his brothers and sisters – and we are also members of the human family, all children of God. Our texts invite us to see ourselves through a different lens, not the photographer’s lens but God’s lens, to see a different kind of resemblance among us, and to see that we might resemble someone else besides Grandpa Jim or Aunt Louise.
Our first reading from the Book of Acts continues the story we have been hearing throughout Easter tide of the outward expansion of the fledgling Christian community. Besides giving us a flavor of some of the issues faced by the early followers of Jesus, the book depicts the various missionary journeys of Paul after his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Now we are in the second half of the book. We catch up with Paul as he is preaching on Mars Hill, the place where many famous philosophers, including Socrates, expounded their ideas. An outstanding speaker himself, here Paul notes that the Athenians are a very religious people and worship many different images. He then suggests, through his allusion to the Unknown God, that the Athenians already sense that there is a deeper truth underlying their usual forms of religious practice.
Paul also quotes from the Athenians’ own philosophers, suggesting that they already know that, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Echoing the assertion in Genesis that God created humanity in God’s own image, Paul then reminds the Athenians that “we too are his offspring.” The implication is clear: we are God’s children. We are loved, treasured, and valued, and we live by the grace of God at work within us. Most important, unlike the Greeks, who believed that the gods were fundamentally different from humankind, Paul asserts that we resemble God in the core of our being. We are like God, and we all have what Quakers call “that of God” in us.
Today’s psalm also points to “that of God” in us. Speaking for those who have experienced the wilderness, the psalm reminds us that God is not distant from us but, rather that God upholds us, God “holds our souls in life.” More important, for the psalmist, God listens to us and hears our prayers, not from an unbridgeable distance, but from within. Since God is within, we can express both our gratitude for God’s deliverance from trouble, and, what is more important, our deep sense of being heard and known by God. As the psalmist says, “God has heard me, he has attended to the voice of my prayer…. He has not rejected my prayer nor withheld his love from me.”
Our reading from the first letter attributed to the apostle Peter gives us a different lens through which to see ourselves. We have been hearing portions of this letter throughout Easter tide, because the letter states so well the impact of the risen Jesus on the early Christian communities. The letter was probably written in the late first century by a disciple of the apostle in order to offer consolation to a Christian community that was facing persecution at the hands of the civil authorities.
Here, the writer invites his hearers, and, by extension us, to adopt a “theology of identity,” i.e., to know ourselves, by virtue of our baptisms, as members of Jesus’ family. If we are members of his family, then we are invited to perceive our intrinsic value and worth to God. We are so valuable, the writer assures his hearers and us, that Jesus was willing to die for us. Because we are valuable to God, because we are members of Jesus’ family, we can let go of self-pity and doubt, even in the face of suffering. We can be assured that we are growing in our capacity for love and in our ability to live as Jesus lived, and that, with Jesus as our guide, we can even forgive those who persecute us.
The Gospel according to John was also written for a persecuted community. Written in the late ‘90s, the gospel was addressed to a community at odds with the wider Jewish community and its leadership. These were people who were wondering whether they had made the right choice in following Jesus. Through Jesus’ words at his last gathering with his disciples, the evangelist provides the reassurance that we all need to hear. Jesus reminds his friends that, although he is leaving them, they will always have him with them. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit he will always be inside them – and not only he himself, but God the Father as well. He will be in them, he tells them, as a kind of “organic indwellingness,” working from within them, through their own spirits. This is really the good news in a nutshell: even though Jesus is physically no longer present to us, the Holy Spirit is within us, making Christ present to us from within, enabling us to live as he lived, and continuing to remind us of our membership in his family and our resemblance to him.
If we are God’s offspring, if we are valued and loved by God, if God’s Spirit dwells within us, if we resemble Jesus, then what are we called to do? If we turn back to the letter of Peter, we hear the writer contrast those who did not “obey” with Noah and his family members who did “obey.” Noah, you remember, after the flood, was the first human being with whom God made an everlasting covenant.
So, first we are called to “obey.” Now, that is a word that gets a bad rap in our culture for anyone past childhood. The word “obey” equals “follow blindly” for us. We can’t help remembering, for example, the Nazi soldiers and officers who were only “following orders.” However, the word we translate as “obey” means, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to “listen closely,” in order to deepen one’s trust in God. Some of you know that I am training to be a spiritual director. Spiritual direction is a listening ministry, in which one person helps another listen more closely to God. Zalman Schacter tells us that “a nun once told me so beautifully that ‘spiritual direction deals with only one thing: how to reduce our resistance to God.’” We are called to listen, in spiritual direction, in prayer, in contemplative reading of Scripture, in calming our mind through the use of Anglican prayer beads, in any way that will enable us to open our ears, to hear God, to remain connected with God, and to trust God.
And then we are called to do what Jesus commands: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What does Jesus command? That we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves – actively. And here is the good news: because we resemble Jesus, because we are members of Jesus’ family, because we have God’s Spirit within us, we can live in confidence and hope that we can be and do all that God asks of us. We can evangelize, we can endure hardship for God’s sake, and we can love and serve all those around us.
O God the Holy Ghost …
Evermore enlighten us.
Thou who art Fire of Love,
Evermore enkindle us.
Thou who art Lord and Giver of Life,
Evermore live in us ….
It’s a favorite game, isn’t it, especially among extended families, and especially at family gatherings, or when we look through old photograph albums. Who is like whom? Who favors whom? Is that Uncle Phil around the eyes? From which family member did he inherit his musical talent? Is she as good an athlete as Aunt Phyllis was? Who will the baby favor when he is grown?
Our readings for today invite us to look at resemblances in another way, to look through a different lens. Besides our natal families, as Christians, as human beings really, we are all members of a much larger family. As baptized Christians, we are members of Christ’s family – we are his brothers and sisters – and we are also members of the human family, all children of God. Our texts invite us to see ourselves through a different lens, not the photographer’s lens but God’s lens, to see a different kind of resemblance among us, and to see that we might resemble someone else besides Grandpa Jim or Aunt Louise.
