The greatest miracles in the New Testament, in my humble opinion, do not have to do with loaves and fishes, with healings and exorcisms, impressive though they may be. The greatest miracles are the changing of human hearts and firmly-held views. Nothing in this world is more difficult.
Today, we celebrate our parish patrons, Peter and Paul, and we remember that very miracle that is portrayed on the round medallion-style icon on our altar today: Peter and Paul embracing in love and respect. I am not sure if this ever literally happened. What I do know is that it is the most unlikely thing to have happened.
No two men from the ancient Middle East could have been more different. Peter, a working-class man from backwater Galilee, Jewish fisherman, most probably illiterate, portrayed as a waffling sort of man; Paul, an intellectual more like a university-type, intense and somewhat aristocratic and very learned, with strong opinions that he rarely changed, willing to do violence for his views before his life-transforming encounter with Jesus. Peter represented the Palestinian, inland Jewish community, who saw the message of Jesus as a Jewish message meant for observant Jews who would await his coming by keeping the Jewish Law more perfectly than the Pharisees; Paul represented the cosmopolitan view of the coastal cities of the Levant, who experienced the Good News as something more radical and more startling and the encompassing love of God as reaching out to a far larger, formerly alien and rejected Gentile world, Gentiles who would not be expected to become Jewish in order to embraced by the God of the Jews. Peter, quick to enthusiasm yet quick to waver; Paul, never changing his single-minded vision unless struck down and struck blind on the open road by nothing less than God.
They were once opponents. "I opposed Peter to his face" brags Paul in Galatians, when Peter tried to walk a cautious middle road between Gentiles and the older Jewish Christian believers.
But something changed, both in that meeting and in the vision they lived afterwards. Each gave a little, each opened their eyes to see the possibility that God was doing something important in the ministry and communities of the other. Each was willing to embrace, to put down something, in order to pick up something together. And in that messy, unresolved, humbling moment, something was born from the roots of a small, obscure messianic Jewish sect. The Church was born.
That's how the Church is always born: when we who have received a mission and a blessing see one another, and are willing to put something down that we may value, embrace, admit future possibilities that we may not fully understand, and walk together. That's how we grow. That's how this present parish of Saints Peter and Paul came to be. There were two churches--St. Peter's, St. Paul's. Each congregation put something aside, however unwillingly, and came to see in their embrace of one another and in their journey together the possibility of something new that they did not yet fully understand.
That is how the church is born.
And how are we called to give birth to the church today? How are we called to be most authentically that community of unlikely embrace, the church of Peter and of Paul? Who are we called upon to look upon, both within our midst and without, those whom we know and those whom we do not yet know? What are we called to put down that we may think precious? And how are we meant to walk with one another, and with others we do not yet imagine?
For that is how the church is born.
archived musings and preachments
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Columba
Columba, fiery Irish prince and Druid turned monk and priest, often ventured off his sacred island of Iona on restless missionary journeys. One of his most ambitious journeys was to the court of the Pictish King Brida, deep in what we now call the Scottish Highlands. It is told that on this journey, Columba was received as guest into King Brida's feasting-hall.
As Columba sat, honored as a guest according to ancient Celtic law, he saw seated on the King's right an immense man who was louder that anyone else in the feasting-hall. This immense man had an immense, booming voice, and he raised it in shouts and hoots of laughter and snatches of song as he raised on high a precious vessel, a crystal goblet from the distant and legendary land of Greece. Upon asking his neighbor, Columba learned that this man, large of body and large of presence, was Broisin, the King's personal and feared Druid--court poet, wizard, and the power behind the throne so potent that it was rumored that the king himself feared the hulking magician.
Behind that vast arrogant man, Columba saw a second silent figure hidden in the shadows. Columba peered and finally descried a teenaged girl, standing with head bowed behind Broisin. As she would dart forward with a look of terror to fill the huge man's goblet with mead when he gestured and swore, Columba knew that the girl was Broisin's slave. Columba noted the fear in her eyes, her ragged tunic, and a large bruise on her right cheek.
Columba found the courage and temerity to raise his voice and call out (for his voice was famously loud too), "Broisin, I have a guest-gift to ask of you."
The hall instantly hushed at the stranger-monk daring to ask the sacred guest-gift of the fearsome Druid. Broisin paused in his drinking long enough to glare beneath bushy brows at Columba. "And what is it you ask, little man?"
"Release your slave-girl."
Broisin stared while the gathering gasped at Columba's pure nerve, then hooted in contempt. Swinging the goblet to his lips, Brosin leered at the monk and asked, "Why? Do you wish to have her?"
"No, I just ask for her to be freed."
Broisin roared with mirth and contempt. Again swigging a great gulp of mead, he wiped his streaming lips and beard with the back of his free hand before shouting, "The guest-gift may be sacred, but you little man and your little strange God have no respect here. The curse of the crows to you and to your asking, and the girl stays mine."
Gasping now at this flagrant denial of the request made by a guest, the gathering stared now at Columba. Were he a warrior and a man of honor, the only answer to this insult would be to draw sword.
Columba stood slowly, locking eyes with Broisin. Turning to the king, he bowed his head respectfully, then with not another look at Broisin he spun on his heel and strode, robe and cloak flying, out of the hall, pursued by Broisin's scornful laughter. Columba's disciple Bathene hurrying along behind.
Bathene knew that Columba also had a temper, so he scurried after his abbot in silence until, almost two miles from the gates of King Brida's hall, Columba paused by the bank of a stream crossed by a narrow ford. Columba stooped and, to Bathene's puzzlement, began to dabble his hands in the water and pebbles at his feet.
Standing, Columba looked at his own palm and asked aloud, "Bathene, Broisin is a powerful man, is he not?"
Not knowing what his abbot was playing at, Bathene answered, "Yes, I suppose so, Father, very powerful."
"And powerful men only understand and respect power greater than their own, do they not?"
Still puzzled, Bathene answered, "Yes Father, I suppose that is true."
Columba then smiled a smile that was not altogether pleasant. He said, "Ah, but Bathene, do not forget that in the world of the Gospel it is the poor who are raised on high, and that it is through the weak of the world that God shames the strong."
Columba raised his hand and showed Bathene a small stone. "Do you see this stone, Bathene? Do you think it is large?"
"No Father, that is a rather small stone."
Columba tossed the stone in the air, and caught it with a flash and snap of his hand. "Small though it be, a big man will take great hurt from it. And now, Brother, it's your pardon I'm asking, for we have some walking to do." Columba turned and strode off, back towards Brida's hall, with Bathene again hurrying to keep pace.
Back at Brida's court, Broisin the Druid was louder than ever, bouyed by his humiliation of the stranger monk. At the moment that Columba tossed and caught the stone miles away, Broisin raised his precious goblet on high once more. Shouting, "It's to myself I drink!" he brought it to his lips.
Some say that as he did so, they saw a tiny glittering object drop from the rafters straight for the Druid's face. Other say not, but all agree that as Broisin tilted the goblet to drink his own health, the priceless cup shattered into a thousand glittering shards. They twinkled like stars as they fell to the rush-strewn dirt floor.
The crowd turned from the glass fragments in amazement to see a more amazing sight. For Broisin the Druid, that great fearsome man louder than loud, louder than a bull in heat, was silent, grasping his own throat with convulsive hands, face turning from his usual mead-soaked red to a deep purple. Gasping for very breath, the great man slowly collapsed to the floor where he curled like a tiny infant, heaving and wheezing to draw even one scant breath.
