Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
June 20, 2010
Year C, Proper 7: The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:1-15a
Psalm 42
(Galatians 3:23-29)
Luke 8:26-39
A Bunch of Ragamuffins
When I was growing up my father hated his job. Part of the reason he went to work every day was to afford to send my sister and me to our local Catholic parochial school, Our Lady of Mercy. And like Catholic schoolchildren then and now, we wore uniforms. For the girls it was a plaid jumper and for the boys it was white dress shirt, green clip-on tie and gray pants. And like Catholic schoolchildren then and now, we sometimes wore the uniform in ways that were less than neat and dignified.
For most of my time in grammar school the principal was a nun who was very kind but who from time to time would kind of lose it and yell at the whole school over the PA system. I remember one time very vividly. Apparently she had seen – or she had gotten reports about – how some of us were abusing the uniform.
So, this day she got on the PA and really let us have it – yelling about the boys with their un-tucked shirts and the girls with their too-short skirts. I’m sure the teachers were irritated to have classes interrupted, maybe amused by the spectacle, and also maybe concerned that this time sister was going to blow a gasket.
There’s one phrase from sister’s tirade that I’ll never forget. From down in the main office she shouted into the microphone, “You look like a bunch of ragamuffins!”
“You look like a bunch of ragamuffins!”
Ragamuffins? I’m sure some of us snickered at that funny word. I had no idea what a ragamuffin was – and probably my classmates didn’t either. Of course, sister had given us enough context to know that ragamuffins are a mess. In case, like me, you don’t know what a ragamuffin is, here’s the dictionary definition: a dirty, shabbily-clothed child – an urchin.
I don’t think I thought about or heard the word “ragamuffin” for the next thirty-plus years, until a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon a book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by a former Roman Catholic priest named Brennan Manning. Seeing the book’s title hurled me back to the principal’s long-ago tirade and piqued my interest.
Manning makes two main points in his book. First, we’re all spiritual ragamuffins – we’re all a mess – one way or another we’re all, as he says, “bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out.”
Here are some of his definitions of ragamuffins:
“The sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other.”
“The wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together and are too proud” to accept help.
“The poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents.”
“The bent and the bruised who feel their lives are a grave disappointment…”
“The smart people who know they are stupid…”
I think these days more than usual we’re really feeling bedraggled, beat up and burnt-out. Most if not all of us carry our own personal regrets and anxieties – our own sense of failure or impending doom.
And as a society, we’re a mess. We’re told the economy is improving, but a jobless recovery seems like no recovery at all. We lash out - desperately looking for who is to blame – Wall Street, the banks, Congress, the president, the former president, the teachers union, the undocumented immigrant…the list goes on.
We’re still feeding our best and bravest to Iraq and Afghanistan – wars that have gone on so long now that we can barely stand to hear about one more roadside bomb, one more top-ranking terrorist killed by an unmanned drone, one more suicide bomber at a crowded marketplace.
And of course, each week the estimate rises ever higher of just how much oil has actually spewed and continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico. We can only take so much of this. Before long we’ll grow numb to the images of oil-soaked pelicans, tar balls staining gorgeous beaches, and heartbroken people mourning a lost way of life.
Yes, more than ever, Brennan Manning is right – individually and as a society - we’re bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out. We’re a bunch of ragamuffins.
But, in his book Manning makes a second point – very basic Christianity, yet all too easy for us to forget. He writes that God “has a single relentless stance toward us.” God “loves us.” God “is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods – the gods of human manufacturing – despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do. But of course, this is almost too incredible for us to accept.”
We’re all bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out. We’re all sinners living in a sinful world. Yet, the good news is that God reaches out to us, no matter how much of a mess, how much of a ragamuffin we are.
Today’s lessons offer two powerful illustrations of God reaching out to the bedraggled, the beat-up and the burnt-out.
The man we met in today’s gospel is maybe the most extreme ragamuffin imaginable. He’s probably a gentile, so from the Jewish perspective that’s one big strike against him. He’s possessed by an army of demons – a Roman legion had about 5000 troops. He hasn’t worn clothes for a long time and lives in the tombs. The demons were so powerful that even guards and chains and shackles could not subdue him.
The point of this story is that even this extreme case of a man bedraggled, beaten-up and burned-out was not beyond the loving power of God working through Jesus. And in case you’re wondering about the pigs. Their mass suicide is a vivid symbol of the purification of non-Jewish lands – that through Jesus we discover that the God of Israel is at work everywhere, reaching out to everyone.
I’d like to spend a little more time on the story of the Prophet Elijah’s quiet encounter with God. For today’s story to make sense we have to back up just a little. Elijah lived during a time when the Israelites were hedging their bets – they continued to worship their God but also worshipped other gods, especially Baal, an important Canaanite god associated with thunderstorms. Israel was ruled by Ahab, a great military leader who was married to the infamous Jezebel, a worshipper of Baal.
The author of the Book of Kings tells us that during a terrible drought Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of Baal to a contest in which both sides would cut up a bull and call upon their god to consume the bull with fire – probably thanks to lightning.
We’re told the prophets of Baal dance around, cut themselves, do everything they can think of. Elijah taunts them, suggesting that maybe Baal is meditating or asleep. Despite the best attempts of the prophets, Baal was silent. We’re told there was “No voice, no answer, no response.”
Elijah then called upon the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and we’re told “the fire of the Lord fell” – and the drought came to an end. Elijah then told the Israelites to grab the prophets of Baal - and he killed them all.
A powerful and bloody scene. Today we picked up with Jezebel hearing about what had happened to her prophets and sending a threatening message to Elijah. And Elijah – who had seen first hand the power of God – Elijah was frightened and despairing. Who knows, maybe he had some doubts that God had really wanted him to kill those 450 prophets of Baal.
One commentary I read actually referred to Elijah here as a burnt-out prophet. He’s probably bedraggled and apparently is about to be beat-up and worse. Elijah is a spiritual ragamuffin.
So, Elijah went on his own forty day exodus ending up at Mount Horeb, better known as Mount Sinai. Here, where God had appeared to Moses, Elijah says, “I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” In the midst of his fear and despair, the ragamuffin Elijah turns to God, opens himself to God.
And God doesn’t appear in the violent wind or the earthquake or the fire. Instead, God speaks in the “sheer silence.” The burned-out prophet is reassured of God’s presence and sent back on his mission, to get on with the rest of his life, knowing that God is with him always.
The story of Jesus casting out the legion of demons from that poor man tells us that no one – no matter who they are or no matter what they’ve done is beyond the power and love and healing of God. This is something important for us to remember when we feel broken, un-healable, and unforgivable. It’s also something important to remember when we judge certain other people as broken, un-healable and unforgivable.
But, for many of us, the story of Elijah may be timelier these days. Like Elijah, many of us have seen God’s power and have received God’s blessing. Think of all we’ve been given! Yet, in tough times we can be consumed by regret about the past, fear of the future, and the need for someone to blame.
In the midst of this mess the story of Elijah reminds us that God is reaching out to us, probably not in the winds, earthquakes and fires, but in the sheer silence.
Today many of us are bedraggled, beaten-up and burned-out. We’re spiritual ragamuffins. More than ever, like Elijah, we need to take some time – to take our own private exodus. More than ever we need to turn off the TV and radio, log off from facebook, put the phone on silent, and just be quiet - listening for the voice of God in the sheer silence.
We’re all a bunch of ragamuffins now, needing the grace and healing that only God can give.
Amen.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, June 06, 2010
From Death Into Life
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
June 6, 2010
Year C, Proper 5: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
(Galatians 1:11-24)
Luke 7:11-17
From Death into Life
What is God really like?
Last Sunday, Lauren and I and preachers all across the Church were faced with the daunting challenge of preaching a sermon on a doctrine of the church – preaching on the Trinity – the term we use for our very limited understanding of God’s interior life. God reveals God’s self to be three Persons in one God - a perfect relationship of love. We preachers prove every year that it’s impossible to explain how God can be both one and three. Ultimately, in this life anyway, the Trinity will always remain a profound and inexhaustible mystery. In that deepest sense, for now anyway, we cannot know what God is really like.
But, because God wants to be in relationship with us, because over and over God reaches out to us, we can give at least a partial answer.
What is God really like? Well, to answer that we can look to the Bible – the book that’s a collection of many books, inspired by God, created and collected over many centuries – the book that tells a long story of God at work in the world, God revealing God’s self to human beings.
What is God really like? Well, as Christians, of course, to answer that first and foremost we look to Jesus – the person in whom God reveals God’s self in a unique way to the world. In Jesus, God says this is what I’m really like.
What is God really like? Well, as Christians to answer that we also look to two-thousand years of Christian history – the story of how despite often horrifying human sinfulness, God has been – and continues to be - at work through people who have given away their lives sharing the Good News of Jesus, standing up to injustice, and selflessly serving the weakest and the poorest among us.
What is God really like? Today’s lessons – the very similar stories of Elijah and Jesus both raising a widow’s son from the dead – give us an important answer. We don’t know everything about God, but we do know that over and over God offers to lead us from death into life.
I’m reminded of a hymn that’s not in our Episcopal hymnal, but was and maybe still is popular in the Roman Catholic Church. The refrain is:
“Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”
That’s what God is like. In this life we can’t know God completely, but the truth is God has revealed all that we need to know. What is God really like? Over and over God offers to lead us – to shepherd us - from death into life.
Today we heard a story about the prophet Elijah, who lived in the first half of the 9th Century B.C. What we know about him comes from the book of Kings, written several centuries later. Like all prophets, Elijah’s main task was convincing the Israelites to put their trust, their faith, in God.
In each of the stories about Elijah we see Elijah being open to God’s call and then God’s power is made manifest in him.
In the story we heard today, God sends Elijah to a widow living in Zarephath, a port city in Phoenicia – what would be today Lebanon. From the start, the gloom of death hangs over the scene. Elijah encounters the woman gathering sticks and asks her for water. Without a word, she begins to accommodate his request, but then he asks her for a morsel of bread. And then it’s as if all of her sorrows and despair come pouring out of her. She says to Elijah,
“As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for my son, that we may eat it and die.”
Yet, although she seems consumed by despair and impending death, she is also open to God’s power. Notice that she acknowledges God’s existence, saying, “As the Lord your God lives…” And then, rather than telling this stranger to get lost, she does what he says, making “a little cake” for Elijah.
The author of the Book of Kings tells us, “She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.”
Because this poor woman is open just a little, she experiences God’s presence, power and abundance. She experiences what God is really like.
God shepherded her, beyond her wants, beyond her fears, from death into life.
But, then there’s a twist to the story. The gloom of death still hasn’t lifted.
The woman’s son dies suddenly and, interestingly, she seems to blame both herself and Elijah for this calamity. She says, “What have you against me, O man of god? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”
“You have come to bring my sin to remembrance.” It seems this woman may be carrying around heavy guilt – some recognition of her own sinfulness. And living with our sin and feeling unforgiven is a kind of death, too, isn’t it?
But, regardless of our sins, God always offers to shepherd us, to lead us from death to life.
It may be hard for us to understand or even accept God’s offer of life. Look, even Elijah seems to misunderstand what God is really like. Elijah cries out, “O Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?”
Well, no, of course, not. By reviving the son, in a literal and dramatic way God reveals what God is really like, that God always offers to lead us from death into life.
God shepherded the woman, her son, and even Elijah, God shepherded them all beyond their wants, beyond their fears, from death into life.
It’s a powerful story that reveals a lot about what God is really like. And the evangelist Luke obviously draws upon the story of Elijah resuscitating the boy in his account of Jesus raising the widow’s only son.
Luke of course is eager to make the point that God’s power flows through Jesus just as it flowed through Elijah. After the miracle, Luke quotes the people as saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!”
But, Luke knew, and the first readers of the Gospel knew, and we know, that, yes, Jesus is a prophet but Jesus is much more than a prophet. In Jesus we see what God is really like. Jesus is the ultimate example of God reaching out to us, making God’s self known to us. And Christ’s Resurrection is the ultimate sign and promise that, even when all hope seems to be lost, God always offers to lead us, to shepherd us, from death into life.
For two thousand years, countless Christian women and men have allowed God to work through them – sharing God’s offer to lead us from death into life. And that work continues all around us even now.
On the Men’s Mission event a couple of weeks ago I had the chance to spend time with Christians who are doing God’s work of shepherding people from death into life.
On the first day I went to the Seamen’s Church Institute at Port Newark and spent the day trailing one of the port chaplains, my good friend Megan Sanders, as she went about her work.
The port is a fascinating, dangerous and largely hidden world of enormous equipment, diesel exhaust and tight security. Many of the seafarers sign contracts that take them away from home for many months. For a variety of reasons, many are not allowed off their ships when they finally reach port after many weeks at sea. It’s not much of a life. In fact, it’s a kind of death.
But, we followed Megan around as she spread God’s love to these nearly invisible people – doing seemingly small things - offering much-wanted phone cards, offering rides to the Jersey Gardens mall, asking about their lives, promising prayers.
One of the crewmembers said that lots of people come on the ships but the chaplains are the only ones who care about them.
In small but profound ways, that day at the port we saw what God is really like - shepherding those seafarers – and us – beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
On the second day of our mission event, I went out to Hope, NJ, to a place called Haven of Hope for Kids. I knew Grace Church gives them outreach money but didn’t know much about this organization that was co-founded by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, a small congregation in Hope. Currently Haven of Hope offers one cottage as “a retreat for families caring for a child with a life-threatening illness.” Some of you know first-hand the horror of that experience – how the illness of a child can be a kind of death.
At Haven of Hope, families can spend most or all of their time in and around the pleasant cottage, which is just behind the church. Or they can take advantage of some of the other attractions in that beautiful part of our state or over in Pennsylvania.
Now, Haven of Hope is expanding its ministry into a second cottage – and our group of Grace Church men transformed this second cottage from a drab gray into a bright, welcoming, hopeful yellow. Our two-day painting effort will make a small contribution to Haven of Hope’s mission of giving these families “a renewed sense of mutual support, courage, confidence, joy and optimism.”
In small but profound ways at Haven of Hope we saw what God is really like – shepherding frightened families – and us – beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
So, what is God really like? Because God wants to be in relationship with us, because over and over God reaches out to us, we can give at least a partial answer.
We look to the Bible, we look to Jesus, and we look to God working through people in history and all around us, right here today. And when we look we discover that over and over, even when all seems to be lost, God always offers to shepherd us, to lead us, beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
Amen.
June 6, 2010
Year C, Proper 5: The Second Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 17:8-24
Psalm 146
(Galatians 1:11-24)
Luke 7:11-17
From Death into Life
What is God really like?
Last Sunday, Lauren and I and preachers all across the Church were faced with the daunting challenge of preaching a sermon on a doctrine of the church – preaching on the Trinity – the term we use for our very limited understanding of God’s interior life. God reveals God’s self to be three Persons in one God - a perfect relationship of love. We preachers prove every year that it’s impossible to explain how God can be both one and three. Ultimately, in this life anyway, the Trinity will always remain a profound and inexhaustible mystery. In that deepest sense, for now anyway, we cannot know what God is really like.
But, because God wants to be in relationship with us, because over and over God reaches out to us, we can give at least a partial answer.
What is God really like? Well, to answer that we can look to the Bible – the book that’s a collection of many books, inspired by God, created and collected over many centuries – the book that tells a long story of God at work in the world, God revealing God’s self to human beings.
What is God really like? Well, as Christians, of course, to answer that first and foremost we look to Jesus – the person in whom God reveals God’s self in a unique way to the world. In Jesus, God says this is what I’m really like.
What is God really like? Well, as Christians to answer that we also look to two-thousand years of Christian history – the story of how despite often horrifying human sinfulness, God has been – and continues to be - at work through people who have given away their lives sharing the Good News of Jesus, standing up to injustice, and selflessly serving the weakest and the poorest among us.
What is God really like? Today’s lessons – the very similar stories of Elijah and Jesus both raising a widow’s son from the dead – give us an important answer. We don’t know everything about God, but we do know that over and over God offers to lead us from death into life.
I’m reminded of a hymn that’s not in our Episcopal hymnal, but was and maybe still is popular in the Roman Catholic Church. The refrain is:
“Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”
That’s what God is like. In this life we can’t know God completely, but the truth is God has revealed all that we need to know. What is God really like? Over and over God offers to lead us – to shepherd us - from death into life.
Today we heard a story about the prophet Elijah, who lived in the first half of the 9th Century B.C. What we know about him comes from the book of Kings, written several centuries later. Like all prophets, Elijah’s main task was convincing the Israelites to put their trust, their faith, in God.
In each of the stories about Elijah we see Elijah being open to God’s call and then God’s power is made manifest in him.
