“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” It’s a familiar story. Martha is angry. Why wouldn’t she be? Like any good woman of her day, she has worked hard getting ready for the arrival of a friend of the family, Jesus of Nazareth. There’s been so much to do: slaughter, dress, and cook the meat, make the cakes, prepare the fruits and vegetables, set the table, heat the water for the bath that Jesus, dusty from the long road, would surely want. Now he’s here, but there’s still plenty to do. But where’s Mary? As soon as Jesus arrived, she joined the men, plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and began listening to Jesus’ teaching? Women don’t mix with men who are not relatives, they don’t study Torah, and they certainly don’t listen to a rabbi’s teaching. What is Mary doing? Why isn’t she helping?
What’s your response to this story? Do you sympathize with poor, overworked Martha, Martha who is doing everything expected of her? I’ve read somewhere that, in any organization, ten percent of the people do eighty percent of the work. Where are the rest? When we ask for Vestry nominees or delegates to Diocesan Convention, why is it the same people who are willing to serve? Whether it’s church clean up day or Loaves and Fishes, why do the same people turn up? Why do so few come forward to be lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, or Eucharistic Visitors? Of course, all of us are grateful for those who do come forward, but if you’re one of those ten percent, you might just want some of those other ninety percent to do a little more, right?
On the other hand, perhaps you’re looking at Mary and thinking, “Yes! Good for her, for breaking free of the kitchen – or the fireplace in this case – and doing what a true disciple should do: joining with other disciples and deepening her relationship with Jesus. And good for Jesus, you might think, supporting Mary in claiming her right to be a full disciple.
What’s going on here? Is Jesus really rebuking the hardworking Martha? Does Jesus really approve of what Mary has done? The traditional interpretation of this story is that Martha represents the active life, and Mary represents the contemplative life, and that here at least Jesus suggests that the quiet contemplative life is preferable to the noisy active life. But I wonder. Does Luke really want us to believe that Jesus prefers the contemplative life to the active life, that it’s better to spend your life in a convent or monastery than out ministering in the world? Remember that this story immediately follows the story of the Good Samaritan, which you heard last week. If nothing else, the Samaritan engaged in active ministry, in real service to the man who’d been left half dead by robbers. There is no question that ministry is an important theme in Luke’s Gospel. Think of what the Seventy were told to do: not only proclaim the nearness of God’s Reign, but also to heal the sick. Think of the many times that Jesus is shown healing people. So I don’t think that we are to see Jesus as suggesting that service is unimportant, or that the contemplative life is preferable to the active life.
Actually, the story of the Good Samaritan and this story are complementary, each of them teaching us something about what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. In fact, the meaning of discipleship is an over-arching theme in Luke’s Gospel. Remember that Jesus told the Good Samaritan story in response to the second of two questions. The first question the lawyer asked Jesus was, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” When Jesus asked him what was written in the law, the man answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” He then asked Jesus who his neighbor was, and Jesus responded with the story of the Samaritan who went against social expectations and show unexpected compassion. Through that story, we are reminded that we must minister to all. In the story of Mary and Martha, Luke asks us to look at the other aspect of discipleship, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Through the devotion of Mary, we are reminded that what is most important to being a faithful disciple is having an intimate relationship with Jesus. Serving people is important, but knowing Jesus is even more important. Intimate friendship with Jesus must be the foundation of all our service, indeed of our entire lives. Knowing Jesus involves sitting with him in prayer, listening to him, learning from him. And notice that for Luke having such a relationship with Jesus involves a choice. While we believe in God’s free gift of grace, while we believe that God continually reaches out to us with an invitation of love, nevertheless we must choose to accept God’s love. Mary has chosen the better part, intimate relationship with Jesus – and so must we.
And there’s more. When our lives are grounded in an intimate relationship with Jesus, when we pray and worship regularly, when we allow silence into our lives so as to better hear Jesus’ words, when we meditate and journal regularly, then God’s transforming grace begins to work in our lives, and our lives begin to change. Perhaps we begin to question the other choices we may have made in our lives. Perhaps we begin to see places where our lives need to change. Perhaps we see roles that our culture has encouraged us to take on that now no longer fit. Perhaps we begin to understand the distinctive ministry to which God is calling each of us. Whatever the outcome, we can be sure that as we deepen our relationship with Jesus, as we choose the “better part,” as we sit more intentionally at his feet, he will lead us to into change and transformation, perhaps even unexpected change and transformation, so that we become more nearly the person we have truly been created to be.
What might such a life grounded in love of Jesus look like? Grace Thomas* was born in the early part of the twentieth century, the second of five children of a streetcar conductor in Birmingham, Alabama. After marrying and moving to Georgia, Grace became a clerk in the state capitol in Atlanta and became interested in politics. Although she was a full-time mother and employee, she enrolled in night school to study law. In 1954 she shocked her family by announcing that she would run for governor of Georgia. The only candidate to strongly support the decision in Brown v Board of Education, she was soundly defeated. However, in 1962, she decided to run again. By then, racial tensions in the South were great. Grace received death threats because of her progressive platform on race. One day she held a rally at the old slave market in a small town. Standing where human beings had once been bought and sold, she proclaimed that, “The old has passed away, the new has come. A new day has come when all Georgians, white and black, can join hands and work together.” At that point a man angrily interrupted her speech and shouted, “Are you a communist?” Why, no,” Grace replied quietly. “Well then where’d you get all them galdurned ideas?” Grace pointed to the steeple of a nearby Baptist church. “I learned them over there, in Sunday school.” Grace had spent time listening to the Word of her Lord and grounding herself in that Word. What she heard changed her life and launched her on a very specific mission in life.
And so we come back to service and ministry. The story of Martha and Mary does not ask us to choose between service and prayer, between the active and contemplative lives. It does not suggest that the contemplative life is superior to the active life. What it does suggest is that all our activity, all our ministry, must be grounded in a deep relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, it is our relationship with Jesus that must order and govern our lives. And this is true for us both as individuals and as a community. As both individuals and as a community, Jesus calls us to be both grounded in relationship with him, through prayer, worship, and study, and ready to serve a hurting and broken world in his name. Is this a vision that we can pursue as a parish? To be a powerhouse of both prayer and mission? As we go forth from this place, formed by the Word we have heard and taken into ourselves, may we continue by God’s grace to deepen our relationship with Jesus even as we are strengthened for service to God’s people.
*From a story told by Tom Long and posted by Scott Hoezee at http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Your Faith Has Saved You
In the summer of 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for kidnapping, torturing and murdering seventeen men. Even though there wasn’t the shadow of a doubt that he had not committed these crimes, in court he pled – as was his legal right – not guilty. In 1995 those who had bombed the Murrah office building in Oklahoma City denied their guilt, as did a former football player accused of murdering his wife. On a much larger scale, Serbian leader Slobadan Milošević, charged with organizing and executing a mass “ethnic cleansing” in the former Yugoslavia, pled not guilty at his trial at the Hague, and even presented evidence to justify his actions. “Not guilty” is what many of our political leaders claim when the web of lies and evasions they have created unravels, and their marital infidelity comes to light. Mark Sandford on the Appalachian Trail? Right. And just in Thursday’s newspapers, we learned that BP’s 2009 regional response plan, which was approved by the federal government, vastly understated the dangers of a spill and overstated BP’s ability to respond. The answer of BP’s spokesman to queries about the plan’s glaring lies? The company is “reviewing” the plan. What’s wrong with this picture? Don’t any of our public figures accept responsibility for what they’ve done? Don’t any of them demonstrate humility and integrity?
Was St. Paul anything like these notorious public figures? Was Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel lesson? Surely not, you would answer. Wasn’t Paul a Pharisee of Pharisees, a highly educated member of his community? Neither Paul nor Simon had murdered anyone. As far as we know, they didn’t cheat on their taxes, they weren’t unfaithful to their wives, and they didn’t terrorize their servants. Indeed, if Paul and Simon were observant Pharisees, they worshipped regularly, tithed meticulously, kept away from notorious sinners, avoided any chance of ritual defilement, and followed a complicated rule of personal conduct. Sounds like some people that we know. Like me, you probably haven’t murdered anyone, cheated on your taxes, abused those who work for you, been unfaithful to your spouses, or knowingly broken the law. We worship regularly, support the church and worthy charitable organizations, engage in outreach to those less fortunate, do our best to follow Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbors, and know how to behave in various social situations. Clearly we’re not like Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson, or Mark Sandford. So, like Paul and Simon, having followed all the rules, are we righteous in God’s sight? Are we acceptable to God? Have we bought our way into heaven?
Absolutely not, says Paul! He was writing to new Christians in Galatia, a region of Asia Minor, in about 55 AD. The early church was still struggling with the question of whether new Gentile Christians had to in effect become Jews and adopt all the tenets of Mosaic law. Before his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul himself was sure that following every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law and the Pharisaic code would make him right with God. After that life-changing experience, Paul learned that salvation was God’s gift to all. In the strongest possible terms he reminded the Galatian Christians that all have been made acceptable to God, not through observance of the law, of rules and regulations, but through Jesus’ death and resurrection. It wasn’t that Paul denigrated the law, it was rather that he realized that it wasn’t sufficient to make us acceptable to God. On our own, however closely we follow all the rules, we cannot meet God’s standards. But by God’s grace and with faith and trust in God, Christ transforms us, so that we begin to become the people we were truly created to be, not through our own actions, but through Christ’s power working within us.
In our story of Simon the Pharisee we have a vivid example of what Paul was talking about. As we see him in today’s story, although Simon had invited Jesus to his house, he seems to have treated Jesus disrespectfully. Simon seems to have believed that in his scrupulous observance of the law and the customs of the Pharisees he was righteous in God’s sight. In contrast to Simon, the unnamed woman who barged into this all-male gathering knew that she was not righteous in God’s sight, that she was desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Unlike Simon, she threw herself at Jesus’ feet and ministered lovingly to him, showing her repentance with her streaming tears. In turn, Jesus praised her great love, the love that sprang out of her realization that God had accepted and forgiven her. Jesus’ assurance to her that her sins had indeed been forgiven, and her faith had saved her, were spoken to Simon and his guests as well as to her. Salvation, he reminded them cannot be earned, even by the holiest and most righteous men. Rather, forgiveness and salvation are God’s gifts to us, gifts which we receive when we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses and accept God’s forgiveness in faith. The story doesn’t tell us what happened to Simon and the woman after this encounter. But we can hope that both of them, and the other guests as well, were transformed by Jesus’ declaration of God’s forgiveness and grace.
