“O praise ye the Lord! Praise him upon earth, in tuneful accord, all ye of new birth; praise him who hath brought you his grace from above, praise him who hath taught you to sing of his love.” What a wonderful hymn! In singing it, and in saying Psalm 148, on which it is based, we’ve now heard twice the gracious invitation to use all our voices and our musical instruments to join with the heavenly hosts in praising God. Praise God! Shout it with me, “Praise God, Praise God!”
Did shouting, “Praise God,” feel odd? Do you wonder why we should praise God? Do you wonder why God needs our praise? God doesn’t need our praise, but we need to praise God! We need to praise God, because doing so helps us to focus on God and to remember all the ways in which God has been active in our lives, in our communities, and in creation. Do you want a simple but effective spiritual discipline? At the end of the day, take a few minutes to praise God for all the good things that God has given you during the day. Use Psalm 148 or Canticle 12 in the Book of Common Prayer. Praising God is also a way of thanking God for creating us, for enabling us to be co-creators with God, and for sustaining us through the many ups and downs of our lives. And isn’t praise of God also a form of evangelism? As we praise God for what God has done in our lives, we also encourage other people to see the signs of God’s redemptive presence in their own lives. So, “Praise God!”
Are we the only ones invited to praise God? Our psalm makes it plain that all creation is invited to join in the mighty chorus of praise. All the angels, all the heavenly bodies, and all the manifestations of weather – fire and hail, snow and fog, storms – all are invited to praise God. All earthly creatures, sea creatures, mountains, hills, trees, wild and domestic animals, insects, and birds, all join in praise of their creator. We too join that chorus of praise. All of us: royalty and commoners, young and old, male and female, all of us together can praise God from the depths of our being.
We can shout our praise, as we just did, but how, you might wonder, does the rest of creation praise God? Can animals praise God? Certainly they can. They do so chiefly by being themselves, by living out their lives as they were created to be. Can rocks and trees and stars praise God? Certainly they do, if we would but let them praise God and then listen to their chorus of praise. Perhaps you’ve heard the echoes of this chorus of praise in a beautiful natural scene. When you walk into the mountains, or gaze up into a star-studded sky, glimpse a crystal-blue lake, hear the roaring of ocean waves, or see the myriad points of light bouncing off a snow-covered slope, don’t you slow down? Don’t you look and listen more attentively? Don’t you fell yourself in a “thin place,” a place where God seems especially present? Don’t you stand in silence, in awe, and offer your praise to God for what God has created?
How many of you walk for exercise? The next time you do, take God with you! As you see the lovely trees in flower and leaf at this time of year, as you hear the returning birds, and feel the warm sun on your head, offer your own praises to God. Then join in creation’s thanksgiving for God’s greatness. Let Mary Oliver’s poem, “When I Am Among the Trees,” echo in your head:
When I am among the trees, When I Am Among the Trees
When I am among the trees,
Especially the willows and the honey locust,
Equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
They give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
In which I have goodness, and discernment,
And never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
And call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
It is simple. But increasingly, creation is unable to praise God, unable to invite us into the joyful chorus. Increasingly, creation groans in agony. Our creeks are filled with acid mine drainage from abandoned mines. We’re destroying our mountain tops and pouring toxic chemicals into our wells and waterways. Do you want to hear a true story of what we have done to God’s good creation? Read a book called Toms River. It tells in horrifying detail how Union Carbide and the chemical company Ciba-Geigy dumped tons of toxic chemicals into the water around Toms River, New Jersey. Polar ice caps are disappearing, and the oceans are rising. In some parts of the world you’re lucky if you can even marvel at a starry sky, so filled with smog is the atmosphere. We’re driven some species to extinction and cruelly abuse others. Our landfills are overflowing. Do you know that we have a new continent? It’s the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch. It’s an area of about ten million square miles, ten million square miles, filled with plastic, trash, and junk, that is deadly to marine life, and that is making the North Pacific unhealthy and unnavigable.
There are no easy answers to these problems, you might say. And you would be right. When we begin thinking about the causes of environmental degradation and, what is more important, how we might restore the environment to something closer to its original created state, the issues are complex. Other nations have a right to develop their economies as we did ours. None of us is ready – or able – to live off the grid. Everyone needs access to clean water. Yet God has given creation into our hands and commanded us to be responsible stewards. We must be concerned about climate change, endangered species, and trash islands. Otherwise, how will creation rightfully praise its creator?
There are no easy answers, but there are actions we can take. We can keep the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch from getting any larger, and possibly help it to shrink. We can use our own canvas bags to shop. We can take our own mug to Starbucks. We can recycle as much plastic as we can. We can use glass and other recyclable materials when possible. We can try to buy things that are not encased in plastic. And we can educate ourselves about the impact of our continued use of plastics.
Can we do anything as a parish? You bet we can. This past Monday was Earth Day, and June 5th is World Environment Day. The Church of England has embarked on a national environmental campaign called “Shrinking the Footprint,” inviting parishes to sign up for energy audits. The goal is to enable at least 100 parishes to become more energy efficient. As David Shreeve, the Church of England's national environment adviser, reminds us, "Energy use represents a significant proportion of the Church of England's carbon emissions, and energy reduction will help to meet our commitment to protecting God's creation, as well as leading to cost savings. Our case studies show how simple it is to achieve." The program is available online using simple software. Meanwhile, here at St. Peter’s, and in our homes, we can be scrupulous in recycling all our plastic, cardboard, and other recyclable materials. We can turn off lights and adjust thermostats. We can decrease our use of paper and, if we need to print, use the other side of scrap paper if possible. If you’re electronically connected, join the list of the Episcopal Ecological Network, or the Mission 4/1 Earth of the United Church of Christ, or access either group on Facebook or Twitter.
“O praise ye the Lord! Thanksgiving and song to him be outpoured all ages along! For love in creation, for heaven restored, for grace of salvation, O praise ye the Lord!” May all of us join with angels, all people, and all of creation in praise of God our creator!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
I Love to Tell the Story
“I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love; I love tell the story because I know ‘tis true, it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do. I love to tell the story! ‘Twill be my theme in glory – to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.” Perhaps some of you remember this old hymn. It’s not in our hymnal, although it is in the Lutheran and Presbyterian hymnals, and doubtless others.
I do love to tell the story of Jesus and his love. That’s what preachers do! Really, most preachers have only one sermon, and in one form or another, it’s the story of Jesus’ love and its impact on us. And it’s a supremely important story. There would be no church without it. It’s that story – of their sense of the continued presence and love of the risen Christ – that led Jesus’ first followers to leave their former lives and establish new communities in Jesus’ name.
But there are also some other important stories to tell, stories of change and transformation in people who have been touched by God and by Jesus. In our psalm for today we hear the story of a familiar kind of change and transformation. At first, the psalmist is feeling satisfied with the good life (“I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved’”). Then bad things happen (“you hid your face and I was dismayed”). Instead of falling into deep despair, the psalmist begins to argue with God (“Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?”). Finally the psalmist chooses to trust that God will hear his plea (“Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me, O Lord be my helper”). The result? The psalmist’s despair is turned into joy and gratitude (“Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever”).
Our Gospel reading from the last chapter of John’s Gospel – what some have considered an epilogue to the gospel – tells us of another kind of transformation, here of Peter. In all the gospels Peter is clearly the leader of the first band of disciples who gather around Jesus. And he is the first to give voice to their growing sense that Jesus is God’s anointed one. Yet Peter is often impulsive and clueless. He speaks without thinking or says the wrong thing. Remember “Let us build three booths” after the disciples experience Jesus’ transfiguration? Or “Get thee behind me Satan?” Worse, when Jesus is arrested, Peter denies three times that he even knows Jesus, and he is nowhere to be found when Jesus is executed. Here on the beach in Galilee he seems depressed, perhaps even regretful. You can hear him sigh, “I’m going fishing.” Then the real miracle happens: Peter recognizes Jesus standing on the shore. Fed by Jesus’ presence, Peter is able to emphatically answer Jesus’ questions: “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” With Jesus’ final “Feed my sheep,” Peter is transformed into a true leader of the fledgling community, a true pastor, who will end up giving his own life for the sheep.
Paul’s transformation from persecutor of the earliest followers of the Way to evangelist to the gentiles is perhaps the most dramatic story. Although he never knew Jesus in the flesh, Paul had a vision of Jesus’ presence so vivid and so immediate that all he could say was, “Who are you, Lord?” Led into the city, he fasted and prayed for three days, until Ananias acted on his vision and took the risk of going to Paul. Having received his sight, Paul was baptized. And then without any seminary education or homiletics course, he immediately began to preach: “He began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’”
Are these stories too far-fetched for us? We generally don’t have altar calls in the Episcopal Church. Yet some people do have dramatic, spiritual experiences. Someone may kneel at the altar rail and have such a deep sense of God’s presence that life is changed forever. Another person may look around them, perhaps at other people, perhaps in a natural setting, and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God exists. Others are gradually transformed as they are gently drawn into the heart of a vital faith community. And God may want to work other kinds of transformations in us. Not many of us actively persecute our opponents. But could we be on the wrong path in other ways? Perhaps we are selfish, headstrong, stubborn, consumed with our own desires, caught in addictions, and blind to the needs of others. Consider: the person who goes after that promotion so single-mindedly that their marriage falls apart, or their family suffers; the angry young person who can recite all their parents’ mistakes while forgetting everything their parents did right; the person so self-absorbed that they are unable to express love for their spouse or family; the chronic complainer; the enabling spouse who allows another’s alcoholism to destroy a family; the person who disdains those of other faith communities; partisan political leaders without a sense of the common good who are unable to compromise. Do you see yourself in any of these examples? Was there a point in your life where you finally knew you needed to do things differently? When you finally saw the light?
