Present Your Bodies as a Living Sacrifice

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Hear the echo of Paul’s exhortation to the Roman Christians in the Great Thanksgiving of Rite I in the Book of Common Prayer: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee….” From the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and Greek and Latin histories we know that the ancient Israelites, the Jews of Jesus’ time, and the Greeks and Romans all sacrificed animals in their worship. But what is a “living sacrifice,” and how do we present our bodies as a “living sacrifice?”

Paul’s letter to the Romans is the first letter in the New Testament. That’s because it’s the longest, and the Epistles are arranged in order of descending length. Actually, Paul’s letter to the Romans was his last, written about 60 AD. It was addressed to mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, which he hoped to visit on his way to Spain. In the chapters preceding today’s reading, Paul has struggled with the refusal of most Jews to accept Jesus as God’s anointed one. Since he is himself a Jew of the highest rank, Paul concludes his argument with the assurance that God’s covenant with the Jews will stand forever, but that now, by virtue of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God’s covenant also embraces the Gentiles.

Paul then turns to the issue of how a community of Jesus’ followers, who come from different social classes and ethnic groups, can actually live and work together. By exhorting his hearers to be a “living sacrifice,” in contrast to the sacrificial animals with which they were so familiar, Paul begins by reminding them that their commitment to Jesus goes well beyond intellectual assent. Their commitment to Jesus also goes beyond muttering “Jesus is Lord” or some other confession of faith, even if it is God’s grace that enables a person to make such a confession. Rather, Paul exhorts his hearers to live a life that reflects their commitment to Jesus. Such a lifestyle may involve doing with the body actions that may be at odds with their culture, and may even earn them the disapproval or hatred of their neighbors.

In asking the Roman Christians to intentionally live out their commitment to Jesus, Paul was indeed asking them to live in ways that would set them apart from their neighbors. They were to dress modestly. After a suitable period of instruction they were to be baptized in front of the entire Christian community. While Jews normally gathered for worship on Saturday, and Greeks and Romans gathered on days dedicated to the various gods, Christians were to gather for worship on Sunday, i.e., on a normal working day. They were to continue to grow in their knowledge of Scripture. Gentiles were to forego the civic clubs that combined worship with socializing. They were especially expected to avoid the drunken orgies that celebrated Bacchus and Dionysus. They were also to stay away from the rituals that venerated the Roman emperors, and they were not to eat meat sacrificed to the gods. In their communities, they were to disregard social rank and gender, and were to regard all as equals in God’s eyes and as needed and valued. Through all these practices Christians distanced themselves from their neighbors. In some cases, they were ostracized, and periodically they were persecuted. For most, it was truly a sacrifice to follow Jesus – and it was certainly not good for business!

Fast forward to today. How do we “present our bodies as a living sacrifice?” Like the hearers of Paul’s letter, we too must do more than mutter “I believe in Jesus Christ.” If we want to honor our commitment to Jesus, we too must do more than simply recite the Creeds. We too are called to live out our commitment to Jesus with our bodies. How do we do that in concrete terms? What does a Christian lifestyle look like in the twenty-first century?

A generation or two ago, it might have been easier to answer that question. Episcopal parishes regularly observed major feasts, even those not falling on Sunday. Feasts such as the Presentation, February 2nd, the Annunciation, March 25th, the Transfiguration, August 6th, and All Saints, November 1st, would regularly have found the parish gathered for worship. Worshippers would have flocked to churches on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. Few people would attend or give “Christmas” parties in Advent. Most would fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, would “give up” something for Lent, and would take on other devotions. Most people would tithe and also respond to special offerings. Well before the 1960s, men and women would have been moved by their commitment to Jesus to support movements for better working conditions, votes for women, better housing for the poor, and civil rights.

