“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
For some people, the word “enabling” gets a bad rap. Those who treat alcoholics or substance abusers often speak of “enablers.” “Enablers” are family members and friends who, thinking they are helping, actually make it easier for alcoholics and abusers to continue their abuse. Enabling behavior often involves rescuing an alcoholic or abuser from the consequences of addiction, thus allowing the person to comfortably continue in unacceptable or destructive behavior. In order to help, well-meaning family and friends must give up their enabling behaviors in order for the alcoholic or abuser to start down the road to recovery. Sometimes people who have had bad experiences with the church think of the church in this way, i.e., as an institution that has enabled negative and destructive behavior, from which they must dissociate themselves in order to be healthy. You’ve probably even met people who call themselves “recovering” ex-Christians. In fact, googling the phrase “recovering Christian” will turn up over 15 million pages!
More recently, the word “enabling” has begun to regain some of its positive connotations. For example, a company named Enabling Technologies provides Braille embossers for the blind. The Enabling Devices Company develops “assistive technology for people with disabilities” and provides such products as a jumbo remote control and a harness to help lift a heavy service dog. Many business networking companies include the word “enabling” in their name.
In his letter to the Christian community at Philippi, St Paul assures his hearers that God is enabling the church in this second, positive way. God, he assures them, is at work among them to create a true community grounded in Christ. Today we have had the second lesson from this letter, and we will hear it twice more, next week and the following week. Most likely Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians from prison in Rome, probably in the early’60s, i.e., towards the end of his life. He had probably founded this Christian community in the largely Roman city of Philippi about ten years before, and scholars think that the Philippians may have been his favorite community. Part of his reason for writing them is to reassure them about his own situation and to thank them for their gifts to him through one of their members who had visited him. The letter has a particularly joyful theme. We will hear that joyful note especially in the familiar words of our lection for two weeks from now: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”
Yet Paul has another concern: the ability of the community to reflect Christ through their bonds with each other. At the end of the letter he will allude to two of its leading women, who were apparently at odds with each other. So Paul, as he often does, grounds the specific instructions he will give in a deeper understanding of the work of Christ. Here, Paul urges his hearers to participate in the life of Christ, the life they have begun with their baptisms, by living together in unity and humility.
In the stirring words of a poem or hymn that the Philippians might already have known, Paul offers them Jesus as the supreme model of humility. He who was God’s own Son was content to be born as a human being and to endure an agonizing death on the Cross. Paul also assures his hearers that Christ’s saving action, his death on the Cross, has initiated the salvation of the entire world and the restoration of order and wholeness under Christ’s lordship.
It is hard to overestimate the astonishing claim that Paul makes here. First, he reminds the Philippians of Christ’s divine status by using the same word, which we translate as “Lord,” that the Greek version of the Old Testament uses for God. Second, and even more important, Paul is writing as a Roman citizen to other Roman citizens, i.e., to people whose culture venerated Caesar as Lord. In contrast to everything that their culture tells them, Paul triumphantly proclaims that “at the name of Jesus – not Caesar – every knee should bend,” and that “every tongue should confess” that Jesus Christ – not Caesar – is Lord. Most astonishing of all, Paul assures these Roman citizens that, as baptized members of Christ’s body, they can trust that God is at work in them, and that God has empowered them to cooperate with God in the working out of God’s will for the world.
My friends, Paul is also writing to us! We too been enabled by God “both to will and work for [God’s] good pleasure.” We too have been baptized into Christ’s body. God is at much at work in us as God was in the church at Philippi – even in our small parish on the Ohio River! Let me underscore that: the good news we hear here is not primarily for us as individuals. It is for us as a community: the “you” here is plural. The Christian life is not a solo pursuit – even for anchorites. It is a life lived in community. So Paul assures us that God is enabling the work of our parish, and that it is as a parish that we are called to work for the salvation of the world. How do we do that? Even if we trust that God is at work here, how do we cooperate with God in this work?
I’d like to offer a way of looking at our life together in terms of our behaviors as a parish, our practices, the ways in which we open ourselves to God’s leading. Vital living parishes are more than just a collection of individuals who happen to like Episcopal liturgy. Rather, like monastic communities, they are intentional about communal life, and they have ideals towards which they strive, not only on Sunday but every day.
As some of you know, we are completing an application for a grant from the diocesan Commission on Congregational Life. This group supports parishes that are truly pursuing vital missions. We have had such grants for two years and hope for yet another. As part of the application process, the Commission points to the seven Hallmarks of Healthy Congregations developed by the diocese. I’d like to share them with you. The first hallmark is a clear sense of identity. For myself, I believe St. Peter’s has a strong sense of identity. As I said in our application, “We are a small community of people committed to living out our baptismal ministry by growing in our relationship with God, worshiping and organizing ourselves according to the Anglican tradition, and sharing our love of God with the community around us. We are open and inclusive, genuinely and consistently welcoming all into our space.”
The second and sixth hallmarks are radical hospitality and extravagant generosity. For me, our welcome of anyone who comes inside our sanctuary and our support of Loaves and Fishes and Dry Bottoms exemplify our commitment to this hallmark. The third hallmark is inspiring worship. Worship is almost a given, for it is through worship that Christ is especially present to us, enabling us to grow spiritually and binding us together. We have a lovingly cared for sacred space and dignified worship in the Anglican tradition. And we also have a “growing edge.” We are deeply grateful to Nancy for all that she does for us musically. Yet, we too need to join the “faithful” and begin making our songs “exalt his reign?”. Can we figure out how to do that?
For the fourth hallmark, intentional faith development and formation for discipleship, Deacon Carolyn and I have committed ourselves to two new opportunities for spiritual growth: four sessions on the practice of prayer and ongoing Wednesday evening study of Scripture. Will anyone come with us? And the fifth hallmark, adventuresome, risk-taking mission and service? What might such adventurous mission and service look like for us? For example, does anyone want to help plan a mission trip? Finally, I do believe that we reflect the seventh hallmark, accountability and collaboration, in our partnering with other churches and in our many connections to the diocese.
The Hallmarks of Healthy Congregations do not exhaust all that we are called to be as a parish. As we worship together, we are called to be a community of prayer. As we learn together, we are called to be a community that is enriched by sacred Scripture. As we serve others, we are also called to do so with humility, grace, and unity. We are called to put aside animosities and conflicts that fracture our community and make it difficult for us to witness to God’s love. We are called to “have the same mind” in us that was in Christ. Most important, we are called to trust that we are not alone, that God is at work in us, both as individuals and as a parish, and that God is transforming us all more and more into Christ’s likeness.
O God, we give you thanks for the invitation that you make to us every day and every hour. We know that you are at work in us. Guide us as a community that we may be joined in heart and mind with you and all your faithful people, so that together we may truly show forth your praise. Amen.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Put Your Trust in God
Do you find the image of God in the story of Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptians at all jolting? Consider this: in the Gospel passage we just heard, Jesus charges the disciples, and by extension us, to forgive those who wrong them “seventy-seven” times, i.e., an infinite number of times. Then, in an absurdly exaggerated parable, Jesus reminds them of the importance of forgiveness in the life of a Christian community and suggests that we truly accept God’s forgiveness of us when we extend forgiveness to others.
Or consider this: our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, our last reading from this letter for this liturgical year, reminds us that the God revealed to us in Jesus welcomes all comers. Christian communities can – and should – allow for a variety of theological perspectives and spiritual practices. If we all belong to Christ, Paul admonishes us, we are to refrain from judging each other.
But the God whom we meet in the Exodus story? Is that the same God whom Jesus called “Abba?” Is that the same God to whom each of us will be held accountable for our welcome – or lack of welcome – of one another? Is that violent God our God?
The story of the deliverance of the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds is a foundational story, for Jews and for many Christians. For good reason, African-American theologians have especially identified with the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Even so, this story raises profound questions – at least for me. To begin with, did God grieve over the deaths of all those Egyptians? Sure, we hear the story from the point of view of an oppressed people who finally and miraculously triumphed over those who oppressed them. Even so, what about all the Egyptian lives lost? And what of the women whose husbands, sons, and brothers rode in those chariots whose wheels became clogged in the mud, and who were swept under as the sea returned? Did God not care about them?
Secondly, is God a tribal God? Does God really favor one people over another? Many fundamentalists of all faith communities would say, “Absolutely.” Many of today’s Israelis, who believe that Israel may use any and all means to ensure its self-preservation, would agree wholeheartedly. Similarly, those in Muslim nations who limit the freedom of Christians to practice their religion would agree, as would members of the Taliban and ISIS, who promote the most rigid possible forms of Islam. As would Christians who believe that those who favor their brand of belief and practice are saved, and assure those of us who disagree with their literalist interpretations of the Bible or tradition that God hates us, and that we are damned. Is this the God to whom we have committed our lives?
