Malice or Mercy

 

Luke 9:51-62

Proper 8 / Year C

“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven?”

We join Jesus as he begins his final journey to Jerusalem.  Now, there are two main ways to walk from Galilee to get there.  The longer route follows the Jordon River south to Jericho, then turns west and climbs upward to the Holy City.  The shorter option, which most Jews avoid, loops south and west but requires a traveler to pass through the region of Samaria.

The divide between Jews and Samaritans is deep and long-standing.  Although the history is complicated, at its root lies the divinely chosen place to worship.  Jews hold Abraham offers his son to God on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  Samaritans believe it in happens at Mt. Gerizim right in their own backyard.  Think of this as being like the debate between Virginia and New England about the first Thanksgiving, only on a massive dose of steroids.  There is a lot of bad blood between these two peoples, and, over the ages, a lot of blood has been spilled.  Jesus opts for the more direct route which leads to an inevitable clash of cultures.

It is not at all unusual a Samaritan village refuses to welcome Jesus and his walking companions as they pass through town.  Still, in Middle Eastern culture withholding hospitality is an insult and offense of unimaginable proportions.  Brothers James and John – two hotheads given the nicknames “Sons of Thunder” – have the strongest reaction.  They want to call down fire from heaven.

It is unclear if they are drawing upon a popular expression in their day or think of this as a literal possibility.  But this we know, their response is rooted in Scripture.  Ahaziah, who ruled of the region of Samaria 900 years earlier, sends fifty of his guard to arrest Elijah.  When they come for him, the prophet calls down fire from heaven which consumes them.  This happens a second time.  A third platoon is spared only when their officer repents and begs Elijah for mercy.  It is not the first time the old prophet calls on God to light up the skies in judgment.  Do you remember how he once contested with the prophets of Baal to see whose God could bring down fire to consume a sacrificial offering.  While the followers of Baal come up empty, Elijah’s fire incinerates not only the offering, but also the false prophets.

James and John are so inflamed they want to call down the same heaven-born inferno on the people who will not welcome them.   Then, as now, anger coupled with religious fervor and the strength to dominate your foe is a potent combination easily perverted by our worst human instincts.

What exactly is driving James and John?  Here are some possibilities they desire:

·    Retribution: punishment for an offense suitable to the wrong done.  Think the Last Judgment when God imposes what a person deserves.

·    Reprisal: an act of retaliation in response to a harm suffered.  Think one country responding in kind to a negative action of another, say a tariff war.

·    Vindictiveness: the desire to harm another for a harmful act you are not willing to forgive.  Think of a politician in the minority party who turns the tables when his party comes into power.

·    Spitefulness: seeking to hurt someone who has hurt you by actions not at all related to the offense.  Think of a coworker constantly undermining others because she was passed over for a promotion.

·    Vengeance: a punishment inflicted for an injury or a wrong.  Think Clint Eastwood’s character in every western he ever filmed.

Of this list I suppose vengeance is the most apt description for what James and John seek.  Still, what they seek violates the ancient moral and legal principle of “lex talionis” – the idea justice demands the severity of punishment to be directly proportional to the harm or offense committed.

The text tells us Jesus rebukes the thunderous brothers.  In fact, the whole of Jesus’ teachings and his actions throughout the gospels calls on his followers to forgo retribution, reprisal, vindictiveness, spite, and vengeance in all their forms and potential applications.  It is one of the most difficult things he teaches and yet his words and witness have brough serenity to countless millions who have heeded his counsel and concord to countless situations where his ethic has been applied.  When you are motivated by malice mercy has its merits. 