So what now? What’s a “living sacrifice” for us? Perhaps Paul’s words and the practices of our forebears in the faith are more relevant than we might think. Indeed, we might all be stronger spiritually if we were to re-adopt some of those earlier practices. However, more than anything, Paul exhorts us to take our commitment to Jesus seriously, to be intentional about our membership in this – or any – faith community. The spiritual life is not icing on the cake of a well-lived life. It is a commitment to a new and different way of being in the world, a lifestyle that lets others know that our highest allegiance to is someone who calls us to a way of living focused on the needs of others. Such a commitment calls us to continually grow in our relationship with God and in our ability to follow through on the promises we made at our baptisms. For most of us – and how appropriate this reminder is when we celebrate the beginning of a new school year – this means regularly engaging in some form of Christian formation. Our commitment also calls us to engage in regular individual prayer – even if it’s only five minutes stolen from your lunch hour – and in regular Sunday worship.

Our commitment to Jesus also calls us to grow together in community. Within this group of Jesus’ followers, we are to neither overvalue nor undervalue our place. As we work together to bring God’s realm closer, we are to understand that we all have gifts. Every one of you here – and even those not here – has a gift needed by God and by this community. No one can say, “Not me,” or “I’m too busy,” or “I’m too young,” even “I’m too old.” Just as in Paul’s time, this Christian community needs people who can proclaim God’s word. It doesn’t take a collar to share your experiences of how God has been working in your life. It doesn’t take a collar to speak out on issues of peace and justice, or to use social media to inform your friends of your views. This Christian community needs those who can teach. We need teachers for children, for youth, and for adults. It doesn’t take a collar to lead a group reflecting regularly on Scripture. This community needs people to engage in outreach to those in need. Now by God’s grace we have a deacon among us, who is especially ordained to lead us into areas of ministry beyond the red doors. She needs people to follow her out. This Christian community needs people to provide financial support. If you have the means, Jesus expects you to give generously to support the parish – tithing, or at least giving intentionally is still expected of us -- and to support other ministries and charities.

Brother James Koester, a member of the Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist, tells the story of one of his Methodist forebears.1 In 1790, at the age of twenty, Matthew Evan, the brother of his great great great great grandfather, was “convicted of the necessity of being born again” by the preaching of an itinerant Methodist pastor. What fascinates Br. James about Matthew Evan and others like him is that they “weren’t simply interested in warm spiritual fuzzies, because as passionate as they were about the conversion of their souls, they were also intent on the reformation of society. This same Matthew Evan was one of the first members of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor of the Midland District [of Ontario] founded in 1819 in order to “to prevent the increase of pauperism and to furnish relief and assistance to the indigent, destitute and sick.” The Anglo-Catholic founders of the SSJE shared a similar ethic. While committed to beautiful and dignified worship, they also developed a Rule that commits the brothers to stewardship of the earth and real solidarity with the poor. For Br. James, both the Canadian Methodists and the SSJE founders clearly remind us that, “if we are serious about what we say, then we need to be just as serious about what we do. If we are truly believe we have been called, justified and glorified by God, and that through baptism we share the life and work of God then not only what we believe matters, but what we do matters as well.”

With all your heart, and mind, and strength, be a living sacrifice, offering back to God what God has given you. Heed Br. James’ call: “Go out and change and convert and reform the world. Do it, do it now, do it today. Do it because what you believe really does matter. Do it, because what you do matters even more.”

1. “You are Christ’s Hands.” http://ssje.org/ssje/2011/07/24/you-are-christs-hands-br-james-koester/ .

Where is God

Jacob is on the run. His mother Rebekah had come from the family of his grandfather Abraham’s brother to marry his father Isaac. Jacob was the second-born of twin boys, and he had been born, “clutching the heel” of his brother Esau. Old Isaac preferred Esau, but Jacob was his mother’s favorite. With the connivance of his mother, Jacob had managed both to cheat Esau of his birthright and trick Isaac into bestowing his patriarchal blessing on Jacob. Now, with Esau’s threats to kill him still ringing in his ears, Jacob is on the run. He is running to his mother’s family in Haran, ostensibly to find a wife.

