Are prophets welcome here? If a prophet walked in right now through the red doors, would we politely explain that this is a house of worship, and that we’re in the middle of a worship service? Eastertide, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday are now behind us. We’ve put on our green paraments and vestments, and we’ve entered the season of flowering and growth – our growth as Jesus’ friends and disciples. In the first half of the liturgical year, the year that began way back last December, we focused on Jesus and his life. In Advent, while we considered the end times, we also prepared to receive at Christmas the shocking news that the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood. During our long Epiphany tide, we reflected on all the various ways Jesus’ true identity became clear to those around Him. In Lent we sorrowfully pondered our own sins and the events that led up to Jesus’ death. In Easter tide we too joyfully greeted the risen Jesus, watched him leave behind for good his earthly existence, and let the Holy Spirit blow over us.
Now the focus of the liturgical year shifts from Jesus to us. In this green, growing season, along with the flowers, grass, and crops, we too are growing and developing spiritually. We too may hope to harvest the fruits of the Holy Spirit. In the opening weeks of this year’s Pentecost season, the overarching theme of our Gospel lessons is our response to Jesus. For the next several weeks, our Gospel lessons will ask us to ponder who Jesus is for us, how and where we see him, and how we act, both as individuals and as a Christian community, on our vision of him. Today’s Gospel reading asks us to ponder how we respond to prophets, to those who speak in God’s name, who bring God to us, and who provoke us to think about what God wants for us and from us. Next week the Gospel reading will show us different ways that the people around Jesus responded to him. We will then hear several parables, illustrative stories that reflect Jesus’ prophetic ministry. You will hear the parable of the sown seeds two weeks from today, and others while I am gone. August presents us with two miracles that further confirm Jesus’ true identity: Peter’s walking on water and the healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter. The final two Gospel lections in this series lead us to explicit statements of Jesus’ identity, as we hear Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and Jesus’ confirmation of Peter’s insight, with an allusion to the consequences of Peter’s confession.
So now we are at the beginning of this series of lections. We begin at the very end of chapter ten of Matthew’s Gospel. We are in the second of Jesus’ five great sermons in Matthew. If we had started at the beginning of this chapter, we would have heard Jesus deliver what is called the “missionary discourse,” i.e., Jesus’ charge to the seventy or so disciples whom he sends out to preach the nearness of God’s reign. He explicitly reminds them that they are going forth as his emissaries, and that if someone welcomes them it is the same as welcoming Jesus himself. Then, the Gospel narrative has Jesus suddenly shift gears and ask the disciples – or perhaps others standing around – to reflect on how those who bring God’s word are received.
Jesus asks his hearers – and by extension us – to consider how we receive three different kinds of people who might bring God’s word to us. The first are the prophets. How do we receive prophets? Our Hebrew Bible lesson, taken from the Book of Jeremiah, suggests that, when prophets tell the truth, they are often rejected. Indeed, much of the Book of Jeremiah deals with Jeremiah’s struggle to make the political leaders to whom he was preaching hear the truth of the desperate situation they were in. Jeremiah especially wanted to get the king and his advisors to see that the alliances that they hoped would avert conquest by Babylon and eventual exile would not work. Echoing Jeremiah’s struggle, a Talmudic saying suggests that, “A rabbi whose congregation does not want to drive him out of town isn’t a rabbi.”1 Do we do any better? Did anyone want to listen to Rachel Carson, when she warned us in Silent Spring about the overuse of pesticides in agriculture? Did those who risked – and lost – their lives in the Civil Rights movement fare any better? How long did it take us to realize that HIV-AIDS was a disease that affected everyone – and still creates thousands of orphans in Africa? Are we listening to today’s scientists who warn of global warming and climate change? Are we willing to hear that the church must do ministry in a new way if it is to survive in this century? Who are the prophets who speak God’s word for you? Do you act on what you hear?
What about the righteous ones? Who are the ones who model a deep commitment to God, and how do we receive them when we meet them? Many people thought St. Francis was insane. Even today, some people wonder whether Mother Teresa really had genuine faith. Is it OK for Episcopalians to take the writings of Evangelical theologians or commentators seriously? Is it OK to read Rob Bell’s book on salvation? Do Pentecostals really have anything to teach us about spirituality?
Most perplexing of all, who are those “little ones,” who deserve a cup of water from us as they bring us God’s word? And how do we receive them? Bryan Findlayson tells about a mission trip to a rural area on the east coast of Australia. The community was poor and isolated, and the team was put up in houses that lacked such basic amenities as indoor plumbing. The small church had long ago lost its old weatherboards and was clad in metal siding. Nevertheless the congregation flocked to the church on Sunday afternoon to hear Findlayson and his team preach God’s word. Who knows whether anyone committed themselves to Christ that day, Findlayson asks? What mattered was that the messengers – and hopefully their message as well – were welcomed.2
Sometimes too we may meet some of those “little ones” in chance encounters. As one writer suggests, sometimes God’s word comes to us when we least expect it. A sentence in a sermon may leap out at us. A chance meeting with a stranger, perhaps a comment on an elevator, or at a gas station, or overheard at dinner, may be God’s word to us. Unless we listen carefully, and attend to the Spirit working in our lives, we may never realize that the reign of God has come near to us, and that we have heard God speaking to us.3
And then there are the “little ones” in our midst. Most of us shy away from contact with those who aren’t of our own social class, who aren’t as educated as we are, who perhaps have been incarcerated, or who don’t look, act, or smell as we do. Yet many passages of Scripture in addition to this one remind us of our obligation to welcome strangers. Abraham welcomed angels, who then blessed him by announcing that Sarah would bear a child. The book of Leviticus reminded the Israelites to love strangers as themselves, “for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” On the road to Emmaus Cleopas and his friend welcomed a stranger into their home, and realized that they had welcomed the risen Jesus as he broke bread with them. Several of Paul’s epistles bid the new Christian communities befriend strangers. Monastic communities have an ancient tradition of welcoming all, and the Rule of St. Benedict is particularly explicit that all strangers are to be treated as honored guests.
So how do we welcome those “little ones?” How about those who receive our diapers at the mobile food pantry? Could any of them be Christ-bearers for us? How about the “little ones” who walk through the doors of our parish hall for Loaves and Fishes? Are they honored guests? How do we treat them? Do they bring Christ to us? Do they perhaps have even deeper faith than we do? Might we learn something from them? Can we see Christ in them? Can we join our prayers with theirs? And what other opportunities to welcome “little ones” are we missing? Are there others who need our resources of time, space, and money? What other “little ones” might the Holy Spirit be sending our way, if only we could see them? As we begin to ponder where the Holy Spirit might be leading St. Peter’s, as we continue to pray daily for our parish – are you still doing that – let us also pray that God will show us other “little ones” whom we are called to serve.
O God, you direct our lives by your grace, and your words of justice and mercy reshape the world. Mold us into a people who welcome your word and serve one another, through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord.
1. Synthesis, June 26, 2011, p.2.
2. Bryan Findlayson at lectionarystudies.com, quoted in Ibid.
3. Forward Day by Day, June 16, 2011.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Blown by the Spirit
Why are you here? What blew you in through the red doors? [Query a few people.] Is it because coming to church is what one does on Sunday? Is it because coming is what God expects of me, and I want to please and serve God? Do you seek weekly nourishment in the Eucharist? Do you hope thereby to become more like Jesus? Do you seek strength for the journey, the sustenance you need to keep going in life? Or are you perhaps looking to satisfy some deeply-felt need for authentic community? What brought you here?
My friends, none of these reasons is why you are here. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here, and no longer any social approbation for rousing yourselves and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus’ disappearance is behind us, we’ve crossed over the threshold, and the Holy Spirit is rampant in the world. But the Holy is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known. Some of us can really resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus? “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions. We know too that in Scripture fire is also a signal of God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai? When Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and enlivening. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing. For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar of a strange church and suddenly knew she was home. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” Paul went on to remind the Corinthian Christians that collectively their community possessed many different kinds of gifts, not just that of speaking in tongues, and that all their gifts had come from the same Spirit. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. Much as we love the Episcopal Church, perhaps we can learn from Lutherans, or Roman Catholics, or even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts needed to build the kingdom of God. We have a lot to learn from each other. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us all, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there’s kind of a paradox here. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor solely to enable us to feel at peace with ourselves, valuable as that may be, or at ease with the world. Strength for the journey, maybe. But, as one writer observed, the real truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us, that, in fact, may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After they stepped over that threshold, there was no going back to the old life for the disciples. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in unexpected directions.
And so too for us. Having stepped over that same threshold, we know there is no going back to what this parish once was. There is no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. In a recent speech, New York Times columnist David Brooks challenged his listeners to give up our American pre-occupation with self-fulfillment and instead make a “sacred commitment” to service to others. “Most successful young people,” he wrote, “don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem which summons their life…. They are called by a problem which then helps them create self-identity.” Isn’t that true for us as well? The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young or old, women or men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we can discern it. The Spirit calls us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “What can we do with our diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
Most of you know that I like icons. I especially like this one of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Cathedral of St. Sophia. You remember that icons are not realistic pictures but rather attempts to capture spiritual realities visually. This icon is different from what we might expect such an icon to be, in that it shows the apostles at rest, perhaps being gently bathed by the light touch of the Spirit. Henry Nouwen has written movingly of the way in which this icon reflects the Spirit’s role in creating Christian community, by drawing us into the community of love created by the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But two other things strike me about this icon. The first is how different all the apostles are. At first glance, they may look alike. However, if you look closely, you can see that the icon tradition has visibly represented the diversity among them. They are different ages, they are dressed differently, some are bearded and some are not, and their postures differ. In effect, the icon gives us a visual representation of the diversity of gifts among that first apostolic community. Second, and perhaps more important, each figure has in his lap a book or other object. Tranquil as this scene may be, we have the sure sense that the apostles will shortly rise from their chairs to go out to serve the church in the various paths on which they will be led.