Well before he sets his face toward Jerusalem, Jesus holds forth on a mountainside over-looking the Sea of Galilee, preaching a sermon which addresses a wide variety of subjects.  Here is how The Message Bible translates one:

“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults – unless, of course, you want the same treatment.  Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang.  Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier.  Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back – given back with bonus and blessing.  Giving, not getting, is the way.  Generosity begets generosity.”  (Luke 6:8)

Many bibles end this verse with the phrase, “the measure you give is the measure you will get.”  I counsel folk there are times when, after suffering over and over and over at the hands of another, you must stand up for yourself and draw a line, like when God gives the unrepentant Pharoah the measure he deserves for his long-term enslavement and mistreatment of the Hebrew people.  But the episode here with the Samaritan village is not like that.

As you move forward, when facing a potentially volatile situation, how I hope you will ponder how James and John reacted and how Jesus responded to them.  And, as always, I hope you will pray seeking his presence and power in your life in order to respond as a faithful disciple of his word and a provocative witness of his wisdom.

Anger coupled with religious fervor and the strength to dominate your foe is a potent combination easily perverted by our worst human instincts.  When you are motivated by malice remember mercy has its merits. 

Legion Moments and Safe Harbors

 

Luke 8:26-39

Proper 7 / Year C

If you pay attention to my sermons (and I’m sure you do), you probably have noticed I enjoy learning and sharing the etymology of words, phrases, and idioms.  There are often nuggets of insight in the origin and development of what we say which helps to clarify what we mean when we say it.  And, with the advent of the Google Age, it is easier than ever for me to pursue this quirky interest. 

This past week I became curious about two idioms: at sixes and sevens and at wit’s end.  I learned both have been around for some time.  Sixes and sevens dates back to a 14^th century game of dice.  Initially it meant “to carelessly risk one’s entire fortune.”  Over time, for reasons not clear, it evolved to mean “a state of confusion or disorder.”  The King James Bible, released in 1604, draws on this meaning when it translates Job 5:19 as “[God] shall deliver thee in six troubles, in seven there shall no evil touch thee.”

At wit’s end also dates back to the 1300’s.  Wit is not a reference to humor, but rather to the age’s generic name for a mental facility.  To be at wit’s end means you are confused, delirious, agitated, feed up, out of options.  It also appears in The King James Bible: “They [sailors in trouble on the sea] reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end” (Psalm 107:27).   

These two idioms came to mind this week as I pondered today’s gospel reading and wondered how you and I connect to it.  I know there are a few of us who know firsthand the anguish of a family member living with the kind of psychological torment we see in the man Jesus encounters.  The rest of us don’t and we would be foolish and callous to suggest we know what it must be like.

Still, to a lesser degree, each of us has what we might call our “Legion Moments”; times when we are overwhelmed or hopeless or exhausted or (in idiomatic language) ‘in a state’ or ‘over it’ or “I’m so done with this.”  Times when we are at sixes and sevens.  Times when we are at wit’s end.  For Legion, these times are all the time.  For us, thankfully, they are not.  But this is not to say these episodes don’t matter because they can have a tremendous impact on our daily life and functioning and their adjudication can be life-changing for better or for worse.

Times like this have a demonstrable cognitive impact on our brain.  Mental processing slows down.  We become forgetful, more easily confused, and less able to concentrate.  Thinking logically becomes a challenge and problem solving becomes more difficult.  We lose the ability to think broadly and find our focus narrows in on fewer and fewer options.  Our ancient fight, flight, or freeze mode kicks in, shifting physiological resources away from the brain to other parts of the body deemed more essential given our state of mind.  Do you recognize any of this in your own experience or in your day to day living? 

As I said, how you act and react in these moments can stay with you, for good or for ill, for a very long time.  Have you ever had a moment of crisis or conflict when, at the time, you realize what you say or do in the next 30 seconds will determine some part of your life for the rest of your life?  I have and I suspect you have too.

Wouldn’t it be great if a herd of pigs was grazing nearby when we are in this place!  We could cast all our troubles on them and then have all our troubles be driven away and banished forever.  But, alas, pigs are never around when you need them.  This is when it becomes so soothing to designate someone else as swine in order to pin all our troubles on them.