What was the light that finally helped you to see life differently? Was it a friend, or a partner, or a child who took the risk of telling the truth? Did you wake up in the middle of the night and finally feel the emptiness in your own soul? And where was God in that change? The mystics teach us that God often initiates transformation. Sometimes God acts directly. Jesus showed up on the beach. God graced someone with a life-changing sense of God’s presence at the altar rail. Mostly God acts through others. In retrospect, we can often see that God gave the friend, partner, or child the courage to speak the needed word. Even without the blinding light, we might also admit that God opened our ears, or our eyes, or our hearts, to finally accept the truth and begin the hard process of change.
Now, here’s the hardest question of all. Can we share our story of conversion and transformation with others? Peter surely did. The stories from the book of Acts show us a Peter who is a skilled and convincing preacher, transformed by his relationship with the risen Jesus. Ii Acts we also see a Peter who is not afraid to go to the house of the gentile centurion Cornelius and preach the gospel, and a Peter who can help broker the compromise between those who would keep the Way of Jesus a sect limited to Jews and those who like Paul were ready to spread the good news to all, Jew and gentile alike. Paul also told his story, probably many times. We hear it again in his own voice in Acts 22, and he also alludes to it in the beginning of his letter to the Galatian Christians. One wonders how Peter and Paul felt telling their stories. Did their retellings make Jesus present to them again more deeply?
How about us? Can we tell the story of our life-changing experiences of God’s reality, of how we came to believe in the risen Christ and his love for us? Can we talk about how God continues to work within us, continues to change and transform us? “Not me!” you might say. Yet telling your own story can be a powerful experience for both the teller and the hearer. If you feel comfortable writing, one way to begin reflecting on your story is to write it down. You might begin by prayerfully reflecting on your life, especially on the places where you experienced a deeper kind of conversion or transformation. When and how did it happen? Who was the change-agent? Where was God? You can also review your day or week, in writing or in meditation, with the same questions in mind. Where was God in my day? How did I experience God’s transformative power and love in this day? Who or what helped me see God more clearly?
Perhaps we can also begin telling our stories to each other. With whom might we share our story? Are we embarrassed to do so? To whose story might we listen, and where? Can we listen to another’s story attentively and respectfully, listening for how God might be at work in another person’s life? Doesn’t telling our own story or listening to that of another deepen our understanding of God’s great love for us? My sisters and brothers, I know this: telling our own story is a powerful tool of evangelism. Do we want to strengthen the bonds within this community? Do we want it to be a vital cell in the body of Christ? A good way to begin is to share our experiences of God’s work among us. I invite you to ponder with me how we may begin telling our stories.
I love to tell the story of Jesus and his glory. I also love to tell the story of lives transformed by God’s grace, of the risen Christ at work in the people around us. “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.” Is that your story too? If so, shout out your joy!
I do love to tell the story of Jesus and his love. That’s what preachers do! Really, most preachers have only one sermon, and in one form or another, it’s the story of Jesus’ love and its impact on us. And it’s a supremely important story. There would be no church without it. It’s that story – of their sense of the continued presence and love of the risen Christ – that led Jesus’ first followers to leave their former lives and establish new communities in Jesus’ name.
But there are also some other important stories to tell, stories of change and transformation in people who have been touched by God and by Jesus. In our psalm for today we hear the story of a familiar kind of change and transformation. At first, the psalmist is feeling satisfied with the good life (“I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved’”). Then bad things happen (“you hid your face and I was dismayed”). Instead of falling into deep despair, the psalmist begins to argue with God (“Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness?”). Finally the psalmist chooses to trust that God will hear his plea (“Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me, O Lord be my helper”). The result? The psalmist’s despair is turned into joy and gratitude (“Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O Lord my God, I will give you thanks for ever”).
Our Gospel reading from the last chapter of John’s Gospel – what some have considered an epilogue to the gospel – tells us of another kind of transformation, here of Peter. In all the gospels Peter is clearly the leader of the first band of disciples who gather around Jesus. And he is the first to give voice to their growing sense that Jesus is God’s anointed one. Yet Peter is often impulsive and clueless. He speaks without thinking or says the wrong thing. Remember “Let us build three booths” after the disciples experience Jesus’ transfiguration? Or “Get thee behind me Satan?” Worse, when Jesus is arrested, Peter denies three times that he even knows Jesus, and he is nowhere to be found when Jesus is executed. Here on the beach in Galilee he seems depressed, perhaps even regretful. You can hear him sigh, “I’m going fishing.” Then the real miracle happens: Peter recognizes Jesus standing on the shore. Fed by Jesus’ presence, Peter is able to emphatically answer Jesus’ questions: “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” With Jesus’ final “Feed my sheep,” Peter is transformed into a true leader of the fledgling community, a true pastor, who will end up giving his own life for the sheep.
Paul’s transformation from persecutor of the earliest followers of the Way to evangelist to the gentiles is perhaps the most dramatic story. Although he never knew Jesus in the flesh, Paul had a vision of Jesus’ presence so vivid and so immediate that all he could say was, “Who are you, Lord?” Led into the city, he fasted and prayed for three days, until Ananias acted on his vision and took the risk of going to Paul. Having received his sight, Paul was baptized. And then without any seminary education or homiletics course, he immediately began to preach: “He began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’”
Are these stories too far-fetched for us? We generally don’t have altar calls in the Episcopal Church. Yet some people do have dramatic, spiritual experiences. Someone may kneel at the altar rail and have such a deep sense of God’s presence that life is changed forever. Another person may look around them, perhaps at other people, perhaps in a natural setting, and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God exists. Others are gradually transformed as they are gently drawn into the heart of a vital faith community. And God may want to work other kinds of transformations in us. Not many of us actively persecute our opponents. But could we be on the wrong path in other ways? Perhaps we are selfish, headstrong, stubborn, consumed with our own desires, caught in addictions, and blind to the needs of others. Consider: the person who goes after that promotion so single-mindedly that their marriage falls apart, or their family suffers; the angry young person who can recite all their parents’ mistakes while forgetting everything their parents did right; the person so self-absorbed that they are unable to express love for their spouse or family; the chronic complainer; the enabling spouse who allows another’s alcoholism to destroy a family; the person who disdains those of other faith communities; partisan political leaders without a sense of the common good who are unable to compromise. Do you see yourself in any of these examples? Was there a point in your life where you finally knew you needed to do things differently? When you finally saw the light?
What was the light that finally helped you to see life differently? Was it a friend, or a partner, or a child who took the risk of telling the truth? Did you wake up in the middle of the night and finally feel the emptiness in your own soul? And where was God in that change? The mystics teach us that God often initiates transformation. Sometimes God acts directly. Jesus showed up on the beach. God graced someone with a life-changing sense of God’s presence at the altar rail. Mostly God acts through others. In retrospect, we can often see that God gave the friend, partner, or child the courage to speak the needed word. Even without the blinding light, we might also admit that God opened our ears, or our eyes, or our hearts, to finally accept the truth and begin the hard process of change.
Now, here’s the hardest question of all. Can we share our story of conversion and transformation with others? Peter surely did. The stories from the book of Acts show us a Peter who is a skilled and convincing preacher, transformed by his relationship with the risen Jesus. Ii Acts we also see a Peter who is not afraid to go to the house of the gentile centurion Cornelius and preach the gospel, and a Peter who can help broker the compromise between those who would keep the Way of Jesus a sect limited to Jews and those who like Paul were ready to spread the good news to all, Jew and gentile alike. Paul also told his story, probably many times. We hear it again in his own voice in Acts 22, and he also alludes to it in the beginning of his letter to the Galatian Christians. One wonders how Peter and Paul felt telling their stories. Did their retellings make Jesus present to them again more deeply?
How about us? Can we tell the story of our life-changing experiences of God’s reality, of how we came to believe in the risen Christ and his love for us? Can we talk about how God continues to work within us, continues to change and transform us? “Not me!” you might say. Yet telling your own story can be a powerful experience for both the teller and the hearer. If you feel comfortable writing, one way to begin reflecting on your story is to write it down. You might begin by prayerfully reflecting on your life, especially on the places where you experienced a deeper kind of conversion or transformation. When and how did it happen? Who was the change-agent? Where was God? You can also review your day or week, in writing or in meditation, with the same questions in mind. Where was God in my day? How did I experience God’s transformative power and love in this day? Who or what helped me see God more clearly?
Perhaps we can also begin telling our stories to each other. With whom might we share our story? Are we embarrassed to do so? To whose story might we listen, and where? Can we listen to another’s story attentively and respectfully, listening for how God might be at work in another person’s life? Doesn’t telling our own story or listening to that of another deepen our understanding of God’s great love for us? My sisters and brothers, I know this: telling our own story is a powerful tool of evangelism. Do we want to strengthen the bonds within this community? Do we want it to be a vital cell in the body of Christ? A good way to begin is to share our experiences of God’s work among us. I invite you to ponder with me how we may begin telling our stories.