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. The Spirit has given us all gifts. The Spirit has given us the responsibility to rebuild and revitalize this parish. And so therefore we pray most earnestly, that the Spirit will continue to shower her gifts on us, so that we may continue to bring God’s reign nearer. “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and light us with celestial fire. Thou the anointing Spirit art, who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart.”
My friends, none of these reasons is why you are here. You are here because the Holy Spirit brought you here. You may even be here against your will. Certainly you have every good reason not to be here, and no longer any social approbation for rousing yourselves and actually getting here. You are here, because the Holy Spirit blew you in through the red doors – for a reason.
Jesus’ disappearance is behind us, we’ve crossed over the threshold, and the Holy Spirit is rampant in the world. But the Holy is wily and changeable, and she has many ways of making herself known. Some of us can really resonate with the violent, life-changing experiences of the disciples in the Book of Acts. We know that in Scripture a powerful wind is often a signal for God’s presence. Remember how Jesus tried to describe the Spirit to Nicodemus? “The wind blows where it chooses,” he said, “and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” For some of us, the Holy Spirit does feel like a great rushing wind, coming into our lives, carrying us along, even pushing us in unexpected directions. We know too that in Scripture fire is also a signal of God’s presence. Remember the Pillar of Fire that followed the Israelites in their journey through the Sinai? When Jeremiah felt so compelled to speak God’s word that he could no longer keep silent, he said that God’s urging felt “like fire in the bones.” And when John Wesley felt himself come alive again spiritually at the Aldersgate meeting, he said his heart “felt strangely warmed.”
To others of us, the Holy Spirit comes as a gentle breath, a quickening and enlivening. Although Elijah had expected God to come in thunder and fire, God spoke to Elijah in a whisper. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples in John’s Gospel felt Jesus breathe the Holy Spirit into them. “Breathe on me, breath of God,” says one of our hymns. Gentle, easy, yet life-giving and utterly life-changing. For yet others, the Holy Spirit comes in extraordinary, inexplicable experiences. The fractious members of the Christian community at Corinth suddenly had the ability to speak ecstatically in another language. St. Francis of Assisi heard the crucifix in a country church calling to him. A woman knelt at the altar of a strange church and suddenly knew she was home. A student sang in a church choir, and all his resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit melted away.
However the Spirit brought you here, as a strong but invisible force, as a gentle tug on the sleeve, or through a moment in your life you still can’t explain, you are here because the Spirit has brought you here. We are all here because the Spirit has brought us here. As Paul told the Corinthians who thought their ability to speak in tongues made them special, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” Paul went on to remind the Corinthian Christians that collectively their community possessed many different kinds of gifts, not just that of speaking in tongues, and that all their gifts had come from the same Spirit. Whatever the gifts were, whether they were teaching, administration, preaching, devotion, healing, or working miracles, all these gifts had been given to the community by the Spirit, distributed by the Spirit as the Spirit saw fit. Most important, the Spirit had given these gifts to the Corinthian Christians for a reason: “for the common good,” i.e. to build up the church in that place.
As with the Christian community at Corinth, the Spirit has given the church of our day diverse gifts and talents, all of which the Spirit needs the church to exercise. From a lofty perspective, you might even say that the Spirit has given diverse gifts to the churches. Perhaps the Spirit has intentionally scattered her gifts around. Perhaps every denomination, maybe even every faith community, has diverse God-given gifts and talents, and no denomination or community has all the gifts needed to bring God’s reign nearer. Much as we love the Episcopal Church, perhaps we can learn from Lutherans, or Roman Catholics, or even Baptists and Pentecostals. In the same way, I believe that the Spirit has scattered her gifts around the various parishes in our diocese. All of our parishes have God-given gifts, but perhaps none of them has all the gifts needed to build the kingdom of God. We have a lot to learn from each other. And the Spirit has certainly scattered her gifts here at St. Peter’s. All of us have different God-given gifts that this parish needs, and none of us, whatever our age, station, or life situation, is without gifts. The Spirit has distributed gifts and talents among us all, and the Spirit calls on us to use our gifts.
My friends, there’s kind of a paradox here. The Spirit has not given us these gifts for our own spiritual self-aggrandizement, nor solely to enable us to feel at peace with ourselves, valuable as that may be, or at ease with the world. Strength for the journey, maybe. But, as one writer observed, the real truth is that the Spirit has given us gifts and talents that create problems for us, that, in fact, may make us profoundly uncomfortable. After they stepped over that threshold, there was no going back to the old life for the disciples. In the very last chapter of John’s Gospel, Peter, James, and John tried to return to fishing. Jesus caught up with them, and told Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Celtic Christians still use the image of the wild goose as a symbol for the unfettered Spirit. They know that the Spirit, like a noisy and bothersome wild goose, often shakes us out of our complacency and leads us in unexpected directions.
And so too for us. Having stepped over that same threshold, we know there is no going back to what this parish once was. There is no going back to a life focused solely on ourselves and our own narrow needs. In a recent speech, New York Times columnist David Brooks challenged his listeners to give up our American pre-occupation with self-fulfillment and instead make a “sacred commitment” to service to others. “Most successful young people,” he wrote, “don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem which summons their life…. They are called by a problem which then helps them create self-identity.” Isn’t that true for us as well? The Spirit calls each of to use our gifts to reach out to people of every language, ethnicity, and social station. The Spirit calls all of us, young or old, women or men, to prophesy. The Spirit calls all of us to use our gifts to bring the reign of God nearer, to partner with God in God’s work, wherever we can discern it. The Spirit calls us to ask, “Who needs us?” and “What can we do with our diverse gifts and talents to share God’s love in this community?”
Most of you know that I like icons. I especially like this one of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Cathedral of St. Sophia. You remember that icons are not realistic pictures but rather attempts to capture spiritual realities visually. This icon is different from what we might expect such an icon to be, in that it shows the apostles at rest, perhaps being gently bathed by the light touch of the Spirit. Henry Nouwen has written movingly of the way in which this icon reflects the Spirit’s role in creating Christian community, by drawing us into the community of love created by the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But two other things strike me about this icon. The first is how different all the apostles are. At first glance, they may look alike. However, if you look closely, you can see that the icon tradition has visibly represented the diversity among them. They are different ages, they are dressed differently, some are bearded and some are not, and their postures differ. In effect, the icon gives us a visual representation of the diversity of gifts among that first apostolic community. Second, and perhaps more important, each figure has in his lap a book or other object. Tranquil as this scene may be, we have the sure sense that the apostles will shortly rise from their chairs to go out to serve the church in the various paths on which they will be led.
We are here, because the Spirit has brought us here. The Spirit has given us all gifts. The Spirit has given us the responsibility to rebuild and revitalize this parish. And so therefore we pray most earnestly, that the Spirit will continue to shower her gifts on us, so that we may continue to bring God’s reign nearer. “Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and light us with celestial fire. Thou the anointing Spirit art, who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart.”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Teach Us to Pray
One Sunday afternoon, in a locked section of a nursing home, a woman sat slumped in her wheelchair. Along with her husband two people had come from her parish with communion from that morning’s service. The woman moaned quietly when one of the visitors touched her arm. She made no other sound, not even to acknowledge her husband. The Eucharistic visitors laid out the communion linens and elements, read the Gospel lesson, and said the suggested prayers. Still no response. Then one of the visitors said, “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say, ‘Our Father….’” The woman’s head came up as she began to whisper, “who art in heaven….” At the end of the Lord’s Prayer, the woman shared in the Lord’s gifts.
Prayer is powerful. Because we say the Lord’s Prayer so often, and because it links us with members of almost every other Christian community, the Lord’s Prayer has a virtually unique power to stay with us and sustain us. Although Jesus teaches his followers that form of prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Scripture also has other things to teach us about prayer. This morning, as we stand on the threshold between our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, all three of our lessons teach us about the power of prayer.
Our lesson from the Book of Acts overlaps with the reading from Acts that some of us heard on Ascension Day. Our story begins with Jesus’ reminder to his disciples that they will soon experience personal transformation through the Holy Spirit. Then the disciples have an experience that convinces them that Jesus has been released from his visible, earthly existence and has returned to his life with God. Now they wonder what will happen next, and especially what Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit will mean. And so the disciples return to Jerusalem. They do the only thing they know how to do: they go back to that upper room. They join with their fellow disciples, both women and men, and they devote themselves to prayer. They take up that posture common to all Christians, really to believers of all faith communities, they wait in hope for the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled. As they wait, they pray together.
Just like the Jerusalem disciples before Pentecost, the members of the Christian community in Colossae also waited in hope for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises. Theirs was a persecuted community, a tiny minority in a culture that considered them atheistic, subversive, and dangerous. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminded these Christians that, if they were persecuted, they did not struggle alone, but that Jesus struggled with them in their trials. Consequently, whatever befell them, they were to pray together. In this way they could be assured of Jesus’ love for them: “Cast all your anxiety on him,” they were told, “because he cares for you.”
In our Gospel reading, we listen in on Jesus’ prayer at the very end of his last supper with his disciples. Jesus had instructed these chosen friends and given them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them. Then, knowing that God’s time had finally come, Jesus turned toward his Father and began to pray. As the disciples overheard Jesus’ prayer, they learned a different model of prayer from the one the disciples were taught in Matthew and Luke. Anticipating his resurrection and ascension, Jesus first prayed for himself. “Glorify your Son,” he asks of the Father, “so that the Son may glorify you…. [G]lorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” Jesus then prayed for his close friends. Again, anticipating his complete departure from the earthly, physical world that they inhabited, he prayed for their safety: “They are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me….” Finally, in the last part of the prayer, which we don’t hear here, Jesus prayed for the rest of the world, all those who would come to believe in him when his friends, filled with the Holy Spirit, carried the Good News to the ends of the earth. “I ask not only on behalf of these,” Jesus prayed, “but on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word….”