After their walk, Columba and Bathene found the gate of Brida's hall without guards as even they had gone to stand in the deep circle around the dying Druid. The crowd looked up as Columba and Bathene entered the hall and silently parted to allow Columba to stand beside the huge man curled upon the floor.
Columba stooped while Bathene drew near, to better hear what would be said. In a low but clear voice, Columba asked, "Broisin, do you long to breathe the clean free air again?"
Unable to answer, Broisin jerked his head back and forth to say yes.
"Then" said Columba, his voice the same volume but with a shake of rage, "let that poor child of God breathe the free air too, and be quick!"
Again, Broisin convulsively nodded his head in assent. As he did so, he coughed and retched and, with a wheeze and a whistle, drew the first shuddering free breath that he had enjoyed since his goblet had broken all to bits.
Servants helped the great man to his rubbery legs and half-helped, half-carried him from the mead-hall. One of the servant, stooping, saw among the glass fragments a strange object. Silently, he handed to King Brida what he had found. It was a small, white stone, smooth from lying along the bank of a river.
The former slave-girl went with Columba and Bathene back to Iona, where some say she became the superior of the community of women who had also formed on the island.
But what we do know is that this story has been told since the 7th century, and says some deep and timeless things to us today. For our age is an age of slavery, no less than that of Columba. It is an arrogant and forgetful people who call Columba's time the "dark ages", forgetting the deeper darkness of our own and often not knowing where to find the Light. Slavery is alive and well, whether on 82nd avenue outside our doors, among the silent hopeless poor and those on whose shoulders and backs the prosperity of a few are laid, and in the fearful dread of our own hearts. There are countless arrogant Broisins, who buy and sell the dignity and happiness and the very air of the poor and those without voice and the very voiceless, abused earth and its creatures. But remember today, remember Columba, remember the man and all those women and men who saw and see the many faces of slavery among us and the many disguises with which Broisin still strides and laughs among us today. To be a baptized servant of Christ is to not turn away. And to make no peace with slavery. Make no peace with slavery.
As Columba sat, honored as a guest according to ancient Celtic law, he saw seated on the King's right an immense man who was louder that anyone else in the feasting-hall. This immense man had an immense, booming voice, and he raised it in shouts and hoots of laughter and snatches of song as he raised on high a precious vessel, a crystal goblet from the distant and legendary land of Greece. Upon asking his neighbor, Columba learned that this man, large of body and large of presence, was Broisin, the King's personal and feared Druid--court poet, wizard, and the power behind the throne so potent that it was rumored that the king himself feared the hulking magician.
Behind that vast arrogant man, Columba saw a second silent figure hidden in the shadows. Columba peered and finally descried a teenaged girl, standing with head bowed behind Broisin. As she would dart forward with a look of terror to fill the huge man's goblet with mead when he gestured and swore, Columba knew that the girl was Broisin's slave. Columba noted the fear in her eyes, her ragged tunic, and a large bruise on her right cheek.
Columba found the courage and temerity to raise his voice and call out (for his voice was famously loud too), "Broisin, I have a guest-gift to ask of you."
The hall instantly hushed at the stranger-monk daring to ask the sacred guest-gift of the fearsome Druid. Broisin paused in his drinking long enough to glare beneath bushy brows at Columba. "And what is it you ask, little man?"
"Release your slave-girl."
Broisin stared while the gathering gasped at Columba's pure nerve, then hooted in contempt. Swinging the goblet to his lips, Brosin leered at the monk and asked, "Why? Do you wish to have her?"
"No, I just ask for her to be freed."
Broisin roared with mirth and contempt. Again swigging a great gulp of mead, he wiped his streaming lips and beard with the back of his free hand before shouting, "The guest-gift may be sacred, but you little man and your little strange God have no respect here. The curse of the crows to you and to your asking, and the girl stays mine."
Gasping now at this flagrant denial of the request made by a guest, the gathering stared now at Columba. Were he a warrior and a man of honor, the only answer to this insult would be to draw sword.
Columba stood slowly, locking eyes with Broisin. Turning to the king, he bowed his head respectfully, then with not another look at Broisin he spun on his heel and strode, robe and cloak flying, out of the hall, pursued by Broisin's scornful laughter. Columba's disciple Bathene hurrying along behind.
Bathene knew that Columba also had a temper, so he scurried after his abbot in silence until, almost two miles from the gates of King Brida's hall, Columba paused by the bank of a stream crossed by a narrow ford. Columba stooped and, to Bathene's puzzlement, began to dabble his hands in the water and pebbles at his feet.
Standing, Columba looked at his own palm and asked aloud, "Bathene, Broisin is a powerful man, is he not?"
Not knowing what his abbot was playing at, Bathene answered, "Yes, I suppose so, Father, very powerful."
"And powerful men only understand and respect power greater than their own, do they not?"
Still puzzled, Bathene answered, "Yes Father, I suppose that is true."
Columba then smiled a smile that was not altogether pleasant. He said, "Ah, but Bathene, do not forget that in the world of the Gospel it is the poor who are raised on high, and that it is through the weak of the world that God shames the strong."
Columba raised his hand and showed Bathene a small stone. "Do you see this stone, Bathene? Do you think it is large?"
"No Father, that is a rather small stone."
Columba tossed the stone in the air, and caught it with a flash and snap of his hand. "Small though it be, a big man will take great hurt from it. And now, Brother, it's your pardon I'm asking, for we have some walking to do." Columba turned and strode off, back towards Brida's hall, with Bathene again hurrying to keep pace.
Back at Brida's court, Broisin the Druid was louder than ever, bouyed by his humiliation of the stranger monk. At the moment that Columba tossed and caught the stone miles away, Broisin raised his precious goblet on high once more. Shouting, "It's to myself I drink!" he brought it to his lips.
Some say that as he did so, they saw a tiny glittering object drop from the rafters straight for the Druid's face. Other say not, but all agree that as Broisin tilted the goblet to drink his own health, the priceless cup shattered into a thousand glittering shards. They twinkled like stars as they fell to the rush-strewn dirt floor.
The crowd turned from the glass fragments in amazement to see a more amazing sight. For Broisin the Druid, that great fearsome man louder than loud, louder than a bull in heat, was silent, grasping his own throat with convulsive hands, face turning from his usual mead-soaked red to a deep purple. Gasping for very breath, the great man slowly collapsed to the floor where he curled like a tiny infant, heaving and wheezing to draw even one scant breath.
After their walk, Columba and Bathene found the gate of Brida's hall without guards as even they had gone to stand in the deep circle around the dying Druid. The crowd looked up as Columba and Bathene entered the hall and silently parted to allow Columba to stand beside the huge man curled upon the floor.
Columba stooped while Bathene drew near, to better hear what would be said. In a low but clear voice, Columba asked, "Broisin, do you long to breathe the clean free air again?"
Unable to answer, Broisin jerked his head back and forth to say yes.
"Then" said Columba, his voice the same volume but with a shake of rage, "let that poor child of God breathe the free air too, and be quick!"
Again, Broisin convulsively nodded his head in assent. As he did so, he coughed and retched and, with a wheeze and a whistle, drew the first shuddering free breath that he had enjoyed since his goblet had broken all to bits.
Servants helped the great man to his rubbery legs and half-helped, half-carried him from the mead-hall. One of the servant, stooping, saw among the glass fragments a strange object. Silently, he handed to King Brida what he had found. It was a small, white stone, smooth from lying along the bank of a river.
The former slave-girl went with Columba and Bathene back to Iona, where some say she became the superior of the community of women who had also formed on the island.