Or, we could do like those stormed tossed, reeling sailors back in the Book of Psalms at the moment their vessel is about to go under:

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

  and he delivered them from their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper

  and quieted the waves of the sea.

Then were they glad because of the calm,

  and he brought them

  to the harbor they were bound for.

(107:28-30)

Crying out to the Lord in times of distress can take on many different forms.  In the moment I realized how I responded in that moment would shape my life going forward, it was the simple realization of the gravity of the moment which became my cry to the Lord.  It gave me a brief respite to recognize to gather myself and to invite a thoughtful calm to enter my spirit.  As a result, with the psalmist I can say, God brought me to the harbor for which I was bound. 

The psalmist offers this counsel to those sailors who are delivered:

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his mercy

  and the wonders he does for his children.

Let them exalt him

in the congregation of the people

  and praise him in the council of the elders.

(107:31-32)

Many of us gather here this morning because we remember the times when we were as sixes and sevens, when we were at wit’s end, and God brought us through.  We gather to give thanks.  Some of us here this morning have been at sixes and sevens, at wit’s end this past week, or even as we sit here.  We are hoping and praying the storms in our life will be stilled.  We are hoping, as Lazarus was, the chaos in our souls will give way to calm.  It will, because Jesus wills it.  And when it does, I invite you to exalt the Lord in the presence of this congregation.

Reading the Book of Creation

 

Trinity Sunday / Year C

Quoting a portion of the Athanasian Creed in her book Letters to a Diminished Church, Dorothy Sayers, the English novelist and playwright, famously said of the Holy Trinity, “The Father incomprehensible.  The Son incomprehensible.  The Spirit incomprehensible.  The whole darn thing incomprehensible.”  From her perspective, I guess the best sermon I could preach today would leave you confused and confounded.  In her book The Mind of the Maker, Sayers likens the Trinity to the various ways a book is manifested.  It exists simultaneously in the mind of the writer, as a publication, and in the mind and imagination of the reader. 

St. Paul would have approved of her analogy because he writes this to the Christians in Rome:

“Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (1:20)

Just as you can know something of an author by reading what is on the written page, so too God is perceived through what God has made.

The bible is, in part, a record of what people discerned about God by reflecting on the best observations and knowledge available to them at the time.  And in their time creation was thought to consist of three layers: the heavens above, the earth, and under the earth.  The heavens were made up of multiple layers or tiers separated from our world by a dome referred to as “the firmament”.  God, they believed, dwelt in the top layer, superior to all other divine beings populating the ancient cosmos.  Reflecting on the Person and Nature of God based on this perspective, one of the titles biblical authors gave to God was the “Most High.”

It goes without saying, our access to tools such as the Hubble telescope and particle accelerators has led to an understanding of the creation vastly different from theirs.  We now estimate the universe is about 14 billion years old and consists of an unimaginable 2 trillion galaxies, each having hundreds of billions of stars.  We measure it not by the biblical cubit (the length of a person’s forearm), but by the speed of light.  At this rate you can make 37 round trips from NY to LA in just one second.  To cross the universe a person would need to do this every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for 93 billion years.  If the enormity of this boggles your mind, try getting your head around another reality.  If you started with the size of an average person, and then multiplied or divided by factors of ten, the subatomic world is actually more minute than the universe is vast.  Using ourselves as the initial measuring point, creation is smaller than it is bigger.

Peter Enns, a theologian and popular writer who blogs at a site called Science and the Scared, contends creation as we understand it today still is telling us something about God.  The problem, as he sees it, is our language and thinking about God have not kept pace with our understanding of reality.  For the most part, people of faith still speak of God in terms and ideas relevant to a worldview which existed 3,500 years ago, but increasingly is out of touch with our current understanding and the frontiers of knowledge we are pursuing. 

Enns argues our language about God needs to keep pace with the creation as we understand it.  Why?  Well, it is something akin to examining a piece of modern art.  Experts can determine much about a work’s age, the materials used in it, and the platform on which it begins, but they cannot answer the most important question, the one which most of us ask when looking at modern art… What does it mean? 

