God's Advance Team

Shortly after graduating from college Josh King was on a tour of the White House when he asked the guide to tell him a little bit more about his job.  “Well,” the guide said, “I travel everywhere the first lady travels and make sure everything is perfect.”  It turns out the person giving the tour was the Director of Advance for the President’s wife and in that moment King knew what he wanted to do with his life.  Since then he has worked on the advance team of numerous politicians, doing something like roadies do at concerts and set directors do for movies.  He makes sure everything at a politician’s appearance is just right to entertain, impress, and inform while coming off without a hitch.   

Well, that at least is the goal.  While it wasn’t his call, King was on the advance team for Michael Dukakis when the presidential candidate took a ride in an Abrams tank wearing a helmet way too large for his head.  Designed to make Dukakis look capable of leading the military, it came off looking goofy and did more to sink Dukakis’ campaign than any other single event or factor. 

Most often the work of an advance team does not go as badly.  On July 4, 1993 I found myself on a connecting flight making a brief landing to pick up passengers in Moline, IL prior to heading on to Chicago.  It was late afternoon and I was puzzled because the fences around the runway were jammed with cars and people.  The airport – no bigger than a bus terminal – teemed with activity.  All the hubbub was more than puzzling until the pilot announced Air Force One was scheduled to land at the field in twenty minutes.  Then-President Clinton, on his way to an Asian summit, did a fly-over to inspect Mississippi River flooding and was scheduled to land and meet briefly with people affected.

It was a classic piece of advance work undertaken on short notice.  The team contacted local media outlets, rounded up flood victims and farmers for the president to meet, converted an airport hanger into a cozy Middle America setting complete with hay bales and tractors as a backdrop, and made sure everything related to the optics, the lighting, and the sound came off without a hitch, which it did.  By the grace of God, my flight picked up our three passengers and received permission to get out of Moline just after the massive 747 press plane landed and only minutes before Air Force One touched down and I was able to watch the story on 11:00 o’clock news from my home.

I noted last Sunday our Gospel readings from Luke have entered a portion of the text known as the “Travel Narrative”, covering the time from when Jesus determines to head toward Jerusalem for the Passover to the day he enters the Holy City riding on a donkey.  Although this unfolds over just a matter of several weeks, Luke devotes fully one third of his writing to the events that happen during this time.

The reason this period becomes so fertile and significant can be traced in part to a decision Jesus makes at the outset.  He commissions seventy of his followers to go out in teams of two to visit all the villages and hamlets he will pass through on his way to Jerusalem.  His advance teams (if you will) have important work to do.  Much of it is related to reconnaissance.  They are to figure out who in a village will welcome Jesus and who will not.  Jesus instructs them to move on if no one in a particular place is receptive.  Time is too short for him to waste even a precious second on those who are not interested. 

The advance teams work to create excitement for Jesus’ visit in places they are welcomed.  This surely accounts for the numerous times so many people turn out as Jesus is passing through a particular village.  The advance notification afforded locals plenty of time to prepare.  Those in need of healing have time to ponder if they will present themselves to Jesus.  Those who have sinned must contemplate whether or not they will approach Jesus – thereby risking condemnation and humiliation either from Jesus or (more likely) from the local population.  Religious authorities must mull over their particular response based on if they perceive Jesus to be a holy person or a threat to their power.  Because of the work of the advance teams a lot has been simmering by the time Jesus enters a particular village.  One way or another, his visit will be memorable. 

There is one more thing to note about these advance teams.  While they are not Jesus, they carry with them something of his authority.  They pray with people and bring about healing.  They confront the works of evil and bind things causing torment in people’s lives.  They don’t just prepare for the work of Jesus, they participate in it. 

Considering the mission of these seventy followers helps us to understand certain aspects of our role as Jesus’ disciples.  Perhaps nothing is more important than remembering the distinction between our calling and God’s work.  Just as the sower in Jesus’ parable is responsible for the lone act of scattering seeds while God is the one who is responsible for the soil, the rain, the sunshine, and all the conditions required for growth, we too are called to set the stage for God’s work in a person’s life, but we are not called to do the work only God can do. 

Perhaps you know someone who is lonely or hurting or afraid or discouraged.  Most of us think “if only there was something I could do,” but ultimately it is only God who can make things right and whole in a person’s life.  Still, you can invite a person to attend church with you.  You can bring someone to a parish event.  You can encourage a grandchild to sign up for a session at camp.  In short, you can do a lot of advance work. 

You can welcome people who come here on a Sunday morning.  You can commit to do something necessary for us to have a good and Godly worship service by singing in the choir, serving as an usher, reading a lesson, preparing the altar, teaching a class, or any of a host of other things.  One of our best “advance team” ministries involves collecting children during the final hymn so they can gather in the tower entrance to ring the bell after the service.  It allows our children to do their own advance work by announcing to downtown Suffolk St. Paul’s is alive and well and gathering in God’s Name, while letting the Baptist, Methodist, and Christian churches nearby know our service is over well before theirs!  