But what we do know is that this story has been told since the 7th century, and says some deep and timeless things to us today. For our age is an age of slavery, no less than that of Columba. It is an arrogant and forgetful people who call Columba's time the "dark ages", forgetting the deeper darkness of our own and often not knowing where to find the Light. Slavery is alive and well, whether on 82nd avenue outside our doors, among the silent hopeless poor and those on whose shoulders and backs the prosperity of a few are laid, and in the fearful dread of our own hearts. There are countless arrogant Broisins, who buy and sell the dignity and happiness and the very air of the poor and those without voice and the very voiceless, abused earth and its creatures. But remember today, remember Columba, remember the man and all those women and men who saw and see the many faces of slavery among us and the many disguises with which Broisin still strides and laughs among us today. To be a baptized servant of Christ is to not turn away. And to make no peace with slavery. Make no peace with slavery.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Lost
Proper 7 C 2010
I Kings 19: 1-15a; Ps 42, 43; Gal 3: 23-29; Luke 8: 26-39
How lost is lost?
Today we find Elijah hustling his way out of town. Jezebel swore she would do Elijah in, and our prophet is no noble martyr. He literally heads for the hills. Depressed and discouraged, he lays down, waking up to find just enough food to keep him going for the next step.
He crawls into a cave, feeling ready to die. But the God who first breathed into his heart is not done with his prophet and friend. Fire, earthquake, wind—all the terrifying chaos of creation blazed outside, as dangerous as the hate of a powerful and revengeful queen. “But the LORD was not in the earthquake…nor in the fire…nor in the wind…”
Elijah was lost, lost in his fear, lost in his helplessness, lost in his hopelessness, lost in a cave in the wilderness. He had lost, too, his sense of what God wanted of him and what God was doing in his life and in the life of his people. And then, after that storm washes over him, he hears a voice made of silence.
That still voice calls Elijah from depression and fear to living once again as a prophet, a prophet who now knows that the power of God can pick us up when we are lost and at the end of our rope. In that stillness Elijah hears he is not done, and God is not done.
Ever feel totally lost? Ever felt at the end of your rope, like there is nothing but anxiety and fear? The power and strength of God is greater than this. God finds us when we are lost, and God can speak in silence with power greater than the chaos.
There’s lost, and then there’s lost.
For anyone who has been really lost or loved someone who was really lost, today’s Gospel can make your skin crawl. A man lives in the cemetery, completely lost, lost outside and lost inside. It’s amazing what a strange cave one’s own head and heart can be when we are overwhelmed with darkness. This hopeless man is filled with a teeming horde of powerful spirits. When Jesus finds him, he answers Jesus’ question with an awesome image. “Legion”, he says, a legion is inside of me. A Roman legion was an unstoppable fighting force of at least 6,000 battle-hardened soldiers. When the legion shows up, it’s best to surrender. He lives in the tombs, the dead outside, the teeming legion inside—no one could be more lost.
But Jesus finds the lost. And Jesus brings hope and new life to the lost. Frankly, I’ve always felt sorry for the pigs as they are the new hosts for the mighty legion of possessing spirits. But the point is made clearly—the all-powerful legion that filled this man, who drove him to isolation and hopelessness and despair—they’re only fit company for pigs. In fact, even the pigs can’t stand them, and would rather jump off a cliff than host the filthy legion.
Everyone else had accepted the possessed man’s hopelessness. Maybe some people need to think that some other people are beyond hope so they can be ignored and we can go back to our well-ordered lives. The life-changing power of God in Jesus is too much for the locals. They “beg him to leave the district.”
Well, people who feel their lives are well-ordered tend to resist any upset to their lives, even an upset caused by God. But the lost and the fearful and those in need are more ready, more open to accept the saving power of the God who finds the lost and speaks in stillness.
How lost is lost? No lost is too lost for God. No hopelessness is beyond hope for God. No wound is beyond healing, no darkness too deep, no legion too strong for the God who comes in Jesus to find us, to heal, to drive away darkness, to bring new life.
“O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your lovingkindness.”
I Kings 19: 1-15a; Ps 42, 43; Gal 3: 23-29; Luke 8: 26-39
How lost is lost?
Today we find Elijah hustling his way out of town. Jezebel swore she would do Elijah in, and our prophet is no noble martyr. He literally heads for the hills. Depressed and discouraged, he lays down, waking up to find just enough food to keep him going for the next step.
He crawls into a cave, feeling ready to die. But the God who first breathed into his heart is not done with his prophet and friend. Fire, earthquake, wind—all the terrifying chaos of creation blazed outside, as dangerous as the hate of a powerful and revengeful queen. “But the LORD was not in the earthquake…nor in the fire…nor in the wind…”
Elijah was lost, lost in his fear, lost in his helplessness, lost in his hopelessness, lost in a cave in the wilderness. He had lost, too, his sense of what God wanted of him and what God was doing in his life and in the life of his people. And then, after that storm washes over him, he hears a voice made of silence.
That still voice calls Elijah from depression and fear to living once again as a prophet, a prophet who now knows that the power of God can pick us up when we are lost and at the end of our rope. In that stillness Elijah hears he is not done, and God is not done.
Ever feel totally lost? Ever felt at the end of your rope, like there is nothing but anxiety and fear? The power and strength of God is greater than this. God finds us when we are lost, and God can speak in silence with power greater than the chaos.
There’s lost, and then there’s lost.
For anyone who has been really lost or loved someone who was really lost, today’s Gospel can make your skin crawl. A man lives in the cemetery, completely lost, lost outside and lost inside. It’s amazing what a strange cave one’s own head and heart can be when we are overwhelmed with darkness. This hopeless man is filled with a teeming horde of powerful spirits. When Jesus finds him, he answers Jesus’ question with an awesome image. “Legion”, he says, a legion is inside of me. A Roman legion was an unstoppable fighting force of at least 6,000 battle-hardened soldiers. When the legion shows up, it’s best to surrender. He lives in the tombs, the dead outside, the teeming legion inside—no one could be more lost.
But Jesus finds the lost. And Jesus brings hope and new life to the lost. Frankly, I’ve always felt sorry for the pigs as they are the new hosts for the mighty legion of possessing spirits. But the point is made clearly—the all-powerful legion that filled this man, who drove him to isolation and hopelessness and despair—they’re only fit company for pigs. In fact, even the pigs can’t stand them, and would rather jump off a cliff than host the filthy legion.
Everyone else had accepted the possessed man’s hopelessness. Maybe some people need to think that some other people are beyond hope so they can be ignored and we can go back to our well-ordered lives. The life-changing power of God in Jesus is too much for the locals. They “beg him to leave the district.”
Well, people who feel their lives are well-ordered tend to resist any upset to their lives, even an upset caused by God. But the lost and the fearful and those in need are more ready, more open to accept the saving power of the God who finds the lost and speaks in stillness.
How lost is lost? No lost is too lost for God. No hopelessness is beyond hope for God. No wound is beyond healing, no darkness too deep, no legion too strong for the God who comes in Jesus to find us, to heal, to drive away darkness, to bring new life.
“O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your lovingkindness.”
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Need
3 Pentecost/Proper 5 C 2010
1 Kings 17: 8-16; Ps 146; Gal 1: 11-24; Luke 7: 11-17
I had traveled all day on the top of a wooden diesel bus. Half the time I was seated on a live pig that a farmer had kindly offered me as a bench. The roads were dirt and dust, pitted with holes and studded with large rocks. When the bus finally stopped in the marketplace of that rural Filipino town and I climbed down the side, I was exhausted and filthy with sweat and dust and literally smelled like that poor shrieking pig.