In the story we heard today, God sends Elijah to a widow living in Zarephath, a port city in Phoenicia – what would be today Lebanon. From the start, the gloom of death hangs over the scene. Elijah encounters the woman gathering sticks and asks her for water. Without a word, she begins to accommodate his request, but then he asks her for a morsel of bread. And then it’s as if all of her sorrows and despair come pouring out of her. She says to Elijah,
“As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for my son, that we may eat it and die.”
Yet, although she seems consumed by despair and impending death, she is also open to God’s power. Notice that she acknowledges God’s existence, saying, “As the Lord your God lives…” And then, rather than telling this stranger to get lost, she does what he says, making “a little cake” for Elijah.
The author of the Book of Kings tells us, “She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.”
Because this poor woman is open just a little, she experiences God’s presence, power and abundance. She experiences what God is really like.
God shepherded her, beyond her wants, beyond her fears, from death into life.
But, then there’s a twist to the story. The gloom of death still hasn’t lifted.
The woman’s son dies suddenly and, interestingly, she seems to blame both herself and Elijah for this calamity. She says, “What have you against me, O man of god? You have come to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!”
“You have come to bring my sin to remembrance.” It seems this woman may be carrying around heavy guilt – some recognition of her own sinfulness. And living with our sin and feeling unforgiven is a kind of death, too, isn’t it?
But, regardless of our sins, God always offers to shepherd us, to lead us from death to life.
It may be hard for us to understand or even accept God’s offer of life. Look, even Elijah seems to misunderstand what God is really like. Elijah cries out, “O Lord, my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying by killing her son?”
Well, no, of course, not. By reviving the son, in a literal and dramatic way God reveals what God is really like, that God always offers to lead us from death into life.
God shepherded the woman, her son, and even Elijah, God shepherded them all beyond their wants, beyond their fears, from death into life.
It’s a powerful story that reveals a lot about what God is really like. And the evangelist Luke obviously draws upon the story of Elijah resuscitating the boy in his account of Jesus raising the widow’s only son.
Luke of course is eager to make the point that God’s power flows through Jesus just as it flowed through Elijah. After the miracle, Luke quotes the people as saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!”
But, Luke knew, and the first readers of the Gospel knew, and we know, that, yes, Jesus is a prophet but Jesus is much more than a prophet. In Jesus we see what God is really like. Jesus is the ultimate example of God reaching out to us, making God’s self known to us. And Christ’s Resurrection is the ultimate sign and promise that, even when all hope seems to be lost, God always offers to lead us, to shepherd us, from death into life.
For two thousand years, countless Christian women and men have allowed God to work through them – sharing God’s offer to lead us from death into life. And that work continues all around us even now.
On the Men’s Mission event a couple of weeks ago I had the chance to spend time with Christians who are doing God’s work of shepherding people from death into life.
On the first day I went to the Seamen’s Church Institute at Port Newark and spent the day trailing one of the port chaplains, my good friend Megan Sanders, as she went about her work.
The port is a fascinating, dangerous and largely hidden world of enormous equipment, diesel exhaust and tight security. Many of the seafarers sign contracts that take them away from home for many months. For a variety of reasons, many are not allowed off their ships when they finally reach port after many weeks at sea. It’s not much of a life. In fact, it’s a kind of death.
But, we followed Megan around as she spread God’s love to these nearly invisible people – doing seemingly small things - offering much-wanted phone cards, offering rides to the Jersey Gardens mall, asking about their lives, promising prayers.
One of the crewmembers said that lots of people come on the ships but the chaplains are the only ones who care about them.
In small but profound ways, that day at the port we saw what God is really like - shepherding those seafarers – and us – beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
On the second day of our mission event, I went out to Hope, NJ, to a place called Haven of Hope for Kids. I knew Grace Church gives them outreach money but didn’t know much about this organization that was co-founded by St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, a small congregation in Hope. Currently Haven of Hope offers one cottage as “a retreat for families caring for a child with a life-threatening illness.” Some of you know first-hand the horror of that experience – how the illness of a child can be a kind of death.
At Haven of Hope, families can spend most or all of their time in and around the pleasant cottage, which is just behind the church. Or they can take advantage of some of the other attractions in that beautiful part of our state or over in Pennsylvania.
Now, Haven of Hope is expanding its ministry into a second cottage – and our group of Grace Church men transformed this second cottage from a drab gray into a bright, welcoming, hopeful yellow. Our two-day painting effort will make a small contribution to Haven of Hope’s mission of giving these families “a renewed sense of mutual support, courage, confidence, joy and optimism.”
In small but profound ways at Haven of Hope we saw what God is really like – shepherding frightened families – and us – beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
So, what is God really like? Because God wants to be in relationship with us, because over and over God reaches out to us, we can give at least a partial answer.
We look to the Bible, we look to Jesus, and we look to God working through people in history and all around us, right here today. And when we look we discover that over and over, even when all seems to be lost, God always offers to shepherd us, to lead us, beyond our wants, beyond our fears, from death into life.
Amen.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Attention and the Focused Life
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
The Messenger
June-July 2010
Curate’s Corner
Attention and the Focused Life
If we are being honest, most preachers would admit that most if not all of our sermons are on some level directed to ourselves. I was reminded of that truth a couple of months ago during the Men’s Retreat. Geoff Brooks noted that one theme that appears often in my sermons is the call to pay attention – to keep our eyes and ears open to how God is at work in our lives. Ironically – and tellingly – I don’t remember the context of Geoff’s comment, but I was pleased that he recognized my belief in the importance of mindfulness. Truthfully, I preach regularly about paying attention because I think it’s important and because I tend to do such a bad job of it myself.
Like most of us, especially when tired, I regularly lose my perspective and get wrapped up in my own issues – anxieties as well as hopes. Like most of us, I miss how God is active in this present moment and instead look back regretfully or nostalgically to the past or ahead nervously or hopefully to the future. That was one reason why back in April, my wife Sue encouraged me to take a few days off, get away, take a breather and pay attention to how God is at work right now in my life.
With Lauren’s kind agreement, I spent five days in one of my favorite places, San Francisco, on sort of a vaca-retreat. Although I spent some time catching up with good friends, mostly I was alone with my thoughts and prayers as I walked up and down the wonderfully steep hills of that beautiful city. After just a day or two my friends said they could see the rest and refreshment in my face.
While I was there I read an intriguing book called Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, by a behavioral science writer named Winifred Gallagher. I had never heard of the book or author before, but its title and subject had caught my eye in a bookstore so I bought it and tossed it into my bag for the trip.
While I have approached paying attention and mindfulness from a religious angle, Gallagher’s central claim is purely secular, blatantly obvious and yet usually ignored: “Your life is the creation of what you focus on – and what you don’t.” Gallagher arrived at that profoundly simple statement after receiving a very bleak cancer diagnosis. She writes that while facing this potentially fatal illness, she resolved to focus on “things that matter most and make me feel best: big ones like my family and friends, spiritual life, and work, and smaller things like movies, walks, and a 6:30pm martini.”
This resolve to control her focus apparently worked, helping to make the seemingly unbearable bearable. Gallagher writes, “Even in very difficult situations, it’s often possible to find something to be grateful for, such as others’ loving support, good medical care, or even your own values, thoughts and feelings. Focusing on such a benign emotion isn’t just a ‘nice thing to do’ but a proven way to expand your view of reality and lift your spirits, thus improving your ability to cope.” Based on her powerful personal experience and many interviews with scientists and psychologists, Gallagher concludes, “You cannot always be happy, but you can almost always be focused, which is the next best thing.”
Naturally, it would be much better if we paid attention and practiced mindfulness in our everyday lives rather than in the midst of a personal crisis. Our relationships are a good place to start. Gallagher writes, “Attention, from the Latin for ‘reach toward,’ is the most basic ingredient in any relationship, from a casual friendship to a lifelong marriage. Giving and receiving the undivided sort, however briefly, is the least that one person can do for another and sometimes the most.” How often do we really pay attention to other people – our co-workers, fellow parishioners at coffee hour, our friends, our relatives, our spouses? How would our lives be different if we developed the discipline of mindfulness, of living in this moment, of taking in and appreciating the gifts that we are receiving right now from and through the people in our lives?
To circle back to our lives as Christians, how can we ever hope to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves, if we are unwilling to pay attention to God and to the people around us? In her book, Gallagher offers this quote from the poet W.H. Auden, “To pray is to pay attention, or shall we say, to ‘listen’ to someone or something other than oneself.”
Since we’re all works in progress, no doubt we’ll keep stumbling at paying attention to God at work in our lives and in the world around us. In a world that seems to demand relentless multitasking, we’ll still struggle to focus on what’s most important. So, I’m sure I’ll keep preaching to myself and to you about the importance of mindfulness. But, I think from now on I’ll try a little harder to practice what I preach!
The Messenger
June-July 2010
Curate’s Corner
Attention and the Focused Life
If we are being honest, most preachers would admit that most if not all of our sermons are on some level directed to ourselves. I was reminded of that truth a couple of months ago during the Men’s Retreat. Geoff Brooks noted that one theme that appears often in my sermons is the call to pay attention – to keep our eyes and ears open to how God is at work in our lives. Ironically – and tellingly – I don’t remember the context of Geoff’s comment, but I was pleased that he recognized my belief in the importance of mindfulness. Truthfully, I preach regularly about paying attention because I think it’s important and because I tend to do such a bad job of it myself.
Like most of us, especially when tired, I regularly lose my perspective and get wrapped up in my own issues – anxieties as well as hopes. Like most of us, I miss how God is active in this present moment and instead look back regretfully or nostalgically to the past or ahead nervously or hopefully to the future. That was one reason why back in April, my wife Sue encouraged me to take a few days off, get away, take a breather and pay attention to how God is at work right now in my life.
With Lauren’s kind agreement, I spent five days in one of my favorite places, San Francisco, on sort of a vaca-retreat. Although I spent some time catching up with good friends, mostly I was alone with my thoughts and prayers as I walked up and down the wonderfully steep hills of that beautiful city. After just a day or two my friends said they could see the rest and refreshment in my face.
While I was there I read an intriguing book called Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, by a behavioral science writer named Winifred Gallagher. I had never heard of the book or author before, but its title and subject had caught my eye in a bookstore so I bought it and tossed it into my bag for the trip.
While I have approached paying attention and mindfulness from a religious angle, Gallagher’s central claim is purely secular, blatantly obvious and yet usually ignored: “Your life is the creation of what you focus on – and what you don’t.” Gallagher arrived at that profoundly simple statement after receiving a very bleak cancer diagnosis. She writes that while facing this potentially fatal illness, she resolved to focus on “things that matter most and make me feel best: big ones like my family and friends, spiritual life, and work, and smaller things like movies, walks, and a 6:30pm martini.”
This resolve to control her focus apparently worked, helping to make the seemingly unbearable bearable. Gallagher writes, “Even in very difficult situations, it’s often possible to find something to be grateful for, such as others’ loving support, good medical care, or even your own values, thoughts and feelings. Focusing on such a benign emotion isn’t just a ‘nice thing to do’ but a proven way to expand your view of reality and lift your spirits, thus improving your ability to cope.” Based on her powerful personal experience and many interviews with scientists and psychologists, Gallagher concludes, “You cannot always be happy, but you can almost always be focused, which is the next best thing.”
Naturally, it would be much better if we paid attention and practiced mindfulness in our everyday lives rather than in the midst of a personal crisis. Our relationships are a good place to start. Gallagher writes, “Attention, from the Latin for ‘reach toward,’ is the most basic ingredient in any relationship, from a casual friendship to a lifelong marriage. Giving and receiving the undivided sort, however briefly, is the least that one person can do for another and sometimes the most.” How often do we really pay attention to other people – our co-workers, fellow parishioners at coffee hour, our friends, our relatives, our spouses? How would our lives be different if we developed the discipline of mindfulness, of living in this moment, of taking in and appreciating the gifts that we are receiving right now from and through the people in our lives?
To circle back to our lives as Christians, how can we ever hope to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves, if we are unwilling to pay attention to God and to the people around us? In her book, Gallagher offers this quote from the poet W.H. Auden, “To pray is to pay attention, or shall we say, to ‘listen’ to someone or something other than oneself.”
Since we’re all works in progress, no doubt we’ll keep stumbling at paying attention to God at work in our lives and in the world around us. In a world that seems to demand relentless multitasking, we’ll still struggle to focus on what’s most important. So, I’m sure I’ll keep preaching to myself and to you about the importance of mindfulness. But, I think from now on I’ll try a little harder to practice what I preach!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
"The Mad Logic of the Trinity"
Trinity + St. Philip’s Cathedral, Newark NJ
May 30, 2010
Year C: The First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
“The Mad Logic of the Trinity”
Most of us here today can remember a time when life moved at a slower pace. We can remember the days before the Internet and email, before cell phones, before hundreds of channels on TV – although, of course, there’s still nothing to watch!
We can remember a time when life moved at a slower pace, when we had more time to think and reflect. When I was growing up in the 1970s I had several pen pals in different countries around the world. We would exchange letters, telling each other what was going on in our lives. I remember taking a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to write to these far-off friends who lived in places like Iceland, Germany, Tanzania and India.
When it was time to mail my letters I would imagine the journey they would take to reach their destinations. And then weeks or even months would go by before I’d get the reply, in envelopes usually covered with colorful stamps and postmarks.
Nowadays thanks to instantaneous email, the idea of writing letters to pen pals in other countries sounds like something out of the 1870s rather than just a few decades ago.
We live in a fast-paced time which has little room or patience for reflection. I’d like to say that the church is a place where we can still slow down and reflect. But, the truth is, for many of us – for many of you – the church is another busy, hurried place. There’s so much to be done – and I know it seems like it’s always the same people doing most of the work. There’s just not much time for reflection.
I imagine that the earliest followers of Jesus didn’t have too much time for reflection, either. Imagine how amazing it must have been to hear and see Jesus. It must have been nearly overwhelming to follow Jesus around, to see his miracles and to try to make sense of his parables. And we know how often the disciples didn’t quite get it right – how often they didn’t understand what Jesus meant or who Jesus was.
And then in quick succession there were the events of Holy Week – the betrayal, the arrest, the crucifixion, the resurrection. And then, according to Luke, fifty days later there was Pentecost - the disciples received the Holy Spirit and went out proclaiming the Good News to the whole world.
And for sure it’s at this point that those first Christians had to take some time to reflect – to reflect on the meaning of the Good News they were proclaiming. Imagine those early disciples arriving in a new place and telling people – maybe both Jews and Gentiles – about Jesus – his life, death and resurrection. Imagine the disciples saying Jesus is the messiah – not exactly the kind of messiah that was expected, though. Imagine the first disciples shocking some people by using language like “Lord” and “Son of God” for Jesus.
Well, you can imagine the questions, right? We can imagine some people trying to understand, saying, “So, OK, I think I get it. Jesus was a god pretending to be human right? I can believe that, in our religion we have lots of gods and we’re always happy to learn about another.” And the disciples might respond, “No, that’s not quite right. Jesus really was a human being, but God was really present in Jesus in a way that we’ve never seen before but he wasn’t another god, like one of your gods.”
Or maybe some said, “Let me get this straight, Jesus was a prophet, right? Well, there have been lots of prophets so why shouldn’t there be another?” And the disciples might respond, “No, sorry, that’s not quite right. Yes, Jesus was a prophet, but not like any other prophet. He was a prophet but much more than a prophet.”
Or imagine the disciples trying to explain how although they no longer saw Jesus in the flesh, they still experienced his love and his presence and his power in a very real way. Imagine them trying to explain how in some mysterious and very real way they still experienced the love and power they had felt in Jesus. Imagine the first disciples trying to explain the presence of the Holy Spirit – the power of the breath of God – in their lives!
All of this called for a lot of reflection. Who is Jesus? What is his relationship to God? Who or what is the power that we still feel present in our lives?
One of the people who must have spent a lot of time reflecting on all of this was St. Paul who after his conversion spent his life telling people about Jesus. This morning we heard a little piece from his letter to the Romans – a letter written probably later in his life – a letter that is clearly a product of many years of reflection.
Paul understands that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, Jesus has bridged the gap between God and humanity. Paul writes, “…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.” Jesus has bridged the gap between God and humanity.
After, I’m sure, much reflection and experience Paul also understands that we continue to experience God’s love and grace. He writes, “…hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Paul wrote those words probably in the mid-50s of the First Century – twenty years or so after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It took several more centuries of reflection, controversy, debate and even, sadly, bloodshed, before the Church settled on the doctrine we celebrate today – the doctrine of the Trinity.
It wasn’t until the 300s that church councils crafted the Nicene Creed that we say each Sunday in church – the creed that affirms that God is one in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It took all that time of reflection for the church to finally figure out that God is a perfect relationship of love. And through Jesus and the Holy Spirit you and I are invited to be part of that divine love.