I love to tell the story of Jesus and his glory. I also love to tell the story of lives transformed by God’s grace, of the risen Christ at work in the people around us. “You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sack-cloth and clothed me with joy.” Is that your story too? If so, shout out your joy!
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Receive the Holy Spirit
“He breathed on them.” You weren’t there. Neither was I. None of us will see – in this life at least – what the disciples saw that first Easter Sunday. But can we imagine what they must have been feeling that evening? Their beloved friend and teacher, Jesus, was gone. And they were scared to death. Despite Peter’s denials, the authorities knew they’d been followers of that seditious rabbi. Would they be next on the cross? Would a locked door even keep the soldiers out? As they huddle together, in through that locked door walks Jesus! Let yourself feel the shock, the joy they must have felt. Let your mouth hang open. Get up and hug him! Then start hugging each other!
After they’d quieted down a little, Jesus spoke. He gave them a greeting of peace and a commission: “As Abba God sent me, so I send you.” All of a sudden, the joy changed to fear again. Do what he did? Go where he went? Minister to the people he ministered to? Love as he had loved? No way! Then the gospel writer tells us that Jesus breathed on the disciples. How did that feel? Were they actually close enough to him to feel his breath on their faces? Or did the risen Jesus have super breath? As they received his life-giving breath into their own bodies, what did it smell like? Could they smell the flowers of spring – or the joys of heaven – in it? Did the scent of his last meal with them, the bread and the wine, or the fish, bread, and olives of all his other meals with them, linger in his breath? Could they smell the sour wine he had drunk while hanging on the cross, or the spices with which they’d anointed his body? Was there a mix of death and new life in his breath, just as there was in his risen body?
So am I running off into trivial, naïve literalism? Then perhaps we are not meant to take this account literally. Nor do we need to do so. Remember that in Hebrew “spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” are all the same word. Remember too that in Scripture the “breath” is the animating principle, that which gives life. Do you remember God’s action in the second creation story in Genesis? “So YHWH fashioned an earth creature out of the clay of the earth, and blew into its nostrils the breath of life. And the earth creature became a living being” (Gen. 2:7, The Inclusive Bible). Or Isaiah’s description of God’s Servant: “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one, in whom I delight! I have endowed you with my Spirit that you may bring true justice to the nations” (Is. 42:1). Many of us rely on God’s promise relayed to us by Ezekiel: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). And of course there are the dry bones, the bones of the whole house of Israel. God said to Ezekiel, “Prophesy to the wind; prophesy, mere mortal, and say to it: ‘Thus says Sovereign YWYH: Approach from the four winds, Breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live’” (Ezek. 37:9). And how can we forget God’s promise spoken by the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit on all humankind. Your daughters and sons will prophesy, your elders will have prophetic dreams, and your young people will see visions” (Joel 3:1).
Jesus too reminded us that God’s wind or breath or Spirit was what truly animates us. Remember his conversation with Nicodemus earlier in John’s Gospel? “You must be born from above,” Jesus tells him. “The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound it makes, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit” (John 3:7-8). Perhaps most important of all, in the course of that long last meal with his friends, as John tells it, Jesus made another promise. “If you love me and obey the command that I give you, I will ask the One who sent me to give you another Paraclete, another Helper to be with you always – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept since the world neither sees her nor recognizes her; but you can recognize the Spirit because she remains with you and will be within you” (John 14:15-17).
So what we are really meant to understand from this image of Jesus’ breathing on the gathered disciples is this: in Jesus all God’s promises are fulfilled! Fulfilling his own promise to them, in his risen life Jesus re-animates this frightened band of friends by filling them with his own Spirit. Through his gift of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, Jesus enables this hapless group of deserters to calm down and become courageous. He enables them to be bold, and joyful. What is more important, in giving the disciples his Spirit, Jesus also gives them the power to carry out their commission, the commission that is at the heart of all the gospels. In effect, Jesus gives them the equipment they need and the authority they need to speak words of peace and healing to all, to extend God’s mercy and forgiveness to all, and to carry forward Jesus’ work of creating new communities united in love.
My sisters and brothers, this is truly the good news in this gospel story. We too are part of that new community created by Jesus’ Spirit. Just like the disciples of old, we too are part of that re-animated band. Through our baptisms, we have been included into the group gathered into that locked room, and we too have been gifted with a share of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has breathed on you and me. His breath is now in ours, his voice is now in ours. We too breathe him in in prayer and breathe him out in our speech and our movements. We speak as Jesus would speak, not only to bring judgment, but, more importantly, to bring grace. We attempt to do what Jesus did, not to win brownie points with God, but because Jesus is working in the world through us. And here’s the most important part. When Jesus commissioned his friends, when he said to them, “As Abba God sent me, so I send you,” he didn’t say those words only to Peter or the Beloved Disciple. He didn’t say those words only to priests. All the people who received Jesus’ breath into their own bodies, all the people who heard his commission, were ordinary, working people: fishermen, former prostitutes, peasants, merchants, tax collectors, and who knows what else. If we are part of that company, then Jesus has commissioned all of us. Do you think that clergy are the only ones who can speak in God’s name? My ministry and role are emblematic of yours! The most important thing that my collar symbolizes is that I should ideally be serving as a model for what all of us are called to do. Believe me, you too are commissioned, you too have been re-animated by the Holy Spirit.
In his risen life, Jesus has transcended the limitations of human life. When he comes to us, when he breathes new life into us, Jesus enables us to also break free of our own narrow experience. He enables us to live differently, to go to places we had not foreseen, to minister to people we had not known, and to offer God’s love in ways we had not thought possible.
Examples abound of those animated by God’s Spirit. Most recently, some of us have been remembering Rosa Parks. A new complete biography of her has recently appeared. Most of you know her story: how she helped start the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and how that boycott initiated a decade-long struggle for civil rights for all. Some of you may also know that she did not act alone, but was part of a community of African-Americans who worked together to effect change. What most of us forget about Rosa Parks was that her activism grew out of her devotion to Jesus. She was a staunch Christian, carried her Bible everywhere, and was an active member of African Methodist Episcopal Churches in Montgomery and Detroit. Taught by Scripture and empowered by the Holy Spirit, she fought against racism, even facing down death threats with long periods of prayer.
Just as Jesus breathed God’s Spirit into the dispirited disciples and into Rosa Parks, Jesus breathes on, with, and through us. We too are animated by his breath, and we too go out from here, ready to proclaim him to the world and to spread his message of justice and peace. “Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do.”
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Our Lives Transformed
The Gospel story is not about what happened to Jesus! Did you notice? The Gospel writers, including the writer of John’s Gospel, tell us nothing about what happened to Jesus. Whatever happened to Jesus in that tomb in the garden was between him and God. Did Jesus triumphantly go down into Sheol between his crucifixion and resurrection and bring the righteous souls out, as tradition says? The Gospel writers say nothing about that either. Nevertheless, something happened that changed forever the lives of those who had known Jesus. The Gospel writers are clear about that!
Can we even begin to grasp what happened that Sunday morning? Yes, the Gospel writers tell a powerful story. But perhaps an empty tomb, folded wrappings, and angels don’t help us to grasp its impact. Perhaps we need some different images for what happened that morning. Perhaps “deep magic” was at work, as C.S. Lewis called it in The Chronicles of Narnia, a victorious, life-giving principle that existed “before the dawn of time,” and that triumphed over the evil logic that would try to murder Aslan. Or perhaps you resonate with different images. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, says that at Easter, “we are really standing in the middle of the second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.” Perhaps the resurrection is like an explosion in the center of the earth whose unleashed energy finally erupts in a volcano. Perhaps it is like a child’s first words, after which a lifelong torrent of words comes forth. Perhaps it is like a drop of dye that colors all the liquid around it. Perhaps it is like a splash of perfume – or a pound of costly nard – whose fragrance fills the whole house.
What happened to Jesus is certainly important. Whether or not we can grasp what happened, the resurrection has a value all its own, regardless of what happened next. And yet the best way to grasp the meaning and importance of the resurrection may be to see its impact in the lives of real people. The Gospel writers do show us that: people whose lives were truly transformed by their experiences of the risen Jesus.
You can see the beginnings of that transformation right here in today’s readings. Take the Beloved Disciple. Tradition has it that Peter was middle-aged, and that the Beloved Disciple was a younger man. Can you see the Beloved Disciple, in his eagerness, sprinting ahead of Peter to the edge of the tomb? Deferring to Peter, he lets Peter go in first. Then he finally goes in himself. Miracle of miracles, he “saw and believed.” What does he believe? At this point, we can’t be sure. But we do know this: the Beloved Disciple is a model of faith throughout the Gospel of John. Perhaps, before even meeting the risen Jesus, the beloved Disciple already has an inkling of the truth of what the Scriptures and Jesus himself had foretold. And so he stands out as model of swift and genuine faith in the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises.