I walked wearily into the church residence and found a Filipino community organizer seated on a bamboo chair. He greeted me, and I dropped my pack on the floor and rummaged about in it. Realizing with dismay the one thing I had forgotten to pack back in the city, I asked him, “Arthur, may I have some soap so I can scrub this dirt off, please?”
Arthur looked up slowly with an incredulous expression on his face. After a moment he said, “Yes I do, and yes you may. But you have to pardon me for saying that I do not expect a wealthy, self-sufficient American to have to ask me for something so simple as soap. Just now, as you asked me, you became much more real to me, not a powerful figure who would never need to ask anything of a rural Filipino.”
At the time, I did not want social reflection, just a bath. Arthur’s soap was a Godsend. I do not think being clean ever felt so good.
But as I read these texts for today, I remembered Arthur’s bar of soap and reflected that even God becomes real when we reach out in our need to one another. God’s generosity can break forth when we admit our need and our poverty and when we act as if God is generous. For God is generous, and we need one another, and when we reach out and live in this generous space God will not fail us.
When Elijah came to town in today’s Hebrew Scripture, he too was dirty, and he was starving. The great prophet was a hungry and hunted man. The person he approached was as poor and powerless as the ancient Near East could present—a destitute widow, trying to keep a child alive at a time and place where there were no safeguards and no rights for a woman who had lost her husband and his clan name. She knew all this—she was going out one last time to perform a last gesture from the normal life she had once known: build a fire, make a small cake with the last of their flour, and then hold her son and die together. But God whispered in the prophet’s heart, and something else happened that reversed the story.
Turn to one another in need—we have enough to help a hungry stranger. Live as if God is generous and there is hope. Live this hope together. And God’s generosity can break into the world. “And they ate for many days” says the story.
What else can happen if we shake off our dead sense of scarcity and hopelessness, reach out to one another and to strangers, and live as if God is generous?
The Gospel story also asks us that question. The story of Elijah and the widow forms the background of this tale, but the Gospel widow’s need is deeper and more hopeless—her son is already dead. But God’s generous power is deeper still—God in and through Jesus raises even the dead young man to life. What is there in us that seems hopeless may be raised to new life, what may be raised among us, by the power of a generous God?
But we need to ask—we need to ask God, we need to reach out to one another and to others, we need to be ready to act like citizens of a generous cosmos. For most of us, that takes a change of life and of heart.
This year’s Stewardship Campaign has already begun, and these texts come at a perfect time for us to hear and to welcome the word that God speaks in them. Saints Peter and Paul is a wealthy, abundant, and blessed community. We are not blessed in a way that can leave us living complacently as we are. We are all, priest and people, called to a change of mind and heart. Hear the Word of God read today, and let’s ask these questions:
As Elijah reached out to the widow in his need, to whom are we called to reach out in our need? Is it to one another first of all? Do we truly value the gift of one another, old friends as well as those brand-new among us? (It was told to me that a long-time member was recently asked to share a cup of coffee after Mass, and she was pleased as in all these years no one had personally invited her to just sit and share some coffee after Mass). We need one another, first of all, and in that glad need to welcome one another.
And we need to reach out beyond ourselves. We need Montavilla, we need the neighborhood. It is true that we have gifts to offer them. But they have many gifts to offer us, and we need to be a vital part of the neighborhood, to be good neighbors, in order to truly be “Your church here” as our bulletins say each week. Talk to Judy Bishop or to me about how we are trying to do that, and know that we need your help, the help of everyone here.
And we need to accept God’s generous gift and live as if that gift has already been given to us, for it has! Our consultant for this year looked at our statistics and said, “You are one of the larger churches in the Diocese,” and we are. I think we often act small and poor and think that way, and so it is no surprise that we start to feel poor, as poor as a famine in the Middle East.
Today God says: reach out to one another, admit your need, welcome the generosity of God that can come even from the poor, live like citizens of a generous cosmos. Years ago, doing all that got me a decent bath in the Philippines. What may God do for our whole community today?
1 Kings 17: 8-16; Ps 146; Gal 1: 11-24; Luke 7: 11-17
I had traveled all day on the top of a wooden diesel bus. Half the time I was seated on a live pig that a farmer had kindly offered me as a bench. The roads were dirt and dust, pitted with holes and studded with large rocks. When the bus finally stopped in the marketplace of that rural Filipino town and I climbed down the side, I was exhausted and filthy with sweat and dust and literally smelled like that poor shrieking pig.
I walked wearily into the church residence and found a Filipino community organizer seated on a bamboo chair. He greeted me, and I dropped my pack on the floor and rummaged about in it. Realizing with dismay the one thing I had forgotten to pack back in the city, I asked him, “Arthur, may I have some soap so I can scrub this dirt off, please?”
Arthur looked up slowly with an incredulous expression on his face. After a moment he said, “Yes I do, and yes you may. But you have to pardon me for saying that I do not expect a wealthy, self-sufficient American to have to ask me for something so simple as soap. Just now, as you asked me, you became much more real to me, not a powerful figure who would never need to ask anything of a rural Filipino.”
At the time, I did not want social reflection, just a bath. Arthur’s soap was a Godsend. I do not think being clean ever felt so good.
But as I read these texts for today, I remembered Arthur’s bar of soap and reflected that even God becomes real when we reach out in our need to one another. God’s generosity can break forth when we admit our need and our poverty and when we act as if God is generous. For God is generous, and we need one another, and when we reach out and live in this generous space God will not fail us.
When Elijah came to town in today’s Hebrew Scripture, he too was dirty, and he was starving. The great prophet was a hungry and hunted man. The person he approached was as poor and powerless as the ancient Near East could present—a destitute widow, trying to keep a child alive at a time and place where there were no safeguards and no rights for a woman who had lost her husband and his clan name. She knew all this—she was going out one last time to perform a last gesture from the normal life she had once known: build a fire, make a small cake with the last of their flour, and then hold her son and die together. But God whispered in the prophet’s heart, and something else happened that reversed the story.
Turn to one another in need—we have enough to help a hungry stranger. Live as if God is generous and there is hope. Live this hope together. And God’s generosity can break into the world. “And they ate for many days” says the story.
What else can happen if we shake off our dead sense of scarcity and hopelessness, reach out to one another and to strangers, and live as if God is generous?
The Gospel story also asks us that question. The story of Elijah and the widow forms the background of this tale, but the Gospel widow’s need is deeper and more hopeless—her son is already dead. But God’s generous power is deeper still—God in and through Jesus raises even the dead young man to life. What is there in us that seems hopeless may be raised to new life, what may be raised among us, by the power of a generous God?
But we need to ask—we need to ask God, we need to reach out to one another and to others, we need to be ready to act like citizens of a generous cosmos. For most of us, that takes a change of life and of heart.
This year’s Stewardship Campaign has already begun, and these texts come at a perfect time for us to hear and to welcome the word that God speaks in them. Saints Peter and Paul is a wealthy, abundant, and blessed community. We are not blessed in a way that can leave us living complacently as we are. We are all, priest and people, called to a change of mind and heart. Hear the Word of God read today, and let’s ask these questions:
As Elijah reached out to the widow in his need, to whom are we called to reach out in our need? Is it to one another first of all? Do we truly value the gift of one another, old friends as well as those brand-new among us? (It was told to me that a long-time member was recently asked to share a cup of coffee after Mass, and she was pleased as in all these years no one had personally invited her to just sit and share some coffee after Mass). We need one another, first of all, and in that glad need to welcome one another.