Our first reading from the Book of Acts continues the story we have been hearing throughout Easter tide of the outward expansion of the fledgling Christian community. Besides giving us a flavor of some of the issues faced by the early followers of Jesus, the book depicts the various missionary journeys of Paul after his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Now we are in the second half of the book. We catch up with Paul as he is preaching on Mars Hill, the place where many famous philosophers, including Socrates, expounded their ideas. An outstanding speaker himself, here Paul notes that the Athenians are a very religious people and worship many different images. He then suggests, through his allusion to the Unknown God, that the Athenians already sense that there is a deeper truth underlying their usual forms of religious practice.
Paul also quotes from the Athenians’ own philosophers, suggesting that they already know that, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Echoing the assertion in Genesis that God created humanity in God’s own image, Paul then reminds the Athenians that “we too are his offspring.” The implication is clear: we are God’s children. We are loved, treasured, and valued, and we live by the grace of God at work within us. Most important, unlike the Greeks, who believed that the gods were fundamentally different from humankind, Paul asserts that we resemble God in the core of our being. We are like God, and we all have what Quakers call “that of God” in us.
Today’s psalm also points to “that of God” in us. Speaking for those who have experienced the wilderness, the psalm reminds us that God is not distant from us but, rather that God upholds us, God “holds our souls in life.” More important, for the psalmist, God listens to us and hears our prayers, not from an unbridgeable distance, but from within. Since God is within, we can express both our gratitude for God’s deliverance from trouble, and, what is more important, our deep sense of being heard and known by God. As the psalmist says, “God has heard me, he has attended to the voice of my prayer…. He has not rejected my prayer nor withheld his love from me.”
Our reading from the first letter attributed to the apostle Peter gives us a different lens through which to see ourselves. We have been hearing portions of this letter throughout Easter tide, because the letter states so well the impact of the risen Jesus on the early Christian communities. The letter was probably written in the late first century by a disciple of the apostle in order to offer consolation to a Christian community that was facing persecution at the hands of the civil authorities.
Here, the writer invites his hearers, and, by extension us, to adopt a “theology of identity,” i.e., to know ourselves, by virtue of our baptisms, as members of Jesus’ family. If we are members of his family, then we are invited to perceive our intrinsic value and worth to God. We are so valuable, the writer assures his hearers and us, that Jesus was willing to die for us. Because we are valuable to God, because we are members of Jesus’ family, we can let go of self-pity and doubt, even in the face of suffering. We can be assured that we are growing in our capacity for love and in our ability to live as Jesus lived, and that, with Jesus as our guide, we can even forgive those who persecute us.
The Gospel according to John was also written for a persecuted community. Written in the late ‘90s, the gospel was addressed to a community at odds with the wider Jewish community and its leadership. These were people who were wondering whether they had made the right choice in following Jesus. Through Jesus’ words at his last gathering with his disciples, the evangelist provides the reassurance that we all need to hear. Jesus reminds his friends that, although he is leaving them, they will always have him with them. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit he will always be inside them – and not only he himself, but God the Father as well. He will be in them, he tells them, as a kind of “organic indwellingness,” working from within them, through their own spirits. This is really the good news in a nutshell: even though Jesus is physically no longer present to us, the Holy Spirit is within us, making Christ present to us from within, enabling us to live as he lived, and continuing to remind us of our membership in his family and our resemblance to him.
If we are God’s offspring, if we are valued and loved by God, if God’s Spirit dwells within us, if we resemble Jesus, then what are we called to do? If we turn back to the letter of Peter, we hear the writer contrast those who did not “obey” with Noah and his family members who did “obey.” Noah, you remember, after the flood, was the first human being with whom God made an everlasting covenant.
So, first we are called to “obey.” Now, that is a word that gets a bad rap in our culture for anyone past childhood. The word “obey” equals “follow blindly” for us. We can’t help remembering, for example, the Nazi soldiers and officers who were only “following orders.” However, the word we translate as “obey” means, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to “listen closely,” in order to deepen one’s trust in God. Some of you know that I am training to be a spiritual director. Spiritual direction is a listening ministry, in which one person helps another listen more closely to God. Zalman Schacter tells us that “a nun once told me so beautifully that ‘spiritual direction deals with only one thing: how to reduce our resistance to God.’” We are called to listen, in spiritual direction, in prayer, in contemplative reading of Scripture, in calming our mind through the use of Anglican prayer beads, in any way that will enable us to open our ears, to hear God, to remain connected with God, and to trust God.
And then we are called to do what Jesus commands: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What does Jesus command? That we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves – actively. And here is the good news: because we resemble Jesus, because we are members of Jesus’ family, because we have God’s Spirit within us, we can live in confidence and hope that we can be and do all that God asks of us. We can evangelize, we can endure hardship for God’s sake, and we can love and serve all those around us.
O God the Holy Ghost …
Evermore enlighten us.
Thou who art Fire of Love,
Evermore enkindle us.
Thou who art Lord and Giver of Life,
Evermore live in us ….
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Bearing Witness
Why are December 26th and December 28th important days on the church calendar? During the twelve days of Christmas tide, when we joyfully give thanks for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, most of us slide right over these two days. We shouldn’t. On December 28th, we remember the Holy Innocents, the boys under two years of age murdered by Herod’s soldiers as they went looking for the child sought by the Persian astrologers. These boys were the first to die because of Herod’s fear of the one born “king of the Jews.” And on December 26th – Boxing Day in the U.K. and Canada – we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr. Some of you may even remember the old carol that begins “Good King Wenceslas looked out/ on the feast of Stephen ....” which describes the king’s encounter with a poor man the day after Christmas.
So why are we hearing about Stephen now, and in Easter tide yet? Is it only because Stephen had a vision of the risen Christ standing at God’s right hand? Is it because the text mentions Saul, the Pharisee who had yet to become one of the greatest evangelists of the early church? Actually, the reason may be that we are far enough into Easter tide that the lectionary encourages us to ponder the deeper implications of life in the risen Christ. It’s true that we will continue rejoicing in the Easter event and shouting our “alleluias” until Pentecost. It’s also true that every Sunday in the church year is a celebration of the resurrection. Yet the further we go into Easter tide the more we realize that, as followers of the risen Christ, we are called to do more than simply rejoice in what God has done. We are also called to bear witness to what we see and experience of Christ, to “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.”