Perhaps some of you are like that. Perhaps you have always understood yourselves to be living a resurrection life. Perhaps you have always trusted that Jesus has conquered death. Perhaps you have always seen newness of life in times of deep grief and mourning. Perhaps you have always been able to speak the consoling word, or see the dye, or smell the perfume. Perhaps you have always been able see the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises ahead of us, like a shining city in the far distance. Blessings on you. You are truly already living in the eternal Easter tide.
But then there’s Peter. What brought him to that garden? What made him want to peer into Jesus’ tomb? He hadn’t helped to place Jesus’ body there. He had denied Jesus three times. While the beloved disciple had stood by Jesus at the cross and had received Jesus’ mother into his home, Peter, with the rest of the disciples, had run away from the cross. What makes him run so eagerly now? Jesus had called him a “rock.” Does he rush to the tomb out of a sense of responsibility for the other disciples? Or is he jealous of the Beloved Disciple? Does he feel he has to prove that he too is a faithful a disciple? Or does he feel guilty for running away and deserting Jesus in his hour of deepest need? Perhaps he is curious, or maybe even hopeful. After all, he had seen Jesus raise Lazarus. Was there a chance that the same thing had happened to Jesus? Though the Beloved Disciple outruns him, Peter enters the tomb first. He sees what his companion sees, but doesn’t know what to make of what he sees. Perhaps envious of his friend’s quick faith, he turns on his heel and quickly leaves. Only later does Peter experience the transformative power of the resurrection and understand what had happened at the empty tomb.
Many of us are like Peter. We understand well the mix of emotions he might have been feeling. We envy those whose faith is greater than ours. We know we’ve deserted Jesus time and again, and we promise over and over again to be more faithful disciples. Or we come to church on this day, or any day, out of habit or a sense of obligation. Yet perhaps – just perhaps – we are curious, even hopeful that the life-giving experiences of God’s presence and help, the touch of faith that we had in the past, just might be out there for us to experience again. It’s possible, just possible, that the resurrection is real. It’s possible, just possible too, that we, like Peter, will also be transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ. Because God knows who we are, and God is always ready to begin transforming us whenever we are ready to let God into our lives.
And then there is Mary Magdalene. With the other women, Mary remained faithful to the end. In darkness of night, in darkness of soul, she comes to the tomb grief-stricken. Having already suffered the loss of her dearest friend, at the tomb Mary suffers yet another loss, that of his body. While the men return home, Mary stays at the tomb, continuing to mourn. Sunk in grief, she isn’t thinking clearly. She doesn’t see that the figures inside the tomb are angels, and she mistakes Jesus for the caretaker of the garden. Jesus speaks her name. Then she understands exactly who he is. “Teacher,” she says. This is where Easter begins. This is where the miracle happens, when Mary encounters the living Lord and knows who he is. Suddenly she sees, suddenly she is transformed. In Jesus’ reply to her, she gets a glimpse of the great drama of which she has just become a part and of the larger story that has just begun. Transformed, she understands that she will now be living life on a different plane. She receives Jesus’ commission: “Go to my brothers and say to them….” Reluctantly, she obeys the risen Jesus and leaves him to go to the others. “I have seen the Lord,” she exultantly tells them.
And the other disciples hear and believe her. They take up Jesus’ commission. The Beloved Disciple shares his experiences of Jesus’s life in the Gospel story. Peter becomes an eloquent preacher. The Word spreads. Right down to the twenty-first century. Right down to us. The good news that Mary announced to her fellow disciples was just the beginning of the story, just the beginning of an ongoing revelation of what resurrection and all its implications mean.
The miracle continues – not in a tomb hewn out of a rock, not in a garden outside Jerusalem, but here, now, whenever we encounter the risen Lord. Like Peter, we may be faithless, cowardly, confused, or barely able to muster enough energy and hope to make it to church. Like Mary, we may be grieving all kinds of losses. Like Mary and all the disciples, we may be astounded when Jesus shows up. Yet in our encounter with Jesus, we too are changed. And we too are commissioned. That is what we celebrate today: that we too are part of that great drama, and that in it we too are being changed and transformed.
The story continues. The universe is still spreading out. Evolution did not stop with the first organism. All of creation is still growing, changing, and evolving. History did not stop with the decline of the Roman Empire. The dye is still coloring the water. The fragrance is still filling the house. The volcano is still erupting. The resurrection was not a past event that was completed 2,000 years ago. Jesus is still rising. And all humanity is rising with him. Because Jesus took our flesh as his own, his resurrection will be complete only when every human person is resurrected, only when every molecule of matter is resurrected, only when God’s gracious purpose for creation is finally realized. And it will be. Jesus’ resurrection is our sure sign. Thanks be to God.
Can we even begin to grasp what happened that Sunday morning? Yes, the Gospel writers tell a powerful story. But perhaps an empty tomb, folded wrappings, and angels don’t help us to grasp its impact. Perhaps we need some different images for what happened that morning. Perhaps “deep magic” was at work, as C.S. Lewis called it in The Chronicles of Narnia, a victorious, life-giving principle that existed “before the dawn of time,” and that triumphed over the evil logic that would try to murder Aslan. Or perhaps you resonate with different images. Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, says that at Easter, “we are really standing in the middle of the second ‘Big Bang,’ a tumultuous surge of divine energy as fiery and intense as the very beginning of the universe.” Perhaps the resurrection is like an explosion in the center of the earth whose unleashed energy finally erupts in a volcano. Perhaps it is like a child’s first words, after which a lifelong torrent of words comes forth. Perhaps it is like a drop of dye that colors all the liquid around it. Perhaps it is like a splash of perfume – or a pound of costly nard – whose fragrance fills the whole house.
What happened to Jesus is certainly important. Whether or not we can grasp what happened, the resurrection has a value all its own, regardless of what happened next. And yet the best way to grasp the meaning and importance of the resurrection may be to see its impact in the lives of real people. The Gospel writers do show us that: people whose lives were truly transformed by their experiences of the risen Jesus.
You can see the beginnings of that transformation right here in today’s readings. Take the Beloved Disciple. Tradition has it that Peter was middle-aged, and that the Beloved Disciple was a younger man. Can you see the Beloved Disciple, in his eagerness, sprinting ahead of Peter to the edge of the tomb? Deferring to Peter, he lets Peter go in first. Then he finally goes in himself. Miracle of miracles, he “saw and believed.” What does he believe? At this point, we can’t be sure. But we do know this: the Beloved Disciple is a model of faith throughout the Gospel of John. Perhaps, before even meeting the risen Jesus, the beloved Disciple already has an inkling of the truth of what the Scriptures and Jesus himself had foretold. And so he stands out as model of swift and genuine faith in the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises.
Perhaps some of you are like that. Perhaps you have always understood yourselves to be living a resurrection life. Perhaps you have always trusted that Jesus has conquered death. Perhaps you have always seen newness of life in times of deep grief and mourning. Perhaps you have always been able to speak the consoling word, or see the dye, or smell the perfume. Perhaps you have always been able see the fulfillment of Jesus’ promises ahead of us, like a shining city in the far distance. Blessings on you. You are truly already living in the eternal Easter tide.
But then there’s Peter. What brought him to that garden? What made him want to peer into Jesus’ tomb? He hadn’t helped to place Jesus’ body there. He had denied Jesus three times. While the beloved disciple had stood by Jesus at the cross and had received Jesus’ mother into his home, Peter, with the rest of the disciples, had run away from the cross. What makes him run so eagerly now? Jesus had called him a “rock.” Does he rush to the tomb out of a sense of responsibility for the other disciples? Or is he jealous of the Beloved Disciple? Does he feel he has to prove that he too is a faithful a disciple? Or does he feel guilty for running away and deserting Jesus in his hour of deepest need? Perhaps he is curious, or maybe even hopeful. After all, he had seen Jesus raise Lazarus. Was there a chance that the same thing had happened to Jesus? Though the Beloved Disciple outruns him, Peter enters the tomb first. He sees what his companion sees, but doesn’t know what to make of what he sees. Perhaps envious of his friend’s quick faith, he turns on his heel and quickly leaves. Only later does Peter experience the transformative power of the resurrection and understand what had happened at the empty tomb.
Many of us are like Peter. We understand well the mix of emotions he might have been feeling. We envy those whose faith is greater than ours. We know we’ve deserted Jesus time and again, and we promise over and over again to be more faithful disciples. Or we come to church on this day, or any day, out of habit or a sense of obligation. Yet perhaps – just perhaps – we are curious, even hopeful that the life-giving experiences of God’s presence and help, the touch of faith that we had in the past, just might be out there for us to experience again. It’s possible, just possible, that the resurrection is real. It’s possible, just possible too, that we, like Peter, will also be transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ. Because God knows who we are, and God is always ready to begin transforming us whenever we are ready to let God into our lives.