And we need to reach out beyond ourselves. We need Montavilla, we need the neighborhood. It is true that we have gifts to offer them. But they have many gifts to offer us, and we need to be a vital part of the neighborhood, to be good neighbors, in order to truly be “Your church here” as our bulletins say each week. Talk to Judy Bishop or to me about how we are trying to do that, and know that we need your help, the help of everyone here.
And we need to accept God’s generous gift and live as if that gift has already been given to us, for it has! Our consultant for this year looked at our statistics and said, “You are one of the larger churches in the Diocese,” and we are. I think we often act small and poor and think that way, and so it is no surprise that we start to feel poor, as poor as a famine in the Middle East.
Today God says: reach out to one another, admit your need, welcome the generosity of God that can come even from the poor, live like citizens of a generous cosmos. Years ago, doing all that got me a decent bath in the Philippines. What may God do for our whole community today?
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
rebuke and affirm
7 Easter 2010
Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-22; John 17:20-26
A friend of mine who works in mental health told me about a client who came into her office one day. She had been seeing this client for over a year, but on that afternoon, she took one look at him and knew instantly that something was wrong: The look in his eyes was strangely vacant, and his voice didn’t sound like his own. It wasn’t just that this man had schizophrenia (although he did), or that he was addicted to heroin (although he was). Rather, she told me, she was convinced that this man was possessed by a demon.
She told me this entire story in the same tone of voice that I would use to describe a jam in the photocopier. I stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say. Like me, this friend is an Episcopalian, and I am not used to hearing Episcopalians use the language of demonic possession.
I asked her: “So what did you do?”
She shrugged and said: “I did what anyone else would do. I opened up my desk drawer, and I pulled out my Bible, and I rebuked it!”
I waited for more, but there was no more to the story. The evil spirit left her client, he sat down in a chair, and they got back to work on his addiction and schizophrenia.
Listening today to the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, I was reminded of this story. The message is the same: Demonic beings do exist, no matter how much we try to deny their presence. But God is so much bigger that all it takes to cast them out of our lives is a little rebuke. No candle-lighting, no Latin chant – just a command from a “very much annoyed” servant of Christ. No matter how evil the spirit or how commanding its presence, it’s hard to compete with the one who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
All this has me wondering about how evil spirits work today – if you’ll consent for a few moments to believe that they may really exist – and whether we can possibly expect them to manifest in the same way that they did in Biblical times. Surely, the slave girl in Philippi drew plenty of attention to herself, not to mention to Paul and Silas, as she stumbled through town shouting about slaves of the Most High God. We know that somebody was taking her seriously; the Scripture tells us that she “brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.” But you have to wonder: If this same girl was wandering through downtown Portland, crying out about slaves and God and salvation, would anyone care?
Would anyone even notice?
Perhaps, then, the ways of separating people from God that worked two thousand years ago are less effective today. Now that our society has learned how to handle people who cause a scene in public places – we simply ignore them, or we call the police, who come swiftly to drag them away – can it be that these same spirits have gone underground? Much more quietly and privately, as befits a culture that fetishizes privacy, they claim a space in our souls and do everything they can to undermine God’s work in our lives.
Maybe they’ve tried to make their claim on all of us. Instead of spirits of divination, like the one that possessed the slave girl at Philippi, we might call them spirits of isolation – although sometimes they do a very good job of convincing us that they can predict the future, too.
They isolate us from God by saying: You are so unworthy.
They isolate us from our families by saying: Your marriage is never going to work out.
They isolate us from our spiritual selves, saying: Everyone else is beautiful, and you are ugly.
And most of all, they isolate us from hope. Surely, in your darkest moments, you’ve heard them say: Nothing is ever going to get better. Your life will always be this hard.
As Christians, we are blessed to know – at least with our rational minds – that none of these things are true. We know so well that, as today’s psalm tells us, “The Lord loves those who hate evil; he preserves the lives of his saints and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” We have heard Jesus say to the Father, “The glory that you have given me, I have given my disciples, so that the world may know … that you have loved them even as you have loved me.” And we know that, no matter what our struggles or how pronounced our suffering, glorious things are in store for us: Jesus also speaks of his desire for us, the ones who have loved him, to see his glory and join him in heaven.
We are the followers and the disciples of Jesus. We have been loved by him, redeemed by him, and called to see his glory; we have been transformed through the waters of baptism; we are treasured by God. And we know, from the hope given us of eternal life and Jesus’s return to this world, that things are going to get better.
If we’re trying to understand demons, maybe the question we should be asking is what makes those things so hard for us to remember.
But there is hope here too, for Jesus gives a clear commission to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew: He says that part of their task will be to drive out demons, in the same breath he uses to tell them to heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach that the kingdom of heaven is near. Is it so crazy to think that as we carry on that work, we are called to drive demons out of each other?
I invite you to give this Gospel reading a little place in your heart as you leave church today and go back to your weekday world tomorrow. Keep an eye open for demons in your life and the lives of others around you, and miss no opportunity to cast them out – which is really to say, miss no opportunity to remind anyone that he or she is a beautiful, beloved, and ultimately treasured creation – a living symbol of our eternal hope in God and God’s enduring hope for us.
Homily by Cat Healy, parish clerk
Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-22; John 17:20-26
A friend of mine who works in mental health told me about a client who came into her office one day. She had been seeing this client for over a year, but on that afternoon, she took one look at him and knew instantly that something was wrong: The look in his eyes was strangely vacant, and his voice didn’t sound like his own. It wasn’t just that this man had schizophrenia (although he did), or that he was addicted to heroin (although he was). Rather, she told me, she was convinced that this man was possessed by a demon.
She told me this entire story in the same tone of voice that I would use to describe a jam in the photocopier. I stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say. Like me, this friend is an Episcopalian, and I am not used to hearing Episcopalians use the language of demonic possession.
I asked her: “So what did you do?”
She shrugged and said: “I did what anyone else would do. I opened up my desk drawer, and I pulled out my Bible, and I rebuked it!”
I waited for more, but there was no more to the story. The evil spirit left her client, he sat down in a chair, and they got back to work on his addiction and schizophrenia.
Listening today to the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, I was reminded of this story. The message is the same: Demonic beings do exist, no matter how much we try to deny their presence. But God is so much bigger that all it takes to cast them out of our lives is a little rebuke. No candle-lighting, no Latin chant – just a command from a “very much annoyed” servant of Christ. No matter how evil the spirit or how commanding its presence, it’s hard to compete with the one who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
All this has me wondering about how evil spirits work today – if you’ll consent for a few moments to believe that they may really exist – and whether we can possibly expect them to manifest in the same way that they did in Biblical times. Surely, the slave girl in Philippi drew plenty of attention to herself, not to mention to Paul and Silas, as she stumbled through town shouting about slaves of the Most High God. We know that somebody was taking her seriously; the Scripture tells us that she “brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.” But you have to wonder: If this same girl was wandering through downtown Portland, crying out about slaves and God and salvation, would anyone care?
Would anyone even notice?
Perhaps, then, the ways of separating people from God that worked two thousand years ago are less effective today. Now that our society has learned how to handle people who cause a scene in public places – we simply ignore them, or we call the police, who come swiftly to drag them away – can it be that these same spirits have gone underground? Much more quietly and privately, as befits a culture that fetishizes privacy, they claim a space in our souls and do everything they can to undermine God’s work in our lives.