Discovering the secrets of creation is best left to the scientists.  Describing what it means is a task best left in the hands of poets and artists.  Our sacred writings, when approached in this manner, offer relevant guidance and stirring insight.  Consider just what we heard in our readings moments ago:   

I [Wisdom] was daily [the Creator’s] delight,

rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the human race. (Proverbs 8:31)

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers, *

  the moon and the stars

you have set in their courses,

What is man that you should be mindful of him? *

  the son of man that you should seek him out?      (Psalm 8:3-4)

These passages speak to us of meaning and are as pertinent in our days as they were when first put to parchment.  More of what we heard:

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.  (Romans 8:5)

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.       

                                  (John 16:12)

These passages give us courage and permission to pursue all manner of inquiry because we are assured our discoveries about creation will always tell us something about the Creator.

Faith, it seems to me, is not about defending tooth and nail religious formulas developed centuries ago in spite of obvious incongruities with what we have learned in the ages since.  It is a confident quest to discern in what we are discovering what it says about the God who is revealed in and through it.  As people of faith, we read not just the first and second chapter of the book of creation, but the whole thing.  And, as readers, we realize we are perhaps, at best, only in the middle chapter of what is a very interesting book.  We still have much to learn about the universe.  There is much we don’t understand.  But as we learn and as we understand, we gain new insight into the One who created it all.

Anniversaries & The Spirit

 

The Day of Pentecost / Year C

The Day of Pentecost is an occasion for us here at St. Paul’s to celebrate some special anniversaries.  The first one we mark is the birth of the Christian Church.  (Now, let me apologize in advance because this sermon is going to involve a lot of numbers and dates, but hang in there with me.)  I am sure you all remember my sermon from January 5, 2020 where I laid out the case Jesus most likely was born in the year 4 BC.  Scholars speculate he was 33 years old when he was crucified (I’ll spare you the math).  If all of this is correct, then the Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon the church took place in the year 29 AD.  This means today is the 1996^th anniversary of the birth of the Christian Church. 

Today is also the day we observe the 383^rd anniversary of the founding of our parish in 1642.  In Colonial Virginia the General Assembly established parishes based on the system we inherited from England.  Each parish, governed by a single minister and a vestry composed of local elites, was the civil and religious authority covering a designated geographical territory. 

The parish vestry becomes the layer of government most accessible to the people.  They were charged with a variety of tasks:

· Selecting a minister and seeing to his pay.

· Caring for the poor as well as tending to the needs of illegitimate children.

· Maintaining roads and providing ferry services.

· Presenting moral offenders in court.

· Establishing property boundaries.

· Regulating farming activity, especially tobacco.

· Setting an annual levy (often the single, largest tax people had to paid).

Many of these duties were set up by an Act of the General Assembly in year we were founded, so our parish was formally established at a time when Virginians were beginning to think more deeply about the need for local governance throughout our colony.

And last, but not least, today marks the 130^th anniversary of the first service held here in this beautiful space.  Prior to here, we held services in a church we built in 1846 on a site now occupied by the Obici Foundation house.  As early as 1877, just 31 years after it opened, the Vestry began to consider options for a new building.  The Wright family operated the Allegany Hotel thirteen properties to our south on the same side of Main Street.  Their lot had 70 feet on frontage on Main Street and ran west 273 feet to a creek under what is now Clay Street.  We purchased this site on March 18, 1891 and broke ground on April 29 two years later.

Here are some things you may find interesting:

·  At least three factors drove the decision to relocate.  First, the 1846 building was too small to meet our needs and the property was landlocked limiting our ability to grow and expand.  Another impetuous to move here was to get closer to the center of downtown Suffolk life which had shifted from the waterfront to the intersection of Main and Washington Streets.  A final factor driving the move might have been a simple motivation to put some distance between the solemnity of our worship services and the noise of the Eastern Seaboard railroad tracks. 