All our lessons remind us of our call to bear witness. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminds us that we, like his original hearers, have become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In our reading from the Gospel according to John, the evangelist shows Jesus, in his last speech before his execution, restating for his friends and us who he truly is, assuaging our fears of being abandoned, and alluding to the unified community we are to become as his disciples. Most important, the story of the death of Stephen gives us a concrete example of witness to the impact of experience of the risen Christ and a foretaste of the consequences of letting Christ into our lives.
Actually, we’ve been hearing selections from the book of Acts all through Easter tide. The Acts of the Apostles is a continuation of the Gospel according to Luke, and it was compiled by the author of the Gospel. It vividly tells the story of the creation and expansion of the earliest Christian communities following Pentecost. In previous weeks we have heard excerpts from Peter’s sermons, which helped the church grow in Jerusalem.
Now we see some of the controversy that the new community of Jesus’ followers provoked. As we read in chapter 6 of Acts, Stephen was one of the seven chosen to serve the community, its first deacon. Like the other disciples, Stephen also performed “signs and wonders.” He also eloquently proclaimed the good news of Jesus to his fellow Jews. It wasn’t long before he was dragged before the religious leadership and accused of blasphemy. In answer to the charge, Stephen launched into a lengthy sermon, defending his faith in Jesus. He also enraged his fellow Jews by accusing them of unfaithfulness to God. When he described the risen Jesus, the mob took him out to lynch him. Like a faithful follower of Jesus, and like Jesus at his own execution, Stephen asked Jesus to receive his spirit and prayed for forgiveness for his persecutors. Ironically, as a result of Stephen’s death, the Christian community moved out of Jerusalem, as the disciples fled the city fearing that further persecution would follow. Sometime later, the young Pharisee Saul had his own encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
As we know only too well, Stephen was hardly the last Christian martyr. Indeed, Christians endured persecution throughout the first three centuries after Jesus’ death. Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, probably in 64 A.D., under Nero’s persecution of Christians. The long list of those who went to the lions, the stake, and the gallows includes Blandina and her companions in Lyon, Ignatius of Antioch and his successor Polycarp, Justin, the noblewoman Perpetua and her servant Felicity, 14th century Czech reformer Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, and our own Thomas Cranmer, author of the first Book of Common Prayer, who was sent to the stake by Queen Mary in 1556. Closer to our own day, we continue to venerate dissenting theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged by the Nazis in April 1945. And just this week we remembered the Martyrs of Sudan, the Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy, and people of Sudan who bravely declared on May 16, 1983 that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them, even when they faced death at the hands of the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum.
Perhaps some of you saw the 2010 film Of Gods and Men. If not, perhaps we should see it together as a parish. In 1996, during Algeria’s civil war, seven French Trappist monks from the monastery of Tibhirine, Algeria, were kidnapped by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. These gentle monks had been grounded in a peaceful routine of prayer, as they provided medical and other assistance to the local community. Even though civil order broke down and the monks were threatened by extremist groups, they bravely decided to remain in place and continue to serve the Muslims among whom they lived. Sometime after their kidnapping they were found beheaded. Like the story of Stephen, Of Gods and Men portrays lives poured out in service to others, even others who might be considered “enemies,” and even at the cost of one’s own life.
By God’s grace, you and I live in a country where, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….” By God’s grace, we are free to practice our chosen religion – or no religion at all. We welcome Christians of all stripes, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists. God willing, no one will turn wild animals loose on us or point guns at us demanding that we practice a certain religion. So what is our challenge as followers of Jesus? How do we understand the witness that Jesus calls us to bear? Here is how I would answer that question. First, we are to take seriously our baptismal promise to “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.” Like Stephen, we are to have the courage to speak of what we know of Christ and of what we experience in our own lives of the risen Christ. And like the Trappist monks we are to steadfastly continue showing forth our commitment to Christ in our service to others.
Perhaps more important, we are also called to pray: to pray for victims of violence and persecution everywhere. We are called to pray for Christians who still face persecution today. But we are also called to remember that, in the sad history of the world, Christians have not been the only martyrs. Other religions have also suffered persecution – often at the hands of Christians. Millions have been martyred for their ethnicity – think Armenians, Jews, or Tutsis – for economic and social reasons, for their race – think people of African descent in this country and much of the new world – for their gender – think of the burning of widows in India, female infanticide, and, just two years ago, the near-fatal attack on Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai – or for their sexual orientation – think of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. We are called to remember that no one – whatever their religion, ethnicity, social status, race, gender, or sexuality – is excluded from God’s love. We are called to pray for all who have suffered for their beliefs and for who they are.
We are also called to pray for the courage and self-sacrificial love of martyrs like Stephen and others whose faith inspires us. We are called to remember that the celebration of Easter goes beyond colored eggs, flowers, and butterflies. Most important, we are called to stand with those working for the cessation of violence and for peace among all people. Do we take our Scriptures seriously? Then hear the challenge of the Book of Proverbs: to “speak for those who have no voice, for the justice of all who are dispossessed. Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9). God grant us the grace, strength, and courage to follow behind Stephen, to bear witness to the risen Christ, and to answer God’s call.
So why are we hearing about Stephen now, and in Easter tide yet? Is it only because Stephen had a vision of the risen Christ standing at God’s right hand? Is it because the text mentions Saul, the Pharisee who had yet to become one of the greatest evangelists of the early church? Actually, the reason may be that we are far enough into Easter tide that the lectionary encourages us to ponder the deeper implications of life in the risen Christ. It’s true that we will continue rejoicing in the Easter event and shouting our “alleluias” until Pentecost. It’s also true that every Sunday in the church year is a celebration of the resurrection. Yet the further we go into Easter tide the more we realize that, as followers of the risen Christ, we are called to do more than simply rejoice in what God has done. We are also called to bear witness to what we see and experience of Christ, to “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.”
All our lessons remind us of our call to bear witness. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminds us that we, like his original hearers, have become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” In our reading from the Gospel according to John, the evangelist shows Jesus, in his last speech before his execution, restating for his friends and us who he truly is, assuaging our fears of being abandoned, and alluding to the unified community we are to become as his disciples. Most important, the story of the death of Stephen gives us a concrete example of witness to the impact of experience of the risen Christ and a foretaste of the consequences of letting Christ into our lives.