Maybe they’ve tried to make their claim on all of us. Instead of spirits of divination, like the one that possessed the slave girl at Philippi, we might call them spirits of isolation – although sometimes they do a very good job of convincing us that they can predict the future, too.
They isolate us from God by saying: You are so unworthy.
They isolate us from our families by saying: Your marriage is never going to work out.
They isolate us from our spiritual selves, saying: Everyone else is beautiful, and you are ugly.
And most of all, they isolate us from hope. Surely, in your darkest moments, you’ve heard them say: Nothing is ever going to get better. Your life will always be this hard.
As Christians, we are blessed to know – at least with our rational minds – that none of these things are true. We know so well that, as today’s psalm tells us, “The Lord loves those who hate evil; he preserves the lives of his saints and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” We have heard Jesus say to the Father, “The glory that you have given me, I have given my disciples, so that the world may know … that you have loved them even as you have loved me.” And we know that, no matter what our struggles or how pronounced our suffering, glorious things are in store for us: Jesus also speaks of his desire for us, the ones who have loved him, to see his glory and join him in heaven.
We are the followers and the disciples of Jesus. We have been loved by him, redeemed by him, and called to see his glory; we have been transformed through the waters of baptism; we are treasured by God. And we know, from the hope given us of eternal life and Jesus’s return to this world, that things are going to get better.
If we’re trying to understand demons, maybe the question we should be asking is what makes those things so hard for us to remember.
But there is hope here too, for Jesus gives a clear commission to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew: He says that part of their task will be to drive out demons, in the same breath he uses to tell them to heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach that the kingdom of heaven is near. Is it so crazy to think that as we carry on that work, we are called to drive demons out of each other?
I invite you to give this Gospel reading a little place in your heart as you leave church today and go back to your weekday world tomorrow. Keep an eye open for demons in your life and the lives of others around you, and miss no opportunity to cast them out – which is really to say, miss no opportunity to remind anyone that he or she is a beautiful, beloved, and ultimately treasured creation – a living symbol of our eternal hope in God and God’s enduring hope for us.
Homily by Cat Healy, parish clerk
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Loved, anyway
VI OF EASTER – Year C
May 9, 2010 - Parish of Ss. Peter & Paul
Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
We have been celebrating it, really, these past three weeks. I’m speaking of our observance of Earth Day two weeks ago, some hymns last Sunday that focused upon the theme of earthiness, planting and crops, and today, the REAL Rogation Sunday! I imagine that a lot of us here can recall “Rogation Sunday” wherein we might have “beaten the bounds,” by walking around the perimeter of the church, singing something like “O Jesus crowned with all renown,” or “We plough the fields and scatter.” One parish I served did that with horribly tacky wooden slats that were stuck in the churchyard, to which we walked in procession and prayed at each one. I don’t think that there’s any American Episcopal church left that still does that – maybe you know of one though? And, in England, the “parish” had a huge (to us) physical boundary, around which the faithful would walk and sing and pray.
But “Rogation” comes from rogare, a Latin word meaning “to ask.” We get “interrogation” from that root-word. Asking God’s blessing upon the new planting meant a great deal to farmers and those whose lives depended upon work in the soil and God’s times and seasons of rainfall and sunshine. Nowadays, our current Book of Common Prayer leaves this Sunday to the 6th Sunday of the Easter season, with some rich readings from Scripture to ponder, and provides three Collects “for use on the traditional days” – that is, this week – “or at other times.” So, we can “rogate” any time we wish!
The Collects are found on pp. 258-259 in the prayer book and are concerned with fruitful seasons – as of old – commerce and industry, and the stewardship of creation. I love the phrase in the last collect,
2
“Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts [O God].”
Oh, yes: today, in the secular calendar, it’s Mothers’ Day, dreamed up, I hear, by Hallmark cards. May’s a good time for mothers of all kinds, as “May” is short for “Mary,” and we know about her, don’t we?
Here’s a story about asking. About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave the Vatican. Naturally there was a big uproar form the Jewish community. The Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Pope won, the Jews would have to leave. The Jews realized they had no choice. They chose a middle-aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for an addition to the debate—to make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk.
The Pope reluctantly agreed. The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite one another for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed at the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple.
The Pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”
An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope, asking him what happened.
3
The Pope said, “First, I held up three fingers, representing the Trinity. He held up one finger, to remind me there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my fingers around to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything! What could I do?
Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe.
“What happened?” they asked
“Well,” said Moishe, “first, he said to me that we had three days to get out. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he said the whole city would be cleared of Jews. I told him we were staying right here.”
“And then?” asked a woman.
“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine!”
[Pause]
Today presents itself as one of those Sundays when a “step-sermon” might be good. Not simply to indulge you with “sound bites” but because the Gospel reading lends itself to a “how-to” answer. That is, the Christian community faces a question that has endured for two millennia since: “How can disciples have a personal relationship with Jesus when he has gone?”
John’s – the Fourth Gospel’s – Jesus provides two answers to this dilemma.
4
The disciple can continue in a close personal relationship with the Risen Jesus by doing two things: by doing the works of Jesus (14:12-14), and by keeping his commandments (14:15-24).
What does it mean to do the works of Jesus? Walk on water? Multiply loaves? Change water into wine? Heal lepers and raise the dead? Get crucified? Maybe before trying to run the 100-yard dash with the Messiah, we should start out with some baby-steps in “doing the works of Jesus.”
Some teachings by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, compiled in a book by Lucinda Vardy called, A Simple Path, suggest a number of straightforward, yet profound, ways that the seeker can begin to have a close personal relationship with the unseen Christ.
Mother Teresa says to start out your day in silence. Find some silence every day, somewhere, even if it is just for a few minutes. In the silence, be still. Get quiet. Slow down. What follows might seem awkward and wasteful – since time is money – but keep at it. Just as Jesus sought out the silence of the desert to commune with his Abba God, so should we. No, you don’t need a Range Rover to do this. Save time and money: simply go into the “desert” of your “room,” your own quiet space. It is in the quietness of the heart that God speaks, Mother Teresa said, and so we must set aside that time for God alone to encounter us. She adds, “God is the friend of silence.”
Abba “who sees in secret” will reward you (Mt. 6:6), Jesus said; and the reward will be deepened prayer that comes out of the silence. Prayer is to the soul what blood is to the body, Mother Teresa taught. In other words, you cannot begin to do the works of Jesus – or keep his commandments – without prayer.
5
Put simply, there is no Kingdom of God without God. Thus, starting in silence – really, a form of prayer itself--and moving into more formal prayer is like getting a spiritual transfusion every day. Through the Holy Spirit in prayer, the power and creativity of the New Creation courses through our veins, and we come alive.
Out of silence and prayer emerges faith. Faith here does not mean believing what you know isn’t so. Nor does it imply gullibility—a belief in things for which there is no evidence. Genuine faith never has – never will – mean that. As Paul Tillich said, “faith” means “being grasped by a power greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us and transforms us and heals us. Surrender to this power is faith.” Thus, faith is the gift of God, an awareness that builds and grows through prayer. When one takes on this attitude of surrender—this faith—all things are possible for the believer (Mt. 17:20).
Being grasped by faith imbues the believer with the most excellent gift of all: the gift of love. “We must be loved by God first,” Mother Teresa contended, “and only then can we give to others. … When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life, radiating that love.” Does this love mean going to the Third World to serve the poor? Perhaps. But Mother Teresa insisted that this Divine radiance first be directed toward those closest to you: at home, at work, in your own neighborhood and city. She knew how much easier it was to love people “far away” than to love them nearby. Lastly, she said, it isn’t so much what we do as it is the quality of love we put into doing it.