·  A newspaper article stated, “The church now in course of construction will be commodious and of very handsome design.”

·  In 1894, the Vestry voted to have the church wired for electric lights and said it was in favor of heating the church by hot air.

·  No thought was given to parking because there were no cars at the time.  Most people walked to church, but there were a few hitching posts out front for those who came on horseback or in a carriage.

·  Our church building fit snuggly against our neighbors on our original deep but narrow lot and, unlike the other churches and homes on our block, the founders sited it a considerable distance back from the street, leaving open the possibility of one day having a walled-in parish grounds similar to many Anglican churches in England.

·  Heating problems and leaky roofs emerged within a few years of the opening service.

Here at St. Paul’s we do not worship our past, but we do remember it, we learn from it, and we give thanks for the faithful men, women, and clergy who, in their day, did their part.  Without their efforts, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit at work in and through them, we would not be here today.  Because we sense the same Spirit is at work in our midst in our time, we see ourselves as being a part of an on-going witness.  And, by the grace of God, we trust their work and ours will go on long after we are gone.  As we said during our 375^th anniversary celebration, our aim is to connect with our past to cultivate our future. 

I am intrigued an effort throughout the Mid Atlantic to revive long-leaf yellow pine trees.  It was once incredibly abundant but became near extinct due to over-foresting.  These trees typically have a lifespan of 400 years.  We will be celebrating our 400^th anniversary in just 17 years and wouldn’t it make a statement if at this milestone we planted a long-leaf yellow pine or two on our church property with a plague dedicating it to the congregants who will take part in our 800^th anniversary in 2442.  That would say something to them, for sure, but even more it would say something important to us and to the community about our trust God will faithfully shepherd this place for generations in the years to come. 

Today we give thanks the Holy Spirit Jesus promised has been with us in the past, is in our midst today, and will be present in our future.

 

A Prayer for Unity

 

John 17:20-26

Easter 7 / Year C

Jesus said, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.  As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Years ago, there was a man who operated an icehouse where, one day, he happened to lose a valuable gold pocket watch in the sawdust.  He posted a handsome reward and the men who worked there searched for hours but were unable to find it.  When they left for lunch, a small boy went into the building alone.  A few minutes later he emerged with the watch in hand.  They asked him how he was able to find it when all their efforts had failed.  “It was easy,” the boy replied, “I just sat down, stayed quiet, and listened.  Eventually I heard the watch ticking.” 

By my count in today’s reading, Jesus prays four times that his followers might be united, be one, saying unity allows us to participate in the fellowship enjoyed by the Father and the Son and becomes a witness to the world Jesus is sent by the Father.  Because Jesus prays for it, by faith we hold this unity abides in our midst.  While we all want it to be manifested in our lives and our faith communities so that one day it may be the norm throughout the world, unity remains elusive.  Like the soft ticking of the lost watch, it can be difficult to detect its presence in our midst.

One reason for this is we humans seem to be wired not for unity, but for division.  Just the famous theologian Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney’s character in O Brother, Where Art Thou) says, “I don’t want Fop, I’m a Dapper Dan man,” we are constantly separating ourselves: Coke or Pepsi, Hokies or Hoos, Rite I or Rite II, Republican or Democrat, Upper, Middle, or Lower Class, Christian, Muslim, or Jew, and on it goes.  Some differences involve little more than branding preferences.  Others speak of deep differences.  We face what Jesus contends is a spiritual choice: Will we allow ourselves to be defined by our differences or by the ultimate, unchangeable thing we all share – our invitation to dwell as one in God’s presence?