As God’s advance team, we are charged with making St. Paul’s a comfortable place to gather in God’s presence.  It is our responsibility to present quality worship on a consistent basis so that every person who comes here knows the One they have heard about and desire to meet is present in this place at this moment.

As we do the advance work of preparing the way for God to act we find (just as the initial disciples did) we participate in the work God is doing.  That we are helpful and effective is often mysterious to us, and yet time and again those who prepare the way for God to work are thanked for making a difference in a person’s life.  Has anyone ever said to you, “I don’t know how I could have ________ without you”?  If so, then be assured you are a part of God’s advance team.

We who are called by God to this work and ministry view it as our dream job.  To be of service to God by brining and welcoming others into God’s presence… well, could anything in life be better than this?

 

Sauntering to Jerusalem

Well, it finally feels like summer has settled in here in Suffolk.  Hot weather, combined with school being out, gets one to thinking about… a vacation!  And vacationing means hitting the road, which makes today’s Gospel reading perfectly timed.  It launches us into a new section of Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry.  Biblical scholars refer to chapters 9-19 as the “Travel Narrative” of the book.  Fully one third of what Luke writes about Jesus covers the time from when he sets out for Jerusalem to the day of Palm Sunday when he enters the holy city riding a donkey.

Luke describes the beginning of this journey in a telling way: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  The days drew near refers to Luke’s sense that Jesus had to go to Jerusalem because it was his destiny, his mission, his time.  Perhaps to be taken up refers in part to the elevation change of going to Jerusalem, which is located on one of the highest points in Israel.  It certainly refers to being lifted up on a cross to be crucified.  It may also refer to his eventual Ascension into glory at the right hand of the Father, an event Luke describes in the Book of Acts (the second part his writing project).

The most telling part of the verse is Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.  It harkens back to a passage from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah: 

I offered my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;

I did not hide my face

from mocking and spitting.

Because the Sovereign Lord helps me,

I will not be disgraced.

Therefore I have set my face like flint,

and I know I will not be put to shame.       (50:6-7)

Luke gives us an image of Jesus setting out toward Jerusalem with a kind of grim determination – a resolve which will not yield to any distraction.  Like a father driving the family car who refuses to stop for a bathroom break, at the outset Jesus approaches his journey more like a march than a pilgrimage.  He allows no time to say goodbye to family, no time to attend to burial arrangements, and no time to call down wrath on those who are rude to him.  To one person who wants to join him Jesus warns there will be no comfy provisions and no cushy accommodations (think again of the parent who warns, “We are not going to stop for anything until we get to where we are going!”).  One scholar notes to set your face life flint “implies that you’re expecting some opposition” and it means you “regard these difficulties as worthwhile when you consider what they will lead you to.” 

The American mountaineer Jon Krakauer writes this about scaling the world’s highest peak:

Let’s not mince words: Everest doesn’t attract a whole lot of well-balanced folks.  The self-selection process tends to weed out the cautious and the sensible in favor of those who are single-minded and incredibly driven.

Without a maniacal focus reaching the summit would not be possible.  Some journeys simply require a person to forsake all else in order to reach the desired goal.

All of this got me to thinking about so many people on our parish prayer list who are mounting an assault on one type of challenging crisis or another.  What they face makes climbing a mountain seem as easy as strolling down a shaded country lane.  Like Jesus setting out for Jerusalem, the path these folk are on is not one they choose.  It is put on them and if they are going to get to a place of health again they will have to set their faces like flint for the journey. 

Given how Jesus begins his travels anything transpiring along the way is both unexpected and notable.  During the time he has set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem, many things in fact do happen.  Jesus…

…trains others how to minister as he does.

…instructs those who ask questions about such things as moral responsibility, wealth, relationships, humility, forgiveness, care for the poor, perseverance, self-righteousness, and eternal life.

…gathers in the homes of friends.

…teaches his followers how to pray.

…heals people suffering from chronic, debilitating, and often stigmatizing illnesses.

…is joined by scores of new followers who accompany him on the way.

…and responds to challenges posed by religious authorities.

In short, Jesus learns how to transform his march into a pilgrimage.  In a march, all that matters is to get to where you are going as soon as possible.  A pilgrimage, on the other hand, is a journey to a holy destination, but it is what happens along the way that changes you. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.  Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind – these are all a drive towards serving the God who rings our hearts like a bell.  It is as if God was waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives.

This is a discovery we find not only during our difficult trials.  It is a something we can experience every day if we approach all of life as if it is filled with holy possibilities. 

Perhaps the answer lies in learning how to saunter.  Now, in our day we think of sauntering as a leisurely, aimless stroll, but this is not accurate to its origins.  In the Middles Ages, when people on pilgrimage to Jerusalem passed through a village on the way and were asked where they were going, they answered “a la sainte terre”, “to the Holy Land.”  Thus they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers.