Actually, we’ve been hearing selections from the book of Acts all through Easter tide. The Acts of the Apostles is a continuation of the Gospel according to Luke, and it was compiled by the author of the Gospel. It vividly tells the story of the creation and expansion of the earliest Christian communities following Pentecost. In previous weeks we have heard excerpts from Peter’s sermons, which helped the church grow in Jerusalem.
Now we see some of the controversy that the new community of Jesus’ followers provoked. As we read in chapter 6 of Acts, Stephen was one of the seven chosen to serve the community, its first deacon. Like the other disciples, Stephen also performed “signs and wonders.” He also eloquently proclaimed the good news of Jesus to his fellow Jews. It wasn’t long before he was dragged before the religious leadership and accused of blasphemy. In answer to the charge, Stephen launched into a lengthy sermon, defending his faith in Jesus. He also enraged his fellow Jews by accusing them of unfaithfulness to God. When he described the risen Jesus, the mob took him out to lynch him. Like a faithful follower of Jesus, and like Jesus at his own execution, Stephen asked Jesus to receive his spirit and prayed for forgiveness for his persecutors. Ironically, as a result of Stephen’s death, the Christian community moved out of Jerusalem, as the disciples fled the city fearing that further persecution would follow. Sometime later, the young Pharisee Saul had his own encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
As we know only too well, Stephen was hardly the last Christian martyr. Indeed, Christians endured persecution throughout the first three centuries after Jesus’ death. Peter and Paul were both martyred in Rome, probably in 64 A.D., under Nero’s persecution of Christians. The long list of those who went to the lions, the stake, and the gallows includes Blandina and her companions in Lyon, Ignatius of Antioch and his successor Polycarp, Justin, the noblewoman Perpetua and her servant Felicity, 14th century Czech reformer Jan Hus, Joan of Arc, and our own Thomas Cranmer, author of the first Book of Common Prayer, who was sent to the stake by Queen Mary in 1556. Closer to our own day, we continue to venerate dissenting theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hanged by the Nazis in April 1945. And just this week we remembered the Martyrs of Sudan, the Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy, and people of Sudan who bravely declared on May 16, 1983 that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them, even when they faced death at the hands of the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum.
Perhaps some of you saw the 2010 film Of Gods and Men. If not, perhaps we should see it together as a parish. In 1996, during Algeria’s civil war, seven French Trappist monks from the monastery of Tibhirine, Algeria, were kidnapped by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria. These gentle monks had been grounded in a peaceful routine of prayer, as they provided medical and other assistance to the local community. Even though civil order broke down and the monks were threatened by extremist groups, they bravely decided to remain in place and continue to serve the Muslims among whom they lived. Sometime after their kidnapping they were found beheaded. Like the story of Stephen, Of Gods and Men portrays lives poured out in service to others, even others who might be considered “enemies,” and even at the cost of one’s own life.
By God’s grace, you and I live in a country where, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….” By God’s grace, we are free to practice our chosen religion – or no religion at all. We welcome Christians of all stripes, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists. God willing, no one will turn wild animals loose on us or point guns at us demanding that we practice a certain religion. So what is our challenge as followers of Jesus? How do we understand the witness that Jesus calls us to bear? Here is how I would answer that question. First, we are to take seriously our baptismal promise to “proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.” Like Stephen, we are to have the courage to speak of what we know of Christ and of what we experience in our own lives of the risen Christ. And like the Trappist monks we are to steadfastly continue showing forth our commitment to Christ in our service to others.
Perhaps more important, we are also called to pray: to pray for victims of violence and persecution everywhere. We are called to pray for Christians who still face persecution today. But we are also called to remember that, in the sad history of the world, Christians have not been the only martyrs. Other religions have also suffered persecution – often at the hands of Christians. Millions have been martyred for their ethnicity – think Armenians, Jews, or Tutsis – for economic and social reasons, for their race – think people of African descent in this country and much of the new world – for their gender – think of the burning of widows in India, female infanticide, and, just two years ago, the near-fatal attack on Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai – or for their sexual orientation – think of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. We are called to remember that no one – whatever their religion, ethnicity, social status, race, gender, or sexuality – is excluded from God’s love. We are called to pray for all who have suffered for their beliefs and for who they are.
We are also called to pray for the courage and self-sacrificial love of martyrs like Stephen and others whose faith inspires us. We are called to remember that the celebration of Easter goes beyond colored eggs, flowers, and butterflies. Most important, we are called to stand with those working for the cessation of violence and for peace among all people. Do we take our Scriptures seriously? Then hear the challenge of the Book of Proverbs: to “speak for those who have no voice, for the justice of all who are dispossessed. Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and needy” (Proverbs 31:8-9). God grant us the grace, strength, and courage to follow behind Stephen, to bear witness to the risen Christ, and to answer God’s call.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Wonders and Signs
“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.” When was the last time you were awe-struck? How often do we see wonders and signs? We have been hearing Luke’s account in the book of Acts of the beginning of the community of Jesus’ disciples. We hear from Acts in Easter tide because the apostles so clearly proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus and showed its impact on the lives of Jesus’ followers. There was clearly something exciting and compelling about the work of Jesus’ earliest followers: they were emboldened by the Holy Spirit, they performed miracles, and they preached a message that left large numbers of people awe-struck and eager to join them.
Miracles, wonders, and signs seemed to have been common in the earliest church. St. Paul had a miraculous vision while travelling on the road to Damascus. As an evangelist of gentiles, Paul later rebuked the newbie Christians at Corinth for over-emphasizing ecstatic experiences of the Spirit. Many first and even second-century accounts of the Way, as devotion to Christ was called, depict miracles, visions, ecstatic speech, and other visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit. However, as the church became institutionalized, especially after it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, visible experiences of the Spirit, “wonders and signs,” became much less frequent. Although mystics continued to have intense – and often visible – experiences of the presence of the Holy Spirit, awe at God’s wondrous presence virtually disappeared in most church communities. In mainline Protestant congregations today, including Episcopal parishes determined to do everything “decently and in order,” awe at God’s wonders and signs might even be suspect!