And then there is Mary Magdalene. With the other women, Mary remained faithful to the end. In darkness of night, in darkness of soul, she comes to the tomb grief-stricken. Having already suffered the loss of her dearest friend, at the tomb Mary suffers yet another loss, that of his body. While the men return home, Mary stays at the tomb, continuing to mourn. Sunk in grief, she isn’t thinking clearly. She doesn’t see that the figures inside the tomb are angels, and she mistakes Jesus for the caretaker of the garden. Jesus speaks her name. Then she understands exactly who he is. “Teacher,” she says. This is where Easter begins. This is where the miracle happens, when Mary encounters the living Lord and knows who he is. Suddenly she sees, suddenly she is transformed. In Jesus’ reply to her, she gets a glimpse of the great drama of which she has just become a part and of the larger story that has just begun. Transformed, she understands that she will now be living life on a different plane. She receives Jesus’ commission: “Go to my brothers and say to them….” Reluctantly, she obeys the risen Jesus and leaves him to go to the others. “I have seen the Lord,” she exultantly tells them.
And the other disciples hear and believe her. They take up Jesus’ commission. The Beloved Disciple shares his experiences of Jesus’s life in the Gospel story. Peter becomes an eloquent preacher. The Word spreads. Right down to the twenty-first century. Right down to us. The good news that Mary announced to her fellow disciples was just the beginning of the story, just the beginning of an ongoing revelation of what resurrection and all its implications mean.
The miracle continues – not in a tomb hewn out of a rock, not in a garden outside Jerusalem, but here, now, whenever we encounter the risen Lord. Like Peter, we may be faithless, cowardly, confused, or barely able to muster enough energy and hope to make it to church. Like Mary, we may be grieving all kinds of losses. Like Mary and all the disciples, we may be astounded when Jesus shows up. Yet in our encounter with Jesus, we too are changed. And we too are commissioned. That is what we celebrate today: that we too are part of that great drama, and that in it we too are being changed and transformed.
The story continues. The universe is still spreading out. Evolution did not stop with the first organism. All of creation is still growing, changing, and evolving. History did not stop with the decline of the Roman Empire. The dye is still coloring the water. The fragrance is still filling the house. The volcano is still erupting. The resurrection was not a past event that was completed 2,000 years ago. Jesus is still rising. And all humanity is rising with him. Because Jesus took our flesh as his own, his resurrection will be complete only when every human person is resurrected, only when every molecule of matter is resurrected, only when God’s gracious purpose for creation is finally realized. And it will be. Jesus’ resurrection is our sure sign. Thanks be to God.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Learn of Jesus Christ to Die
“Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power; your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with him one bitter hour; turn not from his griefs away, learn of Jesus Christ to pray.” So begins one of our hymnal’s most moving hymns for Holy Week. Learn of Jesus Christ to pray, and not only to pray, but to live, to suffer, and, finally to die. “Calvary’s mournful mountain climb, there, adoring at his feet, mark the miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete; ‘it is finished hear him cry,’ learn of Jesus Christ to die.”
Yet when we actually do climb to Calvary with the evangelists, especially with Luke, we see little of Jesus’ actual physical death. To be sure, Luke tells an important story between “they crucified Jesus there,” and “he breathed his last.” Even so, Luke provides no detail whatsoever of the agonies Jesus suffered, as he died like a common criminal. Unlike Mel Gibson in his “Passion of the Christ,” Luke’s goal is not to make me exclaim, “Thank you, Jesus, for suffering and dying for me.” Rather, Luke’s goal is to enable me to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for showing me how to live, pray, and, finally, to die.”
Long before the gospel according to Mark, the first gospel, was written, Paul wrestled with the idea of how followers of Jesus might participate in Jesus’ death and rising. In his letter to the Christians at Philippi, written not long before his own death, he admonished the disciples to “look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.” Taking up the words of what was probably a hymn, Paul charged them to “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” who took on human form, humbled himself, and was obedient to the point of death. Paul knew that few disciples were called to be whipped, crowned with thorns, or nailed to a cross. But all of us are called to imitate Jesus in the way we live out our lives and in the way we die. All of us can follow Jesus in leaving behind our own petty concerns and in beginning the hard work of pouring ourselves out for others.
Among the evangelists, Luke gives us the clearest picture of Jesus as the man for others, Jesus as the man who maintained his love for those around him in the midst of betrayal and assault, Jesus as the man whose depth of caring extended even into his last hours. Did you get any inkling of Jesus’ care for others in the story you just heard? Even as Jesus was facing certain death following his last meal with his friends, his disciples were quarreling among themselves as to who was the greatest. You can almost hear the frustration in his voice – haven’t they gotten it yet – as he instructed them once again that, if they wanted to truly be his disciples, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.” And he reminded them of what he had shown them in his very own behavior: “I am among you as one who serves.”
As the meal progressed, Jesus predicted that Peter – Peter the lead disciple, the one who was the first to say out loud that Jesus was God’s anointed one – Peter would betray Jesus. Can you hear Peter blustering and protesting as Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me.” Yet, Jesus also reminded Peter that he had already prayed for him, “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail….” After supper, as Jesus led his friends into the garden at Gethsemane, even as he was staring his own death in the face, he turned back to his friends and warned them to, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Shortly thereafter, even as Judas was betraying Jesus with a kiss, Jesus stretched out his hand to one of the high priest’s slaves and healed his ear.
What agonies of body and soul must Jesus have been feeling when, after having been shuffled from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate, after hearing Pilate declare that there was not case against him, he heard the religious leaders and their cronies call for his death and knew himself finally condemned. Yet, as he trudged to Calvary, with Joseph of Arimathea and the soldiers behind him, he passed the weeping women. His head was bowed and his body weak from hunger and assault. Yet even here his heart went out to the women, and he charged them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children,” for he knew that worse things than his death were about to befall them.
The physical pain that Jesus must have suffered is unfathomable. Yet the evangelist gives us no hints of Jesus’ agony at all. Rather, from the cross comes a prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Whom was he forgiving? The disciples who ran away, the Roman soldiers who carried out the execution, the Roman and Jewish leadership who condemned him? All of us forever? Did they know what they were doing? Maybe in part. But does anyone of us really know the full effects of our sins or the full damage that we do? Jesus prayed, and God’s forgiveness covered them all, as it covers all of us.
Then there is Jesus’ ministry to the other two criminals. While one of the criminals criticized Jesus for not saving himself and them, the other rebuked the first. Turning to Jesus, he voices the prayer that could be on all of our lips, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replied? “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Even in agony, Jesus reached out. The message is clear: there is no time, there is no place, and there are no extenuating circumstances that kept him or should keep us from reaching out to another in love.
And finally Jesus’ death. Jesus models the faithful disciple for us one last time. “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” He offers back to God what he has been offering since the day he was born: his life into God’s hands. He has lived and died faithfully, proclaiming and demonstrating his complete trust in God. Do we need another lesson? Jesus has shown us how to live – for others – and how to die – in complete confidence that God will receive us.
“Calvary’s mournful mountain climb, there, adoring at his feet, mark the miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete; ‘it is finished hear him cry,’ learn of Jesus Christ to die.” We have walked this long journey with Jesus. We have watched him live and pray. We have watched him minister to others. We have stood at the cross with him. We have watched him die. Now we know our own call as his disciples: to live for others and to die faithfully. Are we ready to follow Jesus?
Yet when we actually do climb to Calvary with the evangelists, especially with Luke, we see little of Jesus’ actual physical death. To be sure, Luke tells an important story between “they crucified Jesus there,” and “he breathed his last.” Even so, Luke provides no detail whatsoever of the agonies Jesus suffered, as he died like a common criminal. Unlike Mel Gibson in his “Passion of the Christ,” Luke’s goal is not to make me exclaim, “Thank you, Jesus, for suffering and dying for me.” Rather, Luke’s goal is to enable me to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for showing me how to live, pray, and, finally, to die.”
Long before the gospel according to Mark, the first gospel, was written, Paul wrestled with the idea of how followers of Jesus might participate in Jesus’ death and rising. In his letter to the Christians at Philippi, written not long before his own death, he admonished the disciples to “look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.” Taking up the words of what was probably a hymn, Paul charged them to “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” who took on human form, humbled himself, and was obedient to the point of death. Paul knew that few disciples were called to be whipped, crowned with thorns, or nailed to a cross. But all of us are called to imitate Jesus in the way we live out our lives and in the way we die. All of us can follow Jesus in leaving behind our own petty concerns and in beginning the hard work of pouring ourselves out for others.
Among the evangelists, Luke gives us the clearest picture of Jesus as the man for others, Jesus as the man who maintained his love for those around him in the midst of betrayal and assault, Jesus as the man whose depth of caring extended even into his last hours. Did you get any inkling of Jesus’ care for others in the story you just heard? Even as Jesus was facing certain death following his last meal with his friends, his disciples were quarreling among themselves as to who was the greatest. You can almost hear the frustration in his voice – haven’t they gotten it yet – as he instructed them once again that, if they wanted to truly be his disciples, “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.” And he reminded them of what he had shown them in his very own behavior: “I am among you as one who serves.”
As the meal progressed, Jesus predicted that Peter – Peter the lead disciple, the one who was the first to say out loud that Jesus was God’s anointed one – Peter would betray Jesus. Can you hear Peter blustering and protesting as Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me.” Yet, Jesus also reminded Peter that he had already prayed for him, “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail….” After supper, as Jesus led his friends into the garden at Gethsemane, even as he was staring his own death in the face, he turned back to his friends and warned them to, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Shortly thereafter, even as Judas was betraying Jesus with a kiss, Jesus stretched out his hand to one of the high priest’s slaves and healed his ear.