This choice is evident even in the entomological roots of the word unity.  It comes to us from the Latin word unus which means “oneness” from which we derive words such as union and unify.  Unus also has given us the words one (which makes sense in that one is a unity), only, and surprisingly alone (by oneself).    Isn’t it fascinating the same word root has spawned such different concepts - united and alone.  The two begin in the same place, but part ways going down completely different paths.  Jesus prays his followers who stand at the origin of these two paths will be one, not as individuals alone, but united as one in our shared fellowship with God (who exists in three distinct but united Persons).

Often the alone path of division is chosen for us, an accident of circumstance.  You do not choose your race, your nationality, your gender, the faith (or absence of faith) tradition into which you are born, physical characteristics, or a whole host of personal preferences many of which are hard wired into you at birth.  A good deal of the nurture which shapes you during your formative years is also beyond your control.  I didn’t choose to be right-handed or to grow up in the Buckeye state, but each (along with a whole host of other influences) was a choice made for me beyond my consent. 

This matters because it is human nature to associate with people who look like us and with whom we have much in common.  It is not by accident the people I feel closest to are either family members or Episcopalians!  While these accidents of circumstance (as I am calling them) help us to form bonds, they are not to be the ultimate source of our unity.  The unity for which Jesus prays is not the paring away of all the people who are different from us until we are left alone only with those who are like us. 

Over the course of this Easter season we have heard readings from the Book of Acts which detail how the Gospel was embraced by wider and wider circles of fellowship.  It begins with the small group who personally encounter the Risen Christ.  They then preach this news to the people of Jerusalem and proclaim it to those who sit in the seats of power.  Next, we learn how the Spirit falls upon a gathering of gentiles who Peter baptizes.  God directs Paul to cross into present day Europe where Lydia becomes the first non-Middle Eastern to embrace the faith.  This morning we read about the conversion of a Philippian jailer and his household.  From all of this we learn it is God’s desire for the Gospel to draw everyone into a common, united fellowship which obviously is not dependent upon the accidents of our circumstances.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Today we pause and listen for the sound of the golden watch that is God’s great gift of unity.  I invite you emerge from this place prizing it greatly and holding it up for all to see. 

Inward & Outward

 

The Ascension

While you were enjoying dinner, I hope you had a chance to share with others some happy memories of your family’s most cherished Ascension Day traditions.  Given this is one of the seven principle feasts in the Church Year – on par liturgically with Christmas and Easter – you would think it would have a little more going for it!  For example, today is a national holiday in Germany, where the observance of the Ascension has morphed with Father’s Day.  They celebrate the Ascension by holding parades featuring wheelbarrows and carts, going on a picnic, taking a hike, and drinking lots and lots and lots of beer. 

Here, in America, our most common, unofficial tradition seems to be multiple churches coming together (as we have) for a joint service and potluck dinner.  I do want to make an official declaration.  Clergy often refer to parishioners who show up only at Christmas and Easter as the “C and E Crowd.”  I want to dub you all as the “A and E Crowd.”  You are the folks we can count on to be here for Ascension and Epiphany services!    

Preaching on the Ascension, it seems to me, can be a tricky, offering one of two traps.  The first is literalism, like a sermon I once heard focusing on the last thing the disciples saw of Jesus – the bottom of his feet.  Back in the day when I was an energetic children’s and youth minister, I designed a lesson on the Ascension.  The plan was to have a “stuffed Jesus” hoisted up in to the air by means of a rope pulled by a volunteer on the roof of the Parish Hall.   The idea was to inspire the kids with a sense of awe and wonder.  Well, Jesus ended up looking like a floppy scarecrow and the rope around his neck made it seem as if he was being hanged.  Once Jesus began to ascend the children jumped up and started tugging at him, causing his pants to come off.  He managed to break free but got snagged at the eave.  After a strong yank the rope broke and triumphant ascension to God’s right hand ended when he came falling back to earth… to the delight of the children, who treated the effigy more like a piñata than the exulted Savior.

If literalism is one trap, the other is intellectualism.  And there is no better source for this approach than AI which generated this as “The significance of the Ascension”:

1.   Kingship of Christ: The Ascension marks the final redemptive act, conferring participation in the divine life of all who are members of Christ.