The message is clear: prayer, especially corporate, common, prayer is an integral part of life in God. Jesus prayed frequently throughout all four Gospels, Jesus taught us a model prayer, and, on his last night in his human body, Jesus prayed intently for us and for all future believers. While they waited for the promised Holy Spirit to explode on them, the disciples prayed continually together. As they endured the slights and persecutions of their fellow citizens, the Christians in Colossae leaned on their Lord and offered up to him all their cares and worries. Prayer is an integral part of life in God.
Prayer as a part of common life didn’t end with the beleaguered Christians of Colossae. Soon after Benedict of Nursia founded his holy communities amidst the chaos of sixth-century Italy, he wrote a Rule for them outlining how they were to live together. Benedict understood that his monks and nuns were not hermits. They were not cloistered, and they were not to spend their entire life on their knees. Rather, as they followed Benedict’s rule, they led a balanced life of prayer, both individual and corporate, work of about six hours a day, spiritual reading, especially study of Scripture, and fellowship around meals and recreation. Whatever they did, wherever they were, even when they were travelling, prayer formed the foundation of their lives, and prayer was woven inextricably into every aspect of their lives.
Benedict’s rule of a balanced life of prayer, study, work, and fellowship continues to be the standard for monastic communities today. Benedict’s rule also provides a model for our own life together. Leaving aside for the moment the values of study and fellowship, I want to focus here on the importance of regular prayer, both individual and corporate, for all of us – not just for those of us who wear clerical collars. You’ve probably noticed that when we worship, in our corporate prayers, either the ones we say together, or the ones that the presider prays on your behalf, there are generally four types of prayer: praise or adoration, in which we praise God for who God is or what God has done; thanksgiving, in which we thank God for all that God has done for us or given us; intercession, in which we pray for the needs of others; and confession, in which we admit to ourselves and to God the ways in which we have missed the mark. We can, and often do, use all four forms in our own personal prayer as well. In our personal prayer time we can also include some silence, in which we stop talking to God and just listen to God. Wherever we pray, and whichever forms of prayer we use, or even if we keep silent before God, prayer always has a two-fold goal. Just as Jesus did in his own earthly life, we pray to deepen our relationship with God, especially our trust in God’s love and care for us. Secondly, and perhaps more important, again following the model Jesus gave us, we pray for the life of the world, and especially that God’s reign may be brought nearer. Ultimately, the two goals converge: when we deepen our relationship with God, when we strengthen our confidence that God will fulfill God’s promises, then we see more clearly what our role is in making known to others God’s plan of salvation, the good news of God in Christ.
Jesus’, Peter’s, and Benedict’s instructions are clear: prayer is an integral part of our life as Jesus’ disciples. A balanced Christian life always includes time for prayer. No matter how busy your life is, give yourself the gift of prayer as part of your daily life. Here’s a starting place. Say grace at meals. If you’re by yourself, say it silently. Do you have two minutes in your day for prayer? Turn to page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer. Daily Noonday prayer is a wonderful way to put yourselves in God’s presence. It takes exactly two minutes to say – I guarantee it. How about five minutes at night? Turn to page 117. Compline takes five minutes. It’s a wonderful way to end the day with God. Intercede for others. Take the six suggestions for the Prayers of the People on page 383 of the prayer book. They’re perfect for organizing your personal prayer as well. Consider taking a retreat or quiet day, either one that I’ll be organizing or one available through other organizations. There’s no better way to immerse yourself in God’s love than to take an extended time with God apart from your ordinary life. And one more form of prayer. We are in a time of transition at St. Peter’s. Turn to page 817 of the prayer book. I challenge you to pray daily for St. Peter’s. You can use this prayer, or any other you want to say. God doesn’t care about the words, but God does care about whether the continued life of this parish is important to you. So pray for St. Peter’s! Just do it!
Prayer is powerful. And when our prayer is united with Jesus’ prayer for all creation, it is even more powerful yet. You yourselves, this parish, and the world need our prayers. And so may we continually pray, “Into your care, O God, we place ourselves and all our prayers, trusting your promise of new life in Jesus Christ, our risen Savior.”
Prayer is powerful. Because we say the Lord’s Prayer so often, and because it links us with members of almost every other Christian community, the Lord’s Prayer has a virtually unique power to stay with us and sustain us. Although Jesus teaches his followers that form of prayer in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Scripture also has other things to teach us about prayer. This morning, as we stand on the threshold between our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, all three of our lessons teach us about the power of prayer.
Our lesson from the Book of Acts overlaps with the reading from Acts that some of us heard on Ascension Day. Our story begins with Jesus’ reminder to his disciples that they will soon experience personal transformation through the Holy Spirit. Then the disciples have an experience that convinces them that Jesus has been released from his visible, earthly existence and has returned to his life with God. Now they wonder what will happen next, and especially what Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit will mean. And so the disciples return to Jerusalem. They do the only thing they know how to do: they go back to that upper room. They join with their fellow disciples, both women and men, and they devote themselves to prayer. They take up that posture common to all Christians, really to believers of all faith communities, they wait in hope for the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled. As they wait, they pray together.
Just like the Jerusalem disciples before Pentecost, the members of the Christian community in Colossae also waited in hope for the fulfillment of the Lord’s promises. Theirs was a persecuted community, a tiny minority in a culture that considered them atheistic, subversive, and dangerous. The writer of the first letter in Peter’s name reminded these Christians that, if they were persecuted, they did not struggle alone, but that Jesus struggled with them in their trials. Consequently, whatever befell them, they were to pray together. In this way they could be assured of Jesus’ love for them: “Cast all your anxiety on him,” they were told, “because he cares for you.”
In our Gospel reading, we listen in on Jesus’ prayer at the very end of his last supper with his disciples. Jesus had instructed these chosen friends and given them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them. Then, knowing that God’s time had finally come, Jesus turned toward his Father and began to pray. As the disciples overheard Jesus’ prayer, they learned a different model of prayer from the one the disciples were taught in Matthew and Luke. Anticipating his resurrection and ascension, Jesus first prayed for himself. “Glorify your Son,” he asks of the Father, “so that the Son may glorify you…. [G]lorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” Jesus then prayed for his close friends. Again, anticipating his complete departure from the earthly, physical world that they inhabited, he prayed for their safety: “They are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me….” Finally, in the last part of the prayer, which we don’t hear here, Jesus prayed for the rest of the world, all those who would come to believe in him when his friends, filled with the Holy Spirit, carried the Good News to the ends of the earth. “I ask not only on behalf of these,” Jesus prayed, “but on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word….”
The message is clear: prayer, especially corporate, common, prayer is an integral part of life in God. Jesus prayed frequently throughout all four Gospels, Jesus taught us a model prayer, and, on his last night in his human body, Jesus prayed intently for us and for all future believers. While they waited for the promised Holy Spirit to explode on them, the disciples prayed continually together. As they endured the slights and persecutions of their fellow citizens, the Christians in Colossae leaned on their Lord and offered up to him all their cares and worries. Prayer is an integral part of life in God.
Prayer as a part of common life didn’t end with the beleaguered Christians of Colossae. Soon after Benedict of Nursia founded his holy communities amidst the chaos of sixth-century Italy, he wrote a Rule for them outlining how they were to live together. Benedict understood that his monks and nuns were not hermits. They were not cloistered, and they were not to spend their entire life on their knees. Rather, as they followed Benedict’s rule, they led a balanced life of prayer, both individual and corporate, work of about six hours a day, spiritual reading, especially study of Scripture, and fellowship around meals and recreation. Whatever they did, wherever they were, even when they were travelling, prayer formed the foundation of their lives, and prayer was woven inextricably into every aspect of their lives.
Benedict’s rule of a balanced life of prayer, study, work, and fellowship continues to be the standard for monastic communities today. Benedict’s rule also provides a model for our own life together. Leaving aside for the moment the values of study and fellowship, I want to focus here on the importance of regular prayer, both individual and corporate, for all of us – not just for those of us who wear clerical collars. You’ve probably noticed that when we worship, in our corporate prayers, either the ones we say together, or the ones that the presider prays on your behalf, there are generally four types of prayer: praise or adoration, in which we praise God for who God is or what God has done; thanksgiving, in which we thank God for all that God has done for us or given us; intercession, in which we pray for the needs of others; and confession, in which we admit to ourselves and to God the ways in which we have missed the mark. We can, and often do, use all four forms in our own personal prayer as well. In our personal prayer time we can also include some silence, in which we stop talking to God and just listen to God. Wherever we pray, and whichever forms of prayer we use, or even if we keep silent before God, prayer always has a two-fold goal. Just as Jesus did in his own earthly life, we pray to deepen our relationship with God, especially our trust in God’s love and care for us. Secondly, and perhaps more important, again following the model Jesus gave us, we pray for the life of the world, and especially that God’s reign may be brought nearer. Ultimately, the two goals converge: when we deepen our relationship with God, when we strengthen our confidence that God will fulfill God’s promises, then we see more clearly what our role is in making known to others God’s plan of salvation, the good news of God in Christ.
Jesus’, Peter’s, and Benedict’s instructions are clear: prayer is an integral part of our life as Jesus’ disciples. A balanced Christian life always includes time for prayer. No matter how busy your life is, give yourself the gift of prayer as part of your daily life. Here’s a starting place. Say grace at meals. If you’re by yourself, say it silently. Do you have two minutes in your day for prayer? Turn to page 103 in the Book of Common Prayer. Daily Noonday prayer is a wonderful way to put yourselves in God’s presence. It takes exactly two minutes to say – I guarantee it. How about five minutes at night? Turn to page 117. Compline takes five minutes. It’s a wonderful way to end the day with God. Intercede for others. Take the six suggestions for the Prayers of the People on page 383 of the prayer book. They’re perfect for organizing your personal prayer as well. Consider taking a retreat or quiet day, either one that I’ll be organizing or one available through other organizations. There’s no better way to immerse yourself in God’s love than to take an extended time with God apart from your ordinary life. And one more form of prayer. We are in a time of transition at St. Peter’s. Turn to page 817 of the prayer book. I challenge you to pray daily for St. Peter’s. You can use this prayer, or any other you want to say. God doesn’t care about the words, but God does care about whether the continued life of this parish is important to you. So pray for St. Peter’s! Just do it!