This is the awesome truth – the ultimate Good News – that we celebrate today. But, let’s be honest, even after all these centuries, the doctrine of the Trinity – one God in three Persons - is still hard for us to grasp.
In his novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe tells the story of the arrival of the British in what is today Nigeria during the late 1800s. Among other things, the British bring Christianity and manage to convert some of the people to the new faith. One of the converts is a young man named Nwoye, the son of a local strong man.
Here’s how Achebe describes Nwoye’s attraction to Christianity. “It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him…It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow.”
If we try to apply human logic to the Trinity we’ll never get anywhere. Three and yet one at the same time – that really is mad logic! But the Trinity isn’t logic – it’s poetry - it’s poetry that we feel in our marrow, in our bones, in our heart.
The doctrine of the Trinity reveals to us that God is a perfect relationship of love. This three-in-one God of perfection could have spent eternity alone but the nature of God is to share God’s love. So God created all of us – God created this beautiful planet, this vast universe, God created all of it to share God’s love with us.
Over and over, the Bible tells the story of God reaching out to us, wanting to be in relationship with us. Finally, in Jesus, God reaches out in an ultimate way by in some mysterious way becoming one of us, living among us, saying to us, “Look, this is who I really am.” In Jesus, God reaches out to us in an ultimate way, stretching out his arms on the cross, forgiving us, right to the end inviting us to be part of this relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – and us.
It’s mad logic, but when we’re open we feel its truth in our bones and in our hearts. When we gather at the Lord’s Table to receive Christ’s Body and Blood we know that we are part of the divine relationship of love.
When we’re open to it and paying attention, we can really see that we are all – all of us - invited to share in the divine relationship of love. And the Holy Spirit inspires us to follow God’s example by reaching out and inviting others to be in relationship with us and to join in the divine relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit and us.
And standing here this morning, like Nwoye in Things Fall Apart, I feel that truth and power of that invitation in my bones, in my heart. Some of you know that I’m privileged to serve on the Cathedral Chapter. And almost exactly three years ago I was ordained a deacon right over there. Both are very important to me, but I feel a special relationship with this cathedral family for a deeper reason.
Today in our diocesan cycle of prayer, we are praying for the Rev. Canon Dr. David H. Hamilton. More than ten years ago, you welcomed David Hamilton as your interim dean. So, many of you know his story – a story of great loss and also a powerful story of resurrection and renewal. It’s a story in which you played a crucial part.
After he left here, he became rector of St. Paul’s in Jersey City. And a few months after that, my wife and I stumbled into St. Paul’s looking for a spiritual home, looking for God. That first Sunday, during the peace Fr. Hamilton came down the aisle, reached out his hand and said, “I’m Dave Hamilton. Welcome to St. Paul’s.”
That day, that moment, is etched on my heart. Through David Hamilton, I felt God’s invitation to be part of the divine relationship of love. Over time, Dave and I became good friends and I began the process to become a priest.
A few times I was here in this cathedral with him and the bonds of love between you and him were beautiful and obvious. I used to tease him that being here with him felt like being with a celebrity. But it was clear to me that you and he were sharing – and continue to share - in the divine relationship of love. It’s not something I’ll ever forget. Dave’s example and your example of sharing God’s love have shaped my priesthood and assured this congregation a special place in my heart.
So, it’s Trinity Sunday and it’s good to celebrate the mad logic of the Trinity here at Trinity + St. Philip’s Cathedral. Let us ask God who is Three in One for the quiet time to reflect on the good gifts we have been given – the gift of life itself, our families and friends, the Church, our Cathedral, this beautiful planet, and most of all the invitation to share forever in the divine relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit and us.
Amen.
May 30, 2010
Year C: The First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
“The Mad Logic of the Trinity”
Most of us here today can remember a time when life moved at a slower pace. We can remember the days before the Internet and email, before cell phones, before hundreds of channels on TV – although, of course, there’s still nothing to watch!
We can remember a time when life moved at a slower pace, when we had more time to think and reflect. When I was growing up in the 1970s I had several pen pals in different countries around the world. We would exchange letters, telling each other what was going on in our lives. I remember taking a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to write to these far-off friends who lived in places like Iceland, Germany, Tanzania and India.
When it was time to mail my letters I would imagine the journey they would take to reach their destinations. And then weeks or even months would go by before I’d get the reply, in envelopes usually covered with colorful stamps and postmarks.
Nowadays thanks to instantaneous email, the idea of writing letters to pen pals in other countries sounds like something out of the 1870s rather than just a few decades ago.
We live in a fast-paced time which has little room or patience for reflection. I’d like to say that the church is a place where we can still slow down and reflect. But, the truth is, for many of us – for many of you – the church is another busy, hurried place. There’s so much to be done – and I know it seems like it’s always the same people doing most of the work. There’s just not much time for reflection.
I imagine that the earliest followers of Jesus didn’t have too much time for reflection, either. Imagine how amazing it must have been to hear and see Jesus. It must have been nearly overwhelming to follow Jesus around, to see his miracles and to try to make sense of his parables. And we know how often the disciples didn’t quite get it right – how often they didn’t understand what Jesus meant or who Jesus was.
And then in quick succession there were the events of Holy Week – the betrayal, the arrest, the crucifixion, the resurrection. And then, according to Luke, fifty days later there was Pentecost - the disciples received the Holy Spirit and went out proclaiming the Good News to the whole world.
And for sure it’s at this point that those first Christians had to take some time to reflect – to reflect on the meaning of the Good News they were proclaiming. Imagine those early disciples arriving in a new place and telling people – maybe both Jews and Gentiles – about Jesus – his life, death and resurrection. Imagine the disciples saying Jesus is the messiah – not exactly the kind of messiah that was expected, though. Imagine the first disciples shocking some people by using language like “Lord” and “Son of God” for Jesus.
Well, you can imagine the questions, right? We can imagine some people trying to understand, saying, “So, OK, I think I get it. Jesus was a god pretending to be human right? I can believe that, in our religion we have lots of gods and we’re always happy to learn about another.” And the disciples might respond, “No, that’s not quite right. Jesus really was a human being, but God was really present in Jesus in a way that we’ve never seen before but he wasn’t another god, like one of your gods.”
Or maybe some said, “Let me get this straight, Jesus was a prophet, right? Well, there have been lots of prophets so why shouldn’t there be another?” And the disciples might respond, “No, sorry, that’s not quite right. Yes, Jesus was a prophet, but not like any other prophet. He was a prophet but much more than a prophet.”
Or imagine the disciples trying to explain how although they no longer saw Jesus in the flesh, they still experienced his love and his presence and his power in a very real way. Imagine them trying to explain how in some mysterious and very real way they still experienced the love and power they had felt in Jesus. Imagine the first disciples trying to explain the presence of the Holy Spirit – the power of the breath of God – in their lives!
All of this called for a lot of reflection. Who is Jesus? What is his relationship to God? Who or what is the power that we still feel present in our lives?
One of the people who must have spent a lot of time reflecting on all of this was St. Paul who after his conversion spent his life telling people about Jesus. This morning we heard a little piece from his letter to the Romans – a letter written probably later in his life – a letter that is clearly a product of many years of reflection.
Paul understands that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, Jesus has bridged the gap between God and humanity. Paul writes, “…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.” Jesus has bridged the gap between God and humanity.
After, I’m sure, much reflection and experience Paul also understands that we continue to experience God’s love and grace. He writes, “…hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Paul wrote those words probably in the mid-50s of the First Century – twenty years or so after Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It took several more centuries of reflection, controversy, debate and even, sadly, bloodshed, before the Church settled on the doctrine we celebrate today – the doctrine of the Trinity.
It wasn’t until the 300s that church councils crafted the Nicene Creed that we say each Sunday in church – the creed that affirms that God is one in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It took all that time of reflection for the church to finally figure out that God is a perfect relationship of love. And through Jesus and the Holy Spirit you and I are invited to be part of that divine love.
This is the awesome truth – the ultimate Good News – that we celebrate today. But, let’s be honest, even after all these centuries, the doctrine of the Trinity – one God in three Persons - is still hard for us to grasp.
In his novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe tells the story of the arrival of the British in what is today Nigeria during the late 1800s. Among other things, the British bring Christianity and manage to convert some of the people to the new faith. One of the converts is a young man named Nwoye, the son of a local strong man.
Here’s how Achebe describes Nwoye’s attraction to Christianity. “It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him…It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow.”
If we try to apply human logic to the Trinity we’ll never get anywhere. Three and yet one at the same time – that really is mad logic! But the Trinity isn’t logic – it’s poetry - it’s poetry that we feel in our marrow, in our bones, in our heart.
The doctrine of the Trinity reveals to us that God is a perfect relationship of love. This three-in-one God of perfection could have spent eternity alone but the nature of God is to share God’s love. So God created all of us – God created this beautiful planet, this vast universe, God created all of it to share God’s love with us.
Over and over, the Bible tells the story of God reaching out to us, wanting to be in relationship with us. Finally, in Jesus, God reaches out in an ultimate way by in some mysterious way becoming one of us, living among us, saying to us, “Look, this is who I really am.” In Jesus, God reaches out to us in an ultimate way, stretching out his arms on the cross, forgiving us, right to the end inviting us to be part of this relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – and us.
It’s mad logic, but when we’re open we feel its truth in our bones and in our hearts. When we gather at the Lord’s Table to receive Christ’s Body and Blood we know that we are part of the divine relationship of love.
When we’re open to it and paying attention, we can really see that we are all – all of us - invited to share in the divine relationship of love. And the Holy Spirit inspires us to follow God’s example by reaching out and inviting others to be in relationship with us and to join in the divine relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit and us.
And standing here this morning, like Nwoye in Things Fall Apart, I feel that truth and power of that invitation in my bones, in my heart. Some of you know that I’m privileged to serve on the Cathedral Chapter. And almost exactly three years ago I was ordained a deacon right over there. Both are very important to me, but I feel a special relationship with this cathedral family for a deeper reason.
Today in our diocesan cycle of prayer, we are praying for the Rev. Canon Dr. David H. Hamilton. More than ten years ago, you welcomed David Hamilton as your interim dean. So, many of you know his story – a story of great loss and also a powerful story of resurrection and renewal. It’s a story in which you played a crucial part.
After he left here, he became rector of St. Paul’s in Jersey City. And a few months after that, my wife and I stumbled into St. Paul’s looking for a spiritual home, looking for God. That first Sunday, during the peace Fr. Hamilton came down the aisle, reached out his hand and said, “I’m Dave Hamilton. Welcome to St. Paul’s.”
That day, that moment, is etched on my heart. Through David Hamilton, I felt God’s invitation to be part of the divine relationship of love. Over time, Dave and I became good friends and I began the process to become a priest.
A few times I was here in this cathedral with him and the bonds of love between you and him were beautiful and obvious. I used to tease him that being here with him felt like being with a celebrity. But it was clear to me that you and he were sharing – and continue to share - in the divine relationship of love. It’s not something I’ll ever forget. Dave’s example and your example of sharing God’s love have shaped my priesthood and assured this congregation a special place in my heart.
So, it’s Trinity Sunday and it’s good to celebrate the mad logic of the Trinity here at Trinity + St. Philip’s Cathedral. Let us ask God who is Three in One for the quiet time to reflect on the good gifts we have been given – the gift of life itself, our families and friends, the Church, our Cathedral, this beautiful planet, and most of all the invitation to share forever in the divine relationship of love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit and us.
Amen.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
"You Cannot Imprison the Word of the Lord"
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
May 16, 2010
Year C: The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
John 17:20-26
“You Cannot Imprison the Word of the Lord”
So, I have a deep theological question: what happened to the first half of May? Here in church, it seems like we just had our big Easter celebrations, but the Easter season is already drawing to a close. Today is the seventh Sunday of Easter – and next Sunday we’ll be celebrating the great feast of Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Lauren has mentioned in her sermons that around here we try our best to hold on to the joy and excitement of Easter – but, let’s be honest, it’s pretty easy to slip into business as usual and live like everybody else. After all, today is the seventh Sunday of Easter, the Easter lilies are long gone and maybe even our alleluias wilting. The Lord is risen indeed…Alleluia.
For the first few Sundays of Easter we heard stories from the Gospel of John – vivid and memorable stories of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to his disciples.
But for the past couple of Sundays, we’ve continued to hear excerpts from the Gospel of John, but no more resurrection stories. Although it’s still the Easter season, the gospel has taken us back to before Easter. Last week we heard part of what’s called the “final discourse,” what the Gospel of John records as Jesus’ final teaching at the Last Supper. And today, we heard what John records as Jesus’ final prayer before his arrest and all that follows.
The Gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be written, sometime around the end of the First Century.
Inspired by God, this gospel is a product of several generations of Christian reflection on who Jesus is and reflection on the meaning of his life, death and resurrection. This gospel is also the product of several generations of Christians trying to figure out how to survive in a world hostile to the Christian message. And it’s also the product of several generations of Christians trying to live together – and often having a lot of trouble getting along with one another.
The first disciples followed Jesus because they recognized that God was present in Jesus in a new and unique way. They realized that in the Messiah they saw what God was really like. They knew that when they heard Jesus they were hearing the word of the Lord.
But, after several generations of reflection and experience the author of the Gospel of John recognizes an even greater and deeper truth. When we hear Jesus not only do we hear the word of the Lord, but in some mysterious way Jesus is the Word of the Lord.
The author of the gospel makes a bold claim: in some mysterious way, God the Father and Jesus the Son are one. There is an unbreakable bond between God the Father and Jesus the Son. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ final prayer is that his followers – you and I – may be one also - one with each other and also one with Jesus. Listen to Jesus’ prayer to God the Father again,
“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me…”
“I in them and you in me.” The author of the Gospel of John understands that Jesus’ prayer, hope and promise for us is unity – an unbreakable bond – with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and with one another.
This is why we say that the bond which God establishes with us in baptism is indissoluble – it can never be dissolved or broken.
In Jesus we hear the word of the Lord. In Jesus we see the Word of the Lord come to live among us. And in the unbreakable bond we now have with God, the Word of the Lord lives in our hearts.
It’s mid-May, it’s the seventh Sunday of Easter, and, yes, maybe our alleluias are starting to wilt, but the truth of our unbreakable bond with God, the truth that the Word of the Lord is alive in our hearts, should make us shout “alleluia!” with joy, hope and confidence.
Maybe no one understood the bond of love between God and us better than St. Paul, who in his letter to the Romans wrote that he was convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Of course, as Paul and so many others have found out, over and over the forces of the world will try to separate us from the love of God. Over and over the world tries to break the bond between God and us. Over and over the world tries to imprison the Word of the Lord.
We heard about one of those attempts in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
We pick up right where we left off last Sunday. You may remember that Paul and his companions arrived in the city of Philippi in Macedonia in southeastern Europe. There they encountered Lydia who was baptized and who immediately offered hospitality to Paul and the others.
Now, Paul and his fellow disciple Silas are still in the Roman colony of Philippi and they encounter a gentile slave girl who has a kind of spiritual power that is a money-maker for her owners. I imagine her situation as like being enslaved and forced to work forever as a fortune-teller on the boardwalk at the Shore. She recognizes who Paul and his companions are. She follows them around, crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” We’re told that Paul was “very much annoyed” by this.
Anyway, the Word of the Lord was alive in Paul and so just like Jesus he was able to cast out the spirit. We’re not told how the girl felt about this but naturally her owners were angry about losing a revenue source. They brought Paul and Silas before the authorities and accused them of illegally trying to convert Romans – gentiles – to their faith.
Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into jail.
In Leonard Bernstein’s Mass there’s a piece called “The Word of the Lord.” Here’s just part of the text:
“You can lock up your bold men and women. Go and lock up your bold men and women. And hold them in tow. You can stifle all adventure for a century or so. Smother hope before it’s risen. Watch it wizen like a gourd. But you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
“No, you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
Actually, I’d revise that a little. “No, you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord, unless we allow it.
For me, the most amazing part of the story of Paul and Silas in Philippi is how they behave in prison. They’ve been hauled before the court, attacked by the crowd, beaten with rods, given a severe flogging and now they’re jailed with their feet in the stocks. And what do they do?
The author of Acts tells us, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
Knowing that in Jesus they had an unbreakable bond with God, knowing that nothing could separate them from the love of God, Paul and Silas pray and sing.
“You can lock up your bold men and women. But you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
The author of Acts goes on to tell us about the miraculous earthquake and how the amazed jailer put his faith in Jesus and how just like Lydia, he immediately offered hospitality to Paul and the others.
It’s a great story, but, the core of the story is the faith of Paul and Silas. They offer a great example of faith as trust. The Word of the Lord was alive in their hearts. Despite a very bleak and painful situation, Paul and Silas place their trust in the unbreakable bond they share with God – a bond infinitely stronger than their prison chains. The world takes its best shot, but the world couldn’t imprison the Word of the Lord - because Paul and Silas wouldn’t allow it.