That message is for us too. We may not be murderers or thieves. We may not be drug addicts or prostitutes. We may not have cheated on our spouses or our taxes. But the truth is, whether we admit it or not, whether we think about it from one Ash Wednesday to another, we are all sinners. We are all as capable as Paul, Simon, and the “woman of the city” of greed, sloth, lust, avarice, gluttony, wrath, envy, and pride, to say nothing of others not included in the Seven Deadly sins list. Collectively, we may be doing as much harm to the environment as BP. But the good news is that we are already forgiven for our “manifold sins and offenses.” Whenever we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses, we discover that in Christ God has already forgiven us. What is more important, when we acknowledge who we are, and have faith in God’s saving power to heal and strengthen us, God begins to work in us. God begins to change our lives from the inside out, so to speak. God begins to transform us more and more into Christ’s likeness.
This is our proclamation as a church. This is the message we need to share with the world: that we don’t have to buy our way into heaven, that there are no sins we can commit that will make God hate us, and that through Christ’s action we have all been made acceptable to God. Is this what the rest of the world hears from us? Sometimes I wonder. With our wrangling over property, sexuality, abortion, and God knows what else, I wonder whether a message about God’s unconditional acceptance of us ever gets through. Sometimes I wonder whether anyone else thinks that the church is a place of forgiveness and acceptance.
Here’s what I would like our message to be. Evangelical writer Tony Campolo tells the story of a trip to Hawaii for a conference.1 Jet-lagged and hungry, he woke up at 3:00 AM and decided to leave his hotel and go out looking for something to eat. The only place open at that hour was a hole-in-the wall dive. Tony quickly found out that at that hour most of the patrons were streetwalkers. That particular night, one of them, a woman named Agnes, mentioned that the next day would be her 39th birthday, and that she had never ever had a birthday party. The counter man confirmed that all the women were regulars. So Tony came back at 2:30 the next night. He decorated the joint and put up a big sign saying “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” The counter man had found a cake and told all the girls. Right at 3:30, in walked Agnes. Everyone shouted “Happy Birthday,” and Agnes nearly fainted. Then Tony suggested that they all pray. With half the prostitutes in Honolulu listening, Tony prayed that Agnes’s life would be changed, and that God would bless her. When he had finished, the counter man said somewhat angrily, “Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?” The Holy Spirit must have been at Tony’s elbow when he said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” “No you don’t,” said the man. “There ain’t no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.”
You and I did join a church like that. God help us to be that church.
1The story is from Campolo’s The Kingdom of God Is a Party. It was retold by David E. Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2009).
Was St. Paul anything like these notorious public figures? Was Simon the Pharisee in today’s Gospel lesson? Surely not, you would answer. Wasn’t Paul a Pharisee of Pharisees, a highly educated member of his community? Neither Paul nor Simon had murdered anyone. As far as we know, they didn’t cheat on their taxes, they weren’t unfaithful to their wives, and they didn’t terrorize their servants. Indeed, if Paul and Simon were observant Pharisees, they worshipped regularly, tithed meticulously, kept away from notorious sinners, avoided any chance of ritual defilement, and followed a complicated rule of personal conduct. Sounds like some people that we know. Like me, you probably haven’t murdered anyone, cheated on your taxes, abused those who work for you, been unfaithful to your spouses, or knowingly broken the law. We worship regularly, support the church and worthy charitable organizations, engage in outreach to those less fortunate, do our best to follow Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbors, and know how to behave in various social situations. Clearly we’re not like Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh, OJ Simpson, or Mark Sandford. So, like Paul and Simon, having followed all the rules, are we righteous in God’s sight? Are we acceptable to God? Have we bought our way into heaven?
Absolutely not, says Paul! He was writing to new Christians in Galatia, a region of Asia Minor, in about 55 AD. The early church was still struggling with the question of whether new Gentile Christians had to in effect become Jews and adopt all the tenets of Mosaic law. Before his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul himself was sure that following every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law and the Pharisaic code would make him right with God. After that life-changing experience, Paul learned that salvation was God’s gift to all. In the strongest possible terms he reminded the Galatian Christians that all have been made acceptable to God, not through observance of the law, of rules and regulations, but through Jesus’ death and resurrection. It wasn’t that Paul denigrated the law, it was rather that he realized that it wasn’t sufficient to make us acceptable to God. On our own, however closely we follow all the rules, we cannot meet God’s standards. But by God’s grace and with faith and trust in God, Christ transforms us, so that we begin to become the people we were truly created to be, not through our own actions, but through Christ’s power working within us.
In our story of Simon the Pharisee we have a vivid example of what Paul was talking about. As we see him in today’s story, although Simon had invited Jesus to his house, he seems to have treated Jesus disrespectfully. Simon seems to have believed that in his scrupulous observance of the law and the customs of the Pharisees he was righteous in God’s sight. In contrast to Simon, the unnamed woman who barged into this all-male gathering knew that she was not righteous in God’s sight, that she was desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Unlike Simon, she threw herself at Jesus’ feet and ministered lovingly to him, showing her repentance with her streaming tears. In turn, Jesus praised her great love, the love that sprang out of her realization that God had accepted and forgiven her. Jesus’ assurance to her that her sins had indeed been forgiven, and her faith had saved her, were spoken to Simon and his guests as well as to her. Salvation, he reminded them cannot be earned, even by the holiest and most righteous men. Rather, forgiveness and salvation are God’s gifts to us, gifts which we receive when we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses and accept God’s forgiveness in faith. The story doesn’t tell us what happened to Simon and the woman after this encounter. But we can hope that both of them, and the other guests as well, were transformed by Jesus’ declaration of God’s forgiveness and grace.
That message is for us too. We may not be murderers or thieves. We may not be drug addicts or prostitutes. We may not have cheated on our spouses or our taxes. But the truth is, whether we admit it or not, whether we think about it from one Ash Wednesday to another, we are all sinners. We are all as capable as Paul, Simon, and the “woman of the city” of greed, sloth, lust, avarice, gluttony, wrath, envy, and pride, to say nothing of others not included in the Seven Deadly sins list. Collectively, we may be doing as much harm to the environment as BP. But the good news is that we are already forgiven for our “manifold sins and offenses.” Whenever we acknowledge our sins and weaknesses, we discover that in Christ God has already forgiven us. What is more important, when we acknowledge who we are, and have faith in God’s saving power to heal and strengthen us, God begins to work in us. God begins to change our lives from the inside out, so to speak. God begins to transform us more and more into Christ’s likeness.
This is our proclamation as a church. This is the message we need to share with the world: that we don’t have to buy our way into heaven, that there are no sins we can commit that will make God hate us, and that through Christ’s action we have all been made acceptable to God. Is this what the rest of the world hears from us? Sometimes I wonder. With our wrangling over property, sexuality, abortion, and God knows what else, I wonder whether a message about God’s unconditional acceptance of us ever gets through. Sometimes I wonder whether anyone else thinks that the church is a place of forgiveness and acceptance.
Here’s what I would like our message to be. Evangelical writer Tony Campolo tells the story of a trip to Hawaii for a conference.1 Jet-lagged and hungry, he woke up at 3:00 AM and decided to leave his hotel and go out looking for something to eat. The only place open at that hour was a hole-in-the wall dive. Tony quickly found out that at that hour most of the patrons were streetwalkers. That particular night, one of them, a woman named Agnes, mentioned that the next day would be her 39th birthday, and that she had never ever had a birthday party. The counter man confirmed that all the women were regulars. So Tony came back at 2:30 the next night. He decorated the joint and put up a big sign saying “Happy Birthday, Agnes!” The counter man had found a cake and told all the girls. Right at 3:30, in walked Agnes. Everyone shouted “Happy Birthday,” and Agnes nearly fainted. Then Tony suggested that they all pray. With half the prostitutes in Honolulu listening, Tony prayed that Agnes’s life would be changed, and that God would bless her. When he had finished, the counter man said somewhat angrily, “Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?” The Holy Spirit must have been at Tony’s elbow when he said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning.” “No you don’t,” said the man. “There ain’t no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. Yep, I’d join a church like that.”
You and I did join a church like that. God help us to be that church.
1The story is from Campolo’s The Kingdom of God Is a Party. It was retold by David E. Leininger in Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2009).
Sunday, June 6, 2010
When the Lord Saw Her
“I can’t believe this happened to them!”1 Sixth-grader Elizabeth Kowalsky, a member of St. Andrew’s Church in Colchester, Connecticut, had just learned of the earthquake that struck Haiti this past January. She and her friends already knew a lot about Haiti. The church had had a relationship with Haiti for many years, and its high school youth group had hosted annual “rock-a-thons” to benefit the Haitian Health Foundation. Last fall, without being asked or prompted by adults, last fall the middle-schoolers decided they wanted to do something too. “It felt like the right thing to do,” Elizabeth said. The kids decided to collect shoes and supplies for Haiti and created a project called “Flip-Flops for Education.” Word got around, and soon students in other schools were collecting shoes and money. By the end of the project, on October 24th of last year, the St. Andrews children had collected 2,000 items and $1900.
Had the St. Andrews middle-schoolers heard today’s lessons? In starting their “Flip-Flops for Education” project, could they have been wanting to follow in the footsteps of Elijah and Jesus? Could they have been led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work? Did they see a need and act on what they saw? The story about them in a recent USA Weekend article doesn’t tell us, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were inspired by Scripture to reach out to others without being asked. For both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons for today give us powerful examples of reflections of God’s compassion for “the least of these.” Both of our stories highlight the plight of widows. In ancient Israel, both in Elijah’s time and 900 years later in Jesus’ time, most widows were in very desperate straits. There was no life insurance back then, and widows did not inherit their husbands’ property. Unless they had grown sons, they were dependent on the charity of their husbands’ families or other relatives. No wonder the Scriptures of both Jews and Christians condemn those who neglect or abuse widows and praise God for defending widows and their children.