And finally we might ask, “Is God really a warrior God?” “Warrior” is certainly one of the images for God that recurs in the Hebrew Bible. However, because Jesus consciously rejected military power, even refusing to be crowned as a king, many Christians feel profoundly uncomfortable with military imagery and with the notion of God as warrior. Some refuse to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Some squirm when they hear Paul’s command, in the portion of the letter to the Romans that we heard last week, to “put on the armor of light.” Even worse for them is to hear him instruct the Ephesian Christians to “take up the whole armor of God,” including the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (6:13-17). Is God a militant God?
There are no easy answers to these questions. The book of Exodus is one of the most ancient in the entire Bible. The story we have just heard comes from at least three sources, which were probably only edited and put together after the return from Exile in the 6th century BC. Apparently, the rabbis were also troubled by our first question, of whether God grieved for the Egyptians. Indeed, there is a Midrash, an interpretation, that God rebuked rejoicing angels saying, “While my creatures are drowning in the sea you would sing a hymn?” According to the rabbis, this rebuke showed that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. In answer to the second question, of whether God is a tribal God, much of the Hebrew Bible suggests that God cares for all people. For example, Psalm 117 enjoins all nations to praise God. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s promise of unity among nations. “In the days to come,” Isaiah says, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob” (2:2-3). Those who chafe at the notion of God as warrior point to the promise spoken by the prophet Micah: “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore….” (4:3).
Despite our questions and reservations about the God of the Exodus story, despite the alternative images of God that Scripture provides, this text is included in our lectionary for a reason. Its purpose is to remind of some important truths about the God whom we profess to worship, truths we might sometimes wish to forget. To begin with, the story witnesses to God’s power. Yes, God sometimes comes to us as a “still small voice.” Yes, God cares for us as a mother cares for her children. Yes, we can know God as friend and companion, and as the power working within us for transformation. But, at some point, we also must acknowledge that the Holy One, the Incomprehensible Mystery that created and grounds the cosmos, is also a God of immense power, power that can both act on our behalf, even working miracles, and power that can work against us when we in the wrong.
Secondly, this story reminds us that God stands passionately on the side of justice. The Israelites who crossed the Sea of Reeds were an oppressed people, forced into slavery by the wealthy and powerful Egyptians, whose leadership was determined to do everything necessary to maintain the status quo ante. This story forcefully reminds us, with unforgettable imagery, that the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, and our God, is a God who uses all of God’s power to work for justice on behalf of those who are oppressed. No wonder enslaved Africans found this story so full of hope and promise!
And finally, this story reminds us that we are called to trust in God. What did the Israelites do after they had crossed the sea, after they had been saved, and after they “saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore?” “So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.” The Israelites acknowledged God’s immense power, put their trust in God, and came to understand fully that Moses was God’s designee, God’s trusted instrument.
And what of us? We may not have crossed the Sea of Reeds, but we too stand where the Israelites stood. We too are called to trust in God’s great power, to trust that God will be on our side in our fight for justice and peace, even when we are weak and unarmed, even when we fight against great worldly powers. Can we do that? My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” who have trusted God to be with them when they stood on the side of justice. We are instructed by the witness of many who, despite their lack of military hardware, have gone out against mighty powers ranged against them.
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a descendant of rabbis and a lecturer in philosophy in Warsaw, Poland. Six weeks before the Nazis invaded Poland, Heschel managed to escape to London. He eventually made it to the U.S. where he had a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible. His book on the prophets is still widely read and is considered a classic in the field. However, Heschel was much more than a dispassionate scholar. He took seriously the witness of the Scripture that he studied. Hearing God’s call to join God on the side of justice, he became a forthright proponent of Civil Rights. In March, 1965, Heschel “prayed with his legs” by joining Martin Luther King on his historic march from Salem, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. Unarmed and defenseless, along with King and others, he faced down dogs, fire hoses, hostile police officers, and jeering crowds. Bearded, white-haired, wearing black horned-rimmed glasses, Heschel fulfilled his deep life-long commitment by marching with those who truly trusted that God would liberate them, just as God had liberated the Israelites.
We have only to look around us to see God similarly at work, companioning the weak, the unarmed, and the oppressed, in their struggle for justice. Are we with them? Do we trust God to lead us? If the Exodus text has any meaning for us, let it continue to remind us that God is powerful, that God cares for all people, that God shows up on the side of the weak and powerless, and, most important, that God calls us to work in partnership with God to bring about liberation for all.
Or consider this: our reading from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, our last reading from this letter for this liturgical year, reminds us that the God revealed to us in Jesus welcomes all comers. Christian communities can – and should – allow for a variety of theological perspectives and spiritual practices. If we all belong to Christ, Paul admonishes us, we are to refrain from judging each other.
But the God whom we meet in the Exodus story? Is that the same God whom Jesus called “Abba?” Is that the same God to whom each of us will be held accountable for our welcome – or lack of welcome – of one another? Is that violent God our God?
The story of the deliverance of the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds is a foundational story, for Jews and for many Christians. For good reason, African-American theologians have especially identified with the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian oppression. Even so, this story raises profound questions – at least for me. To begin with, did God grieve over the deaths of all those Egyptians? Sure, we hear the story from the point of view of an oppressed people who finally and miraculously triumphed over those who oppressed them. Even so, what about all the Egyptian lives lost? And what of the women whose husbands, sons, and brothers rode in those chariots whose wheels became clogged in the mud, and who were swept under as the sea returned? Did God not care about them?
Secondly, is God a tribal God? Does God really favor one people over another? Many fundamentalists of all faith communities would say, “Absolutely.” Many of today’s Israelis, who believe that Israel may use any and all means to ensure its self-preservation, would agree wholeheartedly. Similarly, those in Muslim nations who limit the freedom of Christians to practice their religion would agree, as would members of the Taliban and ISIS, who promote the most rigid possible forms of Islam. As would Christians who believe that those who favor their brand of belief and practice are saved, and assure those of us who disagree with their literalist interpretations of the Bible or tradition that God hates us, and that we are damned. Is this the God to whom we have committed our lives?
And finally we might ask, “Is God really a warrior God?” “Warrior” is certainly one of the images for God that recurs in the Hebrew Bible. However, because Jesus consciously rejected military power, even refusing to be crowned as a king, many Christians feel profoundly uncomfortable with military imagery and with the notion of God as warrior. Some refuse to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Some squirm when they hear Paul’s command, in the portion of the letter to the Romans that we heard last week, to “put on the armor of light.” Even worse for them is to hear him instruct the Ephesian Christians to “take up the whole armor of God,” including the “belt of truth,” the “breastplate of righteousness,” the “shield of faith,” the “helmet of salvation,” and the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (6:13-17). Is God a militant God?
There are no easy answers to these questions. The book of Exodus is one of the most ancient in the entire Bible. The story we have just heard comes from at least three sources, which were probably only edited and put together after the return from Exile in the 6th century BC. Apparently, the rabbis were also troubled by our first question, of whether God grieved for the Egyptians. Indeed, there is a Midrash, an interpretation, that God rebuked rejoicing angels saying, “While my creatures are drowning in the sea you would sing a hymn?” According to the rabbis, this rebuke showed that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. In answer to the second question, of whether God is a tribal God, much of the Hebrew Bible suggests that God cares for all people. For example, Psalm 117 enjoins all nations to praise God. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of God’s promise of unity among nations. “In the days to come,” Isaiah says, “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob” (2:2-3). Those who chafe at the notion of God as warrior point to the promise spoken by the prophet Micah: “He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore….” (4:3).
Despite our questions and reservations about the God of the Exodus story, despite the alternative images of God that Scripture provides, this text is included in our lectionary for a reason. Its purpose is to remind of some important truths about the God whom we profess to worship, truths we might sometimes wish to forget. To begin with, the story witnesses to God’s power. Yes, God sometimes comes to us as a “still small voice.” Yes, God cares for us as a mother cares for her children. Yes, we can know God as friend and companion, and as the power working within us for transformation. But, at some point, we also must acknowledge that the Holy One, the Incomprehensible Mystery that created and grounds the cosmos, is also a God of immense power, power that can both act on our behalf, even working miracles, and power that can work against us when we in the wrong.
Secondly, this story reminds us that God stands passionately on the side of justice. The Israelites who crossed the Sea of Reeds were an oppressed people, forced into slavery by the wealthy and powerful Egyptians, whose leadership was determined to do everything necessary to maintain the status quo ante. This story forcefully reminds us, with unforgettable imagery, that the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, and our God, is a God who uses all of God’s power to work for justice on behalf of those who are oppressed. No wonder enslaved Africans found this story so full of hope and promise!
And finally, this story reminds us that we are called to trust in God. What did the Israelites do after they had crossed the sea, after they had been saved, and after they “saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore?” “So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.” The Israelites acknowledged God’s immense power, put their trust in God, and came to understand fully that Moses was God’s designee, God’s trusted instrument.
And what of us? We may not have crossed the Sea of Reeds, but we too stand where the Israelites stood. We too are called to trust in God’s great power, to trust that God will be on our side in our fight for justice and peace, even when we are weak and unarmed, even when we fight against great worldly powers. Can we do that? My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses,” who have trusted God to be with them when they stood on the side of justice. We are instructed by the witness of many who, despite their lack of military hardware, have gone out against mighty powers ranged against them.