Prayer is powerful. And when our prayer is united with Jesus’ prayer for all creation, it is even more powerful yet. You yourselves, this parish, and the world need our prayers. And so may we continually pray, “Into your care, O God, we place ourselves and all our prayers, trusting your promise of new life in Jesus Christ, our risen Savior.”
Friday, June 3, 2011
What Next?
The disciples were standing on a threshold. As they looked behind them, they could see all the wonderful things that they had witnessed during their time with Jesus. His family members thought about how they had gradually come to realize just how extraordinary he really was. His friends remembered how he had persuaded them to leave their old lives behind to join his troupe. Their feet still hurt from walking all the way with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. Then there was his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and that last meal with him. Thinking of him in agony on the cross still brought tears to their eyes, even though a short three days later, he was alive and among them again. He had spent the time since being raised giving them instructions about what they were supposed to do next. Clearly, they’d misunderstood some of his instructions. When a group of them had gone with him to Bethany, they’d asked him about whether he was finally going to claim his throne, and he rebuked them. If he wasn’t going to finally kick out the Romans and rule Israel, then what was he going to do? What’s more, out there at Bethany they had an experience there was no way to describe. They understood in no uncertain terms that Jesus’ earthly life, his life in some kind of physical body, was over. They didn’t know what exactly had happened, or “where” he had gone, so when they told others about what they had experienced, they just described it in terms of the universe they knew. But what mattered was that they knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jesus was no longer confined to a visible body, that he was no longer subject to the constraints of time and space. They knew and truly believed that he had come from God, and now he had, in some sense, returned to God. And they guessed that now it wasn’t just a small band of Jews in Jerusalem who could be his followers. People everywhere could be his followers, and he would somehow be present wherever those who knew him and loved him were present. As the disciples stood on that threshold, pondering this new revelation, as they looked backward to all that had happened, and as they looked forward to life without Jesus, they wondered, “What’s coming next? Who will we be?”
My friends, don’t we often feel as if we’re standing on a threshold along with the disciples, looking back to a past we can understand, but knowing that our lives have changed, and not sure what’s coming next? Aren’t our whole lives made up of such experiences? That cuddly infant is suddenly graduating from high school. The vows we took on our joyful wedding day have melted away into a bitter divorce. Our nests are empty. What will fill our houses now? We move from one job to another, from one town to another. We loved our jobs, but now we’ve accepted early retirement. What next? We once could hike ten miles up and down a mountain or play tennis all afternoon, but now no longer. Friends move away, and loved ones die. Our own death beckons. As we look through all these doorways, over and over we wonder, what next?
Perhaps we even see ourselves on a threshold as we contemplate the church. As we look backward, we see the early church with its heroic founders and witnesses. We look longingly at the great cathedrals that towered over European cities. We celebrate those who brought the European churches to this country or founded new native denominations. And surely we look backward with fondness and longing at our parishes as they were a generation or two ago, when our churches often were multi-generational social centers. Our pews were filled on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, energy and excitement poured out of Sunday School classrooms, our youth groups were thriving, our bazaars, rummage sales, and dinners supported our ministries, and there were always plenty of people around, both men and women, to do all the work that the church needed to have done. Now as we look around us, we often see closed Sunday school rooms. All the heads in our half-filled pews are gray-headed. Our youth groups have ceded place to travelling hockey teams and middle-school sports. To make matters worse, we’re fighting with each other, within our own congregations, within our denominations, and even with members of other faith communities. We know the church is changing. As we look backwards, many of us feel as if we’ve lost something precious. Yet we know, just as surely as the disciples knew that Jesus had left them, that the church of 1964 will never come again. And so we wonder, what next?
My friends, just before the disciples began to realize that Jesus had left his earthly existence, something else happened to them out there in Bethany: they were given a promise. They were given the promise that they would receive the Holy Spirit, that Christ’s Spirit would be alive in them connecting them with both him and the Father. They were not to receive the gift of the Spirit solely so that they themselves might become more holy, but rather that they might be equipped to proclaim the good news of God in Christ all over the world. On the threshold between what was and what was to come, the disciples were promised the power that would enable them to step over the threshold into the world and begin the real work of advancing Jesus’ ministry. Not looking up to heaven, not trying to get Jesus to come back to earth, but focusing on the work they would be given to do, they returned to Jerusalem, and waited, praying with the others, for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
And so it is for us. As we stand on the thresholds of our lives we too hear Jesus’ promise. When our personal lives are in transition, we can look backward, but we can also be assured that Jesus holds, strengthens, and empowers us for whatever comes next. In this time of change and transition in the church, with the disciples, we too can claim Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. We too can fulfill our vows to him and continue to proclaim the good news of God in Christ. We too can, indeed must, claim the power given us in baptism and be Christ in the world around us.
I’d like to share with you an ancient apocryphal story. It is said that as Jesus arrived in heaven following his ascension, the angels all gathered round to welcome him back and ask about his experiences on earth. They wept over his crucifixion but exulted at his triumph over death and at his demonstration of God’s great love for humanity. Finally someone said, “So, Lord, now that you’re no longer physically there, who will continue to share the good news?”
The Lord answered, “I had eleven really close friends. Plus I had a lot of other followers, both women and men. I’ve charged them with getting the word out.”
“Oh, they must be extraordinary people, the best people you could find on earth!”
“No,” said the Lord, “They’re just average, ordinary folks. Nothing extraordinary about them.”
“But are they up to the job, Lord?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he answered.
“You can’t be sure, Lord? What if they fail? What’s your backup plan?”
Jesus answered quietly, “There is no backup plan.”1
Yes, friends, there is no backup plan. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us. Just as he did on the first Ascension Day, he continues to charge us with carrying his ministry forward. He depends on us to proclaim the good news, to teach, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and advocate for those who have no one else to advocate for them. Having left his earthly existence, he depends on us to let ourselves be filled with his Spirit and work together to bring his reign closer. Writer Ray Stedman reminds us that the Ascension presents us with an “incarnational mandate.” He tells us that, “The good news does not come by means of angels. It is not announced from heaven by loud, impersonal voices. It doesn’t even come by poring over dusty volumes from the past. In each generation, the Gospel is delivered by living, breathing men and women who speak from their own experience. Most of us seem to require models that we can follow. In the same way, God’s love must somehow become visible and personal before it is caught by others. There is a strong personal element about the Gospel which cannot be eliminated without harm.”2
We look backward. Then we step over our own thresholds, in both our personal and our church lives, perhaps with fear and uncertainty. We may not be sure what our future will look like, or where God is leading us. But if we take seriously Jesus’ promise to the disciples as he was leaving them, we can live hopefully into the future. We can trust that Jesus will fulfill his promises to us and enable us to continue to proclaim the good news and minister in his name.
1. Adapted from David Leininger, “Clouded Vision,” Tales for the Pulpit (Lima OH: CSS Publishing, 2007, 94.
2. Synthesis, June 2, 2011, 4.
My friends, don’t we often feel as if we’re standing on a threshold along with the disciples, looking back to a past we can understand, but knowing that our lives have changed, and not sure what’s coming next? Aren’t our whole lives made up of such experiences? That cuddly infant is suddenly graduating from high school. The vows we took on our joyful wedding day have melted away into a bitter divorce. Our nests are empty. What will fill our houses now? We move from one job to another, from one town to another. We loved our jobs, but now we’ve accepted early retirement. What next? We once could hike ten miles up and down a mountain or play tennis all afternoon, but now no longer. Friends move away, and loved ones die. Our own death beckons. As we look through all these doorways, over and over we wonder, what next?
Perhaps we even see ourselves on a threshold as we contemplate the church. As we look backward, we see the early church with its heroic founders and witnesses. We look longingly at the great cathedrals that towered over European cities. We celebrate those who brought the European churches to this country or founded new native denominations. And surely we look backward with fondness and longing at our parishes as they were a generation or two ago, when our churches often were multi-generational social centers. Our pews were filled on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, energy and excitement poured out of Sunday School classrooms, our youth groups were thriving, our bazaars, rummage sales, and dinners supported our ministries, and there were always plenty of people around, both men and women, to do all the work that the church needed to have done. Now as we look around us, we often see closed Sunday school rooms. All the heads in our half-filled pews are gray-headed. Our youth groups have ceded place to travelling hockey teams and middle-school sports. To make matters worse, we’re fighting with each other, within our own congregations, within our denominations, and even with members of other faith communities. We know the church is changing. As we look backwards, many of us feel as if we’ve lost something precious. Yet we know, just as surely as the disciples knew that Jesus had left them, that the church of 1964 will never come again. And so we wonder, what next?
My friends, just before the disciples began to realize that Jesus had left his earthly existence, something else happened to them out there in Bethany: they were given a promise. They were given the promise that they would receive the Holy Spirit, that Christ’s Spirit would be alive in them connecting them with both him and the Father. They were not to receive the gift of the Spirit solely so that they themselves might become more holy, but rather that they might be equipped to proclaim the good news of God in Christ all over the world. On the threshold between what was and what was to come, the disciples were promised the power that would enable them to step over the threshold into the world and begin the real work of advancing Jesus’ ministry. Not looking up to heaven, not trying to get Jesus to come back to earth, but focusing on the work they would be given to do, they returned to Jerusalem, and waited, praying with the others, for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.