In our story from 1 Kings, Elijah first encountered the gentile widow from Zarephath as she and her son were on the point of death from starvation. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, speaking God’s words of assurance. Then he announced that God would continue to feed them all, the widow, her son, and Elijah himself. Later, when the son, lay mortally ill, Elijah again reached out to her. He prayed – fervently – and begged the Lord to restore her son. When her son was restored, the widow – remember she was not an Israelite – understood that in the healing of her son, God had come to her through Elijah’s pleading. She also understood that Elijah’s power to heal was a sign of his authority as a spokesperson for God. “Now I know that you are a man of God,” she said, “and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
The story of Elijah’s healing of the son of the widow of Zarephath would surely have been in the minds of the hearers of Luke’s Gospel. And they probably would have seen the obvious parallels. The situation was similar in Nain: a widow facing destitution because of the death of her only son. As the procession of mourners came toward him, Jesus saw her. He really looked at her. He didn’t turn away. He didn’t cross to the other side of the road to avoid her and the procession. He looked at her and knew how desperate her situation was. And his response was similar to Elijah’s. His heart went out to her. “Don’t cry,” he said. However, here is where this story is a little different from Elijah’s story. Luke has told us from the beginning that Jesus is more than simply a prophet. His identity as God come among us was foretold to his mother even before he was conceived. His birth was attended by angels. At his baptism, he visibly and publicly received the Holy Spirit. When he preached his first sermon, he indirectly identified himself as the Messiah. Just before this episode in Nain, when a centurion – another gentile – asked him to heal his slave, Jesus did so. Now, without the widow’s even asking, Jesus reached out with compassion to her. He disregarded the possibility of ritual pollution by touching the bier. He didn’t need to pray to God to heal her son. He simply commanded the boy to “rise,” demonstrating that he was himself the Lord of life. Then Jesus, like Elijah, gave the boy back to his joyful mother, thus also restoring her hope for the future. And as in the story of the widow of Zarephath, the people here, the disciples and the crowd, got it. They acknowledged that Jesus was a great prophet, like Elijah. But what is more important, they understood that Jesus was more than a prophet, that indeed “God has looked favorably upon his people.”
What do we learn from these two stories? First of all we learn that God cares deeply for “the least of these.” The mission of Jesus – and ours – is about addressing real human need, and it is about compassion, compassion for all, especially the poor. As we read through Luke’s Gospel, Luke will remind us again and again of God’s concern for the “least, the lost, and the left behind.” These stories also show us that God sees, truly sees, human need, that God answers prayer, and, what is most important, that God graciously takes the initiative to heal us, irrespective of who we are or what we have done. Ultimately, by God’s grace and as a true gift, God offers us new life in Jesus.
We’ve entered the long season of Pentecost, the green season, the season of growing in discipleship, of being more and more transformed into Christ’s likeness. We will be hearing about Elijah and his successor Elisha for the next several weeks. We will be reading Luke’s Gospel through the end of November. We will have many other opportunities to ponder what God expects of us as disciples of Jesus. What can we, who seek to continue growing in Christ, apply from today’s lessons to our life here at St. Peter’s? For me, these lessons suggest three verbs: look, pray, and act. Let’s start with look. As Jesus’ disciples, we are first called to truly look at human need. As Jesus’ disciples, we cannot look away, cross the road, ignore, refuse to see. Instead, we are called to look need squarely in the face. I see a little of the need in this community in the faces of those who ask for help from my discretionary fund. As most of you probably know, I’ve fed people at the Golden Corral, put people up at motels, bought a gas cylinder, a bus ticket, and groceries, and paid water and electric bills. Those of you who have gotten to know the people who come to Loaves and Fishes, or those who take diapers from us as they gather food, also see something of local needs. I wonder how we can get closer to the other needs in this community, and not only the need for material help, but also the need for real human connection and for spiritual sustenance. What are we still failing to see? Where does Jesus want us to look next?
Perhaps we also need to pray. Of course, we always need to pray. All prayer is important, our own personal prayer, and our prayer as a community. Could St. Peter’s become known as a place of prayer, a place that actively prays for the needs of individuals? Perhaps in addition to my writing a check, I need to pray for those who seek help from us. Perhaps we need to pray for those who come to Loaves and Fishes. Perhaps we need to pray with them. Perhaps we can pray for a deeper vision of how we can respond even more effectively to the needs around us. And perhaps too we can continue to go deeper in our own contemplative prayer lives, so that as we grow in our love of God, we can better radiate that love out to others.
And finally, we need to act – or support those who act with both our goods and our prayers. In Loaves and Fishes and in our diaper ministry, we are already faithfully doing God’s work. Several of us have trained as Benefit Bank counselors and our site is officially open. More of you can train! Last week two of us met with Ariel Miller, the director of the Episcopal Community Services Foundation, to launch a new project of working with Rio Grande students in submitting on line the required federal forms for financial aid. We are also considering extending the program to local high schools. Can we involve some of you in that effort? And where else are we called to model God’s compassion? Where else can we be bearers of God’s grace?
We pray to you today, O God, that you will continue your transformation of us and of this parish. As we cooperate with you in our ongoing conversion, help us to be attentive to the wonders and miracles that you work in our lives and through us in the lives of those around us.
1 This story appeared in the April 18, 2010 issue of USA Weekend.
Had the St. Andrews middle-schoolers heard today’s lessons? In starting their “Flip-Flops for Education” project, could they have been wanting to follow in the footsteps of Elijah and Jesus? Could they have been led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s work? Did they see a need and act on what they saw? The story about them in a recent USA Weekend article doesn’t tell us, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were inspired by Scripture to reach out to others without being asked. For both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons for today give us powerful examples of reflections of God’s compassion for “the least of these.” Both of our stories highlight the plight of widows. In ancient Israel, both in Elijah’s time and 900 years later in Jesus’ time, most widows were in very desperate straits. There was no life insurance back then, and widows did not inherit their husbands’ property. Unless they had grown sons, they were dependent on the charity of their husbands’ families or other relatives. No wonder the Scriptures of both Jews and Christians condemn those who neglect or abuse widows and praise God for defending widows and their children.
In our story from 1 Kings, Elijah first encountered the gentile widow from Zarephath as she and her son were on the point of death from starvation. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, speaking God’s words of assurance. Then he announced that God would continue to feed them all, the widow, her son, and Elijah himself. Later, when the son, lay mortally ill, Elijah again reached out to her. He prayed – fervently – and begged the Lord to restore her son. When her son was restored, the widow – remember she was not an Israelite – understood that in the healing of her son, God had come to her through Elijah’s pleading. She also understood that Elijah’s power to heal was a sign of his authority as a spokesperson for God. “Now I know that you are a man of God,” she said, “and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”
The story of Elijah’s healing of the son of the widow of Zarephath would surely have been in the minds of the hearers of Luke’s Gospel. And they probably would have seen the obvious parallels. The situation was similar in Nain: a widow facing destitution because of the death of her only son. As the procession of mourners came toward him, Jesus saw her. He really looked at her. He didn’t turn away. He didn’t cross to the other side of the road to avoid her and the procession. He looked at her and knew how desperate her situation was. And his response was similar to Elijah’s. His heart went out to her. “Don’t cry,” he said. However, here is where this story is a little different from Elijah’s story. Luke has told us from the beginning that Jesus is more than simply a prophet. His identity as God come among us was foretold to his mother even before he was conceived. His birth was attended by angels. At his baptism, he visibly and publicly received the Holy Spirit. When he preached his first sermon, he indirectly identified himself as the Messiah. Just before this episode in Nain, when a centurion – another gentile – asked him to heal his slave, Jesus did so. Now, without the widow’s even asking, Jesus reached out with compassion to her. He disregarded the possibility of ritual pollution by touching the bier. He didn’t need to pray to God to heal her son. He simply commanded the boy to “rise,” demonstrating that he was himself the Lord of life. Then Jesus, like Elijah, gave the boy back to his joyful mother, thus also restoring her hope for the future. And as in the story of the widow of Zarephath, the people here, the disciples and the crowd, got it. They acknowledged that Jesus was a great prophet, like Elijah. But what is more important, they understood that Jesus was more than a prophet, that indeed “God has looked favorably upon his people.”
What do we learn from these two stories? First of all we learn that God cares deeply for “the least of these.” The mission of Jesus – and ours – is about addressing real human need, and it is about compassion, compassion for all, especially the poor. As we read through Luke’s Gospel, Luke will remind us again and again of God’s concern for the “least, the lost, and the left behind.” These stories also show us that God sees, truly sees, human need, that God answers prayer, and, what is most important, that God graciously takes the initiative to heal us, irrespective of who we are or what we have done. Ultimately, by God’s grace and as a true gift, God offers us new life in Jesus.
We’ve entered the long season of Pentecost, the green season, the season of growing in discipleship, of being more and more transformed into Christ’s likeness. We will be hearing about Elijah and his successor Elisha for the next several weeks. We will be reading Luke’s Gospel through the end of November. We will have many other opportunities to ponder what God expects of us as disciples of Jesus. What can we, who seek to continue growing in Christ, apply from today’s lessons to our life here at St. Peter’s? For me, these lessons suggest three verbs: look, pray, and act. Let’s start with look. As Jesus’ disciples, we are first called to truly look at human need. As Jesus’ disciples, we cannot look away, cross the road, ignore, refuse to see. Instead, we are called to look need squarely in the face. I see a little of the need in this community in the faces of those who ask for help from my discretionary fund. As most of you probably know, I’ve fed people at the Golden Corral, put people up at motels, bought a gas cylinder, a bus ticket, and groceries, and paid water and electric bills. Those of you who have gotten to know the people who come to Loaves and Fishes, or those who take diapers from us as they gather food, also see something of local needs. I wonder how we can get closer to the other needs in this community, and not only the need for material help, but also the need for real human connection and for spiritual sustenance. What are we still failing to see? Where does Jesus want us to look next?
Perhaps we also need to pray. Of course, we always need to pray. All prayer is important, our own personal prayer, and our prayer as a community. Could St. Peter’s become known as a place of prayer, a place that actively prays for the needs of individuals? Perhaps in addition to my writing a check, I need to pray for those who seek help from us. Perhaps we need to pray for those who come to Loaves and Fishes. Perhaps we need to pray with them. Perhaps we can pray for a deeper vision of how we can respond even more effectively to the needs around us. And perhaps too we can continue to go deeper in our own contemplative prayer lives, so that as we grow in our love of God, we can better radiate that love out to others.