Abraham Joshua Heschel was a descendant of rabbis and a lecturer in philosophy in Warsaw, Poland. Six weeks before the Nazis invaded Poland, Heschel managed to escape to London. He eventually made it to the U.S. where he had a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible. His book on the prophets is still widely read and is considered a classic in the field. However, Heschel was much more than a dispassionate scholar. He took seriously the witness of the Scripture that he studied. Hearing God’s call to join God on the side of justice, he became a forthright proponent of Civil Rights. In March, 1965, Heschel “prayed with his legs” by joining Martin Luther King on his historic march from Salem, Alabama, to the state capital in Montgomery. Unarmed and defenseless, along with King and others, he faced down dogs, fire hoses, hostile police officers, and jeering crowds. Bearded, white-haired, wearing black horned-rimmed glasses, Heschel fulfilled his deep life-long commitment by marching with those who truly trusted that God would liberate them, just as God had liberated the Israelites.
We have only to look around us to see God similarly at work, companioning the weak, the unarmed, and the oppressed, in their struggle for justice. Are we with them? Do we trust God to lead us? If the Exodus text has any meaning for us, let it continue to remind us that God is powerful, that God cares for all people, that God shows up on the side of the weak and powerless, and, most important, that God calls us to work in partnership with God to bring about liberation for all.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Love One Another
“The commandments … are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Last month, the actor Robin Williams hanged himself. He was only sixty-three. Six months ago, the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He was only forty-six. Both men were richly talented, highly acclaimed actors. Robin Williams excelled at both zany comedy and moving drama. Who can forget his portrayal of the cross-dressing Mrs. Doubtfire, or of Patch Adams, the physician who healed his patients through deft use of comedy? Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us men of fierce intelligence, whose lives tended to end in crime or tragedy. His portrayal of Günther Bachmann, the brooding German intelligence officer in his last film, “A Man Most Wanted,” is truly riveting. Yet both of these men, at the peak of success, were also depressed and addicted to drugs. Both died at their own hands.
Writer Daniel Clendenin suggests that both suffered from what he calls “spiritual poverty.” “’The biggest disease today,’ Mother Teresa once said, is more spiritual than physical. It’s not ‘leprosy or tuberculosis,’ she observed, ‘but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.’”1
Do we, as followers of the Risen One, have any responsibility for Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and for others like them? Should we care about those who, despite, or perhaps because, of their great professional success, are so disconnected from God, themselves, and those around them that the path of self-destruction seems the only viable option? And what about those closer to us, our neighbors on this piece of the planet, who may also be lonely, sick, or grieving; must we be concerned about them?
Our passage this morning from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome clearly – at least to me – calls us to care for both those like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and those closer to us. We’ve been hearing passages from this long letter for several weeks. It is the last letter that Paul wrote, and, in some respects, the entire letter is about how to love. In the first eleven chapters, Paul explores the question of loving God, trying to get his arms around all that God has done for us in Christ. Now, in chapters twelve through fourteen, he deals with what was a more difficult task for many early Christians: how to love other people, especially those of other ethnicities, social class, or gender.
As a Jew, Paul understood God’s covenant with the Jews, which now, through Christ, included the Gentiles. Paul understood that a covenant is a two-way agreement: God has made promises to humanity, and humans have responsibilities in turn. Paul understood that keeping the law was the way that Jews, and now Christians, uphold their part of the covenant. Initially, of course, the covenant included only Ten Commandments, the ten which had been given on Mount Sinai during the forty years’ trek in the desert. As the community pondered how to apply the commandments to specific and changing situations, the laws multiplied. By the time of the compilation of the book of Leviticus, there were 613 of them. And, actually, the process has continued to the present day, as the rabbis continue to figure out how to apply the law to the circumstances in which Jews now live. Needless to say, the same process is at work in secular law.
Despite the pondering and the multiplying of the law to cover new circumstances, the underlying principle of the law is always the same: loving our neighbor is the way we show our love for God. In laying out the Jews’ obligations toward God, Leviticus clearly states this principle: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (19:18). We hear its echo in Jesus’ statement of the great commandment in the gospel of Mark: “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:29-31), or as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer put it, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The charge to love our neighbors is a constant theme in Scripture. Paul restates it in his letter to the Galatian Christians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (5:13-14). The writer of the letter of James reminds us, “You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (2:8). The writer of the first letter of John tells us clearly, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And even beyond Scripture, early Christian writers continued to remind us of our obligation to love others. Writing in the sixth century, for example, Maximus the Confessor declared, “Blessed is the one who can love all people equally, thinking good of everyone.”
Is “loving our neighbor” easy to do? If it were, all would have haloes! In some ways, the 613 commandments were easier to keep. At least they were concrete and told pious Jews what to do and not do. Loving their neighbors as themselves was much more difficult. No wonder the gospel of Luke depicts the scribe asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In writing to the Roman Christians, Paul was perfectly aware of how difficult it was for them to give up their self-absorption and focus on the concerns others. Having been a pious Jew himself, he knew perfectly well how difficult it was for them to not look down on, condemn, or enslave those who differed from them in social class, gender, faith community, or ethnicity. And he knew well how difficult it was to compromise and to forgive old sins and hurts.
BUT here’s Paul’s good news: the Roman Christians could love their neighbors as themselves, because of God’s great self-giving love for them, because a new day was already dawning through the death and resurrection of Christ, because through the Holy Spirit working on them from within, God was already transforming them. And what should their response be? To dress appropriately, i.e., to lean on God, and to fix their intentions on following God’s call, rather than automatically succumbing to the demands of their own egos or of the surrounding culture.
My sisters and brothers, this is still our call, to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” And the good news stands: we too are empowered to follow God’s commandment. We too are called to give up our absorption with self and fix our intentions on the needs of others. And, by virtue of our baptism and our inclusion into Christ’s Body, God’s transformation of us has already begun. We too have been created and are sustained by God’s continual self-giving. We too have a true model of self-giving love in Jesus’ death on the Cross. We too are included in his resurrection. We too can rely on his promise that the Holy Spirit is now at work in us.
Does loving our neighbor require heroic deeds of us? Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of the “red letter day,” when the Queen visited a factory. He ends the story with a poem entitled, “Special.”
“I always knew it was a special day
when my neighbour baked a cake.
I knew she’d baked a cake
because she always brought me a piece –
well, living alone,
and never having baked anything in my life,
she knew I appreciated home baking.
And I would always ask her,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?’
And, over the years,
I’d had a share in family occasions,
and anniversaries,
and homecomings,
and leavings,
and celebrations for coming back again,
and big birthdays,
and little birthdays,
and retirements,
and babies being born,
and Scotland winning the grand-slam at rugby,
and Labour winning an election.
I would always ask her.
And I always got my share.
And I always enjoyed my cake.
Then, one day, my neighbour baked a cake
and brought me a piece,
and I asked her, as usual,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?
And she said, ‘Nothing.’
And I asked, ‘Nothing?’
And she said, ‘Well, nothing
really ...’
And I said she’d have to explain.
And she said that she’d just felt
she should bake a cake and share it with me,
because she liked being my friend –
and it was good to be alive!
And I said, ‘Oh!’
So we shared my neighbour’s cake –
and we both agreed it was a very nice cake,
because it was shared by friends
on a
very
special day.”2
In the end, loving our neighbor does not require heroic deeds. Mother Teresa reminds us that, "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." Love God, love your neighbor. God asks no more of us – and no less.
1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml, For Sunday, September 7,2014.
2. "A Red-Letter Day,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publication, 2010), 243-44.
Last month, the actor Robin Williams hanged himself. He was only sixty-three. Six months ago, the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a drug overdose. He was only forty-six. Both men were richly talented, highly acclaimed actors. Robin Williams excelled at both zany comedy and moving drama. Who can forget his portrayal of the cross-dressing Mrs. Doubtfire, or of Patch Adams, the physician who healed his patients through deft use of comedy? Philip Seymour Hoffman gave us men of fierce intelligence, whose lives tended to end in crime or tragedy. His portrayal of Günther Bachmann, the brooding German intelligence officer in his last film, “A Man Most Wanted,” is truly riveting. Yet both of these men, at the peak of success, were also depressed and addicted to drugs. Both died at their own hands.
Writer Daniel Clendenin suggests that both suffered from what he calls “spiritual poverty.” “’The biggest disease today,’ Mother Teresa once said, is more spiritual than physical. It’s not ‘leprosy or tuberculosis,’ she observed, ‘but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference toward one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.’”1
Do we, as followers of the Risen One, have any responsibility for Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and for others like them? Should we care about those who, despite, or perhaps because, of their great professional success, are so disconnected from God, themselves, and those around them that the path of self-destruction seems the only viable option? And what about those closer to us, our neighbors on this piece of the planet, who may also be lonely, sick, or grieving; must we be concerned about them?