Jacob stops for the night and dreams of a staircase, a staircase like the ones the Canaanites build in order to reach the heavenly abodes of their gods. However, in Jacob’s dream, God’s angels travel up and down, joining the heavenly and the earthly realms. What is even more surprising in Jacob’s dream, the God of Israel, unlike the remote Canaanite gods, comes face to face with Jacob and directly addresses him. In this astonishing first encounter with God, Jacob hears God reiterate his covenant with Abraham and assure Jacob that indeed his descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. In that promise Jacob also hears implicit reassurance that it was part of God’s plan that Jacob deceive Esau, and that Jacob’s exile from his home will only be temporary. As he awakens, Jacob realizes that “surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” To ensure that others will understand that this is now a sacred place, Jacob upends his stone pillow and anoints it.

“Surely the Lord is in this place.” Have you had an experience something like Jacob’s? Many of us find it hard to pray. For some us, dialogue with God is well-nigh impossible. For others of us, meditation makes no sense. Even in our own room, how can we quiet our minds enough to discover if God is speaking to us? Most of us ignore or can’t remember our dreams. However, some of us have experienced God’s presence in “thin places,” places where we can almost see through the veil and get a glimpse of the heavenly realm, places where God’s presence is palpable and undeniable, places where God personally touches and moves us.

Some of us encounter thin places in natural settings. Some of us, like Jacob, have found God in the vast open spaces of the southwest deserts. For some of us, mountain tops or ocean shores speak of God’s majesty and our own insignificance. Sometimes God breaks in on us in national parks, like Acadia in Maine, where “the mountains meet the sea,” or retreat centers, like Our Lady of the Pines, where I spent the week surrounded by pines, firs, cedars, and many other kinds of trees. And some places seem to draw us more tightly into God’s embrace because generations of faithful people have encountered God there. I think of Iona, on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, where 7th century Irish monks established a monastery to lead the Scots to Christ and where a restored monastery and retreat center now stands. I think of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the end of the Camino Real, to which pilgrims have been walking since the 9th century. I think of the cathedral of Chartres, France, built in the 13th century, whose great labyrinth in the floor still draws pilgrims. One day I walked into St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The scent of incense that met me bespoke the prayers that have been said there for almost two hundred years. And then there are the sacred places of other faiths: the Great Synagogue in London, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Hindu temples, and Buddhist stupas. And beyond these are all the ordinary places in life where God continues to show up: among devoted followers of Jesus in even the smallest clapboard churches, at bedsides and deathbeds, or when one person lovingly speaks truth to another. All of these are places where people have had and continue to have a deep sense of God’s presence. In all these places, when we open our hearts, we know that “surely the Lord is in this place.” In all these places we are privileged, in Meister Eckhart’s words, to “penetrate things and find God there.”1

And when we sense that “the Lord is in this place,” when God grants us the grace of a face-to-face encounter, how do we receive it? Do we distrust such a felt sense of God’s presence, such an intuition of God’s reality and love? “Couldn’t happen to me,” we say, it must have been my imagination. People like me don’t have experiences like that.” Or do we distrust such experiences because they feel too pious and private? Franciscan teacher Richard Rohr rightly cautions us that what he calls “false mysticism,” often feels too much like ‘my little Jesus and my little me,’ and doesn’t seem to make many social, historical, corporate, or justice connections. As Pope Francis says, it is all ‘too self-referential.’”2

But, by the grace of God, sometimes we are enabled to see something greater than ourselves in experiences of God’s nearness. When Jacob encountered God face to face, he realized, perhaps for the first time, that God’s covenant with his grandfather also included him, that he was called to be the ancestor of multitudes, that he would be connected to generations yet unborn. He remained a runaway, a trickster, and a womanizer, siring the twelve tribes of Israel by two wives and two concubines. Nevertheless, from that day forward, his life was forever transformed.

As it was for Jacob, so it is for us. Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that, “Spirituality is not meant to be an alternative lifestyle, a road to retreat and escape; it needs to be an active leaven of life, feeding the zest and healing the wounds of life.”3 By God’s grace, when we unexpectedly encounter God, we may glimpse for a moment the vast and infinite being of God, the God in whom we and all creation “live and move and have our being,” the God who loves and cares for all more deeply than we can ever imagine. And by God’s grace, we too may be transformed, so that we may have deeper compassion for all humanity, indeed for all creation. By God’s grace, we may be enabled to share with others what we know of the God of love, who showed himself to Jacob, and who shared our humanity in Jesus. By God’s grace we especially may be able to extend to others the care and compassion of that God for all.