Peace through service ends her list. Mother Teresa quotes Gandhi, who said, “Act, but seek not the fruit of your action.” Service and peace come together when we let go of “results.”
6
The book ends with the following quotation title ANYWAY, taken from a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta. It sums up this detachment in service that leads to peace:
“People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. LOVE THEM ANYWAY. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. DO GOOD ANYWAY. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. SUCCEED ANYWAY. The good you will do will be forgotten tomorrow. DO GOOD ANYWAY. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY. What you spent your years building may be destroyed overnight. BUILD ANYWAY. People really need help but may attack you if you help them. HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.”
[from a sermon given at Trinity Church, Marshall, MI, May 17, 1998 by PWA]
May 9, 2010 - Parish of Ss. Peter & Paul
Fr. Phillip Ayers
+++++
We have been celebrating it, really, these past three weeks. I’m speaking of our observance of Earth Day two weeks ago, some hymns last Sunday that focused upon the theme of earthiness, planting and crops, and today, the REAL Rogation Sunday! I imagine that a lot of us here can recall “Rogation Sunday” wherein we might have “beaten the bounds,” by walking around the perimeter of the church, singing something like “O Jesus crowned with all renown,” or “We plough the fields and scatter.” One parish I served did that with horribly tacky wooden slats that were stuck in the churchyard, to which we walked in procession and prayed at each one. I don’t think that there’s any American Episcopal church left that still does that – maybe you know of one though? And, in England, the “parish” had a huge (to us) physical boundary, around which the faithful would walk and sing and pray.
But “Rogation” comes from rogare, a Latin word meaning “to ask.” We get “interrogation” from that root-word. Asking God’s blessing upon the new planting meant a great deal to farmers and those whose lives depended upon work in the soil and God’s times and seasons of rainfall and sunshine. Nowadays, our current Book of Common Prayer leaves this Sunday to the 6th Sunday of the Easter season, with some rich readings from Scripture to ponder, and provides three Collects “for use on the traditional days” – that is, this week – “or at other times.” So, we can “rogate” any time we wish!
The Collects are found on pp. 258-259 in the prayer book and are concerned with fruitful seasons – as of old – commerce and industry, and the stewardship of creation. I love the phrase in the last collect,
2
“Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts [O God].”
Oh, yes: today, in the secular calendar, it’s Mothers’ Day, dreamed up, I hear, by Hallmark cards. May’s a good time for mothers of all kinds, as “May” is short for “Mary,” and we know about her, don’t we?
Here’s a story about asking. About a century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave the Vatican. Naturally there was a big uproar form the Jewish community. The Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Pope won, the Jews would have to leave. The Jews realized they had no choice. They chose a middle-aged man named Moishe to represent them. Moishe asked for an addition to the debate—to make it more interesting, neither side would be allowed to talk.
The Pope reluctantly agreed. The day of the great debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite one another for a full minute before the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle around his head. Moishe pointed at the ground where he sat. The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple.
The Pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”
An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope, asking him what happened.
3
The Pope said, “First, I held up three fingers, representing the Trinity. He held up one finger, to remind me there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my fingers around to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground and showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything! What could I do?
Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe.
“What happened?” they asked
“Well,” said Moishe, “first, he said to me that we had three days to get out. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he said the whole city would be cleared of Jews. I told him we were staying right here.”
“And then?” asked a woman.
“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine!”
[Pause]
Today presents itself as one of those Sundays when a “step-sermon” might be good. Not simply to indulge you with “sound bites” but because the Gospel reading lends itself to a “how-to” answer. That is, the Christian community faces a question that has endured for two millennia since: “How can disciples have a personal relationship with Jesus when he has gone?”
John’s – the Fourth Gospel’s – Jesus provides two answers to this dilemma.
4
The disciple can continue in a close personal relationship with the Risen Jesus by doing two things: by doing the works of Jesus (14:12-14), and by keeping his commandments (14:15-24).
What does it mean to do the works of Jesus? Walk on water? Multiply loaves? Change water into wine? Heal lepers and raise the dead? Get crucified? Maybe before trying to run the 100-yard dash with the Messiah, we should start out with some baby-steps in “doing the works of Jesus.”
Some teachings by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, compiled in a book by Lucinda Vardy called, A Simple Path, suggest a number of straightforward, yet profound, ways that the seeker can begin to have a close personal relationship with the unseen Christ.
Mother Teresa says to start out your day in silence. Find some silence every day, somewhere, even if it is just for a few minutes. In the silence, be still. Get quiet. Slow down. What follows might seem awkward and wasteful – since time is money – but keep at it. Just as Jesus sought out the silence of the desert to commune with his Abba God, so should we. No, you don’t need a Range Rover to do this. Save time and money: simply go into the “desert” of your “room,” your own quiet space. It is in the quietness of the heart that God speaks, Mother Teresa said, and so we must set aside that time for God alone to encounter us. She adds, “God is the friend of silence.”
Abba “who sees in secret” will reward you (Mt. 6:6), Jesus said; and the reward will be deepened prayer that comes out of the silence. Prayer is to the soul what blood is to the body, Mother Teresa taught. In other words, you cannot begin to do the works of Jesus – or keep his commandments – without prayer.
5
Put simply, there is no Kingdom of God without God. Thus, starting in silence – really, a form of prayer itself--and moving into more formal prayer is like getting a spiritual transfusion every day. Through the Holy Spirit in prayer, the power and creativity of the New Creation courses through our veins, and we come alive.
Out of silence and prayer emerges faith. Faith here does not mean believing what you know isn’t so. Nor does it imply gullibility—a belief in things for which there is no evidence. Genuine faith never has – never will – mean that. As Paul Tillich said, “faith” means “being grasped by a power greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us and transforms us and heals us. Surrender to this power is faith.” Thus, faith is the gift of God, an awareness that builds and grows through prayer. When one takes on this attitude of surrender—this faith—all things are possible for the believer (Mt. 17:20).
Being grasped by faith imbues the believer with the most excellent gift of all: the gift of love. “We must be loved by God first,” Mother Teresa contended, “and only then can we give to others. … When you know how much God is in love with you, then you can only live your life, radiating that love.” Does this love mean going to the Third World to serve the poor? Perhaps. But Mother Teresa insisted that this Divine radiance first be directed toward those closest to you: at home, at work, in your own neighborhood and city. She knew how much easier it was to love people “far away” than to love them nearby. Lastly, she said, it isn’t so much what we do as it is the quality of love we put into doing it.
Peace through service ends her list. Mother Teresa quotes Gandhi, who said, “Act, but seek not the fruit of your action.” Service and peace come together when we let go of “results.”
6
The book ends with the following quotation title ANYWAY, taken from a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta. It sums up this detachment in service that leads to peace:
“People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. LOVE THEM ANYWAY. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. DO GOOD ANYWAY. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. SUCCEED ANYWAY. The good you will do will be forgotten tomorrow. DO GOOD ANYWAY. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY. What you spent your years building may be destroyed overnight. BUILD ANYWAY. People really need help but may attack you if you help them. HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth. GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.”
[from a sermon given at Trinity Church, Marshall, MI, May 17, 1998 by PWA]
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Know God
5 Easter 2010
(Acts 11: 1-18; Ps 148; Rev 21: 1-6; John 13: 31-35)
What does that mean as prayed today, to “truly know God”?