Our passage this morning from Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome clearly – at least to me – calls us to care for both those like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and those closer to us. We’ve been hearing passages from this long letter for several weeks. It is the last letter that Paul wrote, and, in some respects, the entire letter is about how to love. In the first eleven chapters, Paul explores the question of loving God, trying to get his arms around all that God has done for us in Christ. Now, in chapters twelve through fourteen, he deals with what was a more difficult task for many early Christians: how to love other people, especially those of other ethnicities, social class, or gender.
As a Jew, Paul understood God’s covenant with the Jews, which now, through Christ, included the Gentiles. Paul understood that a covenant is a two-way agreement: God has made promises to humanity, and humans have responsibilities in turn. Paul understood that keeping the law was the way that Jews, and now Christians, uphold their part of the covenant. Initially, of course, the covenant included only Ten Commandments, the ten which had been given on Mount Sinai during the forty years’ trek in the desert. As the community pondered how to apply the commandments to specific and changing situations, the laws multiplied. By the time of the compilation of the book of Leviticus, there were 613 of them. And, actually, the process has continued to the present day, as the rabbis continue to figure out how to apply the law to the circumstances in which Jews now live. Needless to say, the same process is at work in secular law.
Despite the pondering and the multiplying of the law to cover new circumstances, the underlying principle of the law is always the same: loving our neighbor is the way we show our love for God. In laying out the Jews’ obligations toward God, Leviticus clearly states this principle: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (19:18). We hear its echo in Jesus’ statement of the great commandment in the gospel of Mark: “The first [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (12:29-31), or as the 1928 Book of Common Prayer put it, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
The charge to love our neighbors is a constant theme in Scripture. Paul restates it in his letter to the Galatian Christians: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (5:13-14). The writer of the letter of James reminds us, “You do well if you really fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (2:8). The writer of the first letter of John tells us clearly, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And even beyond Scripture, early Christian writers continued to remind us of our obligation to love others. Writing in the sixth century, for example, Maximus the Confessor declared, “Blessed is the one who can love all people equally, thinking good of everyone.”
Is “loving our neighbor” easy to do? If it were, all would have haloes! In some ways, the 613 commandments were easier to keep. At least they were concrete and told pious Jews what to do and not do. Loving their neighbors as themselves was much more difficult. No wonder the gospel of Luke depicts the scribe asking Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In writing to the Roman Christians, Paul was perfectly aware of how difficult it was for them to give up their self-absorption and focus on the concerns others. Having been a pious Jew himself, he knew perfectly well how difficult it was for them to not look down on, condemn, or enslave those who differed from them in social class, gender, faith community, or ethnicity. And he knew well how difficult it was to compromise and to forgive old sins and hurts.
BUT here’s Paul’s good news: the Roman Christians could love their neighbors as themselves, because of God’s great self-giving love for them, because a new day was already dawning through the death and resurrection of Christ, because through the Holy Spirit working on them from within, God was already transforming them. And what should their response be? To dress appropriately, i.e., to lean on God, and to fix their intentions on following God’s call, rather than automatically succumbing to the demands of their own egos or of the surrounding culture.
My sisters and brothers, this is still our call, to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” And the good news stands: we too are empowered to follow God’s commandment. We too are called to give up our absorption with self and fix our intentions on the needs of others. And, by virtue of our baptism and our inclusion into Christ’s Body, God’s transformation of us has already begun. We too have been created and are sustained by God’s continual self-giving. We too have a true model of self-giving love in Jesus’ death on the Cross. We too are included in his resurrection. We too can rely on his promise that the Holy Spirit is now at work in us.
Does loving our neighbor require heroic deeds of us? Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of the “red letter day,” when the Queen visited a factory. He ends the story with a poem entitled, “Special.”
“I always knew it was a special day
when my neighbour baked a cake.
I knew she’d baked a cake
because she always brought me a piece –
well, living alone,
and never having baked anything in my life,
she knew I appreciated home baking.
And I would always ask her,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?’
And, over the years,
I’d had a share in family occasions,
and anniversaries,
and homecomings,
and leavings,
and celebrations for coming back again,
and big birthdays,
and little birthdays,
and retirements,
and babies being born,
and Scotland winning the grand-slam at rugby,
and Labour winning an election.
I would always ask her.
And I always got my share.
And I always enjoyed my cake.
Then, one day, my neighbour baked a cake
and brought me a piece,
and I asked her, as usual,
‘What’s the cake for this time?
What’s the special day?
And she said, ‘Nothing.’
And I asked, ‘Nothing?’
And she said, ‘Well, nothing
really ...’
And I said she’d have to explain.
And she said that she’d just felt
she should bake a cake and share it with me,
because she liked being my friend –
and it was good to be alive!
And I said, ‘Oh!’
So we shared my neighbour’s cake –
and we both agreed it was a very nice cake,
because it was shared by friends
on a
very
special day.”2
In the end, loving our neighbor does not require heroic deeds. Mother Teresa reminds us that, "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." Love God, love your neighbor. God asks no more of us – and no less.
1. http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml, For Sunday, September 7,2014.
2. "A Red-Letter Day,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publication, 2010), 243-44.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
I Have Observed the Misery of My People
“I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry…. Indeed, I know their sufferings….” Who is God for you? Is God for you Aristotle’s unmoved mover, a God who is totally uninvolved with this world? Perhaps you resonate with the Deist’s Watchmaker God, who, after setting the world in motion, now leaves it tick away on its own. Our opening hymn pictured God as “enthroned above,” maintaining his kingdom on “Zion’s sacred height,” surrounded by the “great archangels” but seemingly uninvolved with humanity. Is that God for you?
To be sure, God is the source of all being, the Great Mystery, the totally incomprehensible Holy One, transcendent at the theologians would say. Yet the God of the story of the calling of Moses shows us a God who is totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker. Last week we heard the story of Moses’s birth to a Hebrew woman. Despite Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, Moses instead was hidden and then adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter into the royal household. Seemingly aware of his ancestry as an adult he murdered an Egyptian overseer who was abusing a Hebrew worker. He then fled to Midian, where he subsequently married the daughter of a shepherd.
Now we catch up with Moses. Out tending his father-in-law’s flocks, he has an extraordinary vision of a flaming bush. Writer Bruce Epperly relates the story of a gathering of rabbis who pondered the question, “Why was the bush burning but not consumed?”1 They considered different possibilities. Finally, one said, “It was burning and not consumed so that one day, as Moses walked by, he would notice it.” Notice it he did, and through that miraculous sign, a chain of events was set in motion that would forever define the history of the Jews.
Even so, ultimately this is not a story about Moses. In one sense, stories in Scripture are never solely about the humans in them, interesting as they may be. Stories in Scripture always reveal to us something about God, about God’s nature, and, more important, how God relates to us. Although it was composed centuries before the Word became flesh in Jesus, this story is no different, for it reveals to us a God totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker God.
To begin with, this story reveals to us a God who communicates, who uses every available place, or object, or person to connect with human beings. The bush was aflame precisely because God intended to capture Moses’ attention. Second, and more important, this story reveals to us a God who notices. The God who captured Moses’s attention through the flaming bus is personal, dynamic, changing, and, most important, demanding. This God knows what is happening in the world. This God has heard God’s people’s cries. This God has heard God’s people’s prayers and felt their pain. This God is ready to respond, to deliver God’s people from injustice and oppression. This God is anything but aloof, unchanging, and impassive. Rather, this God is lively, talkative, and passionate. This God receives as well as gives. This God is moved by the injustice of the world and intimately knows the world’s joys and pains.
The story of the calling of Moses also reveals to us a God who expects humans to do God’s work in the world and empowers them to do it. “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt,” this God says to Moses. Of course, Moses, like most humans, comes right back at God with objections. Never mind that Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household and is most likely on intimate terms with all the royal political players, to say nothing of Pharaoh himself. “Who am I,” he says to God, “that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” We too might wonder why a stranger to his own people and a murderer on the run is a suitable candidate for leading the Israelites. But the Holy One doesn’t explain the choice of Moses. Instead, God promises to empower Moses. “I will be with you,” God replies. When Moses and the people return to Mt. Sinai, he will see for himself that God has accomplished God’s work of liberation through this most imperfect of possible actors.
Moses hasn’t finished with his objections. He pushes God a little farther. “When I want to prove to people that I’m an authentic leader,” he says, “whom shall I say has sent me?” God’s answer has tantalized people ever since. “I AM Who I AM,” God says. And further, “Say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The Hebrew words can also be translated, “I will be who I will be.” In other words, God is ultimately holy mystery, who exists but cannot be known. In effect, God says to Moses the most that humans can bear: “You will know me by what I do.”
Is this your God? The bush is still burning. When do you know yourself to be on holy ground? Where are your “thin places?” Does God provide signs for you, so that you too might turn aside and “look at this great sight?” Can you ever stop, take off your shoes, and know that God is revealing Godself to you? How would you know that God is revealing Godself if you never turn off the TV or look up from your smartphone? Ultimately, if we are to hear the God we say we trust and believe in, we too have to look for the flaming bushes in our world and then “turn aside” to actually look at them. Then we have to let God do some of the talking. The pursuit of silence, in meditation, or even in the five minutes before you get out of bed, is one of the “deepest disciplines of the Spirit,” as we let go of our own concerns and let God’s concerns seep into our consciousness.