No, the forces of the world cannot imprison the Word of the Lord, unless we allow it. You cannot imprison the Word of the Lord unless we – we, who have an unbreakable bond with God – allow it.
So, what about us?
Well, for sure the world still takes its best shot at imprisoning the Word of the Lord. In some parts of the world, Christians are discriminated against or tortured or even killed for their faith. Around the world there are an estimated 120 million so-called crypto-Christians – people who are forced to live out their faith in secret.
Around here we don’t risk our lives when we practice our faith. But, here in green, beautiful, comfortable Morris County, the world’s attempts to imprison the Word of the Lord are more subtle, maybe more dangerous, and if we allow it, maybe more effective.
The Word of the Lord is alive in our hearts and alive among us, but if when we leave this place we live out there pretty much like everyone else, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we believe the Golden Rule is “The one with the gold, rules” then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord. If in our real lives we put more faith in money and our stuff than in God then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we turn away the person in need; if we mock the one who is different; if like the owners of the slave girl in Philippi we use people for our own profit, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we demonize our opponents and hate our enemies, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of Lord.
If out there in the world we live pretty much like everyone else, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
I know that sounds like a heavy responsibility and challenge. Yet, the Good News that Paul and John and so many others have understood is that it’s not all on us – in fact, just the opposite.
As the author of the Gospel of John understood, in Jesus the Word of the Lord has come and lived among us. In our baptism, God makes an unbreakable bond with us – a bond infinitely stronger than the world’s best shot. The Word of the Lord is alive within all of us. And each time we pray, each time we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, each time we serve another, the bond of love between God and us and the bond of love among all of us, grows stronger and stronger.
The story of Paul and Silas shows us that the bond between God and us is so strong that, unless we allow it, the world cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.
So, since it’s already mid-May and the seventh Sunday of Easter we’d better freshen up those alleluias.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Amen.
May 16, 2010
Year C: The Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
John 17:20-26
“You Cannot Imprison the Word of the Lord”
So, I have a deep theological question: what happened to the first half of May? Here in church, it seems like we just had our big Easter celebrations, but the Easter season is already drawing to a close. Today is the seventh Sunday of Easter – and next Sunday we’ll be celebrating the great feast of Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Lauren has mentioned in her sermons that around here we try our best to hold on to the joy and excitement of Easter – but, let’s be honest, it’s pretty easy to slip into business as usual and live like everybody else. After all, today is the seventh Sunday of Easter, the Easter lilies are long gone and maybe even our alleluias wilting. The Lord is risen indeed…Alleluia.
For the first few Sundays of Easter we heard stories from the Gospel of John – vivid and memorable stories of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to his disciples.
But for the past couple of Sundays, we’ve continued to hear excerpts from the Gospel of John, but no more resurrection stories. Although it’s still the Easter season, the gospel has taken us back to before Easter. Last week we heard part of what’s called the “final discourse,” what the Gospel of John records as Jesus’ final teaching at the Last Supper. And today, we heard what John records as Jesus’ final prayer before his arrest and all that follows.
The Gospel of John was the last of the four gospels to be written, sometime around the end of the First Century.
Inspired by God, this gospel is a product of several generations of Christian reflection on who Jesus is and reflection on the meaning of his life, death and resurrection. This gospel is also the product of several generations of Christians trying to figure out how to survive in a world hostile to the Christian message. And it’s also the product of several generations of Christians trying to live together – and often having a lot of trouble getting along with one another.
The first disciples followed Jesus because they recognized that God was present in Jesus in a new and unique way. They realized that in the Messiah they saw what God was really like. They knew that when they heard Jesus they were hearing the word of the Lord.
But, after several generations of reflection and experience the author of the Gospel of John recognizes an even greater and deeper truth. When we hear Jesus not only do we hear the word of the Lord, but in some mysterious way Jesus is the Word of the Lord.
The author of the gospel makes a bold claim: in some mysterious way, God the Father and Jesus the Son are one. There is an unbreakable bond between God the Father and Jesus the Son. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ final prayer is that his followers – you and I – may be one also - one with each other and also one with Jesus. Listen to Jesus’ prayer to God the Father again,
“The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me…”
“I in them and you in me.” The author of the Gospel of John understands that Jesus’ prayer, hope and promise for us is unity – an unbreakable bond – with God the Father, Jesus the Son, and with one another.
This is why we say that the bond which God establishes with us in baptism is indissoluble – it can never be dissolved or broken.
In Jesus we hear the word of the Lord. In Jesus we see the Word of the Lord come to live among us. And in the unbreakable bond we now have with God, the Word of the Lord lives in our hearts.
It’s mid-May, it’s the seventh Sunday of Easter, and, yes, maybe our alleluias are starting to wilt, but the truth of our unbreakable bond with God, the truth that the Word of the Lord is alive in our hearts, should make us shout “alleluia!” with joy, hope and confidence.
Maybe no one understood the bond of love between God and us better than St. Paul, who in his letter to the Romans wrote that he was convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Of course, as Paul and so many others have found out, over and over the forces of the world will try to separate us from the love of God. Over and over the world tries to break the bond between God and us. Over and over the world tries to imprison the Word of the Lord.
We heard about one of those attempts in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
We pick up right where we left off last Sunday. You may remember that Paul and his companions arrived in the city of Philippi in Macedonia in southeastern Europe. There they encountered Lydia who was baptized and who immediately offered hospitality to Paul and the others.
Now, Paul and his fellow disciple Silas are still in the Roman colony of Philippi and they encounter a gentile slave girl who has a kind of spiritual power that is a money-maker for her owners. I imagine her situation as like being enslaved and forced to work forever as a fortune-teller on the boardwalk at the Shore. She recognizes who Paul and his companions are. She follows them around, crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” We’re told that Paul was “very much annoyed” by this.
Anyway, the Word of the Lord was alive in Paul and so just like Jesus he was able to cast out the spirit. We’re not told how the girl felt about this but naturally her owners were angry about losing a revenue source. They brought Paul and Silas before the authorities and accused them of illegally trying to convert Romans – gentiles – to their faith.
Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into jail.
In Leonard Bernstein’s Mass there’s a piece called “The Word of the Lord.” Here’s just part of the text:
“You can lock up your bold men and women. Go and lock up your bold men and women. And hold them in tow. You can stifle all adventure for a century or so. Smother hope before it’s risen. Watch it wizen like a gourd. But you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
“No, you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
Actually, I’d revise that a little. “No, you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord, unless we allow it.
For me, the most amazing part of the story of Paul and Silas in Philippi is how they behave in prison. They’ve been hauled before the court, attacked by the crowd, beaten with rods, given a severe flogging and now they’re jailed with their feet in the stocks. And what do they do?
The author of Acts tells us, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
Knowing that in Jesus they had an unbreakable bond with God, knowing that nothing could separate them from the love of God, Paul and Silas pray and sing.
“You can lock up your bold men and women. But you cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.”
The author of Acts goes on to tell us about the miraculous earthquake and how the amazed jailer put his faith in Jesus and how just like Lydia, he immediately offered hospitality to Paul and the others.
It’s a great story, but, the core of the story is the faith of Paul and Silas. They offer a great example of faith as trust. The Word of the Lord was alive in their hearts. Despite a very bleak and painful situation, Paul and Silas place their trust in the unbreakable bond they share with God – a bond infinitely stronger than their prison chains. The world takes its best shot, but the world couldn’t imprison the Word of the Lord - because Paul and Silas wouldn’t allow it.
No, the forces of the world cannot imprison the Word of the Lord, unless we allow it. You cannot imprison the Word of the Lord unless we – we, who have an unbreakable bond with God – allow it.
So, what about us?
Well, for sure the world still takes its best shot at imprisoning the Word of the Lord. In some parts of the world, Christians are discriminated against or tortured or even killed for their faith. Around the world there are an estimated 120 million so-called crypto-Christians – people who are forced to live out their faith in secret.
Around here we don’t risk our lives when we practice our faith. But, here in green, beautiful, comfortable Morris County, the world’s attempts to imprison the Word of the Lord are more subtle, maybe more dangerous, and if we allow it, maybe more effective.
The Word of the Lord is alive in our hearts and alive among us, but if when we leave this place we live out there pretty much like everyone else, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we believe the Golden Rule is “The one with the gold, rules” then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord. If in our real lives we put more faith in money and our stuff than in God then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we turn away the person in need; if we mock the one who is different; if like the owners of the slave girl in Philippi we use people for our own profit, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
If we demonize our opponents and hate our enemies, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of Lord.
If out there in the world we live pretty much like everyone else, then we allow the world to imprison the Word of the Lord.
I know that sounds like a heavy responsibility and challenge. Yet, the Good News that Paul and John and so many others have understood is that it’s not all on us – in fact, just the opposite.
As the author of the Gospel of John understood, in Jesus the Word of the Lord has come and lived among us. In our baptism, God makes an unbreakable bond with us – a bond infinitely stronger than the world’s best shot. The Word of the Lord is alive within all of us. And each time we pray, each time we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, each time we serve another, the bond of love between God and us and the bond of love among all of us, grows stronger and stronger.
The story of Paul and Silas shows us that the bond between God and us is so strong that, unless we allow it, the world cannot imprison the Word of the Lord.
So, since it’s already mid-May and the seventh Sunday of Easter we’d better freshen up those alleluias.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Amen.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Hospitality
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
May 9, 2010
Year C: The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
John 14:23-29
Hospitality
Well, there’s a whole lot going on today. First and foremost, like every Sunday, today is a Feast of our Lord, and so we gather here in church to hear the Word of God, to offer our prayers and thanksgivings, to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and then to go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
That’s more than enough for one day, but wait, there’s more. Here at Grace we’re marking today as Rogation Sunday. Some of our children made these wonderful vestments and hangings. Having special prayers or services on Rogation days – from the Latin word meaning “to ask” – is a very ancient custom with its roots in the desire to ask God’s blessing on this year’s crops. In more modern times, the understanding of rogation has expanded to asking God’s blessing on all of creation – the gift of this beautiful planet and vast universe, the gift of life itself.
And finally – maybe you thought I’d forget – today is Mother’s Day. Today’s the day beloved by greeting card companies and florists that we give special thanks for the great gift of our mothers – those who are with us and also those who have died.
So there’s a whole lot going on today – and one theme that ties together the different aspects of today is the very important, central Christian theme of hospitality.
At its heart, hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Hospitality was extremely important in the ancient world and its value is emphasized throughout the Bible. Just to give one important and timely example from the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy there’s this: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” That’s both a law and a pointed reminder from God about how we are treat foreigners.
That kind of hospitality isn’t necessarily easy.
Hospitality is also an important theme in the New Testament. Jesus is often depicted as a guest and is also remembered as inviting the unlikeliest people to eat with him.
Hospitality must have been crucial for the first disciples who carried the Good News out into the world. Paul writes to the church in Rome, “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers” (12:13). And there’s this beautiful verse from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (13:2)
In the Bible and in everyday life hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Unfortunately, in our own society, many of us neglect even the relatively easy parts of hospitality. Forget about strangers, how often do we share our lives with our friends? I know Sue and I very rarely make time to have people over or even just go out to eat with friends. Without even that minimal effort we run the risk of reverse hospitality turning friends into strangers. In a column called “If I Had My Life to Live Over Again,” Erma Bombeck wrote, “I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.”
Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
If you stop and think about it, hospitality is a very important part of who God is. For God, creation is hospitality. I’m getting into dangerous theological ground here, but while I wouldn’t say God needed to create anything or anyone, it seems like because of who God is, it was almost inevitable that God would want to share life. God chooses to share life with all of us and everything that is alive, has been alive and will be alive.
The Bible tells the story of God over and over offering hospitality to human beings, wanting to transform us from strangers into friends.
In Jesus, we see the ultimate example of this hospitality, of God taking the risk of reaching out to us, of sharing God’s life with us. In Jesus, God says, look this is who I really am. In Jesus, God says, I want us to be friends and not strangers. In Jesus, God says I want us to live together forever.
And in return we’re invited to offer hospitality to God. In today’s gospel, Jesus is quoted in the farewell discourse as saying, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
“We will come to them and make our home with them.” Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
If we look around, we see God’s hospitality all around us in this beautiful planet. And on this Rogation Sunday we give special thanks for God’s hospitality. At the same time, we remember that God expects us to show this same kind of hospitality to all of the other living creatures with whom we share this planet. And unfortunately we don’t have to look far to see how we have failed miserably in that kind of hospitality. The sad images of fish and birds killed by the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico should make all of us reflect on how we live our lives and our general lack of hospitality toward God’s creation.
It’s depressing to think about our abuse of the planet, yet Mother’s Day reminds us that we really are capable of deeply generous hospitality. Motherhood itself is profound hospitality. Motherhood is the supreme example of sharing one’s life – and for a time one’s body – with another. Having received life, mothers (and fathers, too) then give life to another - hospitality.
We heard about a beautiful example of hospitality in today’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. In what might be taken from a first person account from one of Paul’s companions, we hear the story of Paul’s arrival in Philippi in Macedonia. The Good News of Jesus had now reached Europe.
It seems like Paul’s usual approach when he first arrived in a city was to find the local synagogue and connect with the Jewish community. Many scholars believe that Paul was also particularly interested in meeting gentiles who may have been attracted to the God of Israel and Jewish religious practices, but had not formally become Jews. These people are sometimes called “God-fearers.”
So in Philippi, Paul and his companions went “outside the gate by the river” where they thought there was a “place of prayer.” The synagogue may have been near the river or it might have been that the Jewish community was so small that the handful of faithful people simply gathered near the water.
Anyway, Paul begins speaking to the women who were there and particularly to a woman named Lydia. The author of Acts tells us a good bit about her. She’s described as a “worshiper of God” – maybe meaning she’s one of those gentiles already drawn but not quite committed to Judaism. She’s apparently a woman of some means since she was a dealer in expensive purple cloth and has a “household.”
Most important, after Lydia and her household put their faith in Christ and were baptized, seemingly without delay, Lydia invites Paul and his companions to stay in her home. In her baptism, Lydia received the gift of life. And her first response is to share that gift – to offer generous hospitality to strangers who were well on their way to becoming friends.
I wish we knew more about Lydia. I like that you can see a depiction of her in the St. Paul window over in our chapel. Some people speculate that Lydia founded a house church in her own home. Maybe her spirit of warm hospitality permeated this early Christian community in Philippi. Paul had a lot of trouble with many of the Christian communities he founded, but his letter to the Philippians, written from prison, is extraordinarily joyful. Maybe recalling Lydia’s hospitality, Paul wrote to the Philippians:
“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3-4).
Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Yes, there’s a whole lot going on today. This Feast of Our Lord reminds us of God’s hospitality – God’s giving life to us, always reaching out to us, wanting to be friends and not strangers.
Rogation Sunday reminds us to give thanks for this beautiful home that God has given us. And Rogation Sunday also reminds us that we are expected to be hospitable to the creatures of the earth.
Mother’s Day reminds us of the gift of our mothers and the profound hospitality they showed by literally sharing their life with us.
And today we remember Lydia, who received the gift of baptism and immediately offered hospitality to others.
That’s a lot of reminders for one day. But, then again, hospitality is important for God and for us. Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Amen.
May 9, 2010
Year C: The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
John 14:23-29
Hospitality
Well, there’s a whole lot going on today. First and foremost, like every Sunday, today is a Feast of our Lord, and so we gather here in church to hear the Word of God, to offer our prayers and thanksgivings, to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and then to go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
That’s more than enough for one day, but wait, there’s more. Here at Grace we’re marking today as Rogation Sunday. Some of our children made these wonderful vestments and hangings. Having special prayers or services on Rogation days – from the Latin word meaning “to ask” – is a very ancient custom with its roots in the desire to ask God’s blessing on this year’s crops. In more modern times, the understanding of rogation has expanded to asking God’s blessing on all of creation – the gift of this beautiful planet and vast universe, the gift of life itself.
And finally – maybe you thought I’d forget – today is Mother’s Day. Today’s the day beloved by greeting card companies and florists that we give special thanks for the great gift of our mothers – those who are with us and also those who have died.
So there’s a whole lot going on today – and one theme that ties together the different aspects of today is the very important, central Christian theme of hospitality.
At its heart, hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Hospitality was extremely important in the ancient world and its value is emphasized throughout the Bible. Just to give one important and timely example from the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy there’s this: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” That’s both a law and a pointed reminder from God about how we are treat foreigners.
That kind of hospitality isn’t necessarily easy.
Hospitality is also an important theme in the New Testament. Jesus is often depicted as a guest and is also remembered as inviting the unlikeliest people to eat with him.