Jesus may have set out for Jerusalem with his face set.  He was determined, yes, but also grim and maniacal.  But along the way – as we will see in our readings throughout this season of Pentecost – he learned to saunter.  He opened himself to those around him as well as to every possibility and opportunity that presented itself.  Jesus learned to find holiness on the way to the Holy City. 

This is my prayer for you: that you learn to saunter even and especially when your face is set to that place you must go; even and especially when you have nowhere you have to go, or if you have nowhere at all to go.  May you always be open to the holy moment in which you live and move and have your being.

Anomie or Moral Rigidity

In 1893, Emile Durkheim, who is created with founding modern sociology, published a brief work detailing differences he observed in the labor force.  One group of workers, he noted, was required to perform repetitive tasks while the other needed to employ a wide variety of skills, disciplines, and actions.  Durkheim named the first type of labor Mechanical Solidarity and detailed how its redundant nature discouraged innovation and adaptation to changes.  He named the other Organic Solidarity and stated its multi-faceted approach fostered and valued new ideas and methods.

Through his observations Durkheim determined these two basic groups in the labor force were unable to exist in harmony with one another.  Coining the phrase “anomie” (or normlessness), he stated the mechanically inclined could not tolerate the open-endedness of the organic approach.  Those immersed in organic labor felt stifled by the closed nature of the mechanical approach to work. 

Durkheim continued to develop his thinking about anomie and took it in new directions in an 1897 book studying suicide.  He found that just as resistance to change and change occurring too rapidly had an impact on the workforce, so too societal anomie influences our lives more than we realize.  There is a human, psychological cost when norms are lacking as well as when they are too rigid. 

Durkheim learned a diminishing of clear values and codified behavior causes people to experience a sense of alienation and purposelessness.  Life feels frustrating, confusing, and even disturbing because one is not sure how to live and act.  It is as if there is no clear-cut path forward, no guidebook to tell you how to do it, and no shared vision of what life is to look like.  Think of it as the exact opposite of Ozzie and Harriet and the 1950s. 

A common example of anomie occurs every time a child acts up in a checkout line.  If ten people are watching there are at least fifteen difference ideas as to how the parent should handle the situation… and no matter what the parent does, it will be deemed improper by those watching.  This, in a microcosm, is what it looks like and feels like to live in anomie.  Things are changing so much so fast our norms cannot keep up.

While some manifest anxiety in response to this, others opt for rigidity.  They hold hard and fast to the old ways and remember nostalgically (if inaccurately) a time when everything felt more settled and sure.  So, for example, some pine for the return a Father Knows Best era when role expectations were clearly defined and followed.

In a time of normlessness everyone feels adrift and unsure because society lacks a consensus about how to act and behave.  And while periods of rigid norms offer clarity, those who do not or cannot abide by them are pushed to the sidelines or expelled from the community.  The question I want to pose is this: Is there a third way, a way striking a balance between normlessness and rigidity?

Let’s use all of this as a lens through which to look at this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke.  Travelling by boat, Jesus and his followers come ashore in the land of Gerasenes.  It does not appear to be their destination, but a ferocious overnight storm has blown them to this pagan land on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. 

They disembark, perhaps to catch their breath after a harrowing experience, and immediately are confronted by a demon-possessed, unclothed man.  Local townsfolk are so disturbed by him they have taken to chaining him in a nearby cemetery.  The crazed and tormented individual begs Jesus for relief.

The text does not tell us Jesus’ initial reaction to the situation.  Perhaps he was startled.  He might have been afraid.  Maybe he was annoyed.  We are not told.  But here is one thing to note:  Jesus is in a pagan land, in a cemetery, in close proximity to a herd of pigs, speaking with a possessed person.  All four are forbidden in Hebrew law and any one of them will make Jesus “ritually unclean” and prohibit him from public worship until going through an elaborate cleansing rite. 

This episode bears similarities to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  In it, a priest and a religious scribe both avoid an injured person, in part to avoid becoming defiled.  It is only the foreigner from Samaria who demonstrates compassion for the man in need by treating one different from him in so many ways as a neighbor.  Well, to use an expression common to us, Jesus does not just talk the talk, he walks the walk.  He lays aside all the rules and regulations and frees the man of all that torments him.

It is easy to sympathize with the locals.  You cannot have a crazy, possessed person running amuck on the streets.  Certain behaviors and standards need to be upheld.  But their response to banish him and confine him in such an inhumane manner is the picture of moral rigidity.  It is a retreat to the way things “should be” that does not grapple at all with the way things are.  Everyone feels better once the threat of his disturbances is removed… well, everyone except the possessed man.

A truly normless response to the situation would be to allow the man to behave as he will.  Jesus could brake off his shackles and send him back into the town unchanged as a statement no one has the right to treat a human being in such a manner.  After all, “to each his own” and “live, at let live.” 