The bush is still burning. God continues to reveal Godself to wherever we are. Writer Kent Nerburn reminds us that “Spirituality is far more than religious practice. It is a cast of mind, a leaning of the heart, a willingness to see the divine mystery in all people and all things.” It is a way of seeing that allows us to see the sacred traces wherever we look. Our task, “as surely as performing acts of worship, is to find these sacred moments, hallow them with our attention, and raise them up as a celebration of the mystery of life.”2
Do you trust that God is the one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid?” Are you confident that God knows us intimately, and that God loves us passionately? Does God love all of humanity? Do you believe that God sees the oppression of God’s people? Is God there when people are unjustly murdered and executed? Was God standing with James Foley or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Does God see the suffering of the refugees who have fled Syria and Iraq? Does God weep when God looks down on Gaza? Do the victims of AIDS and the Ebola virus stir God’s heart? Does God abhor human trafficking?
More to the point, do you believe that God calls and empowers you to partner with God in delivering God’s people from oppression? The bush is still burning. Do you hear God’s call? Can you hear God say to you, “So come, I will send you?” What are your objections when you hear God’s call? How easy it is to answer God as Moses did, “Who me? Who am I that I should do as you ask?” How seductive it is to think that we must know more about theology or Scripture or worship or politics or budgets or anything else before we can answer God’s call. The truth is that God needs us all, whoever and wherever we are. God had no need to explain God’s use of an imperfect human being like Moses to carry out God’s plan. God promised to accompany and empower Moses in the work of liberating God’s people. So God knows all our strengths and weaknesses, our failures and accomplishments. So God promises to accompany and empower us in the work to which God calls us.
Who is God for you? Is God for you divorced from the world, uncaring, uninvolved, the watchmaker or unmoved mover of old? If you are a follower of Jesus the Christ then your God is the living God of Scripture, the God who reaches out to us and calls us, the God who hears the cries of suffering humanity, the God who empowers us to respond to those cries, the God to whom, we can say with all our hearts, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/
2. Ordinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life (Novato, CA, New World Library 2012), quoted in Synthesis, August 31, 2014, 3
To be sure, God is the source of all being, the Great Mystery, the totally incomprehensible Holy One, transcendent at the theologians would say. Yet the God of the story of the calling of Moses shows us a God who is totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker. Last week we heard the story of Moses’s birth to a Hebrew woman. Despite Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, Moses instead was hidden and then adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter into the royal household. Seemingly aware of his ancestry as an adult he murdered an Egyptian overseer who was abusing a Hebrew worker. He then fled to Midian, where he subsequently married the daughter of a shepherd.
Now we catch up with Moses. Out tending his father-in-law’s flocks, he has an extraordinary vision of a flaming bush. Writer Bruce Epperly relates the story of a gathering of rabbis who pondered the question, “Why was the bush burning but not consumed?”1 They considered different possibilities. Finally, one said, “It was burning and not consumed so that one day, as Moses walked by, he would notice it.” Notice it he did, and through that miraculous sign, a chain of events was set in motion that would forever define the history of the Jews.
Even so, ultimately this is not a story about Moses. In one sense, stories in Scripture are never solely about the humans in them, interesting as they may be. Stories in Scripture always reveal to us something about God, about God’s nature, and, more important, how God relates to us. Although it was composed centuries before the Word became flesh in Jesus, this story is no different, for it reveals to us a God totally different from the unmoved mover or the watchmaker God.
To begin with, this story reveals to us a God who communicates, who uses every available place, or object, or person to connect with human beings. The bush was aflame precisely because God intended to capture Moses’ attention. Second, and more important, this story reveals to us a God who notices. The God who captured Moses’s attention through the flaming bus is personal, dynamic, changing, and, most important, demanding. This God knows what is happening in the world. This God has heard God’s people’s cries. This God has heard God’s people’s prayers and felt their pain. This God is ready to respond, to deliver God’s people from injustice and oppression. This God is anything but aloof, unchanging, and impassive. Rather, this God is lively, talkative, and passionate. This God receives as well as gives. This God is moved by the injustice of the world and intimately knows the world’s joys and pains.
The story of the calling of Moses also reveals to us a God who expects humans to do God’s work in the world and empowers them to do it. “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt,” this God says to Moses. Of course, Moses, like most humans, comes right back at God with objections. Never mind that Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s household and is most likely on intimate terms with all the royal political players, to say nothing of Pharaoh himself. “Who am I,” he says to God, “that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” We too might wonder why a stranger to his own people and a murderer on the run is a suitable candidate for leading the Israelites. But the Holy One doesn’t explain the choice of Moses. Instead, God promises to empower Moses. “I will be with you,” God replies. When Moses and the people return to Mt. Sinai, he will see for himself that God has accomplished God’s work of liberation through this most imperfect of possible actors.
Moses hasn’t finished with his objections. He pushes God a little farther. “When I want to prove to people that I’m an authentic leader,” he says, “whom shall I say has sent me?” God’s answer has tantalized people ever since. “I AM Who I AM,” God says. And further, “Say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The Hebrew words can also be translated, “I will be who I will be.” In other words, God is ultimately holy mystery, who exists but cannot be known. In effect, God says to Moses the most that humans can bear: “You will know me by what I do.”
Is this your God? The bush is still burning. When do you know yourself to be on holy ground? Where are your “thin places?” Does God provide signs for you, so that you too might turn aside and “look at this great sight?” Can you ever stop, take off your shoes, and know that God is revealing Godself to you? How would you know that God is revealing Godself if you never turn off the TV or look up from your smartphone? Ultimately, if we are to hear the God we say we trust and believe in, we too have to look for the flaming bushes in our world and then “turn aside” to actually look at them. Then we have to let God do some of the talking. The pursuit of silence, in meditation, or even in the five minutes before you get out of bed, is one of the “deepest disciplines of the Spirit,” as we let go of our own concerns and let God’s concerns seep into our consciousness.
The bush is still burning. God continues to reveal Godself to wherever we are. Writer Kent Nerburn reminds us that “Spirituality is far more than religious practice. It is a cast of mind, a leaning of the heart, a willingness to see the divine mystery in all people and all things.” It is a way of seeing that allows us to see the sacred traces wherever we look. Our task, “as surely as performing acts of worship, is to find these sacred moments, hallow them with our attention, and raise them up as a celebration of the mystery of life.”2
Do you trust that God is the one “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid?” Are you confident that God knows us intimately, and that God loves us passionately? Does God love all of humanity? Do you believe that God sees the oppression of God’s people? Is God there when people are unjustly murdered and executed? Was God standing with James Foley or Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Does God see the suffering of the refugees who have fled Syria and Iraq? Does God weep when God looks down on Gaza? Do the victims of AIDS and the Ebola virus stir God’s heart? Does God abhor human trafficking?
More to the point, do you believe that God calls and empowers you to partner with God in delivering God’s people from oppression? The bush is still burning. Do you hear God’s call? Can you hear God say to you, “So come, I will send you?” What are your objections when you hear God’s call? How easy it is to answer God as Moses did, “Who me? Who am I that I should do as you ask?” How seductive it is to think that we must know more about theology or Scripture or worship or politics or budgets or anything else before we can answer God’s call. The truth is that God needs us all, whoever and wherever we are. God had no need to explain God’s use of an imperfect human being like Moses to carry out God’s plan. God promised to accompany and empower Moses in the work of liberating God’s people. So God knows all our strengths and weaknesses, our failures and accomplishments. So God promises to accompany and empower us in the work to which God calls us.
Who is God for you? Is God for you divorced from the world, uncaring, uninvolved, the watchmaker or unmoved mover of old? If you are a follower of Jesus the Christ then your God is the living God of Scripture, the God who reaches out to us and calls us, the God who hears the cries of suffering humanity, the God who empowers us to respond to those cries, the God to whom, we can say with all our hearts, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”
1. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/
2. Ordinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life (Novato, CA, New World Library 2012), quoted in Synthesis, August 31, 2014, 3
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Present Your Bodies as a Living Sacrifice
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Hear the echo of Paul’s exhortation to the Roman Christians in the Great Thanksgiving of Rite I in the Book of Common Prayer: “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee….” From the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and Greek and Latin histories we know that the ancient Israelites, the Jews of Jesus’ time, and the Greeks and Romans all sacrificed animals in their worship. But what is a “living sacrifice,” and how do we present our bodies as a “living sacrifice?”
Paul’s letter to the Romans is the first letter in the New Testament. That’s because it’s the longest, and the Epistles are arranged in order of descending length. Actually, Paul’s letter to the Romans was his last, written about 60 AD. It was addressed to mixed community of Jews and Gentiles, which he hoped to visit on his way to Spain. In the chapters preceding today’s reading, Paul has struggled with the refusal of most Jews to accept Jesus as God’s anointed one. Since he is himself a Jew of the highest rank, Paul concludes his argument with the assurance that God’s covenant with the Jews will stand forever, but that now, by virtue of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, God’s covenant also embraces the Gentiles.