Hospitality must have been crucial for the first disciples who carried the Good News out into the world. Paul writes to the church in Rome, “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers” (12:13). And there’s this beautiful verse from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (13:2)
In the Bible and in everyday life hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Unfortunately, in our own society, many of us neglect even the relatively easy parts of hospitality. Forget about strangers, how often do we share our lives with our friends? I know Sue and I very rarely make time to have people over or even just go out to eat with friends. Without even that minimal effort we run the risk of reverse hospitality turning friends into strangers. In a column called “If I Had My Life to Live Over Again,” Erma Bombeck wrote, “I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.”
Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
If you stop and think about it, hospitality is a very important part of who God is. For God, creation is hospitality. I’m getting into dangerous theological ground here, but while I wouldn’t say God needed to create anything or anyone, it seems like because of who God is, it was almost inevitable that God would want to share life. God chooses to share life with all of us and everything that is alive, has been alive and will be alive.
The Bible tells the story of God over and over offering hospitality to human beings, wanting to transform us from strangers into friends.
In Jesus, we see the ultimate example of this hospitality, of God taking the risk of reaching out to us, of sharing God’s life with us. In Jesus, God says, look this is who I really am. In Jesus, God says, I want us to be friends and not strangers. In Jesus, God says I want us to live together forever.
And in return we’re invited to offer hospitality to God. In today’s gospel, Jesus is quoted in the farewell discourse as saying, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
“We will come to them and make our home with them.” Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
If we look around, we see God’s hospitality all around us in this beautiful planet. And on this Rogation Sunday we give special thanks for God’s hospitality. At the same time, we remember that God expects us to show this same kind of hospitality to all of the other living creatures with whom we share this planet. And unfortunately we don’t have to look far to see how we have failed miserably in that kind of hospitality. The sad images of fish and birds killed by the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico should make all of us reflect on how we live our lives and our general lack of hospitality toward God’s creation.
It’s depressing to think about our abuse of the planet, yet Mother’s Day reminds us that we really are capable of deeply generous hospitality. Motherhood itself is profound hospitality. Motherhood is the supreme example of sharing one’s life – and for a time one’s body – with another. Having received life, mothers (and fathers, too) then give life to another - hospitality.
We heard about a beautiful example of hospitality in today’s lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. In what might be taken from a first person account from one of Paul’s companions, we hear the story of Paul’s arrival in Philippi in Macedonia. The Good News of Jesus had now reached Europe.
It seems like Paul’s usual approach when he first arrived in a city was to find the local synagogue and connect with the Jewish community. Many scholars believe that Paul was also particularly interested in meeting gentiles who may have been attracted to the God of Israel and Jewish religious practices, but had not formally become Jews. These people are sometimes called “God-fearers.”
So in Philippi, Paul and his companions went “outside the gate by the river” where they thought there was a “place of prayer.” The synagogue may have been near the river or it might have been that the Jewish community was so small that the handful of faithful people simply gathered near the water.
Anyway, Paul begins speaking to the women who were there and particularly to a woman named Lydia. The author of Acts tells us a good bit about her. She’s described as a “worshiper of God” – maybe meaning she’s one of those gentiles already drawn but not quite committed to Judaism. She’s apparently a woman of some means since she was a dealer in expensive purple cloth and has a “household.”
Most important, after Lydia and her household put their faith in Christ and were baptized, seemingly without delay, Lydia invites Paul and his companions to stay in her home. In her baptism, Lydia received the gift of life. And her first response is to share that gift – to offer generous hospitality to strangers who were well on their way to becoming friends.
I wish we knew more about Lydia. I like that you can see a depiction of her in the St. Paul window over in our chapel. Some people speculate that Lydia founded a house church in her own home. Maybe her spirit of warm hospitality permeated this early Christian community in Philippi. Paul had a lot of trouble with many of the Christian communities he founded, but his letter to the Philippians, written from prison, is extraordinarily joyful. Maybe recalling Lydia’s hospitality, Paul wrote to the Philippians:
“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3-4).
Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Yes, there’s a whole lot going on today. This Feast of Our Lord reminds us of God’s hospitality – God’s giving life to us, always reaching out to us, wanting to be friends and not strangers.
Rogation Sunday reminds us to give thanks for this beautiful home that God has given us. And Rogation Sunday also reminds us that we are expected to be hospitable to the creatures of the earth.
Mother’s Day reminds us of the gift of our mothers and the profound hospitality they showed by literally sharing their life with us.
And today we remember Lydia, who received the gift of baptism and immediately offered hospitality to others.
That’s a lot of reminders for one day. But, then again, hospitality is important for God and for us. Hospitality is how we receive and share life.
Amen.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Life of Sheep
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
April 25, 2010
Year C: The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
(Revelation 7:9-17)
John 10:22-30
The Life of Sheep
Each year when Good Shepherd Sunday rolls around, I think back to my time at General Seminary, particularly the many hours spent in the seminary chapel, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.
Behind the chapel altar there is a line of large statues carved from Italian marble. The four Evangelists are there along with Peter and Paul and the Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah. And in the center, towering above the other statues, is Jesus the Good Shepherd. In the statue the Good Shepherd is wearing long, flowing robes. His head is graced by a halo. In his left hand he holds a metal staff and in his right arm cradles a little lamb, while a larger lamb stands at his side.
This impressive statue of the Good Shepherd and his two lambs presents a warm, cozy, even somewhat sentimental scene.
But, there is nothing warm cozy or sentimental about the scene presented in today’s reading from the Gospel of John. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but it bears repeating once again that this gospel was written around the end of the First Century, several generations after the earthly lifetime of Jesus.
It was written for a Christian community faced with the painful separation from Jewish life. Unfortunately, readers and hearers like us who are far removed from that painful separation, are left with a gospel that has been misused all too often by Christians to attack Jews. So, knowing that Jesus and all of his first followers were Jews, when we hear the people who challenge, criticize and ultimately reject Jesus referred to as “the Jews” we need to remember that this is shorthand for “the Jewish religious establishment” or “the Jews who opposed Jesus.”
Anyway, the little scene we heard today is a kind of follow-up to an earlier exchange between Jesus and his opponents when Jesus had declared, “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus also said, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
Now the Evangelist John continues this shepherd and sheep talk between Jesus and his opponents. John tells us Jesus and his opponents are at the Temple, which would have definitely been the place to be because it was the festival of the Dedication – better known to us as Hanukkah – the festival that celebrates the re-consecration of the Temple after it had been defiled by pagan worship.
That location would have really resonated to the first readers and hearers of the Gospel since the Romans had destroyed the Temple several decades before the gospel was written. On top of that, the early Christians – and certainly the author of this gospel – were already thinking of Jesus as the new and eternal Temple.
So during Hanukkah and at the Temple, Jesus is once again challenged by his opponents. They want to know if he is the messiah, saying “How long will you keep us in suspense?” Another possible translation, which I like better, is something like, “How long will you annoy us?”
Jesus replies by returning to the shepherd and sheep imagery. This time, though, the image is more like Jesus the Good Shepherd entering the sheepfold and calling out to the sheep. Some, but not all, of the sheep respond to Jesus’ voice, put their trust in Jesus, and gather around Jesus – just like those sheep in the statue.
And we are some of those sheep, aren’t we? Somehow, some way, you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling to us. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling to us through our parents who raised us in the faith. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in a Sunday School teacher or in a sermon that made a powerful impression. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in a friend who offered comfort during a tough time or in the neighbor who invited us to church one Sunday.
Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the calling to us in the Word of God or in a thin sliver of bread and a sip of wine. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the beauty of a hymn. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the person who nagged us about getting out of bed and going to church on Sunday.
Somehow, you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd. In our baptism, ready or not, we became members of his band of sheep. And later today at the cathedral a whole flock of our brothers and sisters will stand up on their own and confirm that, yes, they are sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd.
But, then what? Is that it? What is the life like for sheep who have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd? Are we sheep just supposed to be like the sheep in that statue – nice and warm and cozy with Jesus? Well, that’s part of it. That’s what we do here in church. This is a pretty warm and cozy place. Each week Lauren has to expend quite a bit of energy to wrap up the passing of the peace and continue the service. It’s obvious how comfortable people are here – how adults and children really see Grace Church as a second home.
But that warmth and coziness of community is just part of our life as sheep. The warmth and coziness we find here is supposed to strengthen us, to nourish us, to prepare us, to inspire us, to do our work out there in the world.
The sheep of the Good Shepherd are not supposed to spend all their time warm and cozy here in the sheepfold. No, the sheep of the Good Shepherd – you and I – are supposed to go out into the world and continue the work of the Good Shepherd.
In the seminary chapel statues of Peter and Paul stand alongside the statue of the Good Shepherd. Those two great apostles were among the first sheep who went out into the world and gave their lives continuing the work of Jesus.
Last Sunday we heard the powerful story told in the Acts of the Apostles of Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and it transformed him from someone who persecuted Jesus’ followers into a faithful apostle giving his life continuing the work of Jesus.
And today the author of the Acts of the Apostles shifts the focus to Peter – and makes two big points. First, the Good News has already spread beyond Jerusalem. The raising of Tabitha from the dead took place in Joppa – an important Jewish port on the Mediterranean.
The second point is that Peter has come a long way from the Peter we see in the gospels – the Peter who earnestly tried to understand Jesus’ message but usually fell short; the Peter who betrayed Jesus three times in his greatest moment of need. We’ve even come a long way from the Peter we saw last week, who not knowing what to do after the Resurrection, returned to his old life fishing out on the Sea of Galilee.
Today we see Peter after he has been transformed by the Holy Spirit. Today we meet Peter continuing the healing work of Jesus. In the passage just before what we heard today, Peter healed a paralytic – a very Jesus-like miracle. And today in the most Jesus-like miracle of all, the author of Acts tells us that Peter raised the faithful disciple Tabitha from the dead.
The point of all this is that Paul and Peter and the other faithful disciples heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and then went out and continued the healing work of Jesus. That’s the life of sheep.
Well, if the author of the Acts of the Apostles were writing today, he might note that the Good News has reached all the way to Madison, New Jersey. And I hope he would describe how you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, how we live the life of sheep by going out into the world continuing the healing work of Jesus.
What does that healing work look like for us?
Well, since we live in a materialistic society that values and judges people based how many and what kinds of things they possess, maybe we can continue the healing work of Jesus by living a different kind of life. Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being.
How else could we continue the healing work of Jesus?
Well, we live in a society that seems to be in love with violence – physical violence but also emotional and verbal violence. We live in a society that presents violence as entertainment, a society that believes violence solves problems, a society which all too often seems to reward the bully. Maybe we can continue the healing work of Jesus by rejecting violence and challenging those who use violence. Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to love our neighbor as our self.
How else can we continue the healing work of Jesus?
The most important way we can continue the healing work of Jesus is to allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us as we raise children in the faith. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us when we offer comfort to someone going through a tough time. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us when we invite a neighbor to church some Sunday and even when we nag someone we love to get up on a Sunday morning and come to this warm and cozy sheepfold.
Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
Continuing the healing work of Jesus is risky, though. It was risky for Jesus himself and it was risky for Peter and Paul who both died violent deaths because they were sheep of the Good Shepherd. Yet they and we have the promise of Jesus – the promise that far outweighs any risks – the promise symbolized in that warm and cozy scene of Jesus the Good Shepherd holding his sheep.
Paul understood that promise when he wrote to the church in Rome that he was convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Or as Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of John, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”
Somehow you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd. We come here to be strengthened and encouraged. Then we go out to continue his healing work in the world. That’s the life of sheep.
Amen.
April 25, 2010
Year C: The Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
(Revelation 7:9-17)
John 10:22-30
The Life of Sheep
Each year when Good Shepherd Sunday rolls around, I think back to my time at General Seminary, particularly the many hours spent in the seminary chapel, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd.
Behind the chapel altar there is a line of large statues carved from Italian marble. The four Evangelists are there along with Peter and Paul and the Old Testament figures, Moses and Elijah. And in the center, towering above the other statues, is Jesus the Good Shepherd. In the statue the Good Shepherd is wearing long, flowing robes. His head is graced by a halo. In his left hand he holds a metal staff and in his right arm cradles a little lamb, while a larger lamb stands at his side.
This impressive statue of the Good Shepherd and his two lambs presents a warm, cozy, even somewhat sentimental scene.
But, there is nothing warm cozy or sentimental about the scene presented in today’s reading from the Gospel of John. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but it bears repeating once again that this gospel was written around the end of the First Century, several generations after the earthly lifetime of Jesus.
It was written for a Christian community faced with the painful separation from Jewish life. Unfortunately, readers and hearers like us who are far removed from that painful separation, are left with a gospel that has been misused all too often by Christians to attack Jews. So, knowing that Jesus and all of his first followers were Jews, when we hear the people who challenge, criticize and ultimately reject Jesus referred to as “the Jews” we need to remember that this is shorthand for “the Jewish religious establishment” or “the Jews who opposed Jesus.”
Anyway, the little scene we heard today is a kind of follow-up to an earlier exchange between Jesus and his opponents when Jesus had declared, “I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus also said, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
Now the Evangelist John continues this shepherd and sheep talk between Jesus and his opponents. John tells us Jesus and his opponents are at the Temple, which would have definitely been the place to be because it was the festival of the Dedication – better known to us as Hanukkah – the festival that celebrates the re-consecration of the Temple after it had been defiled by pagan worship.
That location would have really resonated to the first readers and hearers of the Gospel since the Romans had destroyed the Temple several decades before the gospel was written. On top of that, the early Christians – and certainly the author of this gospel – were already thinking of Jesus as the new and eternal Temple.
So during Hanukkah and at the Temple, Jesus is once again challenged by his opponents. They want to know if he is the messiah, saying “How long will you keep us in suspense?” Another possible translation, which I like better, is something like, “How long will you annoy us?”
Jesus replies by returning to the shepherd and sheep imagery. This time, though, the image is more like Jesus the Good Shepherd entering the sheepfold and calling out to the sheep. Some, but not all, of the sheep respond to Jesus’ voice, put their trust in Jesus, and gather around Jesus – just like those sheep in the statue.
And we are some of those sheep, aren’t we? Somehow, some way, you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling to us. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd calling to us through our parents who raised us in the faith. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in a Sunday School teacher or in a sermon that made a powerful impression. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in a friend who offered comfort during a tough time or in the neighbor who invited us to church one Sunday.
Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the calling to us in the Word of God or in a thin sliver of bread and a sip of wine. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the beauty of a hymn. Maybe we heard the voice of the Good Shepherd in the person who nagged us about getting out of bed and going to church on Sunday.
Somehow, you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd. In our baptism, ready or not, we became members of his band of sheep. And later today at the cathedral a whole flock of our brothers and sisters will stand up on their own and confirm that, yes, they are sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd.
But, then what? Is that it? What is the life like for sheep who have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd? Are we sheep just supposed to be like the sheep in that statue – nice and warm and cozy with Jesus? Well, that’s part of it. That’s what we do here in church. This is a pretty warm and cozy place. Each week Lauren has to expend quite a bit of energy to wrap up the passing of the peace and continue the service. It’s obvious how comfortable people are here – how adults and children really see Grace Church as a second home.
But that warmth and coziness of community is just part of our life as sheep. The warmth and coziness we find here is supposed to strengthen us, to nourish us, to prepare us, to inspire us, to do our work out there in the world.
The sheep of the Good Shepherd are not supposed to spend all their time warm and cozy here in the sheepfold. No, the sheep of the Good Shepherd – you and I – are supposed to go out into the world and continue the work of the Good Shepherd.
In the seminary chapel statues of Peter and Paul stand alongside the statue of the Good Shepherd. Those two great apostles were among the first sheep who went out into the world and gave their lives continuing the work of Jesus.
Last Sunday we heard the powerful story told in the Acts of the Apostles of Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and it transformed him from someone who persecuted Jesus’ followers into a faithful apostle giving his life continuing the work of Jesus.
And today the author of the Acts of the Apostles shifts the focus to Peter – and makes two big points. First, the Good News has already spread beyond Jerusalem. The raising of Tabitha from the dead took place in Joppa – an important Jewish port on the Mediterranean.
The second point is that Peter has come a long way from the Peter we see in the gospels – the Peter who earnestly tried to understand Jesus’ message but usually fell short; the Peter who betrayed Jesus three times in his greatest moment of need. We’ve even come a long way from the Peter we saw last week, who not knowing what to do after the Resurrection, returned to his old life fishing out on the Sea of Galilee.
Today we see Peter after he has been transformed by the Holy Spirit. Today we meet Peter continuing the healing work of Jesus. In the passage just before what we heard today, Peter healed a paralytic – a very Jesus-like miracle. And today in the most Jesus-like miracle of all, the author of Acts tells us that Peter raised the faithful disciple Tabitha from the dead.
The point of all this is that Paul and Peter and the other faithful disciples heard the voice of the Good Shepherd and then went out and continued the healing work of Jesus. That’s the life of sheep.