And yet awe is just what we should feel! God is all around us. In God “we live and move and have our being.” God’s wonders and signs are visible everywhere, if we would but open our eyes to see them. More important, contemporary scientific discoveries have given us new ways of experiencing God’s presence, new ways of looking for “wonders and signs” that ancient thinkers and religious leaders could not see. When we contemplate what those discoveries have shown us, truly the only reaction we could possibly have is awe.
I recently read a book entitled Radical Amazement by Catholic laywoman Judy Cannato. In a surprisingly accessible way, Cannato relates all that we now know about the cosmos to our faith as followers of Jesus the Christ. Consider, Cannato says, the vastness of the universe. Where the ancients could only see the sun and the planets revolving around the earth, we now know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of millions of galaxies, most of which are larger than ours. The distances among all these galaxies are millions of light years. We also know that the beginning of the cosmos, an explosion of matter and energy now called the Big Bang, occurred more than thirteen billion years ago. Scientists also theorize that if the Big Bang had been one trillionth of a second shorter, matter and energy would have collapsed inward, while one trillionth of a second longer would have flung all the matter and energy irretrievably apart. We know that the cosmos is continuing to expand, and at an accelerating rate. Scientists have discovered black holes, dark matter, and dark energy, and theorize that 95% of the cosmos is invisible to us.
Just as astounding is what we now know of the origins of life. Scientists have begun to understand that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, that life arose from light, and that life became ever more complex through a process of self-development and evolution. Although we are intimately – in our very molecules and atoms – connected to every other form of life, even to the rocks and stars – we humans appear to be the most complex form of life. We are also the most self-conscious form of life, able to reflect on our relationship with our creator, in whose image we are made, and our connection with each other and the rest of creation. As followers of Jesus, God’s expression of Godself in human terms, we glimpse what human life might become in the completion of God’s plan. Although God reveals Godself in God’s creation, we acknowledge that ultimately God is incomprehensible mystery, the Holy One of whom we limited humans can say little or nothing.
Wonders and signs! When we contemplate all this, the cosmos, the earth, the miracle of complex human life, how can we not be awe-struck? How can we not resonate with Abraham Heschel’s reminder that awe is “a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality?” How can we not agree that, “Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”1 And when we understand our deep and intimate connection to all this immensity and vastness, how can we not be left utterly speechless?
Awe-struck by God’s wonders and signs, speechless at God’s creation, what do we do now? How do we live our lives when we contemplate our connection with all of God’s wondrous creation? Following Judy Cannato’s lead, we can begin by expanding our image of God.2 We can remember that God is both transcendent and immanent. God is more than all of creation. Yet God is intimately connected with creation and reveals something of Godself in all of it, from our DNA to the farthest star. We can embrace a God of incomprehensible mystery. Although we are made in God’s image, we can never assume that God is like us. We can never assume that we have God nailed down, God neatly confined in the box of our own intellect. In his last discourse in the gospel according to John, Jesus reminded his disciples that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth….” We must always expect God to surprise us and continue to reveal more of both Godself and God’s creation.
If we are made in God’s image, and we believe creation to have sprung forth from God, then we must also expand our embrace of all creation. All life is connected, both physically and spiritually. To see ourselves as atoms, separate and distinct from each other and the rest of creation is, as Albert Einstein called it, “optical delusion.” And yet, for the last several centuries, that is exactly how we have seen ourselves. We have poisoned rivers and lakes, we have created the great Pacific trash island, we have caused acid rain, and we have removed mountain tops. We have even begun to change the climate of “this fragile earth.” In an arresting article on the website of the magazine Sojourners Wes Granberg-Michaelson pointedly asks us, “Who will take personal responsibility for denying climate Change?” Granberg-Michaelson goes on to remind us that, “those who have denied climate change and thwarted actions to prevent or mitigate its effects have not just been mistaken. They are responsible for the increase in human suffering that has resulted now, and will continue in the future, from its effects.”3 Even if we accept the reality of climate change, we are still bound to ask ourselves how we can better care for creation. Can we support local farmers? Plant our own gardens? Decrease our use of plastic? Decrease our trash? Support recycling?
If we are truly awe-struck by the grandeur of God’s creation, we can also work at rising above self-preoccupation and pursue communion and relationship with each other. And perhaps, most important of all, we can open ourselves to God’s presence in silence and contemplation. We can take the time to savor our time and place, to pray through our days, acknowledging God’s presence with us in all things. And we have help in doing this. Celtic prayer, the prayer tradition of Ireland and Scotland, recognized God’s intimate connection with all creation, ourselves, the rest of earth’s creatures, and the cosmos, long before contemporary scientists did. We can offer to God all that we do, and have, and are. We can experience God’s presence not only in formal worship but also in all the “domestic mess” of our daily lives. In all that we do we can gratefully acknowledge God’s presence in, with, under, around, and through us.
And if we need words to express our awe at the signs and wonders of God’s presence in creation, we might turn to Psalm 8:
When I behold your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place –
what is humanity that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we that you should care for us?
You have made us barely less than God,
and crowned us with glory and honor.
You have made us responsible
For the work of your hands,
putting all things at our feet….
YHWH, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your Name in all the earth!4
1. God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1955), 74-75, quoted in Judy Cannato, Radical Amazement (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2006), 142.
2. Based on Cannato, pp. 137ff.
3. http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/05/08/who-will-take-personal-responsibility-denying-climate-change .
4. The Inclusive Bible (Plymouth, UK: Sheed and Ward, 2007), 373.
Miracles, wonders, and signs seemed to have been common in the earliest church. St. Paul had a miraculous vision while travelling on the road to Damascus. As an evangelist of gentiles, Paul later rebuked the newbie Christians at Corinth for over-emphasizing ecstatic experiences of the Spirit. Many first and even second-century accounts of the Way, as devotion to Christ was called, depict miracles, visions, ecstatic speech, and other visible manifestations of the Holy Spirit. However, as the church became institutionalized, especially after it became the official religion of the Roman Empire, visible experiences of the Spirit, “wonders and signs,” became much less frequent. Although mystics continued to have intense – and often visible – experiences of the presence of the Holy Spirit, awe at God’s wondrous presence virtually disappeared in most church communities. In mainline Protestant congregations today, including Episcopal parishes determined to do everything “decently and in order,” awe at God’s wonders and signs might even be suspect!