Paul then turns to the issue of how a community of Jesus’ followers, who come from different social classes and ethnic groups, can actually live and work together. By exhorting his hearers to be a “living sacrifice,” in contrast to the sacrificial animals with which they were so familiar, Paul begins by reminding them that their commitment to Jesus goes well beyond intellectual assent. Their commitment to Jesus also goes beyond muttering “Jesus is Lord” or some other confession of faith, even if it is God’s grace that enables a person to make such a confession. Rather, Paul exhorts his hearers to live a life that reflects their commitment to Jesus. Such a lifestyle may involve doing with the body actions that may be at odds with their culture, and may even earn them the disapproval or hatred of their neighbors.
In asking the Roman Christians to intentionally live out their commitment to Jesus, Paul was indeed asking them to live in ways that would set them apart from their neighbors. They were to dress modestly. After a suitable period of instruction they were to be baptized in front of the entire Christian community. While Jews normally gathered for worship on Saturday, and Greeks and Romans gathered on days dedicated to the various gods, Christians were to gather for worship on Sunday, i.e., on a normal working day. They were to continue to grow in their knowledge of Scripture. Gentiles were to forego the civic clubs that combined worship with socializing. They were especially expected to avoid the drunken orgies that celebrated Bacchus and Dionysus. They were also to stay away from the rituals that venerated the Roman emperors, and they were not to eat meat sacrificed to the gods. In their communities, they were to disregard social rank and gender, and were to regard all as equals in God’s eyes and as needed and valued. Through all these practices Christians distanced themselves from their neighbors. In some cases, they were ostracized, and periodically they were persecuted. For most, it was truly a sacrifice to follow Jesus – and it was certainly not good for business!
Fast forward to today. How do we “present our bodies as a living sacrifice?” Like the hearers of Paul’s letter, we too must do more than mutter “I believe in Jesus Christ.” If we want to honor our commitment to Jesus, we too must do more than simply recite the Creeds. We too are called to live out our commitment to Jesus with our bodies. How do we do that in concrete terms? What does a Christian lifestyle look like in the twenty-first century?
A generation or two ago, it might have been easier to answer that question. Episcopal parishes regularly observed major feasts, even those not falling on Sunday. Feasts such as the Presentation, February 2nd, the Annunciation, March 25th, the Transfiguration, August 6th, and All Saints, November 1st, would regularly have found the parish gathered for worship. Worshippers would have flocked to churches on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. Few people would attend or give “Christmas” parties in Advent. Most would fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, would “give up” something for Lent, and would take on other devotions. Most people would tithe and also respond to special offerings. Well before the 1960s, men and women would have been moved by their commitment to Jesus to support movements for better working conditions, votes for women, better housing for the poor, and civil rights.
So what now? What’s a “living sacrifice” for us? Perhaps Paul’s words and the practices of our forebears in the faith are more relevant than we might think. Indeed, we might all be stronger spiritually if we were to re-adopt some of those earlier practices. However, more than anything, Paul exhorts us to take our commitment to Jesus seriously, to be intentional about our membership in this – or any – faith community. The spiritual life is not icing on the cake of a well-lived life. It is a commitment to a new and different way of being in the world, a lifestyle that lets others know that our highest allegiance to is someone who calls us to a way of living focused on the needs of others. Such a commitment calls us to continually grow in our relationship with God and in our ability to follow through on the promises we made at our baptisms. For most of us – and how appropriate this reminder is when we celebrate the beginning of a new school year – this means regularly engaging in some form of Christian formation. Our commitment also calls us to engage in regular individual prayer – even if it’s only five minutes stolen from your lunch hour – and in regular Sunday worship.
Our commitment to Jesus also calls us to grow together in community. Within this group of Jesus’ followers, we are to neither overvalue nor undervalue our place. As we work together to bring God’s realm closer, we are to understand that we all have gifts. Every one of you here – and even those not here – has a gift needed by God and by this community. No one can say, “Not me,” or “I’m too busy,” or “I’m too young,” even “I’m too old.” Just as in Paul’s time, this Christian community needs people who can proclaim God’s word. It doesn’t take a collar to share your experiences of how God has been working in your life. It doesn’t take a collar to speak out on issues of peace and justice, or to use social media to inform your friends of your views. This Christian community needs those who can teach. We need teachers for children, for youth, and for adults. It doesn’t take a collar to lead a group reflecting regularly on Scripture. This community needs people to engage in outreach to those in need. Now by God’s grace we have a deacon among us, who is especially ordained to lead us into areas of ministry beyond the red doors. She needs people to follow her out. This Christian community needs people to provide financial support. If you have the means, Jesus expects you to give generously to support the parish – tithing, or at least giving intentionally is still expected of us -- and to support other ministries and charities.
Brother James Koester, a member of the Episcopal Society of St. John the Evangelist, tells the story of one of his Methodist forebears.1 In 1790, at the age of twenty, Matthew Evan, the brother of his great great great great grandfather, was “convicted of the necessity of being born again” by the preaching of an itinerant Methodist pastor. What fascinates Br. James about Matthew Evan and others like him is that they “weren’t simply interested in warm spiritual fuzzies, because as passionate as they were about the conversion of their souls, they were also intent on the reformation of society. This same Matthew Evan was one of the first members of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor of the Midland District [of Ontario] founded in 1819 in order to “to prevent the increase of pauperism and to furnish relief and assistance to the indigent, destitute and sick.” The Anglo-Catholic founders of the SSJE shared a similar ethic. While committed to beautiful and dignified worship, they also developed a Rule that commits the brothers to stewardship of the earth and real solidarity with the poor. For Br. James, both the Canadian Methodists and the SSJE founders clearly remind us that, “if we are serious about what we say, then we need to be just as serious about what we do. If we are truly believe we have been called, justified and glorified by God, and that through baptism we share the life and work of God then not only what we believe matters, but what we do matters as well.”
With all your heart, and mind, and strength, be a living sacrifice, offering back to God what God has given you. Heed Br. James’ call: “Go out and change and convert and reform the world. Do it, do it now, do it today. Do it because what you believe really does matter. Do it, because what you do matters even more.”
1. “You are Christ’s Hands.” http://ssje.org/ssje/2011/07/24/you-are-christs-hands-br-james-koester/ .
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Where is God
Jacob is on the run. His mother Rebekah had come from the family of his grandfather Abraham’s brother to marry his father Isaac. Jacob was the second-born of twin boys, and he had been born, “clutching the heel” of his brother Esau. Old Isaac preferred Esau, but Jacob was his mother’s favorite. With the connivance of his mother, Jacob had managed both to cheat Esau of his birthright and trick Isaac into bestowing his patriarchal blessing on Jacob. Now, with Esau’s threats to kill him still ringing in his ears, Jacob is on the run. He is running to his mother’s family in Haran, ostensibly to find a wife.
Jacob stops for the night and dreams of a staircase, a staircase like the ones the Canaanites build in order to reach the heavenly abodes of their gods. However, in Jacob’s dream, God’s angels travel up and down, joining the heavenly and the earthly realms. What is even more surprising in Jacob’s dream, the God of Israel, unlike the remote Canaanite gods, comes face to face with Jacob and directly addresses him. In this astonishing first encounter with God, Jacob hears God reiterate his covenant with Abraham and assure Jacob that indeed his descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. In that promise Jacob also hears implicit reassurance that it was part of God’s plan that Jacob deceive Esau, and that Jacob’s exile from his home will only be temporary. As he awakens, Jacob realizes that “surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” To ensure that others will understand that this is now a sacred place, Jacob upends his stone pillow and anoints it.
“Surely the Lord is in this place.” Have you had an experience something like Jacob’s? Many of us find it hard to pray. For some us, dialogue with God is well-nigh impossible. For others of us, meditation makes no sense. Even in our own room, how can we quiet our minds enough to discover if God is speaking to us? Most of us ignore or can’t remember our dreams. However, some of us have experienced God’s presence in “thin places,” places where we can almost see through the veil and get a glimpse of the heavenly realm, places where God’s presence is palpable and undeniable, places where God personally touches and moves us.