Well, if the author of the Acts of the Apostles were writing today, he might note that the Good News has reached all the way to Madison, New Jersey. And I hope he would describe how you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, how we live the life of sheep by going out into the world continuing the healing work of Jesus.
What does that healing work look like for us?
Well, since we live in a materialistic society that values and judges people based how many and what kinds of things they possess, maybe we can continue the healing work of Jesus by living a different kind of life. Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being.
How else could we continue the healing work of Jesus?
Well, we live in a society that seems to be in love with violence – physical violence but also emotional and verbal violence. We live in a society that presents violence as entertainment, a society that believes violence solves problems, a society which all too often seems to reward the bully. Maybe we can continue the healing work of Jesus by rejecting violence and challenging those who use violence. Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to love our neighbor as our self.
How else can we continue the healing work of Jesus?
The most important way we can continue the healing work of Jesus is to allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us as we raise children in the faith. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us when we offer comfort to someone going through a tough time. We can allow the voice of the Good Shepherd to speak through us when we invite a neighbor to church some Sunday and even when we nag someone we love to get up on a Sunday morning and come to this warm and cozy sheepfold.
Maybe, with God’s help, we can live into our baptismal promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.
Continuing the healing work of Jesus is risky, though. It was risky for Jesus himself and it was risky for Peter and Paul who both died violent deaths because they were sheep of the Good Shepherd. Yet they and we have the promise of Jesus – the promise that far outweighs any risks – the promise symbolized in that warm and cozy scene of Jesus the Good Shepherd holding his sheep.
Paul understood that promise when he wrote to the church in Rome that he was convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Or as Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of John, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.”
Somehow you and I have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd. We come here to be strengthened and encouraged. Then we go out to continue his healing work in the world. That’s the life of sheep.
Amen.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Buoyancy of God
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
April 11, 2010
Year C: The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
(Revelation 1:4-8)
John 20:19-31
The Buoyancy of God
As I’ve gotten a little older more and more when I remember things about the past I question the reliability of my memory. Did that really happen the way I remember? Or sometimes I feel kind of removed from things that I know happened. In my memory it feels like I’m watching a movie or a TV show in which I’m one of the actors.
Some of the most vivid memories of my childhood come from the summer my family belonged to the Skyline Cabana Club. I think it was the summer of 1973 and I was about six years old. The Skyline Cabana Club was in Jersey City, just next to what is today Liberty State Park. Back then, however, the park was just a dream for what was mostly abandoned railyards.
Anyway, I don’t know how it would stack up against Noe Pond, but to us from the mean streets of Jersey City, the club was an amazing oasis. There were fields and playgrounds, restaurants, and lots of cabanas. As I remember them, the cabanas were too small to be anything other than large changing rooms. But the centerpiece of the Skyline Cabana Club was the pool.
It was the biggest, deepest pool I had ever seen. It was an in-ground and it had diving boards that seemed dangerously high to six year-old me. I had been in modest, above-ground backyard pools, but this pool was something very different and pretty scary. Reasonably cautious, I stayed in the shallow end and was definitely too afraid to even go near the diving boards.
I wish I could remember all the details. But at the pool one day I guess I must have been talking about my fear of the pool and the diving boards. Suddenly my aunt’s boyfriend (who was a lifeguard) scooped me up and carried me to the tallest of the three diving boards. I remember trying not to panic and not to cry in front of this guy who was in high school and who seemed so much older and so much bigger than I.
In my memory I can picture the scene. I can see him carrying me out onto the diving board, bouncing and jumping off. I remember opening my eyes for an instant and seeing the steps of the ladder racing by. And then we were in the water. And then I was on the surface, coughing, my little arms and legs wiggling, and my aunt’s boyfriend holding on to me and guiding me back to the pool’s edge.
I can’t claim to remember everything with complete accuracy but I know it was a dramatic experience. I wish I could tell you that it was a breakthrough experience for me – that I got out of the pool, ran up onto the diving board and jumped in again.
But, in fact, it took a long time before I gained confidence in the water. It took a long time before I was able trust that I would be OK in the water. It was a long time before I trusted in the buoyancy of the water.
This is how faith develops and grows. Faith is not perfected by a sudden and dramatic experience. And faith is not so much convincing ourselves that facts about God are true. Instead faith is much better understood simply as developing trust in God. In his book The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg writes, “Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live and move and have our being.
“Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God.” I really like that.
“Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God.” This is very difficult.
Every year on the Second Sunday of Easter the Church presents the story of an apostle who had some difficulties trusting in the buoyancy of God.
I like that each year the Church offers the story of Doubting Thomas on the Second Sunday of Easter. I like it because it reflects a certain honesty and realism on the part of Christianity. We recognize the claim that we make – the claim that Christ is risen, that the Lord is risen indeed – is a claim that is not easy for us to accept or trust. Faith is trust and, let’s be honest, it’s not easy for most of us to trust.
The story of Doubting Thomas is wonderful, but it does create some problems. It’s found only in the Gospel of John - the last of the four gospels, written near the end of the First Century, a couple of generations after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. This gospel was written for a community that was now faced with an excruciating choice.
Of course, there had been tensions all along between the Jewish religious authorities and Jesus and his first followers. We heard some of that tension in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles when Peter and the others were testifying before the council. But, for the most part, for the first few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime it had been possible for Jewish believers in Jesus to continue to worship in the synagogue. For those first few decades it was possible to both Jewish and Christian.
But by the end of the First Century both Judaism and Christianity were changing. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, believers in Jesus were increasingly claiming that he was divine, and meanwhile more and more non-Jews were discovering Jesus and seeing him not only as the Jewish messiah but the messiah for the whole world.
And so near the end of the First Century the Jewish followers of Jesus faced a choice: continue to follow Jesus and cut themselves off from Jewish life or reject Jesus and remain in the faith tradition of their ancestors.
You can imagine just how difficult that choice must have been.
I mention this little history lesson because for most of Christian history parts of the Gospel of John – and most especially the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus – have been used to justify Christian anti-Semitism.
And so each time we read these scriptures, each time we read that the disciples locked the doors of the house “for fear of the Jews” it is necessary to remind ourselves of the context in which this text was written. The Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement and the Gospel of John was written by Jews, to Jews and for Jews.
The disciples may have been afraid of the authorities, of the religious establishment, but since they were all Jews themselves, it would make no sense for them to be afraid of “the Jews.” And of course the later “Christian” idea that the Jewish people bear collective responsibility for the death of Jesus would have been incomprehensible to the author of the gospel and its first readers and hearers.
With that context in mind, what might the powerful story of Doubting Thomas powerful story might say to us here and now?
There’s always been a lot of speculation about why Thomas wasn’t with the other apostles when the Resurrected Christ first appeared. I’ve imagined Thomas out in the desert, venting his anger and disappointment by yelling into the sky at God. Recently I read something written by a seminary classmate who suggested a beautiful and intriguing idea: maybe Thomas wasn’t around because he was off tending to the burial of Judas.
In any event, like the first readers and hearers of the gospel and of course like us, Thomas was not present at the first resurrection appearance. Maybe like the first readers and hearers of the gospel and maybe like us, Thomas doubted the claims made by the other disciples. But then, Thomas, better late than never, rejoins the group and has his dramatic encounter with the Resurrected Christ.
The gospel quotes Jesus as saying to Thomas and, in effect, saying to us, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
In effect Jesus says, blessed are those who trust in the buoyancy of God. Blessed are those who trust that in Christ we see what God is really like. Blessed are those who trust that for Christ death was not the end. Blessed are those who trust that since Christ is risen, then for us also death is not the end.
We often wonder why Thomas wasn’t around when the disciples first encountered the Resurrected Christ. But, I wonder what the rest of his life was like. There is an ancient tradition that Thomas brought the Good News all the way to India. Wherever he went he must have carried the powerful memory of his encounter with the Resurrected Christ.
But I wonder if as time passed he began to doubt again. I wonder if he didn’t start to doubt his own memory. I wonder if he didn’t look back on all that had happened and wonder if that had really happened the way he remembered. I wonder if he didn’t look back and it seemed like he was watching himself playing a part in a great drama.
Thomas had a powerful experience, but I bet that dramatic experience didn’t perfect his faith. I think it must have taken the rest of his life to build trust in the buoyancy of God. Like all of us, each day in the midst of the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of life, Thomas needed to pay attention and to be open to the power of God. Just like for all of us, it must have taken the rest of his life of seeing and sensing the power of God for Thomas to let go, to breathe, and to trust in the buoyancy of God.
At the 11:15 service we’re going to baptize a child, Katelyn Anne. The baptism may not seem as dramatic as encountering the Resurrected Christ in a locked room. It may not seem as dramatic, but it will be. In baptism God will make an unbreakable, indissoluble bond with Katelyn Anne. Yet Katelyn’s plunge into the water, this encounter with the Resurrected Christ, will of course not perfect her faith. No this baptism, this plunge into the water, this encounter with the Resurrected Christ, will be for her as it is for all Christians, the beginning of a lifetime of letting go, of breathing, and trusting in the buoyancy of God.
Amen.
April 11, 2010
Year C: The Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
(Revelation 1:4-8)
John 20:19-31
The Buoyancy of God
As I’ve gotten a little older more and more when I remember things about the past I question the reliability of my memory. Did that really happen the way I remember? Or sometimes I feel kind of removed from things that I know happened. In my memory it feels like I’m watching a movie or a TV show in which I’m one of the actors.
Some of the most vivid memories of my childhood come from the summer my family belonged to the Skyline Cabana Club. I think it was the summer of 1973 and I was about six years old. The Skyline Cabana Club was in Jersey City, just next to what is today Liberty State Park. Back then, however, the park was just a dream for what was mostly abandoned railyards.
Anyway, I don’t know how it would stack up against Noe Pond, but to us from the mean streets of Jersey City, the club was an amazing oasis. There were fields and playgrounds, restaurants, and lots of cabanas. As I remember them, the cabanas were too small to be anything other than large changing rooms. But the centerpiece of the Skyline Cabana Club was the pool.
It was the biggest, deepest pool I had ever seen. It was an in-ground and it had diving boards that seemed dangerously high to six year-old me. I had been in modest, above-ground backyard pools, but this pool was something very different and pretty scary. Reasonably cautious, I stayed in the shallow end and was definitely too afraid to even go near the diving boards.
I wish I could remember all the details. But at the pool one day I guess I must have been talking about my fear of the pool and the diving boards. Suddenly my aunt’s boyfriend (who was a lifeguard) scooped me up and carried me to the tallest of the three diving boards. I remember trying not to panic and not to cry in front of this guy who was in high school and who seemed so much older and so much bigger than I.
In my memory I can picture the scene. I can see him carrying me out onto the diving board, bouncing and jumping off. I remember opening my eyes for an instant and seeing the steps of the ladder racing by. And then we were in the water. And then I was on the surface, coughing, my little arms and legs wiggling, and my aunt’s boyfriend holding on to me and guiding me back to the pool’s edge.
I can’t claim to remember everything with complete accuracy but I know it was a dramatic experience. I wish I could tell you that it was a breakthrough experience for me – that I got out of the pool, ran up onto the diving board and jumped in again.
But, in fact, it took a long time before I gained confidence in the water. It took a long time before I was able trust that I would be OK in the water. It was a long time before I trusted in the buoyancy of the water.
This is how faith develops and grows. Faith is not perfected by a sudden and dramatic experience. And faith is not so much convincing ourselves that facts about God are true. Instead faith is much better understood simply as developing trust in God. In his book The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg writes, “Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God. Faith is trusting in the sea of being in which we live and move and have our being.
“Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God.” I really like that.
“Faith as trust is trusting in the buoyancy of God.” This is very difficult.
Every year on the Second Sunday of Easter the Church presents the story of an apostle who had some difficulties trusting in the buoyancy of God.
I like that each year the Church offers the story of Doubting Thomas on the Second Sunday of Easter. I like it because it reflects a certain honesty and realism on the part of Christianity. We recognize the claim that we make – the claim that Christ is risen, that the Lord is risen indeed – is a claim that is not easy for us to accept or trust. Faith is trust and, let’s be honest, it’s not easy for most of us to trust.
The story of Doubting Thomas is wonderful, but it does create some problems. It’s found only in the Gospel of John - the last of the four gospels, written near the end of the First Century, a couple of generations after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. This gospel was written for a community that was now faced with an excruciating choice.
Of course, there had been tensions all along between the Jewish religious authorities and Jesus and his first followers. We heard some of that tension in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles when Peter and the others were testifying before the council. But, for the most part, for the first few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime it had been possible for Jewish believers in Jesus to continue to worship in the synagogue. For those first few decades it was possible to both Jewish and Christian.
But by the end of the First Century both Judaism and Christianity were changing. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, believers in Jesus were increasingly claiming that he was divine, and meanwhile more and more non-Jews were discovering Jesus and seeing him not only as the Jewish messiah but the messiah for the whole world.
And so near the end of the First Century the Jewish followers of Jesus faced a choice: continue to follow Jesus and cut themselves off from Jewish life or reject Jesus and remain in the faith tradition of their ancestors.
You can imagine just how difficult that choice must have been.
I mention this little history lesson because for most of Christian history parts of the Gospel of John – and most especially the story of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus – have been used to justify Christian anti-Semitism.
And so each time we read these scriptures, each time we read that the disciples locked the doors of the house “for fear of the Jews” it is necessary to remind ourselves of the context in which this text was written. The Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement and the Gospel of John was written by Jews, to Jews and for Jews.
The disciples may have been afraid of the authorities, of the religious establishment, but since they were all Jews themselves, it would make no sense for them to be afraid of “the Jews.” And of course the later “Christian” idea that the Jewish people bear collective responsibility for the death of Jesus would have been incomprehensible to the author of the gospel and its first readers and hearers.
With that context in mind, what might the powerful story of Doubting Thomas powerful story might say to us here and now?
There’s always been a lot of speculation about why Thomas wasn’t with the other apostles when the Resurrected Christ first appeared. I’ve imagined Thomas out in the desert, venting his anger and disappointment by yelling into the sky at God. Recently I read something written by a seminary classmate who suggested a beautiful and intriguing idea: maybe Thomas wasn’t around because he was off tending to the burial of Judas.
In any event, like the first readers and hearers of the gospel and of course like us, Thomas was not present at the first resurrection appearance. Maybe like the first readers and hearers of the gospel and maybe like us, Thomas doubted the claims made by the other disciples. But then, Thomas, better late than never, rejoins the group and has his dramatic encounter with the Resurrected Christ.
The gospel quotes Jesus as saying to Thomas and, in effect, saying to us, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
In effect Jesus says, blessed are those who trust in the buoyancy of God. Blessed are those who trust that in Christ we see what God is really like. Blessed are those who trust that for Christ death was not the end. Blessed are those who trust that since Christ is risen, then for us also death is not the end.
We often wonder why Thomas wasn’t around when the disciples first encountered the Resurrected Christ. But, I wonder what the rest of his life was like. There is an ancient tradition that Thomas brought the Good News all the way to India. Wherever he went he must have carried the powerful memory of his encounter with the Resurrected Christ.
But I wonder if as time passed he began to doubt again. I wonder if he didn’t start to doubt his own memory. I wonder if he didn’t look back on all that had happened and wonder if that had really happened the way he remembered. I wonder if he didn’t look back and it seemed like he was watching himself playing a part in a great drama.
Thomas had a powerful experience, but I bet that dramatic experience didn’t perfect his faith. I think it must have taken the rest of his life to build trust in the buoyancy of God. Like all of us, each day in the midst of the ordinary and extraordinary challenges of life, Thomas needed to pay attention and to be open to the power of God. Just like for all of us, it must have taken the rest of his life of seeing and sensing the power of God for Thomas to let go, to breathe, and to trust in the buoyancy of God.
At the 11:15 service we’re going to baptize a child, Katelyn Anne. The baptism may not seem as dramatic as encountering the Resurrected Christ in a locked room. It may not seem as dramatic, but it will be. In baptism God will make an unbreakable, indissoluble bond with Katelyn Anne. Yet Katelyn’s plunge into the water, this encounter with the Resurrected Christ, will of course not perfect her faith. No this baptism, this plunge into the water, this encounter with the Resurrected Christ, will be for her as it is for all Christians, the beginning of a lifetime of letting go, of breathing, and trusting in the buoyancy of God.
Amen.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
In the Garden
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
April 4, 2010
Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18
In the Garden
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I’m not sure why, but for some reason last night at the Great Vigil of Easter it felt especially good to finally say and sing “Alleluia!”
Maybe because this weekend the weather has been so beautiful, more than ever it seemed to me that there was a real disconnect between what was going on in church and what was going on in the world.
On Good Friday, while the world was outside enjoying the radiant sunshine and warm breezes, here in church we were remembering the betrayal of Jesus in a garden, we were remembering the cries of the crowd calling for his crucifixion; we were remembering his death on the cross and his burial in brand-new tomb.