2.   End of Christ’s earthly ministry: It clearly marks the end of Christ’s earthly ministry.

3.   Success of his earthly ministry: Jesus had completed all that the Father had designed for him to accomplish.

4.   Hope of Christ’s return: Ascension Day provides believers with the hope of Christ’s return and proclaims the hope and glory held out to all who are in Christ.

If only I had access to AI in the early 80’s, I could have read this to those children who would have been as edified by these words as you are tonight.

The Lectionary offers two prayers as options for the Collect at tonight’s service.  

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.  Amen.

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Typically, one or the other is used.  I opted for both because each offers a focus which is helpful as we ponder the meaning this day holds for us.  The first Collect asks, “Mercifully give us faith to perceive that… [Jesus] abides with his Church on earth.”  The second, acknowledging Christ as ascended into heaven, asks that “we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell.”  One prayer pushes us outward while the other directs us inward.  Each is vital to the Christian life and both are necessary.

We look inward toward God to find the spiritual nourishment necessary to sustain us as we seek to live into our calling.  We look outward to manifest in word and deed the good news of the Gospel.  Outward without inward leads to burnout.  Inward without outward empowers us with resources we never use.  Inward only is like a person who has multiple academic degrees but never does anything with them.  Such an individual is blessed personally by observing the rituals of the faith but has a marginal impact on the world.  Outward only is like a person who vigorously champions a cause but has little or no experience of the good it engenders.  It is akin to a non-stop talker who never pauses to think.

We can characterize congregations in much the same way.  Some focus intensely on outreach almost to the exclusion of worship.  Others invest in a high-quality worship experience but have little or no life beyond their parish doors.  Liturgists tell us the right way to celebrate the Eucharist is by putting as little as possible in the order of the service between the administration of communion and the dismissal.  The symbolism is important.  A service of Holy Eucharist needs to convey a strong connection between being fed spiritually and being sent into the world to love and serve the Lord.  Worship guides us inward, then directs us outward.

On Ash Wednesday we focus on the parts of our life which have fallen off the track.  It launches us into a season where we repent and return to the Lord.  The Ascension invites us to ponder the balance between the inward and outward aspects of our lives.  Have you become satisfied and complacent – spiritually full but inactive?  Are you running yourself ragged to the point of exhaustion – active, but drained?  How and when do you take time to ascend to heaven to be with Christ where Christ is?  How and when do you experience Christ as you tend to the requirements or your daily life while being faithful to the ministries in which you participate?  Do you need to spend more time seated where Christ is?  Or do you need to discern how Christ calls and commissions you to go forth?  Today’s collects suggest these are good Ascension Day questions. 

I suspect, when most of us think of the Ascension, we think upward and downward – Jesus goes up to heaven while his followers are left down here.  Our collects suggest we reorient our thinking this day from upward and downward to inward and outward.

Anxiety, Fear, and Peace

 

John 14:23-29

Easter 6 / Year C

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you… Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

A woman with a counselling practice had an office next to mine at the church I served when I was first ordained.  She once said to me something I have never forgotten: Strong emotions are contagious.  Think about this for a second.  We are susceptible to picking up on the emotions of another person and making them our own.  Some, like those who have what we describe as a ‘calming effect’, are helpful.  Others, like when panic spreads causing people to hoard toilet paper… not so much. 

This morning we hear Jesus talk about peace, anxiety, and fear.  I suspect the more negative an emotion, the more potent its sway will be.  The more positive the emotion, the softer it is.  Thus, anxiety and fear can be ratchetted up to a very high level in no time at all.  Peace, on the other hand, doesn’t normally barge its way into a chaotic situation.  Often it has to be invited or even cultivated before it takes root and bears fruit.