Jesus rejects both moral rigidity and anomie; striking a balance between these two extremes by focusing on the humanity and dignity of the possessed man.  His compassion, leading to the man’s healing and freedom, becomes itself a new kind of normative behavior.  Jesus elevates compassion above ritual purity and demonstrates it supersedes property rights and economic prosperity (just ask the pig herders!). 

So much is changing in our society and standards of behavior simply have not kept up.  We live in a time of anomie with all its effects on well-being outlined by Durkheim over a century ago.  Many feel like a rudderless ship at sea being tossed about and blown to and fro.  Jesus offers to us a new ethic of compassion based on human dignity and flourishing.  His words and his actions invite us in every situation to ask “What does this human being need?”  To ask, “If I was in his or her position, what would I want people to do for me?”

Have you heard of the advocacy group called No More Deaths?  They have mounted a humanitarian effort to leave food, water, blankets and other provisions in desert regions along our southern border in an effort to provide relief aid for migrants seeking to enter our country illegally.  Last March four of its volunteers were found guilty of federal misdemeanors and sentenced to probation.  Earlier this month a jury was unable to render a verdict in the trial of Scott Warren, an Arizona schoolteacher who provided aid and shelter to pair of migrants who were in desperate condition.  Warren’s defense attorney argued he was exercising his religious beliefs by doing unto others as he would have them do unto him.

The immigration crisis facing our country is not a challenge easily solved or understood.  I know good Christian folks who state emphatically people trying to enter our country illegally should not receive humanitarian aid and if they die in the desert it is their own fault.  I know other people of faith who advocate for completely open borders.  I believe the group No More Deaths is navigating a path between rigid morality and normlessness by addressing human need and real suffering.  It feels to me like a Jesus action in the midst of this ongoing debate.

Where in your life do you sense what Durkheim called anomie and what might a compassionate response focused on human need look like?  How might this give you a sense of meaning, direction, and purpose in a world changing so rapidly you yearn for guidance?

The Unexpected Gift

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?  (Ps. 8:4)

In his short work, Wife Wooing, John Updike tells the story of a husband who after seven years of marriage and three children is still stirred as at first by the sight of his wife.  Sitting with his family around the hearth on a Sunday evening, the husband silently ponders his wife’s beauty as she reclines in the glow of the firelight.  The reader can sense the husband’s desire growing as he nestles beside his wife in their bed, but the story takes an unexpected twist when she falls asleep while reading (of all things) a biography of Richard Nixon. 

In the morning the husband wakes and goes to work where he is confronted with a particularly vexing mechanical problem.  He struggles all day long, but can find no solution.  He brings his work home at night where he is the picture of preoccupation.  His wife makes a meal, tends to the children, puts them to bed, and slips off quietly to draw a bath.  After a time she enters the study where her husband is absorbed in thought.  As she leans over to kiss him he catches the scent of her perfume and then tastes the freshness of toothpaste on her breath.  “Come to bed,” she says in a way that suggests to the reader this night will end differently than the last.  And then Updike ends the story with the husband’s stunning insight:

An expected gift is not worth giving. 

Do you agree?  Updike contends an expected gift often is received as routine or as obligation.  It does not have staying power because it does not surprise.  But an unexpected gift, well, it can take on a life of its own that lasts and lasts and lasts a lifetime.  And even more, at the heart of all profound religious experiences there is, I think, an unexpected gift. 

Before I was a father I was an uncle.  I enjoyed playing with my nephews and nieces and when they were hungry or sticky or whiney or stinky I enjoyed giving them back to their parents.  I loved them (and still do), but my feelings as translated to actions lacked the depth and intensity of a parent. 

Perhaps the single most remarkable experience of my life happened in the instance the nurse handed my first daughter to me and I held her in my arms.  In the time it took my heart to skip a beat I was changed forever.  I can’t even begin to explain the connection I felt, but I know I don’t have to because every mother and father here knows exactly what happened to me.  It was something I absolutely did not expect; a gift from beyond.  It lit an eternal flame of love in me that still burns just as intensely and mysteriously as it began.  I knew when I first held my daughter nothing would ever mar the love I felt for her in that moment. 

All of this came to me as unexpected gift and though I am far removed from that day it is as vivid in my mind and in my soul as it was on that early September day in 1991.  Beyond being a very human moment, it was a completely holy moment.  When God comes to us God always comes from beyond as unexpected gift.  This is the essence of all authentic, true, deep religious encounters.

Why us?  Given God’s incredible nature and our seeming insignificance, why does God even consider us?  This, I think is what the psalmist pondered at a very deep level as he or she wrote the Eighth Psalm. 

What is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?  (Ps. 8:4)

In Genesis Chapter 1 we read how, as each day of creation is called forth, God looks at it and realizes it is good.  On the six day, God creates humanity and calls us “very good.”  It is as if God is taken by surprise at the intensity of love and affection God feels as a response to holding us for the first time.  Is it any wonder so many of us identify with God most closely as Father, a parent figure?