And yet awe is just what we should feel! God is all around us. In God “we live and move and have our being.” God’s wonders and signs are visible everywhere, if we would but open our eyes to see them. More important, contemporary scientific discoveries have given us new ways of experiencing God’s presence, new ways of looking for “wonders and signs” that ancient thinkers and religious leaders could not see. When we contemplate what those discoveries have shown us, truly the only reaction we could possibly have is awe.
I recently read a book entitled Radical Amazement by Catholic laywoman Judy Cannato. In a surprisingly accessible way, Cannato relates all that we now know about the cosmos to our faith as followers of Jesus the Christ. Consider, Cannato says, the vastness of the universe. Where the ancients could only see the sun and the planets revolving around the earth, we now know that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of millions of galaxies, most of which are larger than ours. The distances among all these galaxies are millions of light years. We also know that the beginning of the cosmos, an explosion of matter and energy now called the Big Bang, occurred more than thirteen billion years ago. Scientists also theorize that if the Big Bang had been one trillionth of a second shorter, matter and energy would have collapsed inward, while one trillionth of a second longer would have flung all the matter and energy irretrievably apart. We know that the cosmos is continuing to expand, and at an accelerating rate. Scientists have discovered black holes, dark matter, and dark energy, and theorize that 95% of the cosmos is invisible to us.
Just as astounding is what we now know of the origins of life. Scientists have begun to understand that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, that life arose from light, and that life became ever more complex through a process of self-development and evolution. Although we are intimately – in our very molecules and atoms – connected to every other form of life, even to the rocks and stars – we humans appear to be the most complex form of life. We are also the most self-conscious form of life, able to reflect on our relationship with our creator, in whose image we are made, and our connection with each other and the rest of creation. As followers of Jesus, God’s expression of Godself in human terms, we glimpse what human life might become in the completion of God’s plan. Although God reveals Godself in God’s creation, we acknowledge that ultimately God is incomprehensible mystery, the Holy One of whom we limited humans can say little or nothing.
Wonders and signs! When we contemplate all this, the cosmos, the earth, the miracle of complex human life, how can we not be awe-struck? How can we not resonate with Abraham Heschel’s reminder that awe is “a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality?” How can we not agree that, “Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”1 And when we understand our deep and intimate connection to all this immensity and vastness, how can we not be left utterly speechless?
Awe-struck by God’s wonders and signs, speechless at God’s creation, what do we do now? How do we live our lives when we contemplate our connection with all of God’s wondrous creation? Following Judy Cannato’s lead, we can begin by expanding our image of God.2 We can remember that God is both transcendent and immanent. God is more than all of creation. Yet God is intimately connected with creation and reveals something of Godself in all of it, from our DNA to the farthest star. We can embrace a God of incomprehensible mystery. Although we are made in God’s image, we can never assume that God is like us. We can never assume that we have God nailed down, God neatly confined in the box of our own intellect. In his last discourse in the gospel according to John, Jesus reminded his disciples that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth….” We must always expect God to surprise us and continue to reveal more of both Godself and God’s creation.
If we are made in God’s image, and we believe creation to have sprung forth from God, then we must also expand our embrace of all creation. All life is connected, both physically and spiritually. To see ourselves as atoms, separate and distinct from each other and the rest of creation is, as Albert Einstein called it, “optical delusion.” And yet, for the last several centuries, that is exactly how we have seen ourselves. We have poisoned rivers and lakes, we have created the great Pacific trash island, we have caused acid rain, and we have removed mountain tops. We have even begun to change the climate of “this fragile earth.” In an arresting article on the website of the magazine Sojourners Wes Granberg-Michaelson pointedly asks us, “Who will take personal responsibility for denying climate Change?” Granberg-Michaelson goes on to remind us that, “those who have denied climate change and thwarted actions to prevent or mitigate its effects have not just been mistaken. They are responsible for the increase in human suffering that has resulted now, and will continue in the future, from its effects.”3 Even if we accept the reality of climate change, we are still bound to ask ourselves how we can better care for creation. Can we support local farmers? Plant our own gardens? Decrease our use of plastic? Decrease our trash? Support recycling?
If we are truly awe-struck by the grandeur of God’s creation, we can also work at rising above self-preoccupation and pursue communion and relationship with each other. And perhaps, most important of all, we can open ourselves to God’s presence in silence and contemplation. We can take the time to savor our time and place, to pray through our days, acknowledging God’s presence with us in all things. And we have help in doing this. Celtic prayer, the prayer tradition of Ireland and Scotland, recognized God’s intimate connection with all creation, ourselves, the rest of earth’s creatures, and the cosmos, long before contemporary scientists did. We can offer to God all that we do, and have, and are. We can experience God’s presence not only in formal worship but also in all the “domestic mess” of our daily lives. In all that we do we can gratefully acknowledge God’s presence in, with, under, around, and through us.
And if we need words to express our awe at the signs and wonders of God’s presence in creation, we might turn to Psalm 8:
When I behold your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place –
what is humanity that you should be mindful of us?
Who are we that you should care for us?
You have made us barely less than God,
and crowned us with glory and honor.
You have made us responsible
For the work of your hands,
putting all things at our feet….
YHWH, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your Name in all the earth!4
1. God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1955), 74-75, quoted in Judy Cannato, Radical Amazement (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2006), 142.
2. Based on Cannato, pp. 137ff.
3. http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/05/08/who-will-take-personal-responsibility-denying-climate-change .
4. The Inclusive Bible (Plymouth, UK: Sheed and Ward, 2007), 373.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Lives Transformed
What does Easter mean to you? It’s still Easter, and it will continue to be Easter tide throughout this month. So what does Easter mean to you? German pastor and social activist Christoph Blumhardt said that it is not enough to celebrate Easter by saying, “Christ is risen.” It makes no sense to make such a proclamation unless we can also say that we have died with Christ and we have also risen with Christ. Yes, we acknowledge Jesus’ victory over death, but does what happened to Jesus have any impact on our lives? What does Easter mean to you?