If our encounter with the living God, in sacred spaces in nature, in this sacred space, in the sharing of Christ’s Body and Blood, enables us to see more deeply God’s love for us and all of creation, then perhaps too God will show us or lead us to those who particularly need our compassion and care. In the last several weeks, a poignant example of those in need of our compassion and care has come to light: the unprecedented number of undocumented Central American children who have streamed across the U.S. border. There is much that can be said about the impact of undocumented people on border cities, and of what the U.S. government should or might do to secure our borders. Our elected representatives have, for whatever reason, not had the will to enact sane immigration policy, despite the desire of the majority of Americans to fix the immigration system. Seeking a quick fix to the most recent influx, many Americans believe that all undocumented people, whether children or adults should be immediately deported.

Our church has taken a different stance. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori counsels us “to remember these people and their difficult and dangerous position in [our] prayers – today, this coming Sunday, and continuing until we find a just resolution.” Urging us to contact our elected representatives, she reminds us that, “we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, and as a Church, we are asking the United States government to support [a humanitarian] response, grounded in justice and the fundamental dignity of every human being.”4 The Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Los Angeles have gone a step further. Together they visited the child detention center in Port Hueneme, California. They then joined with Muslim and Jewish faith leaders to prepare worship materials for the Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Migrant Children, to be observed this weekend in the Los Angeles area.

There are no easy answers to the plight of undocumented Central American children, nor to the violence and poverty that impel them to leave their homes. Nor are there easy answers to the poverty of the people around us. If we have experienced God’s nearness, if we have ever been able to say, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” then surely too we can pray that God will remind us that we are all God’s children, and that God will allow us the blessing of experiencing the renewal of life that comes when we share God’s love especially with the least among us.

1. Quoted in Synthesis, July 20, 2014, 2.
2. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--The-One-Face-and-the-Everything.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=3Fx3z_67osI, July 18, 2014.
3. Synthesis, 2.
4. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/07/10/presiding-bishop-on-the-crisis-of-unaccompanied-children-at-us-border/

She said, "I will."

“And they called to Rebekah and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, ‘I will.’”

A week after I graduated from college, I walked down an Air India jet way to begin a year’s stay in India. I had won a Fulbright fellowship to teach English in India, and, despite the reservations of my parents and the surprise of my friends, I had accepted it. I had travelled in Europe the previous spring and summer, and three of my college classmates had spent their junior year in India. However, aside from the research for one of my spring quarter classes, I knew little about the country. I can still remember the sheer terror I felt as I embraced my parents by the entrance to the jet way. I knew that it would be at least a year before I would see them again. I screwed up my courage, turned my back on them, and walked through the jet way door. Even then, perhaps I had an inkling that going to India was part of God’s larger plan for me. I certainly could not then foresee the teaching and scholarship that would come out of that first year in India. Perhaps in some indirect way, the risk I took that day also even made it possible for me to be preaching to you today!

Did Rebekah face that same mix of terror and courage when she agreed to go with Abraham’s servant and become Isaac’s wife? This may be a new Bible story for some of you. As I explained last week, the Revised Common Lectionary of the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches carries us through three liturgical years. We’re now in Year A, i.e., the first year of the three. This year we read major portions of the Gospel of Matthew, in Year B we read Mark, and in Year C we read Luke, with John interspersed among them in all three years. During the season following Pentecost, that is the summer and the fall, the RCL gives us the choice of semi-continuous readings from the Hebrew Bible or lections that complement the gospel reading. For this three-year cycle I have opted for the semi-continuous reading of the Hebrew Bible. This means that during the summer most of our lessons will be from Genesis, with readings from Exodus later in the summer and fall. Easter was late this year. Consequently, we missed the earliest readings from Genesis. In one, three mysterious strangers announced to Abraham and Sarah that they would become first-time parents in their old age. In another, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Two weeks ago, we heard of the banishment of Hagar and her son Ishmael, and God’s promise to make a great nation of them as well. And last week, we heard the terrifying story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac. We come now to the next step in God’s fulfillment of God’s promise: the search for a suitable wife for Isaac and the marriage of the next generation.