Why does God, who brought forth all of creation, consider humanity so highly?  The answer, I believe, is because God felt an unexpected, special bond with us from the moment we came into being.  God’s love for us – for you – is passionate, eternal, mysterious, and unshakable.

I did a Google search this week, asking if it is possible to surprise God.  No, said one site, because God knows everything.  No, said another, because God has planned out everything (don’t even get me started on this kind of theology).  No, no, no said site after site until I said phooey and closed the search tab. 

I’d like to think the God who gives the unexpected gift waits eagerly to see how we will respond.  In our best moments I’d like to think God is surprised, just as every parent is often caught off guard by the awesome wonder that is a child.  And I’d like to think the unexpected gifts we offer to one another come as surprise to God. 

And what about today?  Why are you here?  I suspect for most of us, this time of worship is an encounter with the expected.  We expect to speak with certain friends.  We expect the music.  We expect the readings.  We expect the sermon (with or without a joke).  We expect the sacraments.  We expect to make an offering of a certain amount of money.  We even expect to be home by noon.  So much of what we receive at this time is exactly what we expect.  There is a reason our prayer books fall open to the same page week after week.  And don’t get me wrong; we need certain daily and weekly rhythms to give our life order and meaning and cohesion. 

But where is the unexpected?  When does God, the holy God, overwhelm us with what we do not anticipate?  When does God woo us and open us to deep intimacy with the Holy?  Can we in some way prepare ourselves in heart and mind to receive what cannot be anticipated? 

And the flipside of these questions involves our gift-giving to God.  If an expected gift is not worth giving, and if much of our worship is an offering of the expected, does it hold value for God?  Is it possible to surprise God with an unexpected gift?  I sure hope so and this thought alone stirs my imagination.  What unexpected gift might you offer to God and how might the effort lead to things that surprise you?  How might the offering of something deeply authentic help us to meet God in the unexpected moment? 

 

 

Life is Too Short to be Little

It has been a long time since I first heard this quote by Benjamin Disraeli, but it has stayed with me over the years.  The 19^th century British Prime Minister and statesman is widely remembered for saying, “Life is too short to be little.”  I imagine there were plenty of times in his life when his own wisdom was forged and put to the test.  Being a public and political figure does not come without its challenges.  But then again, neither does life.  It has a way of tempting us to be petty, to be afraid, to doubt ourselves, to hold a grudge, to be resentful, to be vindictive, to make a mountain range out of a molecule, to worry ourselves into a fit... to be little. 

Life is too short to be little.  It is full of great and grand possibilities and you do not want to miss your chance at them.

It has been ten days now since we all rose on a Friday morning and headed off to work or the day’s rounds, many of us thinking of that comforting refrain, TGIF.  As the clock ticked passed four in the afternoon we wrapped up loose ends before launching into our weekend with its plans.  This normal and natural conclusion to the workweek came to a horrific end for many in Virginia Beach with the shootings at the Municipal Building 2.  And now, ten days later, we know much about twelve people most of us had never met.

Quita traveled the world and spoke at least two languages.  The Virginian-Pilot said of her, “Playful exchanges on Facebook reveal glimpses of a woman who was adventurous, fun-loving and curious.”  Tara was born in Portsmouth and graduated from Old Dominion with a degree in civil engineering.  She lived in Great Neck.  Mary Lou was a devoted grandmother who was planning on taking her two grandchildren to Disney World in the near future.  She was a devout member of a Roman Catholic Church and volunteered as a cheerleading coach at Ocean Lakes. 

Alex emigrated from Belarus in 2003 and also graduated from ODU with a degree in civil engineering.  Co-workers said he was a “model professional” when dealing with the public.  A friend described him as the kind of person who would do anything to help you.  Alex’s twin brother, sister-in-law and niece live in Virginia Beach and their mother split time between the two homes.  A friend said of Kate, “She loved her husband unconditionally, and always stood up for what was right.  She was a ray of sunlight that led so many in the right direction.  She was selfless, smart and, most of all, a loving mother.”  Rich, the oldest of eight children and father of two sons and two-step sons, is remembered as a kind and friendly person and a leader who put the needs of others first.

Chris was a bagpiper whose affable personality reminded many of Fred Rogers.  One person remembered him as “one of the kindest, most gentle human beings I’ve ever met in my life.”  He was a member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Kempsville and will be buried from there this afternoon.  Keith, though soft-spoken, had a powerful singing voice and loved being a part of his church’s choir.  Always the protector, he led seven people to safety during the shooting and was killed when he went back looking for others to help.  Joshua was a loving uncle who, in 2011, published a children’s book on protecting yourself from strangers.  He always had a smile on his face, but friends also say he was still recovering from the pain of a recent divorce.