What did Easter mean to those who encountered the risen Lord in the flesh? Our Scripture stories tell us that their lives were utterly transformed. Mary Magdalene and the other women become the first evangelists, enthusiastically delivering the good news of the empty tomb to the other disciples. Seeing Jesus’ wounded side and hands, Thomas was transformed from a skeptic – or at best someone who was confused by all that had happened – into a person of deep faith who could proclaim, “My Lord and my God!” Indeed, from that upper room, Thomas went out to become the first evangelist to India, so tradition tells us, and founded what is now called the Mar Thoma Church in southwest India.
And the transformation of Peter? Although Peter was traditionally the first one to declare that Jesus was God’s anointed one, Scripture also shows us that Peter went up the mountain with Jesus, but completely misunderstood what he saw there. He fell asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, even though Jesus had asked him to stay awake, to “watch with me one hour.” After Jesus was arrested, Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus. As Jesus hung in agony on the cross, Peter was nowhere to be seen. And, although Peter was the acknowledged leader of Jesus’ closest friends, he huddled behind a locked door with the others on Easter evening, afraid to imagine what might happen next.
Is the Peter that we just heard in the Book of Acts that same Peter? We heard only part of Peter’s sermon that he delivered after experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Yet, aren’t you amazed at how boldly Peter can speak the truth to his fellow Jews? Isn’t it astounding that he can proclaim so eloquently and so fearlessly everything that God has done for them in Jesus? Calling himself a witness to the risen Jesus, Peter has clearly been transformed – into someone who will spend the rest of his life spreading the good news among other Jews, and finally dying for his commitment to Jesus during Nero’s persecution of Christians in 64 AD.
And how about those two dispirited and fearful friends along the road to Emmaus? Downcast and disappointed as they trudged home from Jerusalem, they had fervently hoped that Jesus of Nazareth would be God’s anointed one, the king who would finally free the Jews from Roman oppression. Perhaps they had stood by Jesus as he slowly bled to death on the cross. The claim of the women that his tomb was empty, and that angels had told them he was alive, was sheer nonsense to them. And then that mysterious stranger began to explain the Hebrew Scriptures to them. He showed them that his death took place according to God’s plan. Their hearts warmed to him, as they began to see that Scripture tells us a consistent story of God’s great love. As Jesus was about to leave them on their own, the companions were moved by the Holy Spirit to invite Jesus to come in and share a meal with them. Miraculously, instead of guest, Jesus became host. He broke the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them – and they recognized him!
And the two companions were utterly transformed! Then they knew for certain that what the women had said was true, and that Jesus was indeed alive again. Even though it was now night, and even though they were tired from their seven miles’ walk to Emmaus, they were so joyful and excited that they turned around and ran the seven miles back to Jerusalem. They joyfully shared the good news with Peter and the other disciples. And all of them knew that not only was Jesus alive again, but that he was especially present to them as they broke bread and shared the cup in his name.
What has Easter meant since the books of the New Testament were written and brought together? Were those we hear about in Scripture the only ones – the last ones – to be transformed by the presence of the risen Christ? Absolutely not! St. Paul did not encounter Jesus in the flesh, but the vision that he did have on the road to Damascus so transformed him that he spent the rest of his life proclaiming the good news of Christ to gentile communities in Greco-Roman territories outside Israel. The desert fathers and mothers, founders of monastic communities like Benedict, mystics like Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, those who cared for the poor and downtrodden like Francis of Assisi, holy women like the Beguines of France and Belgium, Protestant reformers like Martin Luther, our own Thomas Cranmer, and John Wesley, all found their lives transformed by the risen Jesus, and all shared with others their joy in the discovery of God’s great love.
Even in our own day, lives are being transformed through those who share God’s love with others. Let me relate just one story among so many. April 25th was World Malaria Day. In some ways it’s a sad anniversary, in that it reminds us – now for the seventh time – that one of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations is the prevention of malaria. Our own Episcopal Relief and Development, through its Nets for Life program, trains local community leaders to work throughout Africa, distributing the nets and offering the guidance on diet that will help to reach the goal of the eradication of malaria. And lives are being transformed. Margaret Atieno Juma, a petite mother and grandmother, used to suffer bouts of malaria about two or three times a year. Though we can scarcely imagine having malaria so frequently, Margaret grimly battled the disease, even traveling many miles to a clinic for treatment. Nets for Life has made all the difference in her life, as she put up the bed net in her small mud hut and learned how to keep from contracting the disease. Thanks to ERD and its local representative, it has been over a year since Margaret last contracted malaria!
So what does Easter mean to us? Can we too be transformed, as those in our Scripture stories were, or as Margaret and those who brought her life-saving nets were? We can! Every time we gather in Jesus’ name, every time we are nourished by the bread of Scripture and the bread of the Eucharist, we too can be transformed. Those who come from other traditions often wonder why Roman Catholics and Episcopalians continue to celebrate the Eucharist Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. This is the reason why: it is in the Eucharist that we continue to meet the risen Christ. It is in the Eucharist that he continues his work of transformation in us. We come to this place as we are. Some of us are sad, some of us are wounded, some of us may even be broken. Some of us may be full of energy, but some of us may be full of doubt and questions. Some have many needs and desires, and some have next to nothing but their love for their friends.
And yet God works a transformation in all of us. As we hear God’s word in Scripture, the Holy Spirit helps us to hear with fresh ears, gain new insight, and see more clearly what we are called to do with our lives. As the bread and cup of life are blessed, broken, and shared, Jesus enters our very bodies, nourishing us and transforming us from the inside out. As we gather round the table with Jesus, as we receive Christ’s body and blood, our transformation has begun, but it is not yet complete. Mystics speak of “the slow work of God.” Each of us must return again and again to Christ’s table, letting him continue to change us, letting him continue to feed us, letting him forgive and heal us, letting him continue the lifelong process of growth in wholeness that he began in us in baptism.
Lord, that we may know you in the breaking,
in the break of day, in the breaking of hearts,
and in the breaking of bread,
help us to know that you are risen indeed,
and that you are with us in the holy communion.
May we ever proclaim your presence,
and know that you travel with us on the road we go.
Teach us, Lord, to abide in you, that we may know that you abide in us ….