Of course, this would be an arranged marriage. When we think about marriage, we think about passionate, romantic love and personal fulfillment. However, in the ancient world marriage was more about joining families and ensuring the survival of clans and tribes. Moreover, ancient Israel was a patriarchal society, with the economic, social, and political leadership in the hands of the most senior men. Our Bible stories reflect the dominance of men and mostly overlook women. Just think of the Old Testament names that come most readily to mind: Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Jonah. Although we do hear the stories of Esther and Ruth, women were not important characters for the editors of the Hebrew Bible. Even so, women were central to God’s achievement of God’s purposes: they had to agree to what God asked of them! Just as much later, Mary had to accept Gabriel’s announcement to her that she would give birth to a savior, so Rebekah had to agree to marriage with a member of Abraham’s family for God’s plan to succeed. Without Rebekah’s “yes” there would have been no next generation! Of course, the Bible doesn’t record her feelings, but don’t you think that she too might have been terrified to leave her family, her community, literally everything she knew, to go off and marry a strange man? Yet, she had the courage to say “yes.” As she left with the blessing of her family, she willingly opened herself to the new life God was laying before her and let God’s plan to go forward.

We too are like Rebekah. God also calls us to play our part in God’s plan. We too may feel like insignificant players, but we are all part of God’s great design, God’s inexorable will to bring in God’s reign. And God can and does make great things happen through us. But God never coerces us. Nor does God threaten us or lay a guilt trip on us. Rather God invites us. If we say “yes,” if we allow ourselves to be led by God, God can work through us. And, let’s admit it, following God can be downright scary: sometimes we don’t want to leave everything that we are familiar with to go off in a new direction. Think about those times when you prayed you were doing the right thing, when you screwed up your courage and ventured down that jet way. When you started a new job or program of study? When you traveled abroad for the first time? When you asked for baptism? When you got married? When you adopted a child? When you came to an Episcopal church for the first time? When we say yes to God’s new direction in our lives, God can continue to work out God’s plan through us. And we can be assured, as Jesus assures us in the Gospel lesson, that God will indeed lead us when we put God’s yoke on, when we team up with Jesus.

What is true for us as individuals is also true for us as a parish. We may be a small parish, but here in Gallia County, we too must have the courage to play our part in God’s plan. That is what being a church means!

So let me tell you about another parish, not so different from us, who took the risk of following God’s leading. Some years ago I visited the parish of St. John on Bethnal Green, in the Diocese of London in England. St John’s had been built in the early 19th century in the East End of London, as the Church of England was expanding into working class neighborhoods. It had been built by a famous architect, John Soane. Even though its façade desperately needed repair when I saw the church, one could still see its original beauty. However, what was important about St. John’s was not its physical space but what was happening inside and outside the church. The neighborhood around the church had greatly changed over the years and now was home to an assortment of Bangladeshis, other South Asians, and Somalis, most of them Muslims, a few Jews left over from earlier generations, and a goodly number of drug dealers and what the Brits euphemistically call “working girls,” i.e., prostitutes. Instead of throwing up their hands and despairing of having anyone to whom to minister, the people of St. John’s courageously decided to follow what they had discerned to be God’s leading. While continuing to be a vital center of worship, the parish began ministries to the drug addicts and prostitutes and to the poor, regardless of their faith community.

On the day we were there, a clothing giveaway, with hot tea and sandwiches, was taking place on the front porch. Through St John’s outreach to the community, many had given up their addictions and their work as prostitutes, and some had begun ministries of their own through the parish. God’s reign was definitely being realized in Bethnal Green! More important, St. Johns partners with other East End parishes and even other faith communities to run food banks, night shelters, soup kitchens, debt counselling centers, outreach work with disaffected youth, groups for mothers and children, youth clubs, after school clubs, and day-care for the elderly. They host Alcoholics Anonymous, mental health groups, ESL instruction, and activities that enable ethnic communities to maintain their language and traditions. With the support of the local community, St. John’s even raised the funds to repair the façade of the church building. Not content simply to dodge the scaffolding for several months, the parish also received grants to have artists decorate the scaffolding. The design: a colorful rendering of the visit of the three men to Abraham announcing Sarah’s pregnancy!