What agonies of body and soul must Jesus have been feeling when, after having been shuffled from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate, after hearing Pilate declare that there was not case against him, he heard the religious leaders and their cronies call for his death and knew himself finally condemned. Yet, as he trudged to Calvary, with Joseph of Arimathea and the soldiers behind him, he passed the weeping women. His head was bowed and his body weak from hunger and assault. Yet even here his heart went out to the women, and he charged them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children,” for he knew that worse things than his death were about to befall them.
The physical pain that Jesus must have suffered is unfathomable. Yet the evangelist gives us no hints of Jesus’ agony at all. Rather, from the cross comes a prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Whom was he forgiving? The disciples who ran away, the Roman soldiers who carried out the execution, the Roman and Jewish leadership who condemned him? All of us forever? Did they know what they were doing? Maybe in part. But does anyone of us really know the full effects of our sins or the full damage that we do? Jesus prayed, and God’s forgiveness covered them all, as it covers all of us.
Then there is Jesus’ ministry to the other two criminals. While one of the criminals criticized Jesus for not saving himself and them, the other rebuked the first. Turning to Jesus, he voices the prayer that could be on all of our lips, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replied? “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Even in agony, Jesus reached out. The message is clear: there is no time, there is no place, and there are no extenuating circumstances that kept him or should keep us from reaching out to another in love.
And finally Jesus’ death. Jesus models the faithful disciple for us one last time. “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” He offers back to God what he has been offering since the day he was born: his life into God’s hands. He has lived and died faithfully, proclaiming and demonstrating his complete trust in God. Do we need another lesson? Jesus has shown us how to live – for others – and how to die – in complete confidence that God will receive us.
“Calvary’s mournful mountain climb, there, adoring at his feet, mark the miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete; ‘it is finished hear him cry,’ learn of Jesus Christ to die.” We have walked this long journey with Jesus. We have watched him live and pray. We have watched him minister to others. We have stood at the cross with him. We have watched him die. Now we know our own call as his disciples: to live for others and to die faithfully. Are we ready to follow Jesus?
Sunday, March 17, 2013
An Act of Extravagant Love
Are you Mary or Judas? Frankly, at this point in the story, I’m not sure I want to be either one! We’ve shifted abruptly into the Gospel of John. We’re now about two miles from Jerusalem and a couple of days from the wrenching events that are about to take place there. Jesus has come for a last dinner party with his friends at Bethany, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Others of his disciples are also there, including Judas, the one who will betray him. That part of the story has yet to come, although the shadows are already present in this part. Here in this intimate scene – Jesus at table with his friends – something extraordinary happens that throws into relief two ways of relating to Jesus. Without saying a word, Lazarus’s sister, Mary, pours a huge quantity of costly ointment made from the spikenard plant onto Jesus’ feet, and then begins to wipe Jesus’ feet with her unbound hair. As we might expect, Judas criticizes Mary’s action, alluding to a duty to the poor.
In these two characters, the evangelist gives us two very different models of discipleship. Mary is our model of true discipleship, while Judas is our model of false discipleship. Consider the two of them. Mary knows what she needs to do. Though her action transgresses every social boundary – respectable women do not wipe their teacher’s feet with their hair – she knows what she must do and acts without any self-justification. She trusts that Jesus will understand her gesture and accept it for what it is – an act of love. She doesn’t worry about whether there will be enough money for ministry but offers Jesus what he most needs at this point in his journey, a demonstration of the heartfelt love that she has for him.
On the other hand, Judas does not know what to do. Can’t you imagine him awkwardly sitting somewhere at the table, knowing what he’s agreed to do and wondering what to say? He certainly doesn’t trust Jesus, and he criticizes Mary’s loving gesture. Operating out of an economy of scarcity, he models rational behavior devoid of love. It’s true that we need to provide for the poor, and the equivalent of a year’s wages could be well spent for ministry, but Judas offers Jesus nothing that comes from his heart.
So are you Mary or Judas? The truth is that most of us are both. We want to offer Jesus acts of heartfelt love, but most of the time we stand around awkwardly. At worst we know we’re about to betray Jesus. At best, we simply don’t know how to express our love to him. Yet, thanks be to God, God’s grace is sufficient for us. God’s grace embraces all of us just as we are. God’s grace is sufficient to redeem both the loving and the less loving aspects of our lives and behavior.
But our goal as followers of Jesus is always to become more like him. Our goal is always to increase our capacity to love. It takes most of us a lifetime to get there, but our goal as Jesus’ disciples is always to become more and more like Jesus and Mary and less and less like Judas. Ultimately, by God’s grace we ourselves may become capable of extravagant gestures of love. And make no mistake: Judas had it wrong. The spiritual life is never a choice between love for God and service to the poor. Rather, we are always called to be devoted to Jesus with all our heart, to regularly offer ourselves in worship, and to serve the poor with all our strength. Growth in all three is necessary for spiritual maturity. But, at the end of the day, the goal is always to get beyond our own small egos, become more like Christ, and love God and our neighbor more deeply.
What are some of the ways we “press on” to make this goal our own? If Mary is our model, then as Jesus’ friend, we must allow ourselves to experience more directly Jesus’ love for us. We must also express that love back to him. Remember that this is the Mary who plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and let her sister fix dinner. Did Jesus rebuke her for that? Indeed not. Rather, he said, “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” This is the same Mary too who patiently waited at Lazarus’s tomb, knowing that Jesus would come. Our life as disciples is never solely about what one writer called assensus, i.e., assenting to propositions about Jesus. Even if you understood and assented to every statement in the Nicene Creed, you would not necessarily thereby increase in spiritual maturity. Rather, if Mary is our model then our life as disciples is all about having a loving relationship with Jesus, experiencing Jesus’ love for us and expressing our love back to him. How do we do that?
Trite and tired as it sounds, regular worship is one way. When we come to worship, even if initially we come through a sense of duty or obligation, we deliberately bring ourselves into Jesus’ presence. We consciously let ourselves be enlightened by Scripture and nourished by Jesus’ Body and Blood. Ideally, our worship experience isn’t a set of rote prayers and dry formulae. Ideally, by God’s grace, something about our worship touches us, transforms us, moves us, and brings us into direct relationship with Jesus, so that we go out different people from those who came in.
Contemplative prayer is another way of pressing on toward our goal of a deeper capacity to love. For some people, praying in the presence of an icon or picture of Jesus helps them to focus on Jesus, to see a visible example of his love for us and to know him to be present to us. It’s a little like sitting with an old friend: no words are needed, just the pleasure of being together. For others, reading Scripture contemplatively is a way to experience Jesus’ love and express our own. Some people use a method of imaginatively placing themselves into a scene from Scripture – as we’ve been doing on Tuesday evenings – and feeling themselves directly interact with Jesus. Perhaps you can imagine Jesus touching you or even embracing you. Don’t you think Jesus embraced his friends at Bethany? Why not you? Other people use a lectio divina approach, meditating on a word or phrase of Scripture that especially speaks to us. Any one of these ways – and many others – allow you to experience for yourselves Jesus’ great love for you and give you opportunities to express back to Jesus your love for him. Can you take the time to put yourself in Jesus’ presence? By God’s grace the time that you spend with Jesus in prayer will be like the nard whose fragrance filled the entire house. The fragrance of your prayer time will seep into the entire rest of your day, and you will remember that, just like Mary of Bethany, you too are Jesus’ beloved friend.
Finally, serving the poor is another way in which we allow Jesus to love us and express our love for him. Jesus himself did not minister to those who were rich and powerful or to those who scrupulously observed the law. Rather, he associated with those on the margins of society, with prostitutes, tax collectors, women, and farmers, with those who were sick, disabled or possessed. At the end of Matthew’s gospel he reminded us that whenever we fed, clothed, nursed, or visited “the least of these,” we did it to him. Writing a check is fine. Churches and charities are always in a position to receive funds. But if Mary is our model, then we are also called to concrete action, to real relationships with real people who need our help. Come to Loaves and Fishes – or to any place where you are personally useful. Talk with our diners. Smile and set a plate down in front of them. Jesus will be sitting among them, taking the plate from your hand. Get out of your comfort zone, give up your apathy, and let go of your ability to turn away from the needs of others.
What is our ultimate goal? It is to live our lives so totally devoted to Christ that our love for him is more important to us than anything else in the world and to express that love to those around us. Today is coincidentally St. Patrick’s Day. More than fifteen hundred years ago, St. Patrick gave us clues about what our real goal in life should be. Some of you will recognize the words as verse 6 of the hymn commonly called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate:”
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Are you Mary or Judas? By God’s grace, and inspired by Mary, we are all, day by day being transformed into those who know Christ’s love without a doubt and who express it with trust and joy to him and to the world around us.
In these two characters, the evangelist gives us two very different models of discipleship. Mary is our model of true discipleship, while Judas is our model of false discipleship. Consider the two of them. Mary knows what she needs to do. Though her action transgresses every social boundary – respectable women do not wipe their teacher’s feet with their hair – she knows what she must do and acts without any self-justification. She trusts that Jesus will understand her gesture and accept it for what it is – an act of love. She doesn’t worry about whether there will be enough money for ministry but offers Jesus what he most needs at this point in his journey, a demonstration of the heartfelt love that she has for him.