Missy lived by herself in a townhouse she kept well maintained.  She was married to her job and the Pittsburgh Steelers.  A friend said she was still grieving the death of her parents in 2014 and 2016.  She was one of those people who called her mother at the same time on the same day every week.  Bobby was awarded eight different times for his service to Virginia Beach.  He was a devoted family man who was looking forward to spending more time with his loved ones once he retired.  Bert, a respected contractor, was known all over Hampton Roads.  He thought nothing of stopping whatever he was doing to help a neighbor with a repair problem.

What strikes me about these twelve people is the bigness of their lives.  They were eleven public servants and a contractor – not a collection of the famous or the influential or the affluent – just twelve everyday people.  And yet, without notoriety until their tragic deaths, they lived truly remarkable lives.  Sure, none were influential enough to shape the direction of world events, but each person – in his or her own way – made this world a much better place for many.  Their lives, though cut short, were by no means little.

I suspect this is true for each of us.  We do more than we know, mean more than we realize, and matter in ways we don’t quite understand.  Today – The Day of Pentecost – the Church celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit.  It manifests God’s presence in us to empower us to do special things and mobilizes us to undertake great works.  The Holy Spirit is God in each one of us reminding us life is too short to be little.   

Chances are you don’t think of your life as being extraordinary nor would you describe yourself as being filled the Holy Spirit.  We are Episcopalians, after all.  But the truth is you are both.  As St. Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus, “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (3:20).  You may not ask for it and you might not be able even to imagine it, but God’s Spirit is at work in you.  And because of this, your life is truly remarkable, dearly precious, and absolutely essential to the common good.

Nipping away at this reality is not the shortness of life.  It is the temptation to be little.  It is the temptation to be dragged down into the muck and mire of all those things that suppress the brightness of God’s Spirit in you.  It is the temptation to dwell on the worst of life rather than to live into its best.  It is to undersell the part you have been given to play in this grand drama of life.

I make it a point not to learn much about the perpetrators of mass shootings and I absolutely abhor how popular culture plays on our fascination with them.  I shun any and every movie, book, documentary, and TV show seeking to capitalize on our lurid attraction to their heinous acts.  As such, I am the last person qualified to speak on what motivates a person to commit such a horrific act.  It does seem many are drawn by a desire to be known for something.  They have gone through life sensing little more than their littleness and, in some twisted way, believe an act of mass murder will make them big in the eyes of the world.

Thankfully, with each sad occurrence, more and more we focusing less and less attention on the shooter and honing in on the stories of the victims.  And what we are learning from them is how ordinary people are leading exemplary lives.  We are learning to draw inspiration from lives tragically cut short. 

The heart-breaking events of a week ago Friday only amplify the message and meaning of Pentecost which we celebrate on this day.  God’s Spirit moves in each of us calling us to remember life is too short to be little.  May you be aware of the power of God’s Spirit in your life working in ways that touch the lives of many.

The Spirit of the Apostles

Harold grew up in the Episcopal Church.  He even served as an acolyte, but never paid much attention.  It has been years since he attended a service.  Harold is not a bad person, but church is not for him. He has one passion – the ponies.  One day at the track Harold is surprised to see the local Episcopal priest, outfitted in full liturgical garb.  Before the first race, the priest approaches one of the horses – a real nag and a long-shot – and gives it a blessing by tracing the sign of the cross on its forehead.  Playing a hunch, Harold places a small wager on the horse and sure enough... it wins the race and pays off handsomely.  The priest blesses an entrant in the second race, Harold bets on it, and once again wins.  Well, this pattern repeats itself through the first eight races. 

Harold watches intently as the priest approaches a horse before the ninth and final race and proceeds to pray over it with an elaborate series and gestures and motions.  This pony is the longest shot of the day and Harold decides to bet all his winnings on it.  If it pays off, he’ll nab more money in one day than most people do in a year.  Well, sad to say, Harold’s horse comes in dead last and all his winnings are lost.  He is mystified and little more than angry at the priest.  Harold tracts down the reverend and lets him have it.  “How could you bless eight winners and then have the last one do so poorly?”  The priest puts a hand on Harold’s shoulder and says, “My son, you need to come to church more often.”  “Why,” says Harold, “so God won’t play such cruel tricks on me?”  “No,” the priest replies, “so you can learn the difference between a blessing and the last rites.”

During the Easter season the Lectionary replaces readings from the Old Testament with passages from the Book of Acts.  This affords us the opportunity to hear the earliest sermons and missionary activities of Jesus’ first followers.  With everything else going on at this time of year, it is easy for these readings to fall through the cracks so allow me to provide a brief recap of what we have heard over the last seven weeks. 

On Easter Sunday we hear a portion of one of Peter’s sermons.  In it, he puts forth a succinct summery of Jesus’ story; touching on his baptism, message of peace, healing ministry, death, resurrection, and appearances to his followers.  Peter concludes by remembering how Jesus commissioned his followers to testify he was ordained by God. 

On the Second Sunday of Easter we read about Peter and John being brought in for questioning by the same council that condemned Jesus to death.  Even though they have been told not to speak of Jesus they continue to preach, “filling Jerusalem with his teaching” according to council.   