And finally, we need to act – or support those who act with both our goods and our prayers. In Loaves and Fishes and in our diaper ministry, we are already faithfully doing God’s work. Several of us have trained as Benefit Bank counselors and our site is officially open. More of you can train! Last week two of us met with Ariel Miller, the director of the Episcopal Community Services Foundation, to launch a new project of working with Rio Grande students in submitting on line the required federal forms for financial aid. We are also considering extending the program to local high schools. Can we involve some of you in that effort? And where else are we called to model God’s compassion? Where else can we be bearers of God’s grace?
We pray to you today, O God, that you will continue your transformation of us and of this parish. As we cooperate with you in our ongoing conversion, help us to be attentive to the wonders and miracles that you work in our lives and through us in the lives of those around us.
1 This story appeared in the April 18, 2010 issue of USA Weekend.
Monday, May 31, 2010
He Will Guide You Into All Truth
What do you think of when you hear the word “learning?” Does the word conjure up good feelings, memories of stimulating teachers and interesting projects? Were you like me, eagerly awaiting the first day of a new school year, going to school in new clothes, wondering what was in this year’s workbooks and textbooks? Later on, did you like your French, and music, and algebra classes? Were you surprised to discover that a good essay should have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Or does the word “learning” evoke negative feelings, memories of critical teachers and boring work? When this time of year came round, did you loudly chant, “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks?” Did you breathe a huge sigh of relief when you finally graduated from high school graduation? When you were baptized or confirmed, did you think that your formal learning in the faith was finally done? Do you believe the church should proclaim “the faith once delivered to the saints,” the saints of – pick your date – the first century, or the fourth century, or the Middle Ages, or the Reformation, or the 1928 prayer book? Should we as Christians and the church as a body be static and unchanging?
Once again this morning – and the for the last time this liturgical year – we hear Jesus’ speech to his disciples before his crucifixion, as recorded in the Gospel according to John. For the last two weeks, we have been reassured by Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after his resurrection. Now we begin to get some clue as to what the Holy Spirit might actually do. We learn that, although the disciples had followed Jesus closely and had heard his teaching, they were still beginners in their new life of faith. They still had a lot to learn! “I still have many things to tell you,” Jesus told them, “but you cannot bear them now.” Can’t you hear them saying to themselves, “Say what, Lord? Haven’t we been through enough already?” Actually, they were just at the beginning of a faith journey. Jesus’ leaving them would not stop their learning. When Jesus did breathe his Spirit on them on Easter Evening, they were just at the beginning of growth in the life of the Spirit, growth that would last the rest of the lives. They didn’t have to understand everything all at once. The Spirit, they learned that last night, would guide them into all truth. The Spirit, the continuing guide by their side, would remind them of what Jesus had taught them. The Spirit would explain things to them, would share Jesus’ ongoing life with them, and would lead them forward into whatever God had prepared for them. Most importantly, the Spirit would draw them closer to Jesus, who would draw them more deeply into his own life with the Father, so that they too would be included in the community of divine love.
As fellow disciples of the same risen Lord, we too, with those first disciples, are called to be members of a learning community. Indeed the whole church is called to be a learning community – and has been since its very beginning. It took nearly four centuries for the early church to understand and clarify the meaning of God’s coming among us in Jesus. Although we now have creeds and a doctrine of the Trinity, for example, it wasn’t until late in the fourth century that the leaders of the church were able to say with some clarity that Jesus had shown us that we encounter God in three different ways, as God the mysterious creator of all that exists, as God the redeemer who died on the cross for us, and as God the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us and guide us. And throughout the rest of its history, right up to the present day, the church continues to be a learning community. As a church we have learned to value and appreciate the contemplative life, and we have deepened in our sense of responsibility to the poor. We have learned that all people, not just learned clergy, can and should worship and read the Scriptures in their own languages. We have learned that slavery is a sin. In our own day, we have learned that women and gay people can be ordained. The Spirit continues to remind us of our responsibilities to the poor, and that we too are called to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s kingdom of life and love.
In our individual parishes, we are also learning communities, or should be. Next week the paraments and liturgical color will change to green. We are now entering the season of Pentecost, the long season of growing in our life in the Spirit. Are we being led by the Spirit? Are we letting the Spirit guide us into all truth? If we are, then the first thing we have to do is to quit fighting with each other about interpretations of faith and Scripture. Jesus has promised us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. We can trust that God will eventually show us how to reconcile our now differing understandings and practices as Christian bodies. Secondly, we as individuals need to acknowledge that our formation as Christians, our transformation into Christ, wasn’t completed at our baptisms or confirmations. The kind of learning that the Spirit leads us into takes a lifetime to master. Most of us probably cannot explain exactly what every line of the Nicene or Apostles Creed means. Many of us may not be sure that we even believe them all. That’s OK. The creeds represent what the church has come to understand as a faith community. We as individuals, as our faith deepens, evolve in our understanding of the teachings and doctrines of the church. Our understanding will change over a life time. What is important is that we continually stretch ourselves and allow ourselves to grow in our knowledge of God.
What is most important is that we realize that our knowledge of God isn’t primarily head-knowledge. To be sure, intellectual formation is important. Lay folks also need to know when and for whom the Scriptures were written. Lay folks need to know the history of the church. Lay folks also need to know something about theology, and especially what contemporary writers think about God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the church. But ultimately, if we are to deepen our knowledge of God, if we are to grow “into all truth,” then we must grow through our experience of Jesus at work in our lives. And we must let the Spirit lead us into those practices that help deepen us, that help us evolve into more faithful disciples of Jesus. We must allow ourselves to grow spiritually. That can only happen if a congregation offers regular opportunities for its members to grow in the spiritual life. What are some of those opportunities? Some of them may sound quite familiar, as they are really the classic spiritual disciplines that have sustained the church, and through which the Holy Spirit has been working, for two thousand years. We need to learn how to pray – not just the beautiful formal prayers of our Book of Common Prayer, but our own prayers, our own conversation with God. We might consider fasting, a very ancient discipline indeed, which is also a way to enlarge our insights into what much of the rest of the world experiences. We grow through service, as we follow our Lord’s model of caring for the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the unloved. We grow through experiencing the joy of giving, of helping individuals and groups, and of returning to God a small portion of what God has given us. We grow through confession, through acknowledging our sins and limitations to God and asking God to heal and strengthen us. We grow through experiencing God in silence, in creating a quiet space in our lives and our minds where God can do and be for us whatever God chooses. Finally, we grow through remembering that in God “we live and move and have our being,” through acknowledging, however briefly, God’s presence in all our minutes, hours, weeks, and years.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine, was skeptical of business school graduates. In interviewing them over the years, he found that they knew the jargon of systems analysis, financial manipulation, and quantitative management. But he thought that most of them had no appreciation for the importance of technical knowledge, experience, and hard work. "What it takes to do the job will not be learned from management courses," said Rickover. "It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense -- none of which can be taught in a classroom."
Experience, attitude, and common sense. None of them can be taught in a classroom. Experience of God working in us, transformation of life, and deeper love for God. None of them can be taught in a classroom or a sermon. And none of them just happens. The Spirit will guide us into all truth – we have Jesus’ promise for that. When we as congregations and individuals engage in those practices through which the Spirit can teach us, we can be assured of the Holy Spirit’s working within us, and through God’s Spirit we will be led more deeply into God’s own life. And by God’s grace, at the end of it all, we will be Christ’s own forever.
Once again this morning – and the for the last time this liturgical year – we hear Jesus’ speech to his disciples before his crucifixion, as recorded in the Gospel according to John. For the last two weeks, we have been reassured by Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to his disciples after his resurrection. Now we begin to get some clue as to what the Holy Spirit might actually do. We learn that, although the disciples had followed Jesus closely and had heard his teaching, they were still beginners in their new life of faith. They still had a lot to learn! “I still have many things to tell you,” Jesus told them, “but you cannot bear them now.” Can’t you hear them saying to themselves, “Say what, Lord? Haven’t we been through enough already?” Actually, they were just at the beginning of a faith journey. Jesus’ leaving them would not stop their learning. When Jesus did breathe his Spirit on them on Easter Evening, they were just at the beginning of growth in the life of the Spirit, growth that would last the rest of the lives. They didn’t have to understand everything all at once. The Spirit, they learned that last night, would guide them into all truth. The Spirit, the continuing guide by their side, would remind them of what Jesus had taught them. The Spirit would explain things to them, would share Jesus’ ongoing life with them, and would lead them forward into whatever God had prepared for them. Most importantly, the Spirit would draw them closer to Jesus, who would draw them more deeply into his own life with the Father, so that they too would be included in the community of divine love.
As fellow disciples of the same risen Lord, we too, with those first disciples, are called to be members of a learning community. Indeed the whole church is called to be a learning community – and has been since its very beginning. It took nearly four centuries for the early church to understand and clarify the meaning of God’s coming among us in Jesus. Although we now have creeds and a doctrine of the Trinity, for example, it wasn’t until late in the fourth century that the leaders of the church were able to say with some clarity that Jesus had shown us that we encounter God in three different ways, as God the mysterious creator of all that exists, as God the redeemer who died on the cross for us, and as God the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us and guide us. And throughout the rest of its history, right up to the present day, the church continues to be a learning community. As a church we have learned to value and appreciate the contemplative life, and we have deepened in our sense of responsibility to the poor. We have learned that all people, not just learned clergy, can and should worship and read the Scriptures in their own languages. We have learned that slavery is a sin. In our own day, we have learned that women and gay people can be ordained. The Spirit continues to remind us of our responsibilities to the poor, and that we too are called to partner with God in the bringing in of God’s kingdom of life and love.
In our individual parishes, we are also learning communities, or should be. Next week the paraments and liturgical color will change to green. We are now entering the season of Pentecost, the long season of growing in our life in the Spirit. Are we being led by the Spirit? Are we letting the Spirit guide us into all truth? If we are, then the first thing we have to do is to quit fighting with each other about interpretations of faith and Scripture. Jesus has promised us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. We can trust that God will eventually show us how to reconcile our now differing understandings and practices as Christian bodies. Secondly, we as individuals need to acknowledge that our formation as Christians, our transformation into Christ, wasn’t completed at our baptisms or confirmations. The kind of learning that the Spirit leads us into takes a lifetime to master. Most of us probably cannot explain exactly what every line of the Nicene or Apostles Creed means. Many of us may not be sure that we even believe them all. That’s OK. The creeds represent what the church has come to understand as a faith community. We as individuals, as our faith deepens, evolve in our understanding of the teachings and doctrines of the church. Our understanding will change over a life time. What is important is that we continually stretch ourselves and allow ourselves to grow in our knowledge of God.