At my age, I am very careful about saying “I know that person, I know so-and-so.” The people that are closest to me constantly surprise me. My very spouse and kids are books in which I have only read the introduction and part of the first chapters. And others? The longer I serve here, the more surprised I am by people whom I thought I knew. Sometimes I am delighted by what I learn, sometimes I am frustrated, sometimes I am disappointed, and sometimes I am even frightened. So I rarely say that I know a person anymore. I don’t even know myself very well, especially after hitting mid-life!
If it is so hard to know a human person, how can we hope to say we truly know God?
It’s a good question to carry with us, as today we hear a tale of people who thought they knew God, or at least they thought they knew what God thought. The early Christian movement was very Jewish, and content with that. After all, the Master had said that he had not come to abolish the ancient Law, but to fulfill it. The Law made it clear who was in and who was out, and the uncircumcised, pork-eating, idol-worshipping Gentiles were definitely out. This was one of the earliest crises of the post-resurrection Church, as it ran head on into what they thought were the legitimate boundaries of their community, who was in, who was out, who was clean and acceptable, who was by nature and act unclean and unacceptable.
It took a divine vision to get through Peter’s head. A sheet full of everything that should nauseate a good Jew—pigs and snakes and probably prawns—drops from the sky. “Get up, Peter, slaughter, then eat!” There’s nothing abstract here—Peter is told to put aside all his prior knowledge and his revulsion and take something into his body. That’s one way to get to really know something—eat it! Peter answers loyally as he has been taught, as he has been taught to be faithful to God: “Not me!” But the shattering words are said three times, “What God has called clean, you are not to call profane.” When Peter awakes, the Gentile visitors are there to give Peter a chance to live his strange dream, the dream where God thinks differently than Peter had been taught and God is found where Peter did not think to look and God was calling Peter to get over a world of tradition and teaching and prejudice in order to see as God sees, to love whom God loves, to share life and even death with those whom Peter never imagined he would live and die with.
Peter’s colleagues’ amazement shouts through their words, “Then God has granted repentance EVEN to the Gentiles!” If God loves and accepts the Gentiles, what else may this God think and choose and do?
Do we want to know God? Then prepared to be surprised. Prepare to have our prior opinions tested. Prepare for dreams or visions that will lead us to welcome and accept those whom we never imagined us to welcome, to share life with, to live and die with. Because to know God is to look to who God looks, to love who God loves, to allow ourselves to be challenged to welcome wholly those who we never thought we’d welcome. We have been welcomed, so we are to welcome.
And in the Gospel, Jesus reveals the heart of God.
Jesus’ own heart is broken as his disciple and friend Judas leaves to betray him. We must never forget that the heart of God is revealed amidst broken promises and the bitterness of betrayal. It is broken hearts that reveal the love of God. And it is here, when the bond of friendship and love has been broken, that Jesus gives the “new commandment”—“love one another as I have loved you.”
Why is this new? The old Law said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love’s not new.
Maybe it is the second part, “as I have loved you.” It is the love of Jesus that makes this commandment new. We have been called, empowered, freed to love by the love of God in Jesus.
Or is it that we ourselves are transformed and made new when we love?
We do not know God with our ideas. We know God when we accept the amazing love of God. But it does not stop there. We know God as we allow the love of God to transform us to love as God loves. And today we are given a map of how the first Christians learned how to love:
By being open to surprise. To being willing to change what we thought we knew about God, about who we are and who are those whom we did not think we would ever have to love, to accept, to eat with, to live with.
A tiny Jewish sect was surprised and broken open and had their minds changed and began a journey into a new and unexpected life. We are the beneficiaries. We call that new community the church.
How may we be surprised, how may we be broken open, how may our minds be changed, and on what new journey may we set out?
That is how to live that new commandment. That is how we truly know God.
(Acts 11: 1-18; Ps 148; Rev 21: 1-6; John 13: 31-35)
What does that mean as prayed today, to “truly know God”?
At my age, I am very careful about saying “I know that person, I know so-and-so.” The people that are closest to me constantly surprise me. My very spouse and kids are books in which I have only read the introduction and part of the first chapters. And others? The longer I serve here, the more surprised I am by people whom I thought I knew. Sometimes I am delighted by what I learn, sometimes I am frustrated, sometimes I am disappointed, and sometimes I am even frightened. So I rarely say that I know a person anymore. I don’t even know myself very well, especially after hitting mid-life!
If it is so hard to know a human person, how can we hope to say we truly know God?
It’s a good question to carry with us, as today we hear a tale of people who thought they knew God, or at least they thought they knew what God thought. The early Christian movement was very Jewish, and content with that. After all, the Master had said that he had not come to abolish the ancient Law, but to fulfill it. The Law made it clear who was in and who was out, and the uncircumcised, pork-eating, idol-worshipping Gentiles were definitely out. This was one of the earliest crises of the post-resurrection Church, as it ran head on into what they thought were the legitimate boundaries of their community, who was in, who was out, who was clean and acceptable, who was by nature and act unclean and unacceptable.
It took a divine vision to get through Peter’s head. A sheet full of everything that should nauseate a good Jew—pigs and snakes and probably prawns—drops from the sky. “Get up, Peter, slaughter, then eat!” There’s nothing abstract here—Peter is told to put aside all his prior knowledge and his revulsion and take something into his body. That’s one way to get to really know something—eat it! Peter answers loyally as he has been taught, as he has been taught to be faithful to God: “Not me!” But the shattering words are said three times, “What God has called clean, you are not to call profane.” When Peter awakes, the Gentile visitors are there to give Peter a chance to live his strange dream, the dream where God thinks differently than Peter had been taught and God is found where Peter did not think to look and God was calling Peter to get over a world of tradition and teaching and prejudice in order to see as God sees, to love whom God loves, to share life and even death with those whom Peter never imagined he would live and die with.
Peter’s colleagues’ amazement shouts through their words, “Then God has granted repentance EVEN to the Gentiles!” If God loves and accepts the Gentiles, what else may this God think and choose and do?
Do we want to know God? Then prepared to be surprised. Prepare to have our prior opinions tested. Prepare for dreams or visions that will lead us to welcome and accept those whom we never imagined us to welcome, to share life with, to live and die with. Because to know God is to look to who God looks, to love who God loves, to allow ourselves to be challenged to welcome wholly those who we never thought we’d welcome. We have been welcomed, so we are to welcome.
And in the Gospel, Jesus reveals the heart of God.
Jesus’ own heart is broken as his disciple and friend Judas leaves to betray him. We must never forget that the heart of God is revealed amidst broken promises and the bitterness of betrayal. It is broken hearts that reveal the love of God. And it is here, when the bond of friendship and love has been broken, that Jesus gives the “new commandment”—“love one another as I have loved you.”
Why is this new? The old Law said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love’s not new.
Maybe it is the second part, “as I have loved you.” It is the love of Jesus that makes this commandment new. We have been called, empowered, freed to love by the love of God in Jesus.
Or is it that we ourselves are transformed and made new when we love?
We do not know God with our ideas. We know God when we accept the amazing love of God. But it does not stop there. We know God as we allow the love of God to transform us to love as God loves. And today we are given a map of how the first Christians learned how to love:
By being open to surprise. To being willing to change what we thought we knew about God, about who we are and who are those whom we did not think we would ever have to love, to accept, to eat with, to live with.
A tiny Jewish sect was surprised and broken open and had their minds changed and began a journey into a new and unexpected life. We are the beneficiaries. We call that new community the church.
How may we be surprised, how may we be broken open, how may our minds be changed, and on what new journey may we set out?
That is how to live that new commandment. That is how we truly know God.
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