And so it is for us. As we stand on the thresholds of our lives we too hear Jesus’ promise. When our personal lives are in transition, we can look backward, but we can also be assured that Jesus holds, strengthens, and empowers us for whatever comes next. In this time of change and transition in the church, with the disciples, we too can claim Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. We too can fulfill our vows to him and continue to proclaim the good news of God in Christ. We too can, indeed must, claim the power given us in baptism and be Christ in the world around us.
I’d like to share with you an ancient apocryphal story. It is said that as Jesus arrived in heaven following his ascension, the angels all gathered round to welcome him back and ask about his experiences on earth. They wept over his crucifixion but exulted at his triumph over death and at his demonstration of God’s great love for humanity. Finally someone said, “So, Lord, now that you’re no longer physically there, who will continue to share the good news?”
The Lord answered, “I had eleven really close friends. Plus I had a lot of other followers, both women and men. I’ve charged them with getting the word out.”
“Oh, they must be extraordinary people, the best people you could find on earth!”
“No,” said the Lord, “They’re just average, ordinary folks. Nothing extraordinary about them.”
“But are they up to the job, Lord?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure,” he answered.
“You can’t be sure, Lord? What if they fail? What’s your backup plan?”
Jesus answered quietly, “There is no backup plan.”1
Yes, friends, there is no backup plan. Jesus has entrusted his mission to us. Just as he did on the first Ascension Day, he continues to charge us with carrying his ministry forward. He depends on us to proclaim the good news, to teach, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, and advocate for those who have no one else to advocate for them. Having left his earthly existence, he depends on us to let ourselves be filled with his Spirit and work together to bring his reign closer. Writer Ray Stedman reminds us that the Ascension presents us with an “incarnational mandate.” He tells us that, “The good news does not come by means of angels. It is not announced from heaven by loud, impersonal voices. It doesn’t even come by poring over dusty volumes from the past. In each generation, the Gospel is delivered by living, breathing men and women who speak from their own experience. Most of us seem to require models that we can follow. In the same way, God’s love must somehow become visible and personal before it is caught by others. There is a strong personal element about the Gospel which cannot be eliminated without harm.”2
We look backward. Then we step over our own thresholds, in both our personal and our church lives, perhaps with fear and uncertainty. We may not be sure what our future will look like, or where God is leading us. But if we take seriously Jesus’ promise to the disciples as he was leaving them, we can live hopefully into the future. We can trust that Jesus will fulfill his promises to us and enable us to continue to proclaim the good news and minister in his name.
1. Adapted from David Leininger, “Clouded Vision,” Tales for the Pulpit (Lima OH: CSS Publishing, 2007, 94.
2. Synthesis, June 2, 2011, 4.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
I Will Not Leave You Orphaned
The disciples were panicking. They had thrown in their lot with Jesus, they had left their families, friends, and livelihoods back in Galilee, and they had followed Jesus all the way to Jerusalem. They’d been there with the crowds welcoming him into the city like the next David, but they quickly realized that he had no intention of asserting himself militarily and claiming David’s throne. What then? He’d gathered them in an upper room for a special dinner. A farewell dinner. But then he’d done a strange thing: he behaved as if he were a servant and persuaded the disciples to let him wash their feet. As they were eating, he announced that Judas was going to betray him. How? When? Then, after Judas had hurriedly left, he announced in that commanding voice of his, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” A little more softly he said, “Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’” The disciples froze. Jesus started to speak again, but the other disciples didn’t hear anything else until Peter blurted out, “Where are you going, Lord?” He didn’t really say. He just kept saying that they couldn’t follow him, and that they should love one another. Philip and Thomas asked him again in different ways where he was going, and he more or less said the same thing. The more he spoke, the more it became clear that he was preparing to die – and he implied that his death was part of God’s plan. The disciples froze. He did say he would send them another Advocate, the “Spirit of Truth,” but what did that mean? What on earth would the disciples do without Jesus? How would their little community survive without him?
In the midst of his speech, Jesus said something that caught them off guard. He said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” The disciples knew very well how desperate life was for orphans. Without a father – or a husband for that matter – children and women had no social place. Unless a relative adopted them or took them into their own household, orphans would most likely become beggars or even die of starvation or exposure. The same for widows, who often were forced to become servants or, worse, prostitutes. The disciples also knew their Scripture. They knew that, because orphans were so vulnerable, God had a special concern for them. Didn’t God say in Deuteronomy that he would hear the orphan’s cry if anyone abused them? Didn’t the psalmist promise that the Lord upholds the way of the orphan and widow? Didn’t all the prophets command them to take care of the orphans and widows? Yes, like orphans, that’s just how the disciples were feeling when they thought about Jesus leaving them. So would God take care of them too?
The disciples paid close attention to the next thing that Jesus said: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.” The disciples got a little glimpse of Jesus’ meaning right then and there in the upper room. After his death, resurrection and ascension, really after Pentecost, the disciples finally understood what he had been saying that night. That night Jesus consoled the disciples by making them a promise. He promised them that he himself would dwell amongst them, in the midst of those truly committed to him, in the community he was birthing there among them. He was already looking beyond his own death towards his ascension and towards Pentecost. And so he promised the disciples that through the power of the Holy Spirit, who would come into their hearts, they would have a second Advocate, i.e., another Advocate besides himself. They would have God’s Spirit, who would enable them to participate in Jesus’ God-given life. Just like Jesus, they too would now be sent into the world, they would be empowered to be Jesus in the world, and they would be able to continue his ministry.
The disciples knew well what Jesus’ ministry had been. Hadn’t they watched what he did as they travelled with him? Hadn’t they seen him heal all those people, take care of widows and orphans, calm the storms, drive out demons, feed people, make peace, and call people to join with him in bringing in God’s Reign? They knew what he was talking about when he commanded them to “love one another as I have loved you.” They’d seen him demonstrate that love in the world. And they realized that with the Holy Spirit in them they would be called and empowered to do everything that Jesus did – including reaching out to those who felt orphaned and abandoned themselves.
My friends, are we too sharing some of the disciples’ panic? Do you feel a little like orphans here in this place? We might wonder, has God abandoned us? Does the diocese care about us? Does anyone in this community care about us? Do even some of our former members care about whether St. Peter’s survives or not? What’s going to happen next? Hear again Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We may feel cut off, we may feel as if scarcely anyone cares about us. But the good news is that God loves us in Jesus! God asks us to trust him, and God is always present with us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is at work in and through us, even when we don’t recognize the Spirit’s power. We may feel lonely and cut off, but we have Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We have not been abandoned! We can trust that God will show us what our ministry in this place can be, and how we are to continue to be Jesus in the world – in new and different ways from the ones that worked for earlier generations in this parish. We can trust that that second Advocate will also empower us all to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and be good stewards of our environment. And if we know a little of the feeling of possible abandonment, perhaps we too can reach out to care for the orphans and widows among us.
I want to tell you a story, a story that’s particularly appropriate for this Memorial Day weekend. I want to tell you about three people living in Bangor, Maine, people who would have understood the disciples’ panic, who themselves might have felt orphaned, but who reached out to others anyway. Jerry’s beloved dog was dying, and he was battling a heart condition. Joan was none too steady on her feet and worried about slipping on the ice in her driveway, which in central Maine is possible for at least half the year. She also worried about her granddaughter who was deploying to Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot. Bill was drowning in debt, was trying to get his old farmhouse cleaned up for sale, and was being treated for prostate cancer. Bangor, their home town, is a small city four hours north of Boston and close to the Canadian border. It once boasted a Strategic Air Command base, so it has a huge airport, one big enough to land jumbo jets from overseas. Consequently, since 2003 it has been the first domestic airport for troops arriving home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Jerry, Joan, and Bill might have felt like orphans themselves – or given in to understandable self-pity. Instead, they realized that soldiers far from home and family might also feel like orphans. Empowered by the Spirit, Jerry, Joan, and Bill banded together with about a dozen other retirees to meet every troop plane landing in Bangor. Many arrive in the middle of the night. No matter. When they get the word, Joan starts the telephone tree, and they all converge on the airport – at any time of day or night. They applaud the returning troops as they exit the jetway, they shake their hands or hug them, thanking them for their service, and they direct them towards the room where snacks and free cell phones are available for calls to loved ones. They show returning soldiers where pictures of fallen comrades are posted, and they keep them company as they wait for connecting flights. Since the operation began, the Bangor seniors have welcomed over 750,000 weary soldiers back to the United States. Unquestionably, Jerry, Joan, Bill, and the others provide us with poignant examples of the Spirit at work through us, of ordinary folks sharing God’s grace with strangers.1
The Spirit is ready to empower us here. If we believe that God brought this Christian community into being, then we also have to trust in Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We must trust that the Spirit will continue to empower us. Just as the folks in Bangor realized, there are orphans and widows, single mothers, and disabled people, hungry and lonely people, who call out to us to share God’s grace with them. When we commit ourselves wholly to Jesus, the Spirit will empower us. I believe that with all my heart!
1. The story of the Bangor Airport welcome operation is told in the documentary film The Way We Get By. Information about the film is available at http://www.thewaywegetbymovie.com/ . The film is also available on Hulu.
In the midst of his speech, Jesus said something that caught them off guard. He said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” The disciples knew very well how desperate life was for orphans. Without a father – or a husband for that matter – children and women had no social place. Unless a relative adopted them or took them into their own household, orphans would most likely become beggars or even die of starvation or exposure. The same for widows, who often were forced to become servants or, worse, prostitutes. The disciples also knew their Scripture. They knew that, because orphans were so vulnerable, God had a special concern for them. Didn’t God say in Deuteronomy that he would hear the orphan’s cry if anyone abused them? Didn’t the psalmist promise that the Lord upholds the way of the orphan and widow? Didn’t all the prophets command them to take care of the orphans and widows? Yes, like orphans, that’s just how the disciples were feeling when they thought about Jesus leaving them. So would God take care of them too?