What is most important is that we realize that our knowledge of God isn’t primarily head-knowledge. To be sure, intellectual formation is important. Lay folks also need to know when and for whom the Scriptures were written. Lay folks need to know the history of the church. Lay folks also need to know something about theology, and especially what contemporary writers think about God, Jesus, the Spirit, and the church. But ultimately, if we are to deepen our knowledge of God, if we are to grow “into all truth,” then we must grow through our experience of Jesus at work in our lives. And we must let the Spirit lead us into those practices that help deepen us, that help us evolve into more faithful disciples of Jesus. We must allow ourselves to grow spiritually. That can only happen if a congregation offers regular opportunities for its members to grow in the spiritual life. What are some of those opportunities? Some of them may sound quite familiar, as they are really the classic spiritual disciplines that have sustained the church, and through which the Holy Spirit has been working, for two thousand years. We need to learn how to pray – not just the beautiful formal prayers of our Book of Common Prayer, but our own prayers, our own conversation with God. We might consider fasting, a very ancient discipline indeed, which is also a way to enlarge our insights into what much of the rest of the world experiences. We grow through service, as we follow our Lord’s model of caring for the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the unloved. We grow through experiencing the joy of giving, of helping individuals and groups, and of returning to God a small portion of what God has given us. We grow through confession, through acknowledging our sins and limitations to God and asking God to heal and strengthen us. We grow through experiencing God in silence, in creating a quiet space in our lives and our minds where God can do and be for us whatever God chooses. Finally, we grow through remembering that in God “we live and move and have our being,” through acknowledging, however briefly, God’s presence in all our minutes, hours, weeks, and years.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear submarine, was skeptical of business school graduates. In interviewing them over the years, he found that they knew the jargon of systems analysis, financial manipulation, and quantitative management. But he thought that most of them had no appreciation for the importance of technical knowledge, experience, and hard work. "What it takes to do the job will not be learned from management courses," said Rickover. "It is principally a matter of experience, the proper attitude, and common sense -- none of which can be taught in a classroom."
Experience, attitude, and common sense. None of them can be taught in a classroom. Experience of God working in us, transformation of life, and deeper love for God. None of them can be taught in a classroom or a sermon. And none of them just happens. The Spirit will guide us into all truth – we have Jesus’ promise for that. When we as congregations and individuals engage in those practices through which the Spirit can teach us, we can be assured of the Holy Spirit’s working within us, and through God’s Spirit we will be led more deeply into God’s own life. And by God’s grace, at the end of it all, we will be Christ’s own forever.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Greater Works than These
Dorothy Sayers, the mystery writer, scholar, and Christian apologist tells the story of a Japanese man. He is politely listening to a Christian who is trying to explain of the concept of the Trinity. The Japanese man is puzzled: "Honorable Father, very good. Honorable Son, very good. Honorable Bird I do not understand at all." He was referring, of course, to the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at his baptism, where the Spirit was compared to a dove. Well, if the truth be told, most of us don’t understand the Honorable Bird any more than the Japanese man did, even though every year at Pentecost we celebrate God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to us, and even though every year we too try to wrap our minds around the doctrine of the Trinity, as we’ll do again next Sunday.
And truth be told again, getting a clear idea of the identity and work of the Holy Spirit isn’t easy either, partly because our Scripture readings give us different ways of thinking about the Spirit. In our reading from Acts, we can discern that the Holy Spirit is that aspect of God that powerfully fills a community of believers. Here we have 120 or so disciples, who have come together in Jerusalem. They are there ostensibly to celebrate the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost in Greek, which occurs fifty days after Passover. This is also the festival that commemorates the giving of the law at Sinai, the gift of God that made the Jews into a distinctive community. However, these disciples are also in Jerusalem in response to Jesus’ command that they wait there for the promised Holy Spirit to empower them. In our account in Acts, the coming of the Spirit is a very public event. Jews of every ethnicity can feel the “Holy Gust” and see the tongues of flame and know that God is powerfully present in their midst.
In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, we have a different way of understanding the Holy Spirit. Here, the Spirit is God working in us, in the “cellar of our hearts,” to draw us closer to Godself. What’s more important, the Holy Spirit dwells within us to remind us and reassure us that we are God’s beloved children, that we are part of a new and distinctive family, greater and more important to our lives than our blood family, and that all the members of that new family are our siblings.
The Gospel according to John gives us yet another vivid picture of the Holy Spirit, although it is a different picture from the one in Acts. In John, the Holy Spirit also comes to empower a community of believers, but not with a “holy gust” or tongues of flame. Go back in your mind to what the disciples were doing on Easter evening in John’s account. They were huddled together in fear in a locked upper room, when suddenly they discovered Jesus standing among them. He had come to reinvigorate them and to fulfill the promise that he had made to them at his last meal with them, the promise that we heard in today’s reading. He had promised to give them another Advocate. Who is this Advocate? The Greek word is parakletos, translated also as comforter or helper, literally the “guide by your side.” In John’s Gospel, when Jesus came back to actually give the disciples this guide, he didn’t shake the upper room with great gusts of wind. Nor did he shoot flames of fire at the disciples. No, he did something very simple. He breathed on them, saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He filled them with his very own life breath. Think about that for a moment. What would that feel like to have Jesus’ very own life breath filling your lungs?
So we have different ways of picturing the Holy Spirit. We can think of it as “holy gust,” shaking everything up, we can think of it as that which draws us closer to God and other Christians, and we can think of it as life breath, filling us inwardly with something new, something from Jesus himself. Different as they may seem, these ways of picturing the Holy Spirit have something in common. In all cases, the Holy Spirit comes to us a for a purpose. We are not given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might have personal ecstatic experiences, as wonderful as they might be. There’s nothing new about that – the Greeks knew all about ecstatic experience. Nor are we given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might speak in unintelligible languages, even though many of our Pentecostal brothers and sisters equate baptism in the Holy Spirit with “speaking in tongues.” No, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which God gives us in our first and only baptism, is always given to individuals and communities for the purpose of advancing the mission of the church. Through the Holy Spirit we are empowered by God in order to extend God’s reign in the world. In the account in Acts, the holy gust and fire enable the disciples to communicate clearly with a wide variety of people, with “devout Jews from every nation under heaven,” to communicate clearly that in Jesus God had fulfilled God’s promises to humanity. And note that, although Peter was empowered to become the spokesperson for the disciples, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to speak. So too are we empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news. So too does the Holy Spirit give us the words and language we need to enable others to understand what God has done for us through Jesus.
In John’s account, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to the disciples so that they will be empowered to do Jesus’ works and, what is more important, so that they may do “greater works than these.” So too for us. With the promised guide by our side, with Jesus’ breath of life within us, we too will be enabled to do what Jesus did: to serve the poor, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to reconcile those in conflict, and to forgive those who hurt us. And not only what Jesus did. But “greater works than these.” What might those be, I wonder? With the promised guide by our side, with Jesus’ breath within us, we too may also be led into an ever deepening relationship with God. By God’s grace, we may eventually be like Jesus, and everything we do will be God working through us, God incarnate in us. When we pray for the Holy Spirit to be at work in the Church and in our lives, this is what we seek: that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, may work through us to accomplish God’s will in the world.
Is the Holy Spirit at work in our parish? I pray so. Perhaps the Spirit will come among us as “holy gust,” blowing away the cobwebs of the way we’ve always done things, leading us into new ways of doing and being, of worshipping and doing mission. Perhaps the “holy gust” will empower all of us to speak of our faith to others, to lead others to see themselves as God’s adopted, beloved children.
Is the Holy Spirit working in your life and mine? I pray so. Perhaps you’ve had an experience of the Spirit as “holy gust.” Some of us have. Experiences where all we thought we knew and were are swept away. Suddenly we see ourselves completely differently. Suddenly we know that God has new and different plans for us, and that God is empowering us for a new work. Most likely, though, your experience of the Spirit’s empowerment has been gentler, more gradual, perhaps something more like Jesus gently breathing on and in you. Perhaps your experience of the Spirit’s empowerment has been more like that “still, small voice” gently encouraging and strengthening you for God’s work in the world. Perhaps your experience of the Spirit, perhaps in prayer, has been like that of 13th century mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg, who knew herself through the Spirit to be “One in body and soul,/ Though outwardly separate in form” from God.
In my former life I was a scholar of the literature of India. I was also a flutist. When I think of the Holy Spirit working through me, I resonate especially with John’s image of Jesus breathing on and in me. I also resonate with a poem by the early 20th century Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. This poem comes from his collection Gitanjali, “song offering,” published in 1913. As you hear it, think of the Spirit blowing through you, making the most beautiful music possible filling you, and enabling you to do the “greater works than these,” that God desires.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.
And truth be told again, getting a clear idea of the identity and work of the Holy Spirit isn’t easy either, partly because our Scripture readings give us different ways of thinking about the Spirit. In our reading from Acts, we can discern that the Holy Spirit is that aspect of God that powerfully fills a community of believers. Here we have 120 or so disciples, who have come together in Jerusalem. They are there ostensibly to celebrate the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost in Greek, which occurs fifty days after Passover. This is also the festival that commemorates the giving of the law at Sinai, the gift of God that made the Jews into a distinctive community. However, these disciples are also in Jerusalem in response to Jesus’ command that they wait there for the promised Holy Spirit to empower them. In our account in Acts, the coming of the Spirit is a very public event. Jews of every ethnicity can feel the “Holy Gust” and see the tongues of flame and know that God is powerfully present in their midst.
In our reading from Paul’s letter to the Roman Christians, we have a different way of understanding the Holy Spirit. Here, the Spirit is God working in us, in the “cellar of our hearts,” to draw us closer to Godself. What’s more important, the Holy Spirit dwells within us to remind us and reassure us that we are God’s beloved children, that we are part of a new and distinctive family, greater and more important to our lives than our blood family, and that all the members of that new family are our siblings.