Am I suggesting that we should begin ministries to drug addicts and prostitutes? I’m sure they could be worthwhile endeavors, but they may not be for us. We have our ministry of Loaves and Fishes. We are experimenting with Church in the Park. A parish on Long Island continues to send us children’s clothing. We helped meet the need for warm clothing this past winter by giving away hats, scarves, and gloves. Could we add some form of clothing give-away to our monthly diaper distribution or to our winter give-away? We regularly take leftover food to Serenity House. Could God be calling us to a more intentional relationship with them? At the very least, God is asking us to pray for ourselves and for our parish. God willing, as we discern the next steps in our ministry, we will have the courage to embrace our part in God’s plan. We will let ourselves be led by Christ, even if we feel as if we are going to “another country” to be married to a stranger.

“And they called to Rebekah and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, I will.”

The Binding of Isaac

“God tested Abraham…. He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering….” This story is a shocking story for most of us. It is especially shocking for us who believe that God cares deeply for us. Called a “text of terror,” the story raises many unanswerable questions. To begin with, why would God ask anyone to kill his own son? Why especially would God make such a demand of a man to whom he had promised that, “I will make a great nation of you?” Why would Abraham actually agree, at least silently, to obey this seeming command, even to the point of actually raising the knife to kill his son? Why would Isaac meekly accept his fate instead of struggling and crying out? Did Abraham “pass” the test? Does the Bible sanction child abuse?

It’s a shocking story. And yet this story is venerated by Jewish tradition and even by many Christian texts. In Hebrew this story is known as the Abedah, the “binding” of Isaac. It has been an important story for rabbinic theology, interpretation, and meditation. It is even incorporated into the traditional daily liturgy, where the focus is not on Abraham but on God and Isaac, and where the worshippers express their confidence that God will intervene to save God’s people.

The gospel writers may well have had this text in mind when they depicted Jesus sending out his new disciples with the warning, as we heard in last week’s gospel reading, that, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me….” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews, in his role call of the faithful, directly mentions Abraham’s near-sacrifice. “By faith,” we hear, “Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.’ He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead….” Similarly, the writer of the Letter of James, in arguing that the spiritual life requires both faith and works, turns to Abraham. “Was not our ancestor Abraham,” he declares, “justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,’ and he was called the friend of God.” With their focus on Abraham, the evangelists and the writers of the letters to the Hebrews and of James clearly intend us to see Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac as an example of unwavering faith in God. Perhaps too the crafters of the Revised Common Lectionary wanted us to see in this story a parallel with Jesus’ own willing self-sacrifice on the cross.

Nevertheless, this is a difficult text for many of us. Atheists point to it as an example of the barbarity of religion. The rabbis and many Christian teachers have struggled with it over the centuries. In his commentary on the text, Daniel Clendinen reminds us that the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote an entire book on the story.1 In grappling with the story Kierkegaard laid out four alternative scenarios. He suggested that perhaps Abraham decided to protect God by allowing himself to be seen as a monster by Isaac, the servants, and the rest of his family. Or, perhaps Isaac’s life was saved by the sheep caught in the bush, but Isaac was thereafter traumatized for the rest of his life. Or, Kierkegaard suggested, after the deed was done, Abraham prayed for forgiveness for killing his son. Or finally, perhaps Abraham lost his nerve, failed to act, and went back down the mountain defeated and broken. Actually, that last scenario might appeal to us, as we survey the violence committed by religious fanatics or in the name of religion through the centuries and right up to today.