The disciples paid close attention to the next thing that Jesus said: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.” The disciples got a little glimpse of Jesus’ meaning right then and there in the upper room. After his death, resurrection and ascension, really after Pentecost, the disciples finally understood what he had been saying that night. That night Jesus consoled the disciples by making them a promise. He promised them that he himself would dwell amongst them, in the midst of those truly committed to him, in the community he was birthing there among them. He was already looking beyond his own death towards his ascension and towards Pentecost. And so he promised the disciples that through the power of the Holy Spirit, who would come into their hearts, they would have a second Advocate, i.e., another Advocate besides himself. They would have God’s Spirit, who would enable them to participate in Jesus’ God-given life. Just like Jesus, they too would now be sent into the world, they would be empowered to be Jesus in the world, and they would be able to continue his ministry.
The disciples knew well what Jesus’ ministry had been. Hadn’t they watched what he did as they travelled with him? Hadn’t they seen him heal all those people, take care of widows and orphans, calm the storms, drive out demons, feed people, make peace, and call people to join with him in bringing in God’s Reign? They knew what he was talking about when he commanded them to “love one another as I have loved you.” They’d seen him demonstrate that love in the world. And they realized that with the Holy Spirit in them they would be called and empowered to do everything that Jesus did – including reaching out to those who felt orphaned and abandoned themselves.
My friends, are we too sharing some of the disciples’ panic? Do you feel a little like orphans here in this place? We might wonder, has God abandoned us? Does the diocese care about us? Does anyone in this community care about us? Do even some of our former members care about whether St. Peter’s survives or not? What’s going to happen next? Hear again Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We may feel cut off, we may feel as if scarcely anyone cares about us. But the good news is that God loves us in Jesus! God asks us to trust him, and God is always present with us through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is at work in and through us, even when we don’t recognize the Spirit’s power. We may feel lonely and cut off, but we have Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We have not been abandoned! We can trust that God will show us what our ministry in this place can be, and how we are to continue to be Jesus in the world – in new and different ways from the ones that worked for earlier generations in this parish. We can trust that that second Advocate will also empower us all to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and be good stewards of our environment. And if we know a little of the feeling of possible abandonment, perhaps we too can reach out to care for the orphans and widows among us.
I want to tell you a story, a story that’s particularly appropriate for this Memorial Day weekend. I want to tell you about three people living in Bangor, Maine, people who would have understood the disciples’ panic, who themselves might have felt orphaned, but who reached out to others anyway. Jerry’s beloved dog was dying, and he was battling a heart condition. Joan was none too steady on her feet and worried about slipping on the ice in her driveway, which in central Maine is possible for at least half the year. She also worried about her granddaughter who was deploying to Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot. Bill was drowning in debt, was trying to get his old farmhouse cleaned up for sale, and was being treated for prostate cancer. Bangor, their home town, is a small city four hours north of Boston and close to the Canadian border. It once boasted a Strategic Air Command base, so it has a huge airport, one big enough to land jumbo jets from overseas. Consequently, since 2003 it has been the first domestic airport for troops arriving home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Jerry, Joan, and Bill might have felt like orphans themselves – or given in to understandable self-pity. Instead, they realized that soldiers far from home and family might also feel like orphans. Empowered by the Spirit, Jerry, Joan, and Bill banded together with about a dozen other retirees to meet every troop plane landing in Bangor. Many arrive in the middle of the night. No matter. When they get the word, Joan starts the telephone tree, and they all converge on the airport – at any time of day or night. They applaud the returning troops as they exit the jetway, they shake their hands or hug them, thanking them for their service, and they direct them towards the room where snacks and free cell phones are available for calls to loved ones. They show returning soldiers where pictures of fallen comrades are posted, and they keep them company as they wait for connecting flights. Since the operation began, the Bangor seniors have welcomed over 750,000 weary soldiers back to the United States. Unquestionably, Jerry, Joan, Bill, and the others provide us with poignant examples of the Spirit at work through us, of ordinary folks sharing God’s grace with strangers.1
The Spirit is ready to empower us here. If we believe that God brought this Christian community into being, then we also have to trust in Jesus’ promise: “I will not leave you orphaned.” We must trust that the Spirit will continue to empower us. Just as the folks in Bangor realized, there are orphans and widows, single mothers, and disabled people, hungry and lonely people, who call out to us to share God’s grace with them. When we commit ourselves wholly to Jesus, the Spirit will empower us. I believe that with all my heart!
1. The story of the Bangor Airport welcome operation is told in the documentary film The Way We Get By. Information about the film is available at http://www.thewaywegetbymovie.com/ . The film is also available on Hulu.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Like Living Stones
There were days when Lydia wondered why she had ever become a Christian. Not that she doubted the truth of the new Way. Even though Christians were such a small minority in first-century Cappadocia, she felt as deeply in her heart as ever that Jesus was truly God’s son and her Lord. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he had lived and died and risen again, for her and for all people, and that he would eventually come back to rule over everyone. It was just that it was so hard being a Christian! Even though her father was liberal and enlightened, he was dead set against Christians. He said they were anti-social and subversive. In fact, he even thought they were dangerous atheists, and that they would call down on the whole state of Cappadocia the wrath of all the gods, because they refused to worship the old gods. Even her fiancé was beginning to wonder about her. He said he loved her, but he too wasn’t sure he wanted his wife to be a Christian. He certainly didn’t want to become one himself – it would ruin his business! Her women friends kept telling her that really getting baptized and becoming a Christian was just something silly she had done when she was younger. Wouldn’t it make more sense to worship her husband’s gods? Some of the others in her Christian cell clearly understood how she felt – they were Greek business people like her family. Most of the others were either working class or some other ethnicity. There were even a few Jews and a few slaves. In their own way, she guessed, all of them encountered the same negative reactions from others that she did. Being a Christian did not make you popular! Had she really done the right thing to go against the wishes of her family and friends to follow Jesus? And then one night, after they had shared the Lord’s Supper, one the elders read a letter….
Fast forward to 2011. There are days when George wonders why he ever let herself be baptized and confirmed. Not that he’s having a crisis of faith. Not at all. He freely accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he promised to follow him, and he fully believes and tries hard to understand everything that the church teaches. He fully intends to keep all his promises to pray and worship and serve others. It’s just that it’s so hard being a Christian. His family doesn’t understand at all why he joined the church. His parents never went to church – they couldn’t care less about any religion. His fiancée and most of his friends think church is just plain silly: who can believe all that mumbo-jumbo about a Father God and his divine Son? Salvation? From what? Life is good. Bread and wine becoming someone’s body and blood? Yuck! And taking care of the poor? Let the poor take care of themselves – if they just weren’t so lazy they’d all be fine. After he and his friends have been out late on Saturday evening, George has to push himself out of bed to get to even a late service at church. Really, everyone says, just stay home, read the paper, and enjoy your coffee. Of course, all the shops are open on Sundays, along with the theaters, restaurants, bars, and sports events. Even if he wants to go to adult education on Wednesday evening, there’s always some conflict: either his boss wants to him to work late, or his family or friends pull him away for something. Prayer? When does he have time for that? And then, one Sunday morning, when he finally did manage to get to church, the lay reader read a letter….
What Lydia in Cappadocia heard the elder of her house church read was a letter written by someone close to Peter, the leader called by Jesus to be the rock upon which the church would be built. The letter had a lot of good things in it about Jesus. At the end there was lots of advice about how to live properly as a Christian. Lydia wasn’t sure she understood it all. But one part really stuck with her. It was the part about how they were all like “living stones,” and that they should let God build them into a spiritual house, so that they could be a holy priesthood. What were “living stones,” she wondered? As if he’d read her mind, the elder began by reminding everyone of stones in the Bible: how Jacob had used a stone for a pillow when he was running from Esau; how Joshua had made the twelve tribes carry stones from the Jordan to the Promised Land, to remind them of God’s covenant with them; and how John the Baptist had said that God could turn stones into children of Abraham if God had to. Now here they were, stones in a way, people whom others despised, people who had neither a Jewish nor a pagan temple in which to worship, but people who were nonetheless being built into a holy temple in which Jesus would dwell. Maybe it didn’t matter if they were educated or not, if they were the right ethnicity or not, if they were women or men, or even if they were free or not. They were all part of each other, they were all necessary for each other, and together they were letting God make a new, unique, wonderful community out of them. They were letting God make a holy priesthood out of them, who would serve each other and the rest of the world in Christ’s name. They would be a new holy people whom God had mercifully and bountifully blessed. At last, Lydia understood why she was sitting there, and her heart was filled with joy.
Sitting in church that Sunday morning, George heard the lay reader read the same part of Peter’s letter that had so struck Lydia. And George too had a revelation. He realized that, even if he were no longer living in the age of the great cathedrals, even if the day when everyone went to church – either out of social obligation or real conviction – were long past, even if the world around him and everyone he knew thought going to church was totally unnecessary, he realized that the people of St. Monica’s, his church community, were also living stones. They too had been called by God to let themselves be built into a spiritual house and a royal priesthood, to serve the world, even if the world didn’t know or care about their service. He realized that the city’s movers and shakers no longer found it necessary to be part of the church. Instead they had a couple of women wearing clothing from some give-away, they had people who passed the peace to each other, even though they were still struggling to forgive each other for some ancient wrong. There was a crying baby who kept interrupting the priest. And, miracle of miracles, there were even a few bored teenagers, who were probably texting their friends when they thought their parents weren’t looking. But they were all there, they were strong and solid and growing spiritually, they were all sharing God’s love, they were all being nourished by Word and Sacrament, they had all been honored and blessed by God, and they had all put themselves into God’s hands, to be fashioned together into a community radiating the love of Christ in the world.