The Gospel according to John gives us yet another vivid picture of the Holy Spirit, although it is a different picture from the one in Acts. In John, the Holy Spirit also comes to empower a community of believers, but not with a “holy gust” or tongues of flame. Go back in your mind to what the disciples were doing on Easter evening in John’s account. They were huddled together in fear in a locked upper room, when suddenly they discovered Jesus standing among them. He had come to reinvigorate them and to fulfill the promise that he had made to them at his last meal with them, the promise that we heard in today’s reading. He had promised to give them another Advocate. Who is this Advocate? The Greek word is parakletos, translated also as comforter or helper, literally the “guide by your side.” In John’s Gospel, when Jesus came back to actually give the disciples this guide, he didn’t shake the upper room with great gusts of wind. Nor did he shoot flames of fire at the disciples. No, he did something very simple. He breathed on them, saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He filled them with his very own life breath. Think about that for a moment. What would that feel like to have Jesus’ very own life breath filling your lungs?
So we have different ways of picturing the Holy Spirit. We can think of it as “holy gust,” shaking everything up, we can think of it as that which draws us closer to God and other Christians, and we can think of it as life breath, filling us inwardly with something new, something from Jesus himself. Different as they may seem, these ways of picturing the Holy Spirit have something in common. In all cases, the Holy Spirit comes to us a for a purpose. We are not given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might have personal ecstatic experiences, as wonderful as they might be. There’s nothing new about that – the Greeks knew all about ecstatic experience. Nor are we given the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we might speak in unintelligible languages, even though many of our Pentecostal brothers and sisters equate baptism in the Holy Spirit with “speaking in tongues.” No, the gift of the Holy Spirit, which God gives us in our first and only baptism, is always given to individuals and communities for the purpose of advancing the mission of the church. Through the Holy Spirit we are empowered by God in order to extend God’s reign in the world. In the account in Acts, the holy gust and fire enable the disciples to communicate clearly with a wide variety of people, with “devout Jews from every nation under heaven,” to communicate clearly that in Jesus God had fulfilled God’s promises to humanity. And note that, although Peter was empowered to become the spokesperson for the disciples, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to speak. So too are we empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news. So too does the Holy Spirit give us the words and language we need to enable others to understand what God has done for us through Jesus.
In John’s account, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to the disciples so that they will be empowered to do Jesus’ works and, what is more important, so that they may do “greater works than these.” So too for us. With the promised guide by our side, with Jesus’ breath of life within us, we too will be enabled to do what Jesus did: to serve the poor, to heal the sick, to feed the hungry, to reconcile those in conflict, and to forgive those who hurt us. And not only what Jesus did. But “greater works than these.” What might those be, I wonder? With the promised guide by our side, with Jesus’ breath within us, we too may also be led into an ever deepening relationship with God. By God’s grace, we may eventually be like Jesus, and everything we do will be God working through us, God incarnate in us. When we pray for the Holy Spirit to be at work in the Church and in our lives, this is what we seek: that God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, may work through us to accomplish God’s will in the world.
Is the Holy Spirit at work in our parish? I pray so. Perhaps the Spirit will come among us as “holy gust,” blowing away the cobwebs of the way we’ve always done things, leading us into new ways of doing and being, of worshipping and doing mission. Perhaps the “holy gust” will empower all of us to speak of our faith to others, to lead others to see themselves as God’s adopted, beloved children.
Is the Holy Spirit working in your life and mine? I pray so. Perhaps you’ve had an experience of the Spirit as “holy gust.” Some of us have. Experiences where all we thought we knew and were are swept away. Suddenly we see ourselves completely differently. Suddenly we know that God has new and different plans for us, and that God is empowering us for a new work. Most likely, though, your experience of the Spirit’s empowerment has been gentler, more gradual, perhaps something more like Jesus gently breathing on and in you. Perhaps your experience of the Spirit’s empowerment has been more like that “still, small voice” gently encouraging and strengthening you for God’s work in the world. Perhaps your experience of the Spirit, perhaps in prayer, has been like that of 13th century mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg, who knew herself through the Spirit to be “One in body and soul,/ Though outwardly separate in form” from God.
In my former life I was a scholar of the literature of India. I was also a flutist. When I think of the Holy Spirit working through me, I resonate especially with John’s image of Jesus breathing on and in me. I also resonate with a poem by the early 20th century Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. This poem comes from his collection Gitanjali, “song offering,” published in 1913. As you hear it, think of the Spirit blowing through you, making the most beautiful music possible filling you, and enabling you to do the “greater works than these,” that God desires.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
On Behalf of Those Who Will Believe
We are in trouble! The Episcopal Church is in trouble! St. Peter’s is in trouble! At its meeting in Omaha in February the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church heard a report showing that church membership and Sunday attendance has continued to decline. Overall, we saw a drop of 2.8% in membership and 3.1% in average Sunday attendance over the previous year. According to the report, parishes that lack a clear mission and purpose, that do not follow up with visitors, that engage in “rote, predictable and uninspiring” worship, that lack strong leadership, and that do not engage in outreach and mission are especially declining. At the same time that the Executive Council was hearing this report, many of us were sitting in Hobson Hall at the Procter Center hearing similar news. Church growth and development specialist Tom Ehrich told us that the high point for membership and attendance in the Episcopal Church – and for most mainline denominations – was actually 1964. In 1964, the US population was about 125,000,000. It now stands about 300,000,000. In 1964 the Episcopal Church had about 3.6 million members; it now has about 2.2 million. If you’re quick with your arithmetic it won’t take you long to figure out that in 1964 the Episcopal Church claimed about 1.67% of the US population, and that now we claim about .68%. If we had just held on to the same share of the population that we had in 1964, Ehrich told us, we would be a denomination of about 5 million, rather than one of 2.2 million. Of course, we can relate to those numbers right here. In our history day last year at St. Peter’s we heard about the sixty children in Sunday School, the raft of teenage acolytes, the vested choir, the ice cream socials, the youth groups, and, most importantly, the way in which the church was the center of everyone’s social life. And yet, though the faces shine out for us from the photos on the walls, we know as clearly as we know anything, that those days are behind us. 1964 will not come again. We will not be that church again. And there are all kinds of reasons why this has happened. Episcopalians have fought too much over trivial issues, most especially the desire of some to continue worshipping in sixteenth century English. In the last decade or so, Episcopalians have probably put too much emphasis on Sunday morning and too little on formation and mission. But most of our decline, and the decline of our sister churches, can be summed up this way: we live in a different world from the world of the middle of the 20th century. We may not like it, we may bewail and bemoan the dethronement of the church in the US and Europe, but there is no arguing with the cultural changes that have taken place around us.
The Christian communities who first heard the Gospel according to John were also living in difficult times. Scholars tell us that this Gospel was written between 90 and 100 AD, probably for Christians in Ephesus. These Christians, like many other early Christians, were in conflict with the wider culture around them, most especially the Roman Empire. They were also in conflict with the Jewish communities that began emerging in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD. And they were also dealing with conflict within their communities. Some felt an affinity with Greek philosophies, others didn’t. Some wanted to stay connected with Jewish communities and others were for making a clean break with Judaism.
Facing such external and internal tensions, these early Christians could only have been encouraged and emboldened by today’s passage in John’s Gospel. Today’s reading comes out of the section that begins in chapter 13. You remember that on the last night of his life in this Gospel, Jesus washed the disciples feet, giving them a concrete model of loving service. He gave them a new commandment, to “love one another as I have loved you,” he answered their questions, and he promised that after his death he would be with them in a new way, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Then finally, Jesus turned away from his disciples. He “looked toward heaven,” and he began to pray. The whole seventeenth chapter, of which we hear today the last six verses, is Jesus’ prayer. And let’s be clear: this is Jesus’ prayer, Jesus’ intimate conversation with his Father, which the disciples in effect were privileged to overhear in this Gospel. This prayer is not addressed to them, it is not an exhortation to them to love or to be in unity with each other, as desirable as unity might be. This is Jesus’ prayer. And on the eve of his death, Jesus prayed for the Church. He entrusted to God the Father the disciples he had then, and those who would believe through them, i.e., the entire church to come. He prayed boldly for the Church: in one translation Jesus says, “I want those you have given me to be with me….” In effect, Jesus was asking God to make good on God’s promises to create, through the Holy Spirit, a community of love that would share the same divine life that Jesus shared with the Father.
Sisters and brothers, this is good news! Jesus prayed for the church on the eve of his death. Forty days after his resurrection from the dead, he disappeared physically from the Christian community, an event the church marked on Thursday in the feast of the Ascension, and now he continues to pray for the Church that he had entrusted to the Father’s hands. We know something about that God to whom Jesus entrusted the church in this prayer. Jesus in the flesh showed us something about his Father. He’s the kind of God who openhandedly welcomes back a lost son. He throws the ball back in the court of a woman’s accusers, telling them, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” He’s the kind of God who dares to break bread with “all sorts and conditions of men and women,” who promised “living water” to a woman who’d had five husbands. He charged his friends, even those who had abandoned him to the religious and civil authorities, to “feed my sheep.” The God whom Jesus revealed to us, the God to whom Jesus entrusted the future of the church, is a God of lavish love, whose love for all people extends to us, and whose love we are impelled to share with others.
That church, which Jesus entrusted to his Father’s loving care, and for which Jesus continues to pray will grow and flourish. Make no mistake about that. We may not recognize the church that emerges from this current period of transition, any more than seventeenth century Anglicans would have recognized the church of 1960. And God willing we will be part of the birthing process of that new church. Tom Ehrich and other commentators strongly believe that growth is possible, even for the “frozen chosen.” We have a lot of work to do as partners with God in that process. We need to ask God for a clearer vision of what our parish is called to do. We need to commit our resources, our “souls and bodies,” to the task: we need to be willing to offer up to God our time, our talent, and our treasure. And we need to be willing to change how we do things. Perhaps we need to embrace different kinds of worship times and approaches. Perhaps there are new missions that will help us be more effective “fishers of people.”