Now, with texts as old as this one we clearly cannot probe too deeply into the motivations and actions of the characters. We cannot read these stories as we would a modern psychological novel. Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest yet another way of looking at the “binding of Isaac.”2 Contrary to the New Testament writers, I’d like to suggest that Abraham failed the test! Four chapters earlier in Genesis, when God had decided to destroy Sodom, Abraham vigorously bargained with God to save Sodom. He even rebuked God, saying, “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to bring death upon the innocent as well as the guilty….” In the end, Abraham persuaded God not to destroy Sodom if ten righteous men could be found in it. If Abraham was able to bargain so skillfully with God for Sodom, we might wonder, why he would not do so for Isaac? We might even wonder whether God expected Abraham to bargain. When he did not, God was forced to intervene through an angel, as God did for Hagar when Abraham sent her into the wilderness.

Did Abraham’s blind consent to sacrifice his son disappoint, even disgust, those closest to him? A modern commentator suggests that the “crucial silences” that follow the story suggest that it did. God and Abraham engaged in lively conversation before the Binding. However, after the angel’s intervention, God never speaks to Abraham again in the chapters that follow. Nor, it seems does Sarah. She too has been talkative, yet we hear nothing further from her. The very next chapter begins with her death in a different place from where Abraham has settled. Did the binding of Isaac cause her to leave Abraham? Finally, we hear nothing from Isaac. Was he, as Kierkegaard suggested, so traumatized by the event that he has lost his speech? In the chapters that follow, Isaac speaks very little, and, it seems, never spoke to his father again. At the end of his life, Isaac even allowed himself to be duped by Jacob, giving Jacob Esau’s birthright.

Even in the ancient world, where wives, children, and slaves were all regarded as the property of the family patriarch, Abraham’s willingness to show his faith by sacrificing his son would not be considered praiseworthy. Indeed, Abraham would have been condemned and convicted for trying to sacrifice a human being. Perhaps then we might admire the Hebrew Bible for showing us that our ancestors in faith, the kings, prophets, and leaders whose stories we share, were all, like us, flawed human beings. As one commentator reminds us, “Judaism does not sanitize its holy texts but presents the heroes as they are, so that we can learn from their deeds – both good and flawed – as well as from their teachings.”

I’m still left with a question about this text. Most of us moderns seem to prefer a religion that asks little of us. Even so, I wonder whether it is also possible to be too zealous in sacrifice, even self-sacrifice. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer in contemporary language we ask God to “save us from the time of trial.” Did Jesus have the story of the binding of Isaac in mind when he added this petition to his instruction on prayer?

And how about our own lives? Retired Methodist bishop Will Willimon tells of teaching this story with his wife to an inter-generational group. His wife asked the children if they knew what the word “sacrifice” means. One third-grader answered that both her parents were physicians who operate on people to help them. When Willimon’s wife asked how that was sacrifice, the girl answered, “And I go to the day care center after school. Sometimes on Saturdays too. Mommie and Daddy want to take me home, but they are busy helping sick people – so lots of times I stay at the center. Sometimes on Sunday mornings we have pancakes, though.” Everyone knew what the girl meant.3

I don’t tell this story to trash physicians. They are some of the hardest working people in our culture. Even so, this story and the story of the binding of Isaac make me wonder whether we sufficiently take into account the impact of our actions on the lives of others. Should we ponder whether the good we might do might adversely affect those near to us? Do we need to discern deeply and carefully what we hear God calling us to do? On the other hand, perhaps the story of the binding of Isaac reassures us, as it surely does faithful Jews. Perhaps it reassures us that God will intervene for us, or, at the very least, that God will stand with us in our darkest moments. The story of the binding of Isaac comes early in the Hebrew Bible. Its interpretation continues into the present. Perhaps it also reminds us that our conception of God and of what God might ask of us continues to grow and change.

In the end, we can’t answer our questions about this story, any more than we can truly understand why Jesus had to die. Ultimately, we are left with the mystery. As we live in that mystery, however, we need not despair. We can take to heart the words of the psalmist, “I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.”

1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml for June 29, 2014
2. Following here Curt Leviant in Midstream (Summer 2010), as quoted in Synthesis, June 26, 2011
3. “On a Wild and Windy Mountain,” The Christian Century (3/16/83), 237-8, quoted in Synthesis, June 29, 2014.

His Eye is on the Sparrow

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

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.

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.