My friends, we are living in George’s world. St. Peter’s is struggling to survive in the same world as that of St. Monica’s. In Gallipolis, people have no earthly reason to come through our red doors on Sunday morning – or Tuesday evening for that matter – and every good reason to relax at home or go out and do their shopping. Perhaps some even see this community and this sanctuary as a white elephant, a holdover from the era of buggy whips and high-button shoes. Our numbers have decreased, and sometimes we wonder whether the pews will ever again be filled for anything other than a wedding or a funeral. We wonder where the dollars will come from to keep the lights on. We know that 1964 will never come again, but we don’t know what’s coming next. We know that we need to change in order to grow again, but we’re not sure how to do that. Where’s the good news?
My sisters and brothers, here’s the good news. This community was called into being by Jesus, and Jesus, the same Jesus who promised to be with us until the end of time, will help rebuild it – if we let him. “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,” the letter writer exhorts us. Let yourselves, cooperate with God, put aside old conflicts, let go of old cliques, take advantage of the opportunities for growth and change that God gives you, let new leaders arise, and then God will fulfill God’s promises. God will remake us into a holy priesthood, a community that witnesses to Jesus’ power to forgive us, heal us, and send us out to serve others. I don’t know if the Common Ministry project, to which we have been invited to apply, is the vehicle through which God wants to work with us. But I do know that, at long last lay people are called to share their gifts and talents with their church communities, to help build up the church in this place. You know, we’re talking these days about bi-vocational priests, priests who are part-time clergy and have either a secular vocation or another source of income. Lay people too are called to be bi-vocational. All of you have used your gifts in your families, work places, and secular volunteer communities. Now God is calling you to claim your baptismal ministries and use the gifts the Spirit has given you to rebuild the church in this community and make disciples for Christ.
God has called a new community into being here, a community of people alive in Jesus. I pray that we are willing to be living stones for Jesus. I pray that we are willing to let ourselves be rebuilt into a new spiritual house.
Fast forward to 2011. There are days when George wonders why he ever let herself be baptized and confirmed. Not that he’s having a crisis of faith. Not at all. He freely accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he promised to follow him, and he fully believes and tries hard to understand everything that the church teaches. He fully intends to keep all his promises to pray and worship and serve others. It’s just that it’s so hard being a Christian. His family doesn’t understand at all why he joined the church. His parents never went to church – they couldn’t care less about any religion. His fiancée and most of his friends think church is just plain silly: who can believe all that mumbo-jumbo about a Father God and his divine Son? Salvation? From what? Life is good. Bread and wine becoming someone’s body and blood? Yuck! And taking care of the poor? Let the poor take care of themselves – if they just weren’t so lazy they’d all be fine. After he and his friends have been out late on Saturday evening, George has to push himself out of bed to get to even a late service at church. Really, everyone says, just stay home, read the paper, and enjoy your coffee. Of course, all the shops are open on Sundays, along with the theaters, restaurants, bars, and sports events. Even if he wants to go to adult education on Wednesday evening, there’s always some conflict: either his boss wants to him to work late, or his family or friends pull him away for something. Prayer? When does he have time for that? And then, one Sunday morning, when he finally did manage to get to church, the lay reader read a letter….
What Lydia in Cappadocia heard the elder of her house church read was a letter written by someone close to Peter, the leader called by Jesus to be the rock upon which the church would be built. The letter had a lot of good things in it about Jesus. At the end there was lots of advice about how to live properly as a Christian. Lydia wasn’t sure she understood it all. But one part really stuck with her. It was the part about how they were all like “living stones,” and that they should let God build them into a spiritual house, so that they could be a holy priesthood. What were “living stones,” she wondered? As if he’d read her mind, the elder began by reminding everyone of stones in the Bible: how Jacob had used a stone for a pillow when he was running from Esau; how Joshua had made the twelve tribes carry stones from the Jordan to the Promised Land, to remind them of God’s covenant with them; and how John the Baptist had said that God could turn stones into children of Abraham if God had to. Now here they were, stones in a way, people whom others despised, people who had neither a Jewish nor a pagan temple in which to worship, but people who were nonetheless being built into a holy temple in which Jesus would dwell. Maybe it didn’t matter if they were educated or not, if they were the right ethnicity or not, if they were women or men, or even if they were free or not. They were all part of each other, they were all necessary for each other, and together they were letting God make a new, unique, wonderful community out of them. They were letting God make a holy priesthood out of them, who would serve each other and the rest of the world in Christ’s name. They would be a new holy people whom God had mercifully and bountifully blessed. At last, Lydia understood why she was sitting there, and her heart was filled with joy.
Sitting in church that Sunday morning, George heard the lay reader read the same part of Peter’s letter that had so struck Lydia. And George too had a revelation. He realized that, even if he were no longer living in the age of the great cathedrals, even if the day when everyone went to church – either out of social obligation or real conviction – were long past, even if the world around him and everyone he knew thought going to church was totally unnecessary, he realized that the people of St. Monica’s, his church community, were also living stones. They too had been called by God to let themselves be built into a spiritual house and a royal priesthood, to serve the world, even if the world didn’t know or care about their service. He realized that the city’s movers and shakers no longer found it necessary to be part of the church. Instead they had a couple of women wearing clothing from some give-away, they had people who passed the peace to each other, even though they were still struggling to forgive each other for some ancient wrong. There was a crying baby who kept interrupting the priest. And, miracle of miracles, there were even a few bored teenagers, who were probably texting their friends when they thought their parents weren’t looking. But they were all there, they were strong and solid and growing spiritually, they were all sharing God’s love, they were all being nourished by Word and Sacrament, they had all been honored and blessed by God, and they had all put themselves into God’s hands, to be fashioned together into a community radiating the love of Christ in the world.
My friends, we are living in George’s world. St. Peter’s is struggling to survive in the same world as that of St. Monica’s. In Gallipolis, people have no earthly reason to come through our red doors on Sunday morning – or Tuesday evening for that matter – and every good reason to relax at home or go out and do their shopping. Perhaps some even see this community and this sanctuary as a white elephant, a holdover from the era of buggy whips and high-button shoes. Our numbers have decreased, and sometimes we wonder whether the pews will ever again be filled for anything other than a wedding or a funeral. We wonder where the dollars will come from to keep the lights on. We know that 1964 will never come again, but we don’t know what’s coming next. We know that we need to change in order to grow again, but we’re not sure how to do that. Where’s the good news?
My sisters and brothers, here’s the good news. This community was called into being by Jesus, and Jesus, the same Jesus who promised to be with us until the end of time, will help rebuild it – if we let him. “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,” the letter writer exhorts us. Let yourselves, cooperate with God, put aside old conflicts, let go of old cliques, take advantage of the opportunities for growth and change that God gives you, let new leaders arise, and then God will fulfill God’s promises. God will remake us into a holy priesthood, a community that witnesses to Jesus’ power to forgive us, heal us, and send us out to serve others. I don’t know if the Common Ministry project, to which we have been invited to apply, is the vehicle through which God wants to work with us. But I do know that, at long last lay people are called to share their gifts and talents with their church communities, to help build up the church in this place. You know, we’re talking these days about bi-vocational priests, priests who are part-time clergy and have either a secular vocation or another source of income. Lay people too are called to be bi-vocational. All of you have used your gifts in your families, work places, and secular volunteer communities. Now God is calling you to claim your baptismal ministries and use the gifts the Spirit has given you to rebuild the church in this community and make disciples for Christ.
God has called a new community into being here, a community of people alive in Jesus. I pray that we are willing to be living stones for Jesus. I pray that we are willing to let ourselves be rebuilt into a new spiritual house.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
I am the Door
This Gospel passage disturbs me. I don’t like its binary oppositions between those who enter the sheepfold legitimately and those who don’t, between bandits and shepherds, between strangers and trusted leaders. I don’t like its implied anti-Semitism. Make no mistake that note is very much there. Remember that John’s Gospel was the last to be written, most likely in the early ‘90s. It was written for a community already in conflict with the Jewish religious leaders, and it consistently presents them in a very negative light. As part of its approach this Gospel describes miracles, then follows those miracles with portrayals of conflict and then a speech from Jesus. In the speech Jesus explains what he has done, and makes an “I am” statement. That is exactly what we have here, except that we have just a small part of the whole story. What we heard this morning follows directly on the healing of the man born blind. Do you remember that story? We heard it early last month, on the fourth Sunday in Lent. In it we saw clearly the unwillingness of the religious leaders to accept the healing of the blind man and Jesus’ condemnation of their spiritual blindness. Our Gospel passage follows immediately on that condemnation and is addressed to the same religious leaders. For some reason, our lectionary spreads Jesus’ speech over three years. This year, Year A, we hear the first ten verses. Next year, Year B, we hear Jesus identify himself as the Good Shepherd. Finally in Year C, we hear the last part of Jesus’ speech, after which we move on to the last miracle in this Gospel, the raising of Lazarus, which we heard last month on the fifth Sunday in Lent.
So this Sunday we’re at the beginning of Jesus’ commentary for the religious leaders on his healing of the blind man. The Gospel has him begin his commentary with an image that implicitly contrasts their leadership with his. Not surprisingly, they do not understand the image. So, as you heard, Jesus shifts to another image, that of the gate, or more accurately, door. He tells them, “Amen, amen, I tell you, I AM the door for the sheep.” Why is that I AM important? Remember that God’s name, as we learned in the Old Testament, is I AM. Every time Jesus makes an I AM statement in John’s Gospel, the Gospel writer is reminding us that Jesus is divine. So when readers of the Gospel and we hear that I AM statement, here I AM the door for the sheep, they and we are reminded again that Jesus has been sent by God, that Jesus is the Word become flesh, and that everything Jesus does flows from his relationship with God.