Lord, abide with us,
that we may abide in you.1
1. Modified from David Adam, Clouds and Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2001), 63.
What did Easter mean to those who encountered the risen Lord in the flesh? Our Scripture stories tell us that their lives were utterly transformed. Mary Magdalene and the other women become the first evangelists, enthusiastically delivering the good news of the empty tomb to the other disciples. Seeing Jesus’ wounded side and hands, Thomas was transformed from a skeptic – or at best someone who was confused by all that had happened – into a person of deep faith who could proclaim, “My Lord and my God!” Indeed, from that upper room, Thomas went out to become the first evangelist to India, so tradition tells us, and founded what is now called the Mar Thoma Church in southwest India.
And the transformation of Peter? Although Peter was traditionally the first one to declare that Jesus was God’s anointed one, Scripture also shows us that Peter went up the mountain with Jesus, but completely misunderstood what he saw there. He fell asleep in the garden of Gethsemane, even though Jesus had asked him to stay awake, to “watch with me one hour.” After Jesus was arrested, Peter denied three times that he even knew Jesus. As Jesus hung in agony on the cross, Peter was nowhere to be seen. And, although Peter was the acknowledged leader of Jesus’ closest friends, he huddled behind a locked door with the others on Easter evening, afraid to imagine what might happen next.
Is the Peter that we just heard in the Book of Acts that same Peter? We heard only part of Peter’s sermon that he delivered after experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Yet, aren’t you amazed at how boldly Peter can speak the truth to his fellow Jews? Isn’t it astounding that he can proclaim so eloquently and so fearlessly everything that God has done for them in Jesus? Calling himself a witness to the risen Jesus, Peter has clearly been transformed – into someone who will spend the rest of his life spreading the good news among other Jews, and finally dying for his commitment to Jesus during Nero’s persecution of Christians in 64 AD.
And how about those two dispirited and fearful friends along the road to Emmaus? Downcast and disappointed as they trudged home from Jerusalem, they had fervently hoped that Jesus of Nazareth would be God’s anointed one, the king who would finally free the Jews from Roman oppression. Perhaps they had stood by Jesus as he slowly bled to death on the cross. The claim of the women that his tomb was empty, and that angels had told them he was alive, was sheer nonsense to them. And then that mysterious stranger began to explain the Hebrew Scriptures to them. He showed them that his death took place according to God’s plan. Their hearts warmed to him, as they began to see that Scripture tells us a consistent story of God’s great love. As Jesus was about to leave them on their own, the companions were moved by the Holy Spirit to invite Jesus to come in and share a meal with them. Miraculously, instead of guest, Jesus became host. He broke the bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them – and they recognized him!
And the two companions were utterly transformed! Then they knew for certain that what the women had said was true, and that Jesus was indeed alive again. Even though it was now night, and even though they were tired from their seven miles’ walk to Emmaus, they were so joyful and excited that they turned around and ran the seven miles back to Jerusalem. They joyfully shared the good news with Peter and the other disciples. And all of them knew that not only was Jesus alive again, but that he was especially present to them as they broke bread and shared the cup in his name.
What has Easter meant since the books of the New Testament were written and brought together? Were those we hear about in Scripture the only ones – the last ones – to be transformed by the presence of the risen Christ? Absolutely not! St. Paul did not encounter Jesus in the flesh, but the vision that he did have on the road to Damascus so transformed him that he spent the rest of his life proclaiming the good news of Christ to gentile communities in Greco-Roman territories outside Israel. The desert fathers and mothers, founders of monastic communities like Benedict, mystics like Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, those who cared for the poor and downtrodden like Francis of Assisi, holy women like the Beguines of France and Belgium, Protestant reformers like Martin Luther, our own Thomas Cranmer, and John Wesley, all found their lives transformed by the risen Jesus, and all shared with others their joy in the discovery of God’s great love.
Even in our own day, lives are being transformed through those who share God’s love with others. Let me relate just one story among so many. April 25th was World Malaria Day. In some ways it’s a sad anniversary, in that it reminds us – now for the seventh time – that one of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations is the prevention of malaria. Our own Episcopal Relief and Development, through its Nets for Life program, trains local community leaders to work throughout Africa, distributing the nets and offering the guidance on diet that will help to reach the goal of the eradication of malaria. And lives are being transformed. Margaret Atieno Juma, a petite mother and grandmother, used to suffer bouts of malaria about two or three times a year. Though we can scarcely imagine having malaria so frequently, Margaret grimly battled the disease, even traveling many miles to a clinic for treatment. Nets for Life has made all the difference in her life, as she put up the bed net in her small mud hut and learned how to keep from contracting the disease. Thanks to ERD and its local representative, it has been over a year since Margaret last contracted malaria!
So what does Easter mean to us? Can we too be transformed, as those in our Scripture stories were, or as Margaret and those who brought her life-saving nets were? We can! Every time we gather in Jesus’ name, every time we are nourished by the bread of Scripture and the bread of the Eucharist, we too can be transformed. Those who come from other traditions often wonder why Roman Catholics and Episcopalians continue to celebrate the Eucharist Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. This is the reason why: it is in the Eucharist that we continue to meet the risen Christ. It is in the Eucharist that he continues his work of transformation in us. We come to this place as we are. Some of us are sad, some of us are wounded, some of us may even be broken. Some of us may be full of energy, but some of us may be full of doubt and questions. Some have many needs and desires, and some have next to nothing but their love for their friends.
And yet God works a transformation in all of us. As we hear God’s word in Scripture, the Holy Spirit helps us to hear with fresh ears, gain new insight, and see more clearly what we are called to do with our lives. As the bread and cup of life are blessed, broken, and shared, Jesus enters our very bodies, nourishing us and transforming us from the inside out. As we gather round the table with Jesus, as we receive Christ’s body and blood, our transformation has begun, but it is not yet complete. Mystics speak of “the slow work of God.” Each of us must return again and again to Christ’s table, letting him continue to change us, letting him continue to feed us, letting him forgive and heal us, letting him continue the lifelong process of growth in wholeness that he began in us in baptism.
Lord, that we may know you in the breaking,
in the break of day, in the breaking of hearts,
and in the breaking of bread,
help us to know that you are risen indeed,
and that you are with us in the holy communion.
May we ever proclaim your presence,
and know that you travel with us on the road we go.
Teach us, Lord, to abide in you, that we may know that you abide in us ….
Lord, abide with us,
that we may abide in you.1
1. Modified from David Adam, Clouds and Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2001), 63.
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