Anxiety is one of the more powerful emotions which can overtake us and dominate our existence.  I doubt there has ever been an age when the folks of that era were completely at ease, never having a worry or a care.  Anxiety, like oxygen, is ever-present.  It is woven into the very fabric of human existence.  Because we have the cognitive ability to anticipate future outcomes we worry about what is to come, even if we can (to a greater or lesser degree) shape and influence them.  In the great family of emotions, fear a close relative of anxiety.  It is what we feel when we anticipate an outcome will be detrimental and we sense we have no control over it. 

When thinking about anxiety, it is important to differentiate between responding to a typical anxiety-producing event (like waiting for the hospital to call back with your test results) and mental health conditions identified as disorders.  These fall into one of four broad categories: generalized disorder (intense worry about a lot of things), social anxiety disorder (emanating from some form of contact with other people), panic disorder (feeling trapped), and specific phobias (snakes, heights, and the like).  One in every five people suffers from an anxiety disorder and of these just a little more than a third seek professional help.  Some 50 million Americans have an anxiety disorder which is never identified or addressed. 

If you are anxious, a spouse or friend is apt to say something like, “Just calm down” or “Why do you let yourself get so stressed out” or “You need a drink.”  A well-meaning Christian is likely to tack on “You should pray about this” or “You just need to have faith” or even worse, “It is a sin to worry so much.”  In one form or another their message is you should be stronger and you should have more faith.  If you are planning an outdoor wedding and are stressed about the possibility of bad weather, this is not at all helpful.  If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, it can be downright destructive. 

Into all of this we hear Jesus say, “Peace I give to you; my own peace I leave with you… Do not let your hearts be troubled; and do not let them be afraid.” 

As with last week’s reading, the context of the passage is significant.  Jesus says this to his disciples during the Last Supper.  Before the sun rises their world will undergo a jarring change.  They will flee in fear from the scene of Jesus’ arrest.  When they gather, it will be behind locked doors.  Even the report of the empty tomb troubles them.

When Jesus offers peace to his followers, he is not separating the sheep from the goats – the goats being the ones who don’t trust enough and the sheep being those who are able to chill when times are troubling.  How do I know Jesus is not judging them for their crippling unease?  Because I read my bible and Jesus says in John 12:27: “Now my soul is troubled.”  If Jesus can be anxious about his impending arrest, torture, and death, then we can be assured we are not judged when we are anxious and fearful. 

Jesus is able to experience peace by giving his life into God’s care.  The peace he finds he offers to us as a gift to transform how we experience and react to the stresses in our lives.  Let me suggest an analogy.  Imagine you are standing outside on a day so clear the sunlight is too intense to bear.  Allow this image to stand for anxiety.  Then imagine someone hands you a pair of sunglasses which you put on.  The sun is still as severe, but wearing the sunglasses makes you better able to hold up under it.  This is what Christ’s peace offers to us as we learn to live and move and have our being in God.  Living with this peace isn’t a skill you master once and then you have it, like swimming.  It is more like learning to play a musical instrument.  It requires work, dedication, and practice in order to get better at it.   

All of this links well with today’s observance of Rogation Sunday, a name deriving from the Latin word meaning ‘to ask.’  The ritual dates back to 470 AD when Bishop Mamertus faced a crisis in his diocese.  It seems the region was inundated with plagues, earthquakes, pestilence, bad weather, and all manner of things which go bump in the night.  It was an anxious time.  So, the good bishop called the people to prayer, and not just any prayer.  He crafted a litany to address all the problems.  And the faithful were not instructed to drop to their knees in the church nave.  He led them in procession and pageantry around the bounds of village; stopping and praying as they went.  And guess what.  It worked!  Things improved dramatically.  As word spread, so did the practice.  It became popular because it imparted a certain level of peace.  The people did what they could and gave the rest to God.

There are many ways to access the peace which Jesus offers.  Some are spiritual, some are just good, common sense, and some happen as you engage mental health professionals.  There is no one path to the peace Jesus offers but know this – Jesus gives us his peace.