And Holy Saturday was a disorienting day, too. Again it was beautiful outside. But the Church was in a strange place, somewhere between death and life. In the beautiful morning a handful of us gathered for the simple Holy Saturday service. There was no communion, of course, highlighting the absence of the executed messiah.
But then there were the first stirrings of life here in church. The altar guild arrived and began the remarkable transformation of the bare church into this dazzling display of life and color.
It’s a wonderful thing to see, but by necessity we were getting ahead of ourselves.
So, as always, the Great Vigil of Easter began with the lights off – the absence of light bringing us right back to Good Friday, bringing us right back to the death of Jesus on the Cross, bringing us right back to the tomb.
Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered what had gotten us into this mess. Maybe we remembered how because of sin and selfishness and betrayal, human beings – we – had broken our relationship with God. Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered the story of that first garden when man and woman hid from God who right from the start was seeking them out, wanting to walk in love with humanity.
Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered Good Friday. Maybe we remembered how in Jesus God had come and lived among us. Maybe we remembered how Jesus taught and healed and reached out to the poor and the oppressed.
Maybe in the gloom we remembered all that bad history between God and humanity.
But then in the midst of the gloom of the shadowy church, the Paschal Candle was lighted - symbolizing the resurrection, symbolizing that God is more powerful than death. The Paschal Candle was lighted, symbolizing that nothing can extinguish the light of Christ.
This is the Good News! And the only correct response to this joyous good news is to praise God. So in the service last night we read once again the stories of God’s saving acts. The prayer book offers nine options but requires only two. And the prayer book requires that the story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea must be read. When all hope seemed to be lost, God always manages to turn death into life. We look back at these stories of salvation and give praise to God..
But those great acts of God recorded in the Old Testament are a prologue to God’s greatest act of all – the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Genesis tells us that creation began in a garden. Genesis also tells us that the relationship between God and humanity was broken in a garden. The Evangelist John tells us that Jesus was betrayed in a garden. And as we heard just a few minutes ago, the Evangelist John also tells us that the new creation begins in a garden. The healing of the broken relationship between God and humanity begins in a garden.
But, that’s not all. After Mary Magdalene encountered the resurrected Christ – after first mistaking him for a gardener – she went to the disciples and announced, “I have seen the Lord.” Magdalene’s encounter with the Resurrected Christ and her willingness to share this joyous good news marks the beginning of the Christian community. The Christian community began right there in that garden. Later, at the end of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, on Pentecost, the Christian community received the gift of the Holy Spirit and became the Church.
Over time the Church’s understanding of its identity and mission changed and deepened. As we heard in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the Church came to understand that Jesus is the messiah for the whole world. So Peter can say to the gentiles, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Paul, who never met Jesus during his earthly lifetime, spent his life traveling around the Mediterranean world telling people from many different nations that Jesus is Lord of all and that Jesus is risen. And Paul understood what Christ’s resurrection means for us. Paul saw the connection between that first garden where the relationship between God and humanity was broken and that other garden where Magdalene encountered the Risen Christ. Paul understood the awesomely Good News of what Christ’s resurrection means for all of us. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
Recognizing that Jesus has opened the way for all of us, Paul and Peter and so many others were willing – and are willing – to give away their lives sharing this Good News with the world.
And thanks to all of those women and men who gave away their lives sharing the Good News of Christ, here we are today – here we are, the Church remembering this greatest saving act of God, the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead.
But, you know, as much as the Church has changed over the past two thousand years, at our core, we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden, encountering the Resurrected Christ. In very special ways we encounter the Resurrected Christ in the water of baptism and we encounter the Resurrected Christ in the bread and wine we receive at the Lord’s Table.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We encounter the Resurrected Christ in Scripture and, who knows, maybe even in the sermon. We encounter the Resurrected Christ in the hymns and the prayers. We encounter the Resurrected Christ when we receive forgiveness of our sins and exchange a sign of peace with our brothers and sisters.
You and I – the Church – encounter the Resurrected Christ when we become the Body of Christ in the world – raising large sums of money for Haiti, dropping a can of food into the barrel, visiting the sick and lonely, ladling soup into the bowls of hungry people, sharing in one another’s joys and sorrows.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We’re in the garden – the place where God gives us all that we need. We’re in the garden, where Christ really is the gardener, caring for us, tending to us, praying alongside of us. We’re in the garden - where God gives us rich soil and fertile plants. We’re in the garden – where God gives us abundant rainfall and plentiful sunshine. We’re in the garden – the place where God gives us all that we need and gives us the freedom and the skill to feed and bless one another.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We’re in the garden – the place where God searches for us, wanting to be in relationship with us. We’re in the garden – the place where we discover that nothing – nothing - not even death – can extinguish the light of Christ.
We’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden – surprised, tearful, and overjoyed. We’re in the garden – encountering the Resurrected Christ.
Alleluia!
April 4, 2010
Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18
In the Garden
Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I’m not sure why, but for some reason last night at the Great Vigil of Easter it felt especially good to finally say and sing “Alleluia!”
Maybe because this weekend the weather has been so beautiful, more than ever it seemed to me that there was a real disconnect between what was going on in church and what was going on in the world.
On Good Friday, while the world was outside enjoying the radiant sunshine and warm breezes, here in church we were remembering the betrayal of Jesus in a garden, we were remembering the cries of the crowd calling for his crucifixion; we were remembering his death on the cross and his burial in brand-new tomb.
And Holy Saturday was a disorienting day, too. Again it was beautiful outside. But the Church was in a strange place, somewhere between death and life. In the beautiful morning a handful of us gathered for the simple Holy Saturday service. There was no communion, of course, highlighting the absence of the executed messiah.
But then there were the first stirrings of life here in church. The altar guild arrived and began the remarkable transformation of the bare church into this dazzling display of life and color.
It’s a wonderful thing to see, but by necessity we were getting ahead of ourselves.
So, as always, the Great Vigil of Easter began with the lights off – the absence of light bringing us right back to Good Friday, bringing us right back to the death of Jesus on the Cross, bringing us right back to the tomb.
Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered what had gotten us into this mess. Maybe we remembered how because of sin and selfishness and betrayal, human beings – we – had broken our relationship with God. Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered the story of that first garden when man and woman hid from God who right from the start was seeking them out, wanting to walk in love with humanity.
Maybe in the gloom of the shadowy church we remembered Good Friday. Maybe we remembered how in Jesus God had come and lived among us. Maybe we remembered how Jesus taught and healed and reached out to the poor and the oppressed.
Maybe in the gloom we remembered all that bad history between God and humanity.
But then in the midst of the gloom of the shadowy church, the Paschal Candle was lighted - symbolizing the resurrection, symbolizing that God is more powerful than death. The Paschal Candle was lighted, symbolizing that nothing can extinguish the light of Christ.
This is the Good News! And the only correct response to this joyous good news is to praise God. So in the service last night we read once again the stories of God’s saving acts. The prayer book offers nine options but requires only two. And the prayer book requires that the story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea must be read. When all hope seemed to be lost, God always manages to turn death into life. We look back at these stories of salvation and give praise to God..
But those great acts of God recorded in the Old Testament are a prologue to God’s greatest act of all – the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Genesis tells us that creation began in a garden. Genesis also tells us that the relationship between God and humanity was broken in a garden. The Evangelist John tells us that Jesus was betrayed in a garden. And as we heard just a few minutes ago, the Evangelist John also tells us that the new creation begins in a garden. The healing of the broken relationship between God and humanity begins in a garden.
But, that’s not all. After Mary Magdalene encountered the resurrected Christ – after first mistaking him for a gardener – she went to the disciples and announced, “I have seen the Lord.” Magdalene’s encounter with the Resurrected Christ and her willingness to share this joyous good news marks the beginning of the Christian community. The Christian community began right there in that garden. Later, at the end of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, on Pentecost, the Christian community received the gift of the Holy Spirit and became the Church.
Over time the Church’s understanding of its identity and mission changed and deepened. As we heard in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the Church came to understand that Jesus is the messiah for the whole world. So Peter can say to the gentiles, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Paul, who never met Jesus during his earthly lifetime, spent his life traveling around the Mediterranean world telling people from many different nations that Jesus is Lord of all and that Jesus is risen. And Paul understood what Christ’s resurrection means for us. Paul saw the connection between that first garden where the relationship between God and humanity was broken and that other garden where Magdalene encountered the Risen Christ. Paul understood the awesomely Good News of what Christ’s resurrection means for all of us. Paul writes to the Corinthians, “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
Recognizing that Jesus has opened the way for all of us, Paul and Peter and so many others were willing – and are willing – to give away their lives sharing this Good News with the world.
And thanks to all of those women and men who gave away their lives sharing the Good News of Christ, here we are today – here we are, the Church remembering this greatest saving act of God, the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead.
But, you know, as much as the Church has changed over the past two thousand years, at our core, we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden, encountering the Resurrected Christ. In very special ways we encounter the Resurrected Christ in the water of baptism and we encounter the Resurrected Christ in the bread and wine we receive at the Lord’s Table.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We encounter the Resurrected Christ in Scripture and, who knows, maybe even in the sermon. We encounter the Resurrected Christ in the hymns and the prayers. We encounter the Resurrected Christ when we receive forgiveness of our sins and exchange a sign of peace with our brothers and sisters.
You and I – the Church – encounter the Resurrected Christ when we become the Body of Christ in the world – raising large sums of money for Haiti, dropping a can of food into the barrel, visiting the sick and lonely, ladling soup into the bowls of hungry people, sharing in one another’s joys and sorrows.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We’re in the garden – the place where God gives us all that we need. We’re in the garden, where Christ really is the gardener, caring for us, tending to us, praying alongside of us. We’re in the garden - where God gives us rich soil and fertile plants. We’re in the garden – where God gives us abundant rainfall and plentiful sunshine. We’re in the garden – the place where God gives us all that we need and gives us the freedom and the skill to feed and bless one another.
At our core, you and I – the Church – we’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden. We’re in the garden – the place where God searches for us, wanting to be in relationship with us. We’re in the garden – the place where we discover that nothing – nothing - not even death – can extinguish the light of Christ.
We’re still right there with Mary Magdalene in the garden – surprised, tearful, and overjoyed. We’re in the garden – encountering the Resurrected Christ.
Alleluia!
Friday, April 02, 2010
The Marginal Messiah
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
April 2, 2010
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:1-25
John 18:1-19:37
The Marginal Messiah
If we didn’t know better, we would think that this is how the story ends. If we didn’t know better we would think that with the brutal death of Jesus on the Cross, the story of God reaching out to humanity had once and for all come to an end.
It’s a story truer than history, a story that began in a garden, a story that began with God seeking out human beings for friendship – God seeking to walk in love with us. But, we know how that worked out. Human beings gave into temptation and chose betrayal instead - and our relationship with God was broken.
The story of the Hebrew Scriptures is the story of God making a deal with God’s people – a covenant that God promises to never break, no matter what. But God wanted more than just a contractual relationship with the people. Over and over God appointed patriarchs and judges and prophets in a relentless but seemingly hopeless attempt to repair our broken relationship with God. And over and over God’s messengers were rejected
And the story of the New Testament is the story of God doing something truly unexpected and mind-blowing in an apparently all-out effort to repair the broken relationship with humanity. God becomes uniquely present in an individual human being, Jesus of Nazareth. When we look at Jesus we see what God is really like.
One of our Eucharistic Prayers captures beautifully Jesus’ life and ministry: “Living among us, Jesus loved us. He broke bread with outcasts and sinners, healed the sick, and proclaimed good news to the poor. He yearned to draw all the world to himself. Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.”
“Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.” Beautiful language for the very ugly scene we just heard described in John’s Gospel. This was the last of the four gospels, written near the end of the First Century, a couple of generations after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. The gospel was written for a community that was now faced with an excruciating choice. For the first few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime it had been possible for Jewish believers in Jesus to continue to worship in the synagogue. For those first few decades it was possible to both Jewish and Christian.
But by the end of the First Century both Judaism and Christianity were changing. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, believers in Jesus were increasingly claiming that he was divine, and meanwhile more and more non-Jews were discovering Jesus and seeing him not only as the Jewish messiah but the messiah for the whole world.
And so near the end of the First Century the Jewish followers of Jesus faced a choice. Continue to follow Jesus and cut themselves off from Jewish life or reject Jesus and remain in the faith tradition of their ancestors.
You can imagine just how difficult that choice must have been.
I mention this little history lesson because for most of Christian history parts of the Gospel of John – and most especially the Passion – have been used to justify Christian anti-Semitism.
And so each time we read these scriptures it is necessary to remind ourselves of the context in which they were written. The Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement and the Gospel of John was written by Jews, to Jews and for Jews.
And so the later “Christian” idea that the Jewish people bear collective responsibility for the death of Jesus would have been incomprehensible to the author of the gospel and its first readers and hearers.
However, the author of the gospel and the first readers and hearers of the gospel certainly mourned the tragedy of what happened to Jesus. After God took the risk to reveal God’s Self in Jesus, after all the teaching and the healing and the miracles, we end up once again with God betrayed by humanity in a garden. More than that, we end up with God buried in a garden.
You have to admit that if we were writing an opera or a novel this would be an intensely sad and immensely powerful ending.
If we didn’t know better we’d think this is how the story ends.
But let’s back up and look more closely at these betrayals. It’s easy to explain the temptation that led to the betrayal in the Garden of Eden, isn’t it? You know the story; God says all of this is yours, except for the fruit of this one tree. I remember back in my teaching days, when students were taking exams they would not be allowed to use the bathroom or to get a drink from the water fountain. There were always a few students who would immediately fixate on these reasonable prohibitions – maybe because they wanted to cheat or more likely just because they wanted what was forbidden.
We all know about that kind of temptation, and maybe we know about the betrayal that can come if we give into that kind of temptation.
But why the betrayal of Jesus?
The Gospel of John doesn’t have anything good to say about Judas. He’s described as a thief, as someone who pretends to be interested in the poor. In the end, though, the explanation we’re given for Judas’ betrayal of his Lord is that “Satan entered into him.” Satan the tempter enters Judas and he acts out the old, old story of human beings giving in to temptation and betraying God.
What was the temptation for Judas? Maybe Judas wanted Jesus to be a different kind of messiah. Maybe Judas wanted Jesus to boldly challenge and overthrow the Romans and the Temple Priests and to create his kingdom here and now on earth.
If that’s the case, then the real temptation for Judas was to see the world his way and not the way God sees the world. Maybe Judas’ downfall was remaining too focused on what the world saw as central – the Roman imperial regime and the powerful Jewish priestly class. But, God’s focus is different.
It turns out that when we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
God chose to enter the world on the margins. The priest and scholar John Meier has referred to Jesus as “a marginal Jew.” Jesus was raised in Galilee – an agricultural land given to the humble work of growing of grapes and olives, to fishing and to the herding of sheep. The sophisticated people in Jerusalem saw the Galileans as backward country bumpkins – easy to identify because of their funny accent. The way the world saw it, Jerusalem was the center and Galilee was on the margins.
God enters the world through this marginal Jew with a funny accent, Jesus of Nazareth. Born under circumstances that must have provoked lots of gossip, Jesus spent most of his earthly lifetime on the margins – growing up and beginning his ministry in Galilee, reaching out to the other marginal people, the fishermen, the shepherds, the women, the tax collectors, the blind, the ill. Jesus is the marginal messiah.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus doesn’t have much to do with those the world considers central. Instead Jesus lifts up those the world dismisses as marginal.
In the Beatitudes Jesus lifts up the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. Jesus says in the kingdom, in God’s way of seeing the world, these are the people who are central. The world dismisses them as marginal, but it’s when we look to the margins that we find the heart of God.
The world sees accumulating wealth and possessions as absolutely central. But when a man who had obeyed the commandments asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Not a common view, to be sure. When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
The world teaches hate your enemy, hold a grudge, and seek revenge on those who hurt you. And yet just a few weeks ago here in church we once again heard the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. The way the world sees things, the father in that story should have shut the door in the face of the disgraceful son who had gone off and wasted his inheritance. Instead, when the father spots his lost son approaching in the distance, Jesus tells us, “he was filled with compassion; he ran out and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
The world would have condemned the son as a loser, leaving him to rot at the margins of society. Yet, when we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
In much of the world today, half of humanity is seen as marginal. At best women are at best second-class citizens and at worst women are reduced to handing over control of their lives to fathers and husbands. Yet, two thousand years ago the gospels tell us that Jesus the marginal messiah treated women with great respect and friendship. He engaged in conversation with – and revealed his identity to – the Samaritan woman at the well. When the crowd was willing to stone the woman caught in adultery, Jesus instead challenged the men who would condemn her and offered mercy to the woman.