Some of us encounter thin places in natural settings. Some of us, like Jacob, have found God in the vast open spaces of the southwest deserts. For some of us, mountain tops or ocean shores speak of God’s majesty and our own insignificance. Sometimes God breaks in on us in national parks, like Acadia in Maine, where “the mountains meet the sea,” or retreat centers, like Our Lady of the Pines, where I spent the week surrounded by pines, firs, cedars, and many other kinds of trees. And some places seem to draw us more tightly into God’s embrace because generations of faithful people have encountered God there. I think of Iona, on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, where 7th century Irish monks established a monastery to lead the Scots to Christ and where a restored monastery and retreat center now stands. I think of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the end of the Camino Real, to which pilgrims have been walking since the 9th century. I think of the cathedral of Chartres, France, built in the 13th century, whose great labyrinth in the floor still draws pilgrims. One day I walked into St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The scent of incense that met me bespoke the prayers that have been said there for almost two hundred years. And then there are the sacred places of other faiths: the Great Synagogue in London, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Hindu temples, and Buddhist stupas. And beyond these are all the ordinary places in life where God continues to show up: among devoted followers of Jesus in even the smallest clapboard churches, at bedsides and deathbeds, or when one person lovingly speaks truth to another. All of these are places where people have had and continue to have a deep sense of God’s presence. In all these places, when we open our hearts, we know that “surely the Lord is in this place.” In all these places we are privileged, in Meister Eckhart’s words, to “penetrate things and find God there.”1
And when we sense that “the Lord is in this place,” when God grants us the grace of a face-to-face encounter, how do we receive it? Do we distrust such a felt sense of God’s presence, such an intuition of God’s reality and love? “Couldn’t happen to me,” we say, it must have been my imagination. People like me don’t have experiences like that.” Or do we distrust such experiences because they feel too pious and private? Franciscan teacher Richard Rohr rightly cautions us that what he calls “false mysticism,” often feels too much like ‘my little Jesus and my little me,’ and doesn’t seem to make many social, historical, corporate, or justice connections. As Pope Francis says, it is all ‘too self-referential.’”2
But, by the grace of God, sometimes we are enabled to see something greater than ourselves in experiences of God’s nearness. When Jacob encountered God face to face, he realized, perhaps for the first time, that God’s covenant with his grandfather also included him, that he was called to be the ancestor of multitudes, that he would be connected to generations yet unborn. He remained a runaway, a trickster, and a womanizer, siring the twelve tribes of Israel by two wives and two concubines. Nevertheless, from that day forward, his life was forever transformed.
As it was for Jacob, so it is for us. Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that, “Spirituality is not meant to be an alternative lifestyle, a road to retreat and escape; it needs to be an active leaven of life, feeding the zest and healing the wounds of life.”3 By God’s grace, when we unexpectedly encounter God, we may glimpse for a moment the vast and infinite being of God, the God in whom we and all creation “live and move and have our being,” the God who loves and cares for all more deeply than we can ever imagine. And by God’s grace, we too may be transformed, so that we may have deeper compassion for all humanity, indeed for all creation. By God’s grace, we may be enabled to share with others what we know of the God of love, who showed himself to Jacob, and who shared our humanity in Jesus. By God’s grace we especially may be able to extend to others the care and compassion of that God for all.
If our encounter with the living God, in sacred spaces in nature, in this sacred space, in the sharing of Christ’s Body and Blood, enables us to see more deeply God’s love for us and all of creation, then perhaps too God will show us or lead us to those who particularly need our compassion and care. In the last several weeks, a poignant example of those in need of our compassion and care has come to light: the unprecedented number of undocumented Central American children who have streamed across the U.S. border. There is much that can be said about the impact of undocumented people on border cities, and of what the U.S. government should or might do to secure our borders. Our elected representatives have, for whatever reason, not had the will to enact sane immigration policy, despite the desire of the majority of Americans to fix the immigration system. Seeking a quick fix to the most recent influx, many Americans believe that all undocumented people, whether children or adults should be immediately deported.
Our church has taken a different stance. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori counsels us “to remember these people and their difficult and dangerous position in [our] prayers – today, this coming Sunday, and continuing until we find a just resolution.” Urging us to contact our elected representatives, she reminds us that, “we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, and as a Church, we are asking the United States government to support [a humanitarian] response, grounded in justice and the fundamental dignity of every human being.”4 The Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Los Angeles have gone a step further. Together they visited the child detention center in Port Hueneme, California. They then joined with Muslim and Jewish faith leaders to prepare worship materials for the Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Migrant Children, to be observed this weekend in the Los Angeles area.
There are no easy answers to the plight of undocumented Central American children, nor to the violence and poverty that impel them to leave their homes. Nor are there easy answers to the poverty of the people around us. If we have experienced God’s nearness, if we have ever been able to say, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” then surely too we can pray that God will remind us that we are all God’s children, and that God will allow us the blessing of experiencing the renewal of life that comes when we share God’s love especially with the least among us.
1. Quoted in Synthesis, July 20, 2014, 2.
2. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--The-One-Face-and-the-Everything.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=3Fx3z_67osI, July 18, 2014.
3. Synthesis, 2.
4. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/07/10/presiding-bishop-on-the-crisis-of-unaccompanied-children-at-us-border/
Jacob stops for the night and dreams of a staircase, a staircase like the ones the Canaanites build in order to reach the heavenly abodes of their gods. However, in Jacob’s dream, God’s angels travel up and down, joining the heavenly and the earthly realms. What is even more surprising in Jacob’s dream, the God of Israel, unlike the remote Canaanite gods, comes face to face with Jacob and directly addresses him. In this astonishing first encounter with God, Jacob hears God reiterate his covenant with Abraham and assure Jacob that indeed his descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. In that promise Jacob also hears implicit reassurance that it was part of God’s plan that Jacob deceive Esau, and that Jacob’s exile from his home will only be temporary. As he awakens, Jacob realizes that “surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” To ensure that others will understand that this is now a sacred place, Jacob upends his stone pillow and anoints it.
“Surely the Lord is in this place.” Have you had an experience something like Jacob’s? Many of us find it hard to pray. For some us, dialogue with God is well-nigh impossible. For others of us, meditation makes no sense. Even in our own room, how can we quiet our minds enough to discover if God is speaking to us? Most of us ignore or can’t remember our dreams. However, some of us have experienced God’s presence in “thin places,” places where we can almost see through the veil and get a glimpse of the heavenly realm, places where God’s presence is palpable and undeniable, places where God personally touches and moves us.
Some of us encounter thin places in natural settings. Some of us, like Jacob, have found God in the vast open spaces of the southwest deserts. For some of us, mountain tops or ocean shores speak of God’s majesty and our own insignificance. Sometimes God breaks in on us in national parks, like Acadia in Maine, where “the mountains meet the sea,” or retreat centers, like Our Lady of the Pines, where I spent the week surrounded by pines, firs, cedars, and many other kinds of trees. And some places seem to draw us more tightly into God’s embrace because generations of faithful people have encountered God there. I think of Iona, on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, where 7th century Irish monks established a monastery to lead the Scots to Christ and where a restored monastery and retreat center now stands. I think of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the end of the Camino Real, to which pilgrims have been walking since the 9th century. I think of the cathedral of Chartres, France, built in the 13th century, whose great labyrinth in the floor still draws pilgrims. One day I walked into St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The scent of incense that met me bespoke the prayers that have been said there for almost two hundred years. And then there are the sacred places of other faiths: the Great Synagogue in London, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Hindu temples, and Buddhist stupas. And beyond these are all the ordinary places in life where God continues to show up: among devoted followers of Jesus in even the smallest clapboard churches, at bedsides and deathbeds, or when one person lovingly speaks truth to another. All of these are places where people have had and continue to have a deep sense of God’s presence. In all these places, when we open our hearts, we know that “surely the Lord is in this place.” In all these places we are privileged, in Meister Eckhart’s words, to “penetrate things and find God there.”1
And when we sense that “the Lord is in this place,” when God grants us the grace of a face-to-face encounter, how do we receive it? Do we distrust such a felt sense of God’s presence, such an intuition of God’s reality and love? “Couldn’t happen to me,” we say, it must have been my imagination. People like me don’t have experiences like that.” Or do we distrust such experiences because they feel too pious and private? Franciscan teacher Richard Rohr rightly cautions us that what he calls “false mysticism,” often feels too much like ‘my little Jesus and my little me,’ and doesn’t seem to make many social, historical, corporate, or justice connections. As Pope Francis says, it is all ‘too self-referential.’”2
But, by the grace of God, sometimes we are enabled to see something greater than ourselves in experiences of God’s nearness. When Jacob encountered God face to face, he realized, perhaps for the first time, that God’s covenant with his grandfather also included him, that he was called to be the ancestor of multitudes, that he would be connected to generations yet unborn. He remained a runaway, a trickster, and a womanizer, siring the twelve tribes of Israel by two wives and two concubines. Nevertheless, from that day forward, his life was forever transformed.
As it was for Jacob, so it is for us. Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that, “Spirituality is not meant to be an alternative lifestyle, a road to retreat and escape; it needs to be an active leaven of life, feeding the zest and healing the wounds of life.”3 By God’s grace, when we unexpectedly encounter God, we may glimpse for a moment the vast and infinite being of God, the God in whom we and all creation “live and move and have our being,” the God who loves and cares for all more deeply than we can ever imagine. And by God’s grace, we too may be transformed, so that we may have deeper compassion for all humanity, indeed for all creation. By God’s grace, we may be enabled to share with others what we know of the God of love, who showed himself to Jacob, and who shared our humanity in Jesus. By God’s grace we especially may be able to extend to others the care and compassion of that God for all.