Most important, we are called to join our prayers to Jesus’ prayers, to pray for our parish, our diocese, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and ultimately the whole Body of Christ. We are called to trust in the Father’s continuing love for the church, fractured and fractious as we may currently be. A well-known preacher told of an experience he had when, as a young man, he went to become pastor of a church in Philadelphia. After his first sermon, an old gentleman said to him, "You're pretty young to be pastor of this church. But you preach the Gospel, and I'm going to help you all I can." The new preacher thought, "Here's a crank." But the man continued: "I'm going to pray for you that you may have the Holy Spirit's power upon you. Two others have covenanted to join with me in prayer for you." The preacher said, "I didn't feel so bad when I learned he was going to pray for me. The three became ten, the ten became twenty, the twenty became fifty, and the fifty became two hundred who met before every service to pray that the Holy Spirit might come upon me. I always went into my pulpit feeling that I would have the anointing in answer to the prayers of those who had faithfully prayed for me. It was a joy to preach! The result was that we received 1,100 people into our church in three years, 600 of whom were men. It was the fruit of the Holy spirit in answer to prayer!"
My friends, we at St. Peter’s are about to enter a new phase in our relationship together. We trust that by God’s grace we can grow and flourish again as a parish. We are certainly called to do all that we can humanly do, and we do have our work cut out for us. What is more important, we must continue to pray, and we must continue to pray especially for this parish. As we join our own prayers to Jesus’ prayer for the church, we rest in God’s lavish love, trusting in God’s goodness and knowing that the Father will empower us for the work we have been given to do.
Almighty God, your only Son was taken into heaven and in your presence prays for us. Receive us and our prayers for the church and for the world, and in the end bring everything into your glory; through Jesus Christ our risen Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
The Christian communities who first heard the Gospel according to John were also living in difficult times. Scholars tell us that this Gospel was written between 90 and 100 AD, probably for Christians in Ephesus. These Christians, like many other early Christians, were in conflict with the wider culture around them, most especially the Roman Empire. They were also in conflict with the Jewish communities that began emerging in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD. And they were also dealing with conflict within their communities. Some felt an affinity with Greek philosophies, others didn’t. Some wanted to stay connected with Jewish communities and others were for making a clean break with Judaism.
Facing such external and internal tensions, these early Christians could only have been encouraged and emboldened by today’s passage in John’s Gospel. Today’s reading comes out of the section that begins in chapter 13. You remember that on the last night of his life in this Gospel, Jesus washed the disciples feet, giving them a concrete model of loving service. He gave them a new commandment, to “love one another as I have loved you,” he answered their questions, and he promised that after his death he would be with them in a new way, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Then finally, Jesus turned away from his disciples. He “looked toward heaven,” and he began to pray. The whole seventeenth chapter, of which we hear today the last six verses, is Jesus’ prayer. And let’s be clear: this is Jesus’ prayer, Jesus’ intimate conversation with his Father, which the disciples in effect were privileged to overhear in this Gospel. This prayer is not addressed to them, it is not an exhortation to them to love or to be in unity with each other, as desirable as unity might be. This is Jesus’ prayer. And on the eve of his death, Jesus prayed for the Church. He entrusted to God the Father the disciples he had then, and those who would believe through them, i.e., the entire church to come. He prayed boldly for the Church: in one translation Jesus says, “I want those you have given me to be with me….” In effect, Jesus was asking God to make good on God’s promises to create, through the Holy Spirit, a community of love that would share the same divine life that Jesus shared with the Father.
Sisters and brothers, this is good news! Jesus prayed for the church on the eve of his death. Forty days after his resurrection from the dead, he disappeared physically from the Christian community, an event the church marked on Thursday in the feast of the Ascension, and now he continues to pray for the Church that he had entrusted to the Father’s hands. We know something about that God to whom Jesus entrusted the church in this prayer. Jesus in the flesh showed us something about his Father. He’s the kind of God who openhandedly welcomes back a lost son. He throws the ball back in the court of a woman’s accusers, telling them, “Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.” He’s the kind of God who dares to break bread with “all sorts and conditions of men and women,” who promised “living water” to a woman who’d had five husbands. He charged his friends, even those who had abandoned him to the religious and civil authorities, to “feed my sheep.” The God whom Jesus revealed to us, the God to whom Jesus entrusted the future of the church, is a God of lavish love, whose love for all people extends to us, and whose love we are impelled to share with others.
That church, which Jesus entrusted to his Father’s loving care, and for which Jesus continues to pray will grow and flourish. Make no mistake about that. We may not recognize the church that emerges from this current period of transition, any more than seventeenth century Anglicans would have recognized the church of 1960. And God willing we will be part of the birthing process of that new church. Tom Ehrich and other commentators strongly believe that growth is possible, even for the “frozen chosen.” We have a lot of work to do as partners with God in that process. We need to ask God for a clearer vision of what our parish is called to do. We need to commit our resources, our “souls and bodies,” to the task: we need to be willing to offer up to God our time, our talent, and our treasure. And we need to be willing to change how we do things. Perhaps we need to embrace different kinds of worship times and approaches. Perhaps there are new missions that will help us be more effective “fishers of people.”
Most important, we are called to join our prayers to Jesus’ prayers, to pray for our parish, our diocese, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, and ultimately the whole Body of Christ. We are called to trust in the Father’s continuing love for the church, fractured and fractious as we may currently be. A well-known preacher told of an experience he had when, as a young man, he went to become pastor of a church in Philadelphia. After his first sermon, an old gentleman said to him, "You're pretty young to be pastor of this church. But you preach the Gospel, and I'm going to help you all I can." The new preacher thought, "Here's a crank." But the man continued: "I'm going to pray for you that you may have the Holy Spirit's power upon you. Two others have covenanted to join with me in prayer for you." The preacher said, "I didn't feel so bad when I learned he was going to pray for me. The three became ten, the ten became twenty, the twenty became fifty, and the fifty became two hundred who met before every service to pray that the Holy Spirit might come upon me. I always went into my pulpit feeling that I would have the anointing in answer to the prayers of those who had faithfully prayed for me. It was a joy to preach! The result was that we received 1,100 people into our church in three years, 600 of whom were men. It was the fruit of the Holy spirit in answer to prayer!"
My friends, we at St. Peter’s are about to enter a new phase in our relationship together. We trust that by God’s grace we can grow and flourish again as a parish. We are certainly called to do all that we can humanly do, and we do have our work cut out for us. What is more important, we must continue to pray, and we must continue to pray especially for this parish. As we join our own prayers to Jesus’ prayer for the church, we rest in God’s lavish love, trusting in God’s goodness and knowing that the Father will empower us for the work we have been given to do.
Almighty God, your only Son was taken into heaven and in your presence prays for us. Receive us and our prayers for the church and for the world, and in the end bring everything into your glory; through Jesus Christ our risen Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Let All the Peoples Praise You
What would it be like to arrive alone at JFK airport in New York city with $200 in your pocket, having barely escaped with your life from war, rape, and murder in your homeland? So begins the remarkable story of Deogratias Niyizonkiza, a twenty-four year old third-year medical student from Burundi whose experiences are related by Tracy Kidder in his recent book Strength in what Remains. The year was 1994. Fleeing almost certain death as civil war between Hutus and Tutsis raged in Burundi, Deo managed to make his way to the U.S. using a commercial visa obtained by a friend. His $200 soon spent, he worked as a grocery store delivery boy and slept in a tent in Central Park before being discovered by a kindly older couple. With their help and with much effort, he managed to enroll in and graduate from Columbia University. However, before Deo could complete his medical education, he began to work for Partners in Health, the organization founded by Paul Farmer to provide healthcare to the poorest of the poor in Haiti. Inspired by the work in Haiti and hopeful that he could help his country heal from the aftermath of the terrible destruction, Deo vowed to found a clinic in his home village. With the help of Partners in Health and many generous donors, the clinic opened in 2007, shortly after Deo became an American citizen.
During his long ordeal in Burundi, on the streets of New York city, and while enduring the stress of being an undergraduate again in a foreign educational system, Deo, a Roman Catholic, was sustained by his deep conviction that God would eventually bring good out of all the misery he and his people had endured. Surely Deo’s conviction was founded, at least parrly on the assurances in our psalm today. For Psalm 67, as well as our readings from the Book of Acts and Revelation, remind us that, in the words of Daniel Clendinen, “God is not a territorial or parochial god.” God is also not a capricious God who plays favorites among the nations, caring for some and not for others. Rather, God’s salvation extends to all, and God “judges the people with equity.” God gives God’s blessing to all, and God’s love and care extend to the “ends of the earth.” Although the Jews were a minor and marginalized people within the grand scope of ancient near east politics, the psalm nevertheless reminds us that God’s vision and care take in the entire cosmos.
Our reading from the book of Revelation reflects a similar cosmic vision. Although in its details the heavenly Jerusalem, with its twelve gates, seems particularly Jewish, in fact it is a cosmopolitan city in which all nations are welcome: “the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” More wonderfully, the leaves of the tree in the middle of the city, the Tree of Life, are for the “healing of nations.”
Our reading from the Book of Acts also reflects a vision of a God who cares for all. Last week in our reading from Acts we heard how Peter had the courage to preach to a Roman officer, a Gentile. In that bold action of Peter’s, the leaders of the earliest community of Jesus’ followers learned that, through Jesus, God had wrought salvation not only for the Jews, but for Gentiles as well, that God had welcomed all people into the Body of Christ. In today’s reading from Acts, we hear the story of how the early church took yet another step forward, from Judea into Europe. Impelled by the Holy Spirit through a vision of a man pleading for Paul to come to Macedonia, Paul crossed over from Asia Minor to Europe. Perhaps there were not the required ten males to organize a synagogue in the Roman city of Philippi, so Paul reached out to a group of women gathered by the river. The Spirit took hold of a wealthy woman from Thyatira, and so began the Christian community in Philippi, from whence Christian communities spread throughout Europe. Though the Christian community had come into being with a few disciples fearing for their lives after Jesus’ crucifixion, through Peter, Paul, Lydia, and many others, God’s love and care began to spread to “the ends of the earth.” Today, nearly one third of the world’s peoples are members of the Body of Christ, and Christians can be found in every country in the world.