The sisters Mary and Martha were two of his closest friends and, of course, there was Mary Magdalene. On Sunday once again we will hear the story of Mary Magdalene, the apostle to the apostles. Then as now women were on the margins of society. And over and over, Jesus lifts up what the world dismisses as marginal.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
If God owned a newspaper or a cable news network I believe God would open news bureaus in all the marginal places. There would be news bureaus in Camden; in Port-au-Prince; in Flint, Michigan; in a refugee camp in Sudan; in a small mining town in Appalachia; and maybe even a few blocks away, right here in Madison, where poor people are hidden away, crammed into tiny apartments.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
So, what about us? Let’s face it; living here we are some of the most fortunate people in the world. Does this mean that we buy into what the world considers to be central? Or, although we are fortunate enough to live here, are we willing to look to the margins? Are we willing to even try to see the world how God sees the world? Or do we give into the temptation to just see the world our way?
If we see as central what the world sees as central then just like Judas we fall to temptation and betray Jesus, the marginal messiah.
If we don’t even try to see the world how God sees the world, if we don’t even try to look to the margins, then we fall to temptation and join with Judas in betraying Jesus, the marginal messiah.
“Living among us, Jesus loved us. He broke bread with outcasts and sinners, healed the sick, and proclaimed good news to the poor. He yearned to draw all the world to himself. Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.”
If we didn’t know better we would think this is how the story ends. But we know the story doesn’t end at the tomb. We know that God’s not done reaching out to us. We know that God’s not done trying to heal the broken relationship with us. We know on Sunday morning we’ll gather with Mary Magdalene in the garden and make the joyful discovery that Jesus has conquered death.
But for now let’s mourn all the times we’ve looked away from the margins. Let’s mourn all the times we’ve been heedless of Jesus’ call to walk in love. For now, let’s mourn our betrayal of Jesus, the marginal messiah.
April 2, 2010
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 10:1-25
John 18:1-19:37
The Marginal Messiah
If we didn’t know better, we would think that this is how the story ends. If we didn’t know better we would think that with the brutal death of Jesus on the Cross, the story of God reaching out to humanity had once and for all come to an end.
It’s a story truer than history, a story that began in a garden, a story that began with God seeking out human beings for friendship – God seeking to walk in love with us. But, we know how that worked out. Human beings gave into temptation and chose betrayal instead - and our relationship with God was broken.
The story of the Hebrew Scriptures is the story of God making a deal with God’s people – a covenant that God promises to never break, no matter what. But God wanted more than just a contractual relationship with the people. Over and over God appointed patriarchs and judges and prophets in a relentless but seemingly hopeless attempt to repair our broken relationship with God. And over and over God’s messengers were rejected
And the story of the New Testament is the story of God doing something truly unexpected and mind-blowing in an apparently all-out effort to repair the broken relationship with humanity. God becomes uniquely present in an individual human being, Jesus of Nazareth. When we look at Jesus we see what God is really like.
One of our Eucharistic Prayers captures beautifully Jesus’ life and ministry: “Living among us, Jesus loved us. He broke bread with outcasts and sinners, healed the sick, and proclaimed good news to the poor. He yearned to draw all the world to himself. Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.”
“Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.” Beautiful language for the very ugly scene we just heard described in John’s Gospel. This was the last of the four gospels, written near the end of the First Century, a couple of generations after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. The gospel was written for a community that was now faced with an excruciating choice. For the first few decades after Jesus’ earthly lifetime it had been possible for Jewish believers in Jesus to continue to worship in the synagogue. For those first few decades it was possible to both Jewish and Christian.
But by the end of the First Century both Judaism and Christianity were changing. The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans, believers in Jesus were increasingly claiming that he was divine, and meanwhile more and more non-Jews were discovering Jesus and seeing him not only as the Jewish messiah but the messiah for the whole world.
And so near the end of the First Century the Jewish followers of Jesus faced a choice. Continue to follow Jesus and cut themselves off from Jewish life or reject Jesus and remain in the faith tradition of their ancestors.
You can imagine just how difficult that choice must have been.
I mention this little history lesson because for most of Christian history parts of the Gospel of John – and most especially the Passion – have been used to justify Christian anti-Semitism.
And so each time we read these scriptures it is necessary to remind ourselves of the context in which they were written. The Jesus movement began as a Jewish movement and the Gospel of John was written by Jews, to Jews and for Jews.
And so the later “Christian” idea that the Jewish people bear collective responsibility for the death of Jesus would have been incomprehensible to the author of the gospel and its first readers and hearers.
However, the author of the gospel and the first readers and hearers of the gospel certainly mourned the tragedy of what happened to Jesus. After God took the risk to reveal God’s Self in Jesus, after all the teaching and the healing and the miracles, we end up once again with God betrayed by humanity in a garden. More than that, we end up with God buried in a garden.
You have to admit that if we were writing an opera or a novel this would be an intensely sad and immensely powerful ending.
If we didn’t know better we’d think this is how the story ends.
But let’s back up and look more closely at these betrayals. It’s easy to explain the temptation that led to the betrayal in the Garden of Eden, isn’t it? You know the story; God says all of this is yours, except for the fruit of this one tree. I remember back in my teaching days, when students were taking exams they would not be allowed to use the bathroom or to get a drink from the water fountain. There were always a few students who would immediately fixate on these reasonable prohibitions – maybe because they wanted to cheat or more likely just because they wanted what was forbidden.
We all know about that kind of temptation, and maybe we know about the betrayal that can come if we give into that kind of temptation.
But why the betrayal of Jesus?
The Gospel of John doesn’t have anything good to say about Judas. He’s described as a thief, as someone who pretends to be interested in the poor. In the end, though, the explanation we’re given for Judas’ betrayal of his Lord is that “Satan entered into him.” Satan the tempter enters Judas and he acts out the old, old story of human beings giving in to temptation and betraying God.
What was the temptation for Judas? Maybe Judas wanted Jesus to be a different kind of messiah. Maybe Judas wanted Jesus to boldly challenge and overthrow the Romans and the Temple Priests and to create his kingdom here and now on earth.
If that’s the case, then the real temptation for Judas was to see the world his way and not the way God sees the world. Maybe Judas’ downfall was remaining too focused on what the world saw as central – the Roman imperial regime and the powerful Jewish priestly class. But, God’s focus is different.
It turns out that when we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
God chose to enter the world on the margins. The priest and scholar John Meier has referred to Jesus as “a marginal Jew.” Jesus was raised in Galilee – an agricultural land given to the humble work of growing of grapes and olives, to fishing and to the herding of sheep. The sophisticated people in Jerusalem saw the Galileans as backward country bumpkins – easy to identify because of their funny accent. The way the world saw it, Jerusalem was the center and Galilee was on the margins.
God enters the world through this marginal Jew with a funny accent, Jesus of Nazareth. Born under circumstances that must have provoked lots of gossip, Jesus spent most of his earthly lifetime on the margins – growing up and beginning his ministry in Galilee, reaching out to the other marginal people, the fishermen, the shepherds, the women, the tax collectors, the blind, the ill. Jesus is the marginal messiah.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus doesn’t have much to do with those the world considers central. Instead Jesus lifts up those the world dismisses as marginal.
In the Beatitudes Jesus lifts up the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. Jesus says in the kingdom, in God’s way of seeing the world, these are the people who are central. The world dismisses them as marginal, but it’s when we look to the margins that we find the heart of God.
The world sees accumulating wealth and possessions as absolutely central. But when a man who had obeyed the commandments asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Not a common view, to be sure. When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
The world teaches hate your enemy, hold a grudge, and seek revenge on those who hurt you. And yet just a few weeks ago here in church we once again heard the familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. The way the world sees things, the father in that story should have shut the door in the face of the disgraceful son who had gone off and wasted his inheritance. Instead, when the father spots his lost son approaching in the distance, Jesus tells us, “he was filled with compassion; he ran out and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
The world would have condemned the son as a loser, leaving him to rot at the margins of society. Yet, when we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
In much of the world today, half of humanity is seen as marginal. At best women are at best second-class citizens and at worst women are reduced to handing over control of their lives to fathers and husbands. Yet, two thousand years ago the gospels tell us that Jesus the marginal messiah treated women with great respect and friendship. He engaged in conversation with – and revealed his identity to – the Samaritan woman at the well. When the crowd was willing to stone the woman caught in adultery, Jesus instead challenged the men who would condemn her and offered mercy to the woman.
The sisters Mary and Martha were two of his closest friends and, of course, there was Mary Magdalene. On Sunday once again we will hear the story of Mary Magdalene, the apostle to the apostles. Then as now women were on the margins of society. And over and over, Jesus lifts up what the world dismisses as marginal.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
If God owned a newspaper or a cable news network I believe God would open news bureaus in all the marginal places. There would be news bureaus in Camden; in Port-au-Prince; in Flint, Michigan; in a refugee camp in Sudan; in a small mining town in Appalachia; and maybe even a few blocks away, right here in Madison, where poor people are hidden away, crammed into tiny apartments.
When we look to the margins we find the heart of God.
So, what about us? Let’s face it; living here we are some of the most fortunate people in the world. Does this mean that we buy into what the world considers to be central? Or, although we are fortunate enough to live here, are we willing to look to the margins? Are we willing to even try to see the world how God sees the world? Or do we give into the temptation to just see the world our way?
If we see as central what the world sees as central then just like Judas we fall to temptation and betray Jesus, the marginal messiah.
If we don’t even try to see the world how God sees the world, if we don’t even try to look to the margins, then we fall to temptation and join with Judas in betraying Jesus, the marginal messiah.
“Living among us, Jesus loved us. He broke bread with outcasts and sinners, healed the sick, and proclaimed good news to the poor. He yearned to draw all the world to himself. Yet we were heedless of his call to walk in love.”
If we didn’t know better we would think this is how the story ends. But we know the story doesn’t end at the tomb. We know that God’s not done reaching out to us. We know that God’s not done trying to heal the broken relationship with us. We know on Sunday morning we’ll gather with Mary Magdalene in the garden and make the joyful discovery that Jesus has conquered death.
But for now let’s mourn all the times we’ve looked away from the margins. Let’s mourn all the times we’ve been heedless of Jesus’ call to walk in love. For now, let’s mourn our betrayal of Jesus, the marginal messiah.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Transformational Leadership
Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ
The Messenger
Curate’s Corner
Transformational Leadership
I have mentioned before that I have given a good deal of thought to the subject of leadership. What is effective leadership? Is Christian leadership any different from solid leadership in the secular world? Well, during Lent I had two very different experiences which have helped me to clarify my answers to these big questions.
The first experience was “Beyond the Baptismal Covenant: Lay Leadership for the 21st Century,” a three-part program sponsored by the Diocese of Newark, led by Donald Romanik, president of the Episcopal Church Foundation, and held right here at Grace Church. Mr. Romanik suggested that, although the Episcopal Church has enshrined lay leadership since at least the first General Convention in 1785, for much of the Church’s history the clergy were expected to lead and lay people were encouraged to simply follow. He claimed that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer marked a significant shift in our understanding of church leadership. He pointed to this sentence from the Catechism: “The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons” (BCP pg. 855). Mr. Romanik argued that over the past thirty years the lay people of the Church have begun to live into their top billing, but now during a time of rapid change we need to go even further and encourage “transformational leadership” among the laity.
These ideas were rattling around my brain when I had my second experience. I was invited to speak at St. Vincent Academy, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Newark, where I had taught history in the early and mid-1990s. For the past 35 years during the week before Holy Week the juniors and seniors are sent out to volunteer at schools, hospitals, day care centers and other places providing social services as part of an a remakable program called “Students in Community.” I was invited to speak at the “Sending Forth” on the Friday before they began this adventure in service.
In my talk I reflected back on my time at SVA and used as my theme a quote I first had heard back then and has stuck with me ever since. Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, once said, “Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.” Isn’t that a great line? I suggested to the students that this truth is what they had been learning at St. Vincent’s. To clinch my case I quoted a portion of the school’s wonderful mission statement:
Saint Vincent Academy inspires students to develop lifelong commitments to Christian service and a capacity for hope, compassionate leadership and the desire to transform the world into a more just and peaceful society.
The pieces all came together! The SVA mission statement elegantly links service, leadership and transformation. When I reflected on this I realized what should have been obvious all along: The only truly transformational leadership is servant leadership. The late Bishop of Atlanta, Bennett J. Sims, once wrote, “Servant leadership defines success as giving, and measures achievement by devotion to serving.” I said to students that not only were they going out to offer service but that they were also to be servant leaders.
Imagine the transformation that would take place if all of us aspired to be servant leaders! Actually, we don’t have to imagine because at Grace Church that transformation is already underway thanks to our many servant leaders. Think of the person who sacrifices a week of vacation to take care of a laundry list of odd jobs that needed doing around church. Think of the person who personally visits all of the organizations who receive outreach money from us. Think of the person who faithfully and quietly reaches out to people who are shut in at home or living in a nursing home. Think of the person who offers his expertise to struggling churches in the diocese. Think of the person who anonymously matches the money raised by our children to help the people of Haiti. All of these people and many more are not just offering service but are also acting as servant leaders.
Finally, especially during Eastertide we should look to the greatest of all servant leaders, Jesus of Nazareth. In his life of love and sacrifice, Jesus models for us true greatness and true leadership through service. Each year during Holy Week at the Compline for Kids service we reenact the foot washing done by Jesus at the Last Supper for his closest followers, the people who would take the lead in carrying his message to the world. Deeper than words, this dramatically humble action taught them - and teaches us - that the ultimate transformational leadership is servant leadership.
The Messenger
Curate’s Corner
Transformational Leadership
I have mentioned before that I have given a good deal of thought to the subject of leadership. What is effective leadership? Is Christian leadership any different from solid leadership in the secular world? Well, during Lent I had two very different experiences which have helped me to clarify my answers to these big questions.
The first experience was “Beyond the Baptismal Covenant: Lay Leadership for the 21st Century,” a three-part program sponsored by the Diocese of Newark, led by Donald Romanik, president of the Episcopal Church Foundation, and held right here at Grace Church. Mr. Romanik suggested that, although the Episcopal Church has enshrined lay leadership since at least the first General Convention in 1785, for much of the Church’s history the clergy were expected to lead and lay people were encouraged to simply follow. He claimed that the 1979 Book of Common Prayer marked a significant shift in our understanding of church leadership. He pointed to this sentence from the Catechism: “The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons” (BCP pg. 855). Mr. Romanik argued that over the past thirty years the lay people of the Church have begun to live into their top billing, but now during a time of rapid change we need to go even further and encourage “transformational leadership” among the laity.
These ideas were rattling around my brain when I had my second experience. I was invited to speak at St. Vincent Academy, an all-girls Roman Catholic high school in Newark, where I had taught history in the early and mid-1990s. For the past 35 years during the week before Holy Week the juniors and seniors are sent out to volunteer at schools, hospitals, day care centers and other places providing social services as part of an a remakable program called “Students in Community.” I was invited to speak at the “Sending Forth” on the Friday before they began this adventure in service.
In my talk I reflected back on my time at SVA and used as my theme a quote I first had heard back then and has stuck with me ever since. Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, once said, “Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.” Isn’t that a great line? I suggested to the students that this truth is what they had been learning at St. Vincent’s. To clinch my case I quoted a portion of the school’s wonderful mission statement:
Saint Vincent Academy inspires students to develop lifelong commitments to Christian service and a capacity for hope, compassionate leadership and the desire to transform the world into a more just and peaceful society.
The pieces all came together! The SVA mission statement elegantly links service, leadership and transformation. When I reflected on this I realized what should have been obvious all along: The only truly transformational leadership is servant leadership. The late Bishop of Atlanta, Bennett J. Sims, once wrote, “Servant leadership defines success as giving, and measures achievement by devotion to serving.” I said to students that not only were they going out to offer service but that they were also to be servant leaders.
Imagine the transformation that would take place if all of us aspired to be servant leaders! Actually, we don’t have to imagine because at Grace Church that transformation is already underway thanks to our many servant leaders. Think of the person who sacrifices a week of vacation to take care of a laundry list of odd jobs that needed doing around church. Think of the person who personally visits all of the organizations who receive outreach money from us. Think of the person who faithfully and quietly reaches out to people who are shut in at home or living in a nursing home. Think of the person who offers his expertise to struggling churches in the diocese. Think of the person who anonymously matches the money raised by our children to help the people of Haiti. All of these people and many more are not just offering service but are also acting as servant leaders.
Finally, especially during Eastertide we should look to the greatest of all servant leaders, Jesus of Nazareth. In his life of love and sacrifice, Jesus models for us true greatness and true leadership through service. Each year during Holy Week at the Compline for Kids service we reenact the foot washing done by Jesus at the Last Supper for his closest followers, the people who would take the lead in carrying his message to the world. Deeper than words, this dramatically humble action taught them - and teaches us - that the ultimate transformational leadership is servant leadership.
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