Now that’s maybe more narrative analysis of the Gospel than you bargained for on a Sunday morning. So shift gears with me, and let’s meditate a little on that image of the door. “I am the door for the sheep,” Jesus tells us. Doors are an interesting image, aren’t they? You can imagine this gate or door at the entrance to a pen, either a pen attached to a house or barn, as they were in ancient times, or a pen that’s free-standing. Gates or doors swing in both directions, don’t they? They let animals and people in to a place where they can find safety and security. They also let animals and people out to wider pastures where they can find plenty of good food and the freedom to roam.
Does that spark any associations? As I look around this place, I see a door – a red door – that also swings both ways. Is this place anything like that sheepfold? We come in through the red door perhaps seeking safety and security, at the very least reassurance that God loves us. Once here, we are gifted with Jesus himself, present to us in Word and Sacrament. Restored, healed, and nourished, we are sent back out through the red door, out into the life of the world. In and out, in and out, we go, just like those sheep in Jesus’ image. Actually, our life of discipleship is one of a series of alternations, of cycling in and out. We come and go in our weekly cycle of worship in this place, followed by work for God’s kingdom in the world. We also come and go in a yearly, seasonal cycle. Our church year begins with the solemn watching and waiting of Advent, moves to the joyous celebration of Christmas and Epiphany, plunges us into the austerity of Lent, then gives of fifty days of Easter joy, and finally allows us to grow and flourish through the season of Pentecost until we reach Advent again. In our personal lives, we cycle between work and home, between work and leisure. In our spiritual lives, we may cycle between periods of boredom and excitement or of certainty and doubt. We cycle between contemplation and action, letting our resting in Jesus empower us for going out into the world in his name, and returning to him in prayer before going out again. Ultimately, it is our connection with Jesus that gives all our cycles meaning and life. Our incorporation into the Body of Christ through baptism is what enables us to lead a holy life. “I am the door,” Jesus assures us. All of our spiritual practices, our devotion, our worship, our good works, are helpful in drawing us closer to Jesus, but it is our relationship with him that enables us to participate in the abundant life that he has promised us. No matter our understanding of theology, our preference for certain liturgies, our insistence on certain moral stances, or our devotion to certain religious practices, we have Jesus’ promise: when we come and go through him, we will have life abundantly.
Now notice one more thing about this Jesus-door. It is wide enough and it stays open long enough that an entire flock goes through it. The Gospel reminds us yet again that Christian life is a corporate experience. We are not in this as atoms. We go in and out as part of a flock. Now you might not like being compared to sheep. Sheep have a reputation for being stupid and blindly following one another. However, sheep are highly social animals, which is why they flock tightly together. But that’s the point of the sheep image: we too are highly social animals who flock together. The Christian life is a corporate life: we live and grow in it together, through our worship, our study, and our service in mission. We understand ourselves to be inter-connected, to be part of a group in which all members are beloved. And no surprise that John’s Gospel gives us here the image of a flock for a Christian community. The importance of community is a continuing motif in this Gospel, and here and elsewhere we are reminded that together we are bonded to Jesus in an indissoluble bond.
We are now at a time in the life of St. Peter’s when we have to think hard about community, about whether this parish will survive as a Christian community, and how it can become a stronger community. St. Peter’s has been invited to apply to be one of six parishes participating in the Common Ministry formation program of our diocese. The program will help us to explore our gifts, assets, and community needs so as to better discern the ministry or ministries to which God is calling us. It will strengthen us for engaging in those ministries. It will also help us to develop clearer goals as a congregation. It will enable us to see better where we fit in the diocesan mission. What is most important, the training offered by the Common Ministry program will help us identify lay leaders, form ministry teams, and develop clear expectations for them. Karl Ruttan, our canon for life formation, will be meeting with the Vestry this Tuesday evening to tell us more about the Common Ministry program. About a dozen or so parishes have been invited to apply, so there is no guarantee that we will be accepted for the program. However, if we do participate, we will have to make several commitments. We will have to commit ourselves to the survival and strengthening of St. Peter’s. We will have to put aside our factions, conflicts, pet peeves, and preferences, and put the good of the whole parish first. We will be asked to take our membership in the flock seriously and intentionally, and do everything that we can do, with our resources of money, time, and talents, to work for the well-being of St. Peter’s. Most important, we will be asked to commit ourselves more deeply to strengthening our relationship with Jesus, to going in and out with him, through worship, prayer, study, and mission.
I pray that this flock will continue to survive and grow in this place. I pray that the Holy Spirit will give us all that we need to come and go in Jesus. Most especially, I pray that we will always remain bonded with Jesus, as we come in to be nourished by him at the altar, and as we go out to partner with him in the bringing in of his gracious reign.
So this Sunday we’re at the beginning of Jesus’ commentary for the religious leaders on his healing of the blind man. The Gospel has him begin his commentary with an image that implicitly contrasts their leadership with his. Not surprisingly, they do not understand the image. So, as you heard, Jesus shifts to another image, that of the gate, or more accurately, door. He tells them, “Amen, amen, I tell you, I AM the door for the sheep.” Why is that I AM important? Remember that God’s name, as we learned in the Old Testament, is I AM. Every time Jesus makes an I AM statement in John’s Gospel, the Gospel writer is reminding us that Jesus is divine. So when readers of the Gospel and we hear that I AM statement, here I AM the door for the sheep, they and we are reminded again that Jesus has been sent by God, that Jesus is the Word become flesh, and that everything Jesus does flows from his relationship with God.
Now that’s maybe more narrative analysis of the Gospel than you bargained for on a Sunday morning. So shift gears with me, and let’s meditate a little on that image of the door. “I am the door for the sheep,” Jesus tells us. Doors are an interesting image, aren’t they? You can imagine this gate or door at the entrance to a pen, either a pen attached to a house or barn, as they were in ancient times, or a pen that’s free-standing. Gates or doors swing in both directions, don’t they? They let animals and people in to a place where they can find safety and security. They also let animals and people out to wider pastures where they can find plenty of good food and the freedom to roam.
Does that spark any associations? As I look around this place, I see a door – a red door – that also swings both ways. Is this place anything like that sheepfold? We come in through the red door perhaps seeking safety and security, at the very least reassurance that God loves us. Once here, we are gifted with Jesus himself, present to us in Word and Sacrament. Restored, healed, and nourished, we are sent back out through the red door, out into the life of the world. In and out, in and out, we go, just like those sheep in Jesus’ image. Actually, our life of discipleship is one of a series of alternations, of cycling in and out. We come and go in our weekly cycle of worship in this place, followed by work for God’s kingdom in the world. We also come and go in a yearly, seasonal cycle. Our church year begins with the solemn watching and waiting of Advent, moves to the joyous celebration of Christmas and Epiphany, plunges us into the austerity of Lent, then gives of fifty days of Easter joy, and finally allows us to grow and flourish through the season of Pentecost until we reach Advent again. In our personal lives, we cycle between work and home, between work and leisure. In our spiritual lives, we may cycle between periods of boredom and excitement or of certainty and doubt. We cycle between contemplation and action, letting our resting in Jesus empower us for going out into the world in his name, and returning to him in prayer before going out again. Ultimately, it is our connection with Jesus that gives all our cycles meaning and life. Our incorporation into the Body of Christ through baptism is what enables us to lead a holy life. “I am the door,” Jesus assures us. All of our spiritual practices, our devotion, our worship, our good works, are helpful in drawing us closer to Jesus, but it is our relationship with him that enables us to participate in the abundant life that he has promised us. No matter our understanding of theology, our preference for certain liturgies, our insistence on certain moral stances, or our devotion to certain religious practices, we have Jesus’ promise: when we come and go through him, we will have life abundantly.
Now notice one more thing about this Jesus-door. It is wide enough and it stays open long enough that an entire flock goes through it. The Gospel reminds us yet again that Christian life is a corporate experience. We are not in this as atoms. We go in and out as part of a flock. Now you might not like being compared to sheep. Sheep have a reputation for being stupid and blindly following one another. However, sheep are highly social animals, which is why they flock tightly together. But that’s the point of the sheep image: we too are highly social animals who flock together. The Christian life is a corporate life: we live and grow in it together, through our worship, our study, and our service in mission. We understand ourselves to be inter-connected, to be part of a group in which all members are beloved. And no surprise that John’s Gospel gives us here the image of a flock for a Christian community. The importance of community is a continuing motif in this Gospel, and here and elsewhere we are reminded that together we are bonded to Jesus in an indissoluble bond.
We are now at a time in the life of St. Peter’s when we have to think hard about community, about whether this parish will survive as a Christian community, and how it can become a stronger community. St. Peter’s has been invited to apply to be one of six parishes participating in the Common Ministry formation program of our diocese. The program will help us to explore our gifts, assets, and community needs so as to better discern the ministry or ministries to which God is calling us. It will strengthen us for engaging in those ministries. It will also help us to develop clearer goals as a congregation. It will enable us to see better where we fit in the diocesan mission. What is most important, the training offered by the Common Ministry program will help us identify lay leaders, form ministry teams, and develop clear expectations for them. Karl Ruttan, our canon for life formation, will be meeting with the Vestry this Tuesday evening to tell us more about the Common Ministry program. About a dozen or so parishes have been invited to apply, so there is no guarantee that we will be accepted for the program. However, if we do participate, we will have to make several commitments. We will have to commit ourselves to the survival and strengthening of St. Peter’s. We will have to put aside our factions, conflicts, pet peeves, and preferences, and put the good of the whole parish first. We will be asked to take our membership in the flock seriously and intentionally, and do everything that we can do, with our resources of money, time, and talents, to work for the well-being of St. Peter’s. Most important, we will be asked to commit ourselves more deeply to strengthening our relationship with Jesus, to going in and out with him, through worship, prayer, study, and mission.
I pray that this flock will continue to survive and grow in this place. I pray that the Holy Spirit will give us all that we need to come and go in Jesus. Most especially, I pray that we will always remain bonded with Jesus, as we come in to be nourished by him at the altar, and as we go out to partner with him in the bringing in of his gracious reign.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)