By the third Sunday harassment has given way to all out persecution.  Its most rabid proponent in a Pharisee by the name of Saul.  Travelling to Damascus, which lies just north of present day Israel, he is confronted by the Risen Christ and blinded by the encounter.  Three days later, a church leader named Ananias prays with him, leading to the restoration of his sight.  Saul becomes Paul, an effective missionary of the early church. 

On the next Sunday we find Peter being called to meet with disciples in Joppa, a port city on the Mediterranean coast west of Jerusalem.  A woman in the town is very sick and the disciples there ask Peter to pray for her.  The text tells us her name is Tabitha and adds “which in Greek is Dorcas.”  It is a tidbit hinting these early believers are culturally diverse with associations cutting across ethnic divides.  Peter prays over Tabitha and she recovers.

By the Fifth Sunday of Easter Peter has returned to Jerusalem to report to fellow disciples what happened to him in Caesarea, a city some twenty miles to the north of Joppa.  He was called there to visit a Gentile family.  While with them, the Holy Spirit fell upon the members of the household and they began to speak in tongues, just as the disciples did on the Day of Pentecost.  Peter, sensing God’s movement, baptizes everyone present and they become the first Gentile converts to the Christian faith.

The Sixth Sunday finds Paul in Asia Minor.  He has a vision of a person in Macedonia (a region in northern Greece) calling out to him.  Paul travels there and settles in the city of Philippi.  He meets a woman named Lydia, who is a merchant and a follower of God.  Paul tells her the story of Jesus and she decides to be baptized, becoming the first convert on the European continent. 

Today, on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, we learn of the impact of Paul’s preaching and ministry.  An enslaved girl is freed of a tormenting spirit and a man who profits by her is enraged.  Paul and Silas are imprisoned, survive an earthquake, and convert their jailor and his family.

This unfolding drama hints at the growth of Christianity; how it begins in Jerusalem as a sect of the Jewish faith and expands across a geographical region and ethnic divides.  The Book of Acts focuses primarily on the growth of the faith in the northwest Mediterranean, an area spanning Jerusalem to Rome.  At the same time, other faithful followers are taking the message of Jesus to Egypt, the Southern Mediterranean, and parts of Africa including Ethiopia.  Still others travel the Silk Road and proclaim the faith in Persia all the way to India. 

One thing is clear.  These early followers do not experience the faith as a private enterprise.  It is Good News to be lived and told.  They can do nothing but share the love and joy made known to them in Jesus Christ.  No court order, no cultural divide, and no geographic barrier stand in their way.

Last Sunday I worshipped at an Episcopal church in an area known as the West Hill in Akron.  While parts of the neighborhood are being resettled by urban pioneers, much of what surrounds the parish still maintains its rough edges.  People with resources live side-by-side with people in need.  The Sunday congregation reflected this.  It was a diverse lot who shared a common love for Jesus and one another.

In the pew in front of me sat a young family with two small, reasonably busy children.  An elderly man in a wheelchair occupied a space across the aisle from me.  Several times during the service one of the parents rose to take the smallest child to the back of the Nave and more than once a person was called to tend to the elderly man.  No one seemed to mind any of this and none of it eclipsed my ability to pay attention.

At the announcements several people spoke of community events in which they were involved and encouraged others to join them.  The Junior Warden thanked folks who participated in a work day and the building – 123 years old – was well maintained.  They welcomed me with great warmth and invited me to their Pizza Lunch in the Parish Hall after the service.   They have a food pantry and Panera Bread delivers leftovers to them for distribution.  Several people encouraged me to take a loaf, but I declined.  I met a boy from the neighborhood who started coming to the church a few weeks ago when he learned about the bread.  Everyone seemed glad he was there.

Two things struck me about the parish.  First, in their own way, the people reminded me of the early Christians in the Book of Acts.  There is no containing their love and joy in the Lord and they are open to extending it to their neighborhood in a great many of ways. 

And second, the people there reminded me a lot of the people here.  Here at St. Paul’s we take our faith into the world and welcome the world into our church.  I felt the same warmth there I feel here, and that does not always happen when I visit other churches.

It is tempting to listen to the stories from the Book of Acts and sense a disconnect between their faithfulness and ours.  The main figures of the early church gave much, travelled far, and risked all to share their faith.  Compared to them, it feels like we here do so little.  And yet we share something crucial in common with them.  Like them, our belief in Christ overflows with love and joy.  We cannot help but express it as we worship God, as we greet one another, and as we move throughout our community. 

Our hearts, like those of the people I worshipped with last Sunday, are made alive by the presence of God’s Spirit in all we say and do.  You can feel it.  You can hear it.  You can see it.  Those who know us know it.  No matter who they are, they know God loves them because we love them with the love of Christ.  God’s Spirit – so active and vital in the Book of Acts – is active in and through us here at St. Paul’s. 