On the other hand, Judas does not know what to do. Can’t you imagine him awkwardly sitting somewhere at the table, knowing what he’s agreed to do and wondering what to say? He certainly doesn’t trust Jesus, and he criticizes Mary’s loving gesture. Operating out of an economy of scarcity, he models rational behavior devoid of love. It’s true that we need to provide for the poor, and the equivalent of a year’s wages could be well spent for ministry, but Judas offers Jesus nothing that comes from his heart.
So are you Mary or Judas? The truth is that most of us are both. We want to offer Jesus acts of heartfelt love, but most of the time we stand around awkwardly. At worst we know we’re about to betray Jesus. At best, we simply don’t know how to express our love to him. Yet, thanks be to God, God’s grace is sufficient for us. God’s grace embraces all of us just as we are. God’s grace is sufficient to redeem both the loving and the less loving aspects of our lives and behavior.
But our goal as followers of Jesus is always to become more like him. Our goal is always to increase our capacity to love. It takes most of us a lifetime to get there, but our goal as Jesus’ disciples is always to become more and more like Jesus and Mary and less and less like Judas. Ultimately, by God’s grace we ourselves may become capable of extravagant gestures of love. And make no mistake: Judas had it wrong. The spiritual life is never a choice between love for God and service to the poor. Rather, we are always called to be devoted to Jesus with all our heart, to regularly offer ourselves in worship, and to serve the poor with all our strength. Growth in all three is necessary for spiritual maturity. But, at the end of the day, the goal is always to get beyond our own small egos, become more like Christ, and love God and our neighbor more deeply.
What are some of the ways we “press on” to make this goal our own? If Mary is our model, then as Jesus’ friend, we must allow ourselves to experience more directly Jesus’ love for us. We must also express that love back to him. Remember that this is the Mary who plunked herself down at Jesus’ feet and let her sister fix dinner. Did Jesus rebuke her for that? Indeed not. Rather, he said, “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” This is the same Mary too who patiently waited at Lazarus’s tomb, knowing that Jesus would come. Our life as disciples is never solely about what one writer called assensus, i.e., assenting to propositions about Jesus. Even if you understood and assented to every statement in the Nicene Creed, you would not necessarily thereby increase in spiritual maturity. Rather, if Mary is our model then our life as disciples is all about having a loving relationship with Jesus, experiencing Jesus’ love for us and expressing our love back to him. How do we do that?
Trite and tired as it sounds, regular worship is one way. When we come to worship, even if initially we come through a sense of duty or obligation, we deliberately bring ourselves into Jesus’ presence. We consciously let ourselves be enlightened by Scripture and nourished by Jesus’ Body and Blood. Ideally, our worship experience isn’t a set of rote prayers and dry formulae. Ideally, by God’s grace, something about our worship touches us, transforms us, moves us, and brings us into direct relationship with Jesus, so that we go out different people from those who came in.
Contemplative prayer is another way of pressing on toward our goal of a deeper capacity to love. For some people, praying in the presence of an icon or picture of Jesus helps them to focus on Jesus, to see a visible example of his love for us and to know him to be present to us. It’s a little like sitting with an old friend: no words are needed, just the pleasure of being together. For others, reading Scripture contemplatively is a way to experience Jesus’ love and express our own. Some people use a method of imaginatively placing themselves into a scene from Scripture – as we’ve been doing on Tuesday evenings – and feeling themselves directly interact with Jesus. Perhaps you can imagine Jesus touching you or even embracing you. Don’t you think Jesus embraced his friends at Bethany? Why not you? Other people use a lectio divina approach, meditating on a word or phrase of Scripture that especially speaks to us. Any one of these ways – and many others – allow you to experience for yourselves Jesus’ great love for you and give you opportunities to express back to Jesus your love for him. Can you take the time to put yourself in Jesus’ presence? By God’s grace the time that you spend with Jesus in prayer will be like the nard whose fragrance filled the entire house. The fragrance of your prayer time will seep into the entire rest of your day, and you will remember that, just like Mary of Bethany, you too are Jesus’ beloved friend.
Finally, serving the poor is another way in which we allow Jesus to love us and express our love for him. Jesus himself did not minister to those who were rich and powerful or to those who scrupulously observed the law. Rather, he associated with those on the margins of society, with prostitutes, tax collectors, women, and farmers, with those who were sick, disabled or possessed. At the end of Matthew’s gospel he reminded us that whenever we fed, clothed, nursed, or visited “the least of these,” we did it to him. Writing a check is fine. Churches and charities are always in a position to receive funds. But if Mary is our model, then we are also called to concrete action, to real relationships with real people who need our help. Come to Loaves and Fishes – or to any place where you are personally useful. Talk with our diners. Smile and set a plate down in front of them. Jesus will be sitting among them, taking the plate from your hand. Get out of your comfort zone, give up your apathy, and let go of your ability to turn away from the needs of others.
What is our ultimate goal? It is to live our lives so totally devoted to Christ that our love for him is more important to us than anything else in the world and to express that love to those around us. Today is coincidentally St. Patrick’s Day. More than fifteen hundred years ago, St. Patrick gave us clues about what our real goal in life should be. Some of you will recognize the words as verse 6 of the hymn commonly called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate:”
Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Are you Mary or Judas? By God’s grace, and inspired by Mary, we are all, day by day being transformed into those who know Christ’s love without a doubt and who express it with trust and joy to him and to the world around us.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Ambassadors for Christ
Is anyone beyond God’s redemptive love? There’s a story told about Karl Barth, the great Swiss Reformed theologian. It is said that Barth was asked what he would say to Hitler, if he ever had a chance to meet the man who had tried to annihilate the Jews and had wreaked so much destruction on Europe. The person who asked Barth that question most likely assumed that Barth would prophetically thunder God’s vengeance against the perpetrator of so much evil. Instead, Barth replied that all he would do was to quote Romans 5:8, “The proof of God’s love is that Christ died for us even while we were sinners.” Barth knew that accusation and judgment would have provoked Hitler’s self-righteous defense and self-justification. Only the knowledge of God’s boundless mercy and forgiveness, only the good news of God’s infinite grace, could possibly have wrought a change in Hitler. Do we believe that? Could you have said what Barth said? Could you have said those words to Pol Pot or Bull Connor, to Saddam Husain or the September 11th terrorists? Can you say them to Bashar al-Assad or Jared Loughner? Can you say them to yourself? Is anyone beyond God’s mercy, forgiveness, and love?
I hope that if I were called to answer the question put to Barth – and it would be a very hard one for me – I would be able to say, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us…. We entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.” For, once we hear Paul’s statement of the good news, then we see the world and all other human beings differently. We “regard no one from a human point of view.” We understand that no one is beyond the reach of Christ. We understand that, whether we or they think so, Christ has died for all. Not some, not a chosen few, but all. Christ has died for Hitler, for Pol Pot, for Saddam Husain, for the September 11th terrorists, for Bashar al-Assad, and for us. Such is God’s infinite mercy and grace.
Is God’s grace too unbelievable? Does God’s grace offend our sense of fairness? Don’t we always expect God to mete out justice, vengeance, and punishment? Do some of us live in fear of God’s justice, or even secretly pray for God’s punishment to rain down on others?
Make no mistake. If we cannot trust in God’s mercy – for all – then we have no basis for hope of any kind. For if we give up hope for anyone’s salvation – even the most evil person we can imagine – then we give up hope for ourselves. Indeed, if we can engage in honest self-examination, or if we are fortunate enough to get a glimpse of how others see us, then we know that we are not engaging in false humility when we say to God, in the words of the old confession, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.” Can we then hope for redemption for ourselves, while denying that others can be saved? Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar reminds us that the church has never, in any place, declared anyone definitely to be damned – not all those consigned to Hell in Dante’s Inferno, not the killers of martyrs, not even Judas. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,” and in Christ God has definitively demonstrated that God’s mercy extends to all.
Is that too unbelievable? Perhaps the saints among us – in whose number the church has dared to include those from “every nation, tribe, people, and language,” – are those who have accepted God’s all-inclusive grace, and are already living in that new reality. Jesus proclaimed that, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” Indeed, as members of Christ’s Body, as those who have been made new by his death and resurrection, we are living in that new realm now. Not in some life to come, but now. We are living under a new dispensation, inaugurated by Christ’s life and teaching, Christ’s death and resurrection. We are citizens of a new country, and we are ambassadors of a new way of living. God has reconciled the world to Godself, and we are called to proclaim that message of reconciliation to others.
Let’s look at that word “reconciliation.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say “sacrifice,” or “justification,” or “redemption.” “Redemption” means release from slavery. “Justification” is a legal word. Sacrifice” reminds us of rituals that have little or no meaning for us moderns. The word “reconciliation” is different. It comes from the world of international diplomacy. Elsewhere Paul uses military images and speaks in terms of spiritual warfare. Here he tells us that we are diplomats, ambassadors, and representatives of God. Now we no longer see the world in us/them terms; we look at the world as if we were diplomats, called to bring peace to a world full of conflict.