What does this mean for us in Southern Ohio? To begin with, Christians are, as Clendinen tell us, “geographic, cultural, national, and ethnic egalitarians.” We acknowledge that God’s love extends beyond our parish, our county, our denomination, our nation, even our faith community. Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Jews, African Pentecostals, Hindus, Episcopalians, and even atheists, can rely on God’s love and care. Nor do we put our country – or any country – at the geographic center of God’s world. Although love of one’s country is an honorable emotion, we do not put our loyalty to our nation above our loyalty to God, for we know that, as Paul reminded the Philippian Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven” – eventually in that heavenly Jerusalem depicted in Revelation! And we do not think that our own country has a special claim on God’s love, or that our own country is somehow more beloved of God than other countries. Rather, we know that all nations have a place in God’s heart, and that all nations will eventually be part of the glorious company of the redeemed.
What is more important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we also know that we must care for people in other nations as much as we care for our own people. We must grieve the deaths of Iraqi civilians as much as we do those of American soldiers. We must mourn Chinese earthquake victims as much as we do victims of the floods in Tennessee. We must bemoan the pain and terror that the people of Burundi experienced as much as we grieve for those killed in the twin towers. If all of God’s people are precious in God’s sight, and if Jesus is our model, then all of God’s people must be precious in our sight as well.
What is most important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we must also find concrete ways to reach out to other communities and nations. Of course, we have an obligation to care for those around us, the poor, the needy, the destitute, the victims of flood and fire that we can see. Of course, we are called to support food banks, diaper gifts, and shoe gift cards. But we also have an obligation to care for those whom we can’t see, those of other nations who are equally deserving of our love and concern. Certainly, we can’t care for the whole world, but we can care for at least one square inch of it. Can we adopt a school in Haiti, perhaps Lekol sen Trinite, where my daughter worked, or an orphanage in Honduras, perhaps El Hogar, where teams from this diocese have visited. Can we provide scholarships to nursing students in Liberia, as one parish in this diocese does? Can we support the work of Christian peacemakers? Can we provide mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa? Can we support the work of Partners in Health, International Child Care, or Doctors without Borders? In fact, look up Doctors without Borders on Facebook, and find out all the places in this world where they are at work!
We can also care for others through our purchasing power. Have you ever wondered about the working conditions of all those people in China, Mexico, Viet Nam, Jordan, and Romania, just to name a few, who make the clothes, electronics, and other goods we consume? Have you ever considered buying only fair trade coffee and chocolate, so that coffee and cocoa growers can earn a living wage? How about buying your Christmas and birthday gifts from Ten Thousand Villages or other similar organizations, to help support crafts people overseas?
In the early 1990s, Lynne Hybels, co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, visited refugee centers in Croatia . She heard the stories of women who had lost their homes, their husbands, their jobs, and their futures. Praying on the last day of her visit, she asked God, “Am I my sister’s keeper?” “Yes, yes, yes,” came the answer, “you are your sister’s keeper.” “God, who then is my sister?” She could sense the answer: they are all your sisters. On a recent trip to the Holy Land, she talked to women, Muslims , Jews, and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians, who are actively trying to better their lives and work for peace. Reflecting on this latest visit she reminds us that “I cannot possibly meet the needs of every member of my huge global family, but neither can I thoughtlessly dismiss their suffering. I have to pay attention. I have to care. And I have to pray, ‘God, what is mine to do?’
At the end of our service today, we will sing Isaac Watts’ grand old hymn, “Jesus shall reign.” I ask you to pay special attention to the fourth verse: “Blessings abound where e’er he reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest.” My friends, may God enable us, as members of the Body of Christ, to share his love for all his children, from Americans to Zambians. May God help us to see his Spirit at work among all people, and may God enable us to be his partners in loosing his children’s chains and freeing his children from want.
____________________________________________
1. Kidder has told Farmer’s story in his Mountains beyond Mountains.
2. The quote and the inspiration for this sermon come from Daniel Clendinen’s essay this week on his site Journey with Jesus, at http://www.journeywithjesus.net.
3. Lynne Hybels, “This Changes Everything,” Sojourners, May, 2010.
During his long ordeal in Burundi, on the streets of New York city, and while enduring the stress of being an undergraduate again in a foreign educational system, Deo, a Roman Catholic, was sustained by his deep conviction that God would eventually bring good out of all the misery he and his people had endured. Surely Deo’s conviction was founded, at least parrly on the assurances in our psalm today. For Psalm 67, as well as our readings from the Book of Acts and Revelation, remind us that, in the words of Daniel Clendinen, “God is not a territorial or parochial god.” God is also not a capricious God who plays favorites among the nations, caring for some and not for others. Rather, God’s salvation extends to all, and God “judges the people with equity.” God gives God’s blessing to all, and God’s love and care extend to the “ends of the earth.” Although the Jews were a minor and marginalized people within the grand scope of ancient near east politics, the psalm nevertheless reminds us that God’s vision and care take in the entire cosmos.
Our reading from the book of Revelation reflects a similar cosmic vision. Although in its details the heavenly Jerusalem, with its twelve gates, seems particularly Jewish, in fact it is a cosmopolitan city in which all nations are welcome: “the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” More wonderfully, the leaves of the tree in the middle of the city, the Tree of Life, are for the “healing of nations.”
Our reading from the Book of Acts also reflects a vision of a God who cares for all. Last week in our reading from Acts we heard how Peter had the courage to preach to a Roman officer, a Gentile. In that bold action of Peter’s, the leaders of the earliest community of Jesus’ followers learned that, through Jesus, God had wrought salvation not only for the Jews, but for Gentiles as well, that God had welcomed all people into the Body of Christ. In today’s reading from Acts, we hear the story of how the early church took yet another step forward, from Judea into Europe. Impelled by the Holy Spirit through a vision of a man pleading for Paul to come to Macedonia, Paul crossed over from Asia Minor to Europe. Perhaps there were not the required ten males to organize a synagogue in the Roman city of Philippi, so Paul reached out to a group of women gathered by the river. The Spirit took hold of a wealthy woman from Thyatira, and so began the Christian community in Philippi, from whence Christian communities spread throughout Europe. Though the Christian community had come into being with a few disciples fearing for their lives after Jesus’ crucifixion, through Peter, Paul, Lydia, and many others, God’s love and care began to spread to “the ends of the earth.” Today, nearly one third of the world’s peoples are members of the Body of Christ, and Christians can be found in every country in the world.
What does this mean for us in Southern Ohio? To begin with, Christians are, as Clendinen tell us, “geographic, cultural, national, and ethnic egalitarians.” We acknowledge that God’s love extends beyond our parish, our county, our denomination, our nation, even our faith community. Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Jews, African Pentecostals, Hindus, Episcopalians, and even atheists, can rely on God’s love and care. Nor do we put our country – or any country – at the geographic center of God’s world. Although love of one’s country is an honorable emotion, we do not put our loyalty to our nation above our loyalty to God, for we know that, as Paul reminded the Philippian Christians, “our citizenship is in heaven” – eventually in that heavenly Jerusalem depicted in Revelation! And we do not think that our own country has a special claim on God’s love, or that our own country is somehow more beloved of God than other countries. Rather, we know that all nations have a place in God’s heart, and that all nations will eventually be part of the glorious company of the redeemed.
What is more important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we also know that we must care for people in other nations as much as we care for our own people. We must grieve the deaths of Iraqi civilians as much as we do those of American soldiers. We must mourn Chinese earthquake victims as much as we do victims of the floods in Tennessee. We must bemoan the pain and terror that the people of Burundi experienced as much as we grieve for those killed in the twin towers. If all of God’s people are precious in God’s sight, and if Jesus is our model, then all of God’s people must be precious in our sight as well.
What is most important, if we understand that God’s love extends to all nations, then we must also find concrete ways to reach out to other communities and nations. Of course, we have an obligation to care for those around us, the poor, the needy, the destitute, the victims of flood and fire that we can see. Of course, we are called to support food banks, diaper gifts, and shoe gift cards. But we also have an obligation to care for those whom we can’t see, those of other nations who are equally deserving of our love and concern. Certainly, we can’t care for the whole world, but we can care for at least one square inch of it. Can we adopt a school in Haiti, perhaps Lekol sen Trinite, where my daughter worked, or an orphanage in Honduras, perhaps El Hogar, where teams from this diocese have visited. Can we provide scholarships to nursing students in Liberia, as one parish in this diocese does? Can we support the work of Christian peacemakers? Can we provide mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa? Can we support the work of Partners in Health, International Child Care, or Doctors without Borders? In fact, look up Doctors without Borders on Facebook, and find out all the places in this world where they are at work!
We can also care for others through our purchasing power. Have you ever wondered about the working conditions of all those people in China, Mexico, Viet Nam, Jordan, and Romania, just to name a few, who make the clothes, electronics, and other goods we consume? Have you ever considered buying only fair trade coffee and chocolate, so that coffee and cocoa growers can earn a living wage? How about buying your Christmas and birthday gifts from Ten Thousand Villages or other similar organizations, to help support crafts people overseas?
In the early 1990s, Lynne Hybels, co-founder of Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, visited refugee centers in Croatia . She heard the stories of women who had lost their homes, their husbands, their jobs, and their futures. Praying on the last day of her visit, she asked God, “Am I my sister’s keeper?” “Yes, yes, yes,” came the answer, “you are your sister’s keeper.” “God, who then is my sister?” She could sense the answer: they are all your sisters. On a recent trip to the Holy Land, she talked to women, Muslims , Jews, and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians, who are actively trying to better their lives and work for peace. Reflecting on this latest visit she reminds us that “I cannot possibly meet the needs of every member of my huge global family, but neither can I thoughtlessly dismiss their suffering. I have to pay attention. I have to care. And I have to pray, ‘God, what is mine to do?’
At the end of our service today, we will sing Isaac Watts’ grand old hymn, “Jesus shall reign.” I ask you to pay special attention to the fourth verse: “Blessings abound where e’er he reigns: the prisoners leap to lose their chains, the weary find eternal rest, and all who suffer want are blest.” My friends, may God enable us, as members of the Body of Christ, to share his love for all his children, from Americans to Zambians. May God help us to see his Spirit at work among all people, and may God enable us to be his partners in loosing his children’s chains and freeing his children from want.
____________________________________________
1. Kidder has told Farmer’s story in his Mountains beyond Mountains.
2. The quote and the inspiration for this sermon come from Daniel Clendinen’s essay this week on his site Journey with Jesus, at http://www.journeywithjesus.net.
3. Lynne Hybels, “This Changes Everything,” Sojourners, May, 2010.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)