This is what I thought about and felt last Sunday as I worshipped with the good people of the Church of our Savior in the West Hill neighborhood of Akron.

Love is a Verb and a Noun Too!

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you.  Love one another as I have loved you.”

Years ago I pondered this text and from my meditations a brilliant sermon emerged.  I gave it the title “Love is a Verb.”  In 2012, more than a decade later, the Grammy Award winning artist John Mayer released a song with the same name (so, apparently, my sermons reverberate far, wide, and across the sands of time!):

Love is a verb
It ain’t a thing
It’s not something you own
It’s not something you scream

When you show me love
I don’t need your words
Yeah love ain’t a thing
Love is a verb

Catchy, isn’t it. 

My old sermon made a simple point.  Love is an action.  It is an activity.  It is something you do – like a verb – not something you are – like a noun.  As it says in the First Letter of John, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth” (3:18). 

Well, I am here this morning to recant my words of yore.  Oh, yes, love is still a verb.  It still describes what you do.  When you love another as Jesus loves you it involves some kind of action.  But love is also a noun.  It is descriptive of a thing.  The Christian author Jon Bloom makes the point best:

If we reduce love to mere action, we will miss love at its source.  Making love only a verb will likely make us Pharisees.

It is possible for us to do all the right things, but without the proper motivation.  The Pharisees kept all of the commandments, but Jesus finds their actions lacking.  Yes, they do the right thing, but no, they do not love God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.  Without the inner source, the outer action is in danger of becoming empty, or worse.

When Jesus instructs his followers to love one another as he has loved them, most definitely he is qualifying what this love is to look like.  It should be selfless and giving, free and forgiving, natural and (at times) costly.  He is saying, “Let the verbing of your life reflect how I verbed my life” (or something like that). 

But he is saying something more.  He is reminding them of more than how he loved them.  He is reminding them that he loved them.  His love for them was also a noun. 

Experiencing love as a noun is absolutely essential.  Think about your parents.  Hopefully they set a good example for you.  You learned how to be an adult and how to be parent by emulating they best of what you saw in your mother and father.  But their love was more than an example.  It was something real that you experienced.  As you bathed in their love, you became you.  You received from your parents not just a series of actions to imitate, you received a gift – the gift of love.  And it is this give that fills you and animates all that you say and do.  You are filled with love because your parents loved you.

This is what John meant when he wrote, “We love because God first loved us” (I John 4:19).  This is what Jesus says to his followers, “My love is something for you to replicate, but it is also something for you to experience, to know, and to receive.”  As we receive God’s love we find replicating it is something flowing naturally through us, rather than something we must force in order to be faithful.  Jon Bloom puts it this way: “Love originates as a noun that necessarily produces verbs.”

Church life can degenerate into a mess of feverish activities all designed to produce the fruits of the verbs.  And there is no doubt many of the things we do here shore up our ability to love. My participation in the life of the Church helps me to be a better verber, no question.  But I wonder how much of what we do invites us into the presence of God’s noun-like love for us.  How much of what we do opens us to be filled with a love that becomes us?

I came across an interesting little exercise this past week.  It invites us to think of Jesus’ love through the lens of Paul’s magnificent writing in his letter to the Church in Corinth:

Jesus is patient and kind;

Jesus does not envy or boast;

Jesus is not arrogant or rude.

Jesus does not insist on his own way;

Jesus is not irritable or resentful;

Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Next, the exercise requires you to substitute Paul’s word love with your own name.

Keith is patient and kind;

Keith does not envy or boast;

Keith is not arrogant or rude.

Keith does not insist on his own way;

Keith is not irritable or resentful;

Keith does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Keith bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

The point of the exercise, I think, is to make the person doing it feel completely misserable about his or her Christian life.  It is to remind us that our lives as verbs are terribly lacking.  And, well, do we really need to go through Lent all the time?  Of course our lives come up short of the lofty ideals set forth in Scripture and lived out by Jesus.

If you decide to undertake this rigorous project I suggest you do it by contemplating how you have been (and are being) transformed by the experience of knowing Jesus’ love has been a noun in your life:

I am patient and kind because I experience Jesus as patient and kind with me when___________;

I do not envy or boast because I experience Jesus doing neither when___________;

I am not arrogant or rude because Jesus is not arrogant or rude with me when __________;

I do not insist on my own way because Jesus does not insist on his own way when _________;

I am not irritable or resentful because Jesus is neither with me when __________:

I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth because this is my experience of Jesus when _________;

I bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things because I feel Jesus bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring when _______.

I have said before the Christian faith is first about being.  It is about experiencing yourself as a beloved child of God, unique and special, precious and full of promise, in no ways perfect but always loved dearly just as you are.  As you experience this as your being, the doing (the verb of the faith) happens naturally.  God’s love in us seeks to be expressed as God’s love for others made real through us.  My prayer this morning is for you to experience God’s love as a noun so that you can be God’s love as a verb.