Of course, it is God who has made us citizens of a new country, it is God who has called us to be ambassadors and diplomats, it is God who has called us to be peacemakers. As one commentator tells us, “God reconciles and humanity is reconciled! For Paul it is never Jesus the loving son stepping into the gap to protect humanity from an angry father. It is God the Father who takes the initiative by sending Jesus the son to accomplish the work of reconciliation. God is not an angry tyrant “out to get us,” but one whose reconciling love has taken flesh in the life and death of Jesus.”1 It is that work of reconciling love in which we are called to participate. We are charged to be the advance guard proclaiming and showing forth the new creation and the ministry of reconciliation. As individuals, and more importantly, as the church, we are called to join the Peace Corps of God, the Red Cross of Reconciliation, and the embassy of Christ.2
Can we do that? As those who are now part of Christ’s Body, can we know ourselves to be recipients of God’s love? Do we believe that we are living in the new country that God has created? Can we share that good news with others? Are we willing to be agents of God’s love?
Where do we begin? Can we even conceive of the new creation we are called to proclaim? Perhaps we begin by attempting to see the world through God’s eyes. Such vision begins in prayer, in a way of seeing that God gives us when we pray. When we stop talking and take time for holy silence, when we open ourselves to God, we strengthen our ability to see as God sees. We begin to see all people, people nearby and people farther away, good and bad, healthy and sick, legal and illegal, addicted and clean, rich and poor, all people, indeed all creation, as reconciled to God, as beloved by God, as worthy of God’s and our forgiveness, care and concern.
When we see with God’s eyes, then we begin to have empathy. We begin to see through others’ eyes and begin to understand how the world looks to them. After that, we can begin to take concrete action. The children of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida have already begun to act as God’s agents.3 Every year during Lent, the youngest Sunday school children raise money for Episcopal Relief & Development. In 2012 they learned about malaria and raised $550 for Nets for Life. This year, the children decided to purchase a dairy cow from the ERD catalogue in order to help a family in need. They wanted to raise $630. Parents and parishioners gave them donations and cleaned out the extra change from couch cushions. The children went a step further and set up a lemonade stand to raise even more money. They encouraged members of the congregation to buy animals of their own and even set up a Noah’s Ark on the parish hall bulletin board filled with purchased animals. They hope to fill the ark by the end of Lent. “Our children continue to amaze and inspire us with their genuine desire to help others,” said Margaret Cavin, Sunday school coordinator at St. Mark’s. “I've loved hearing stories from parents about their children's efforts to raise funds. One student emptied his entire piggy bank so that he could be sure to contribute a mosquito net last year. I've already heard parents say that any bit of change found in their home or car has been scooped up and deposited in a mite box. We can't wait to see how much the children will raise!"
The children of St. Mark’s have already become ambassadors for Christ. Young as they are, they have already become emissaries of God’s love to children whose names they will never know. Can we do any less? God has decisively demonstrated God’s love for us and for all humanity. Whom are we called to embrace? To whom is this parish called to reach out in love?
1. Hulitt Gloer, “Ambassadors of Reconciliation: Paul’s Genius in Applying the Gospel in a Multi-cultural World: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21,” Review & Expositor 104, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 591, quoted in L. Susan Bond, “Fourth Sunday in Lent,” New Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 169.
2. L. Susan Bond, ibid.
3. http://www.er-d.org/Friends-February-2013-St-Marks-Jacksonville
I hope that if I were called to answer the question put to Barth – and it would be a very hard one for me – I would be able to say, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us…. We entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.” For, once we hear Paul’s statement of the good news, then we see the world and all other human beings differently. We “regard no one from a human point of view.” We understand that no one is beyond the reach of Christ. We understand that, whether we or they think so, Christ has died for all. Not some, not a chosen few, but all. Christ has died for Hitler, for Pol Pot, for Saddam Husain, for the September 11th terrorists, for Bashar al-Assad, and for us. Such is God’s infinite mercy and grace.
Is God’s grace too unbelievable? Does God’s grace offend our sense of fairness? Don’t we always expect God to mete out justice, vengeance, and punishment? Do some of us live in fear of God’s justice, or even secretly pray for God’s punishment to rain down on others?
Make no mistake. If we cannot trust in God’s mercy – for all – then we have no basis for hope of any kind. For if we give up hope for anyone’s salvation – even the most evil person we can imagine – then we give up hope for ourselves. Indeed, if we can engage in honest self-examination, or if we are fortunate enough to get a glimpse of how others see us, then we know that we are not engaging in false humility when we say to God, in the words of the old confession, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.” Can we then hope for redemption for ourselves, while denying that others can be saved? Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar reminds us that the church has never, in any place, declared anyone definitely to be damned – not all those consigned to Hell in Dante’s Inferno, not the killers of martyrs, not even Judas. “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,” and in Christ God has definitively demonstrated that God’s mercy extends to all.
Is that too unbelievable? Perhaps the saints among us – in whose number the church has dared to include those from “every nation, tribe, people, and language,” – are those who have accepted God’s all-inclusive grace, and are already living in that new reality. Jesus proclaimed that, “The Kingdom of God has come near.” Indeed, as members of Christ’s Body, as those who have been made new by his death and resurrection, we are living in that new realm now. Not in some life to come, but now. We are living under a new dispensation, inaugurated by Christ’s life and teaching, Christ’s death and resurrection. We are citizens of a new country, and we are ambassadors of a new way of living. God has reconciled the world to Godself, and we are called to proclaim that message of reconciliation to others.
Let’s look at that word “reconciliation.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say “sacrifice,” or “justification,” or “redemption.” “Redemption” means release from slavery. “Justification” is a legal word. Sacrifice” reminds us of rituals that have little or no meaning for us moderns. The word “reconciliation” is different. It comes from the world of international diplomacy. Elsewhere Paul uses military images and speaks in terms of spiritual warfare. Here he tells us that we are diplomats, ambassadors, and representatives of God. Now we no longer see the world in us/them terms; we look at the world as if we were diplomats, called to bring peace to a world full of conflict.
Of course, it is God who has made us citizens of a new country, it is God who has called us to be ambassadors and diplomats, it is God who has called us to be peacemakers. As one commentator tells us, “God reconciles and humanity is reconciled! For Paul it is never Jesus the loving son stepping into the gap to protect humanity from an angry father. It is God the Father who takes the initiative by sending Jesus the son to accomplish the work of reconciliation. God is not an angry tyrant “out to get us,” but one whose reconciling love has taken flesh in the life and death of Jesus.”1 It is that work of reconciling love in which we are called to participate. We are charged to be the advance guard proclaiming and showing forth the new creation and the ministry of reconciliation. As individuals, and more importantly, as the church, we are called to join the Peace Corps of God, the Red Cross of Reconciliation, and the embassy of Christ.2
Can we do that? As those who are now part of Christ’s Body, can we know ourselves to be recipients of God’s love? Do we believe that we are living in the new country that God has created? Can we share that good news with others? Are we willing to be agents of God’s love?
Where do we begin? Can we even conceive of the new creation we are called to proclaim? Perhaps we begin by attempting to see the world through God’s eyes. Such vision begins in prayer, in a way of seeing that God gives us when we pray. When we stop talking and take time for holy silence, when we open ourselves to God, we strengthen our ability to see as God sees. We begin to see all people, people nearby and people farther away, good and bad, healthy and sick, legal and illegal, addicted and clean, rich and poor, all people, indeed all creation, as reconciled to God, as beloved by God, as worthy of God’s and our forgiveness, care and concern.
When we see with God’s eyes, then we begin to have empathy. We begin to see through others’ eyes and begin to understand how the world looks to them. After that, we can begin to take concrete action. The children of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida have already begun to act as God’s agents.3 Every year during Lent, the youngest Sunday school children raise money for Episcopal Relief & Development. In 2012 they learned about malaria and raised $550 for Nets for Life. This year, the children decided to purchase a dairy cow from the ERD catalogue in order to help a family in need. They wanted to raise $630. Parents and parishioners gave them donations and cleaned out the extra change from couch cushions. The children went a step further and set up a lemonade stand to raise even more money. They encouraged members of the congregation to buy animals of their own and even set up a Noah’s Ark on the parish hall bulletin board filled with purchased animals. They hope to fill the ark by the end of Lent. “Our children continue to amaze and inspire us with their genuine desire to help others,” said Margaret Cavin, Sunday school coordinator at St. Mark’s. “I've loved hearing stories from parents about their children's efforts to raise funds. One student emptied his entire piggy bank so that he could be sure to contribute a mosquito net last year. I've already heard parents say that any bit of change found in their home or car has been scooped up and deposited in a mite box. We can't wait to see how much the children will raise!"
The children of St. Mark’s have already become ambassadors for Christ. Young as they are, they have already become emissaries of God’s love to children whose names they will never know. Can we do any less? God has decisively demonstrated God’s love for us and for all humanity. Whom are we called to embrace? To whom is this parish called to reach out in love?
1. Hulitt Gloer, “Ambassadors of Reconciliation: Paul’s Genius in Applying the Gospel in a Multi-cultural World: 2 Corinthians 5:14-21,” Review & Expositor 104, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 591, quoted in L. Susan Bond, “Fourth Sunday in Lent,” New Proclamation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 169.
2. L. Susan Bond, ibid.
3. http://www.er-d.org/Friends-February-2013-St-Marks-Jacksonville
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)