If our encounter with the living God, in sacred spaces in nature, in this sacred space, in the sharing of Christ’s Body and Blood, enables us to see more deeply God’s love for us and all of creation, then perhaps too God will show us or lead us to those who particularly need our compassion and care. In the last several weeks, a poignant example of those in need of our compassion and care has come to light: the unprecedented number of undocumented Central American children who have streamed across the U.S. border. There is much that can be said about the impact of undocumented people on border cities, and of what the U.S. government should or might do to secure our borders. Our elected representatives have, for whatever reason, not had the will to enact sane immigration policy, despite the desire of the majority of Americans to fix the immigration system. Seeking a quick fix to the most recent influx, many Americans believe that all undocumented people, whether children or adults should be immediately deported.
Our church has taken a different stance. Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori counsels us “to remember these people and their difficult and dangerous position in [our] prayers – today, this coming Sunday, and continuing until we find a just resolution.” Urging us to contact our elected representatives, she reminds us that, “we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, and as a Church, we are asking the United States government to support [a humanitarian] response, grounded in justice and the fundamental dignity of every human being.”4 The Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Los Angeles have gone a step further. Together they visited the child detention center in Port Hueneme, California. They then joined with Muslim and Jewish faith leaders to prepare worship materials for the Interfaith Weekend of Compassion and Prayer for Unaccompanied Migrant Children, to be observed this weekend in the Los Angeles area.
There are no easy answers to the plight of undocumented Central American children, nor to the violence and poverty that impel them to leave their homes. Nor are there easy answers to the poverty of the people around us. If we have experienced God’s nearness, if we have ever been able to say, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” then surely too we can pray that God will remind us that we are all God’s children, and that God will allow us the blessing of experiencing the renewal of life that comes when we share God’s love especially with the least among us.
1. Quoted in Synthesis, July 20, 2014, 2.
2. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Richard-Rohr-s-Meditation--The-One-Face-and-the-Everything.html?soid=1103098668616&aid=3Fx3z_67osI, July 18, 2014.
3. Synthesis, 2.
4. http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/07/10/presiding-bishop-on-the-crisis-of-unaccompanied-children-at-us-border/
Sunday, July 6, 2014
She said, "I will."
“And they called to Rebekah and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, ‘I will.’”
A week after I graduated from college, I walked down an Air India jet way to begin a year’s stay in India. I had won a Fulbright fellowship to teach English in India, and, despite the reservations of my parents and the surprise of my friends, I had accepted it. I had travelled in Europe the previous spring and summer, and three of my college classmates had spent their junior year in India. However, aside from the research for one of my spring quarter classes, I knew little about the country. I can still remember the sheer terror I felt as I embraced my parents by the entrance to the jet way. I knew that it would be at least a year before I would see them again. I screwed up my courage, turned my back on them, and walked through the jet way door. Even then, perhaps I had an inkling that going to India was part of God’s larger plan for me. I certainly could not then foresee the teaching and scholarship that would come out of that first year in India. Perhaps in some indirect way, the risk I took that day also even made it possible for me to be preaching to you today!
Did Rebekah face that same mix of terror and courage when she agreed to go with Abraham’s servant and become Isaac’s wife? This may be a new Bible story for some of you. As I explained last week, the Revised Common Lectionary of the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches carries us through three liturgical years. We’re now in Year A, i.e., the first year of the three. This year we read major portions of the Gospel of Matthew, in Year B we read Mark, and in Year C we read Luke, with John interspersed among them in all three years. During the season following Pentecost, that is the summer and the fall, the RCL gives us the choice of semi-continuous readings from the Hebrew Bible or lections that complement the gospel reading. For this three-year cycle I have opted for the semi-continuous reading of the Hebrew Bible. This means that during the summer most of our lessons will be from Genesis, with readings from Exodus later in the summer and fall. Easter was late this year. Consequently, we missed the earliest readings from Genesis. In one, three mysterious strangers announced to Abraham and Sarah that they would become first-time parents in their old age. In another, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky. Two weeks ago, we heard of the banishment of Hagar and her son Ishmael, and God’s promise to make a great nation of them as well. And last week, we heard the terrifying story of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac. We come now to the next step in God’s fulfillment of God’s promise: the search for a suitable wife for Isaac and the marriage of the next generation.
Of course, this would be an arranged marriage. When we think about marriage, we think about passionate, romantic love and personal fulfillment. However, in the ancient world marriage was more about joining families and ensuring the survival of clans and tribes. Moreover, ancient Israel was a patriarchal society, with the economic, social, and political leadership in the hands of the most senior men. Our Bible stories reflect the dominance of men and mostly overlook women. Just think of the Old Testament names that come most readily to mind: Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and Jonah. Although we do hear the stories of Esther and Ruth, women were not important characters for the editors of the Hebrew Bible. Even so, women were central to God’s achievement of God’s purposes: they had to agree to what God asked of them! Just as much later, Mary had to accept Gabriel’s announcement to her that she would give birth to a savior, so Rebekah had to agree to marriage with a member of Abraham’s family for God’s plan to succeed. Without Rebekah’s “yes” there would have been no next generation! Of course, the Bible doesn’t record her feelings, but don’t you think that she too might have been terrified to leave her family, her community, literally everything she knew, to go off and marry a strange man? Yet, she had the courage to say “yes.” As she left with the blessing of her family, she willingly opened herself to the new life God was laying before her and let God’s plan to go forward.
We too are like Rebekah. God also calls us to play our part in God’s plan. We too may feel like insignificant players, but we are all part of God’s great design, God’s inexorable will to bring in God’s reign. And God can and does make great things happen through us. But God never coerces us. Nor does God threaten us or lay a guilt trip on us. Rather God invites us. If we say “yes,” if we allow ourselves to be led by God, God can work through us. And, let’s admit it, following God can be downright scary: sometimes we don’t want to leave everything that we are familiar with to go off in a new direction. Think about those times when you prayed you were doing the right thing, when you screwed up your courage and ventured down that jet way. When you started a new job or program of study? When you traveled abroad for the first time? When you asked for baptism? When you got married? When you adopted a child? When you came to an Episcopal church for the first time? When we say yes to God’s new direction in our lives, God can continue to work out God’s plan through us. And we can be assured, as Jesus assures us in the Gospel lesson, that God will indeed lead us when we put God’s yoke on, when we team up with Jesus.
What is true for us as individuals is also true for us as a parish. We may be a small parish, but here in Gallia County, we too must have the courage to play our part in God’s plan. That is what being a church means!
So let me tell you about another parish, not so different from us, who took the risk of following God’s leading. Some years ago I visited the parish of St. John on Bethnal Green, in the Diocese of London in England. St John’s had been built in the early 19th century in the East End of London, as the Church of England was expanding into working class neighborhoods. It had been built by a famous architect, John Soane. Even though its façade desperately needed repair when I saw the church, one could still see its original beauty. However, what was important about St. John’s was not its physical space but what was happening inside and outside the church. The neighborhood around the church had greatly changed over the years and now was home to an assortment of Bangladeshis, other South Asians, and Somalis, most of them Muslims, a few Jews left over from earlier generations, and a goodly number of drug dealers and what the Brits euphemistically call “working girls,” i.e., prostitutes. Instead of throwing up their hands and despairing of having anyone to whom to minister, the people of St. John’s courageously decided to follow what they had discerned to be God’s leading. While continuing to be a vital center of worship, the parish began ministries to the drug addicts and prostitutes and to the poor, regardless of their faith community.
On the day we were there, a clothing giveaway, with hot tea and sandwiches, was taking place on the front porch. Through St John’s outreach to the community, many had given up their addictions and their work as prostitutes, and some had begun ministries of their own through the parish. God’s reign was definitely being realized in Bethnal Green! More important, St. Johns partners with other East End parishes and even other faith communities to run food banks, night shelters, soup kitchens, debt counselling centers, outreach work with disaffected youth, groups for mothers and children, youth clubs, after school clubs, and day-care for the elderly. They host Alcoholics Anonymous, mental health groups, ESL instruction, and activities that enable ethnic communities to maintain their language and traditions. With the support of the local community, St. John’s even raised the funds to repair the façade of the church building. Not content simply to dodge the scaffolding for several months, the parish also received grants to have artists decorate the scaffolding. The design: a colorful rendering of the visit of the three men to Abraham announcing Sarah’s pregnancy!
Am I suggesting that we should begin ministries to drug addicts and prostitutes? I’m sure they could be worthwhile endeavors, but they may not be for us. We have our ministry of Loaves and Fishes. We are experimenting with Church in the Park. A parish on Long Island continues to send us children’s clothing. We helped meet the need for warm clothing this past winter by giving away hats, scarves, and gloves. Could we add some form of clothing give-away to our monthly diaper distribution or to our winter give-away? We regularly take leftover food to Serenity House. Could God be calling us to a more intentional relationship with them? At the very least, God is asking us to pray for ourselves and for our parish. God willing, as we discern the next steps in our ministry, we will have the courage to embrace our part in God’s plan. We will let ourselves be led by Christ, even if we feel as if we are going to “another country” to be married to a stranger.
“And they called to Rebekah and said to her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ She said, I will.”
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