When I was a teenager I went on a mission trip to Owsley County, Kentucky, one of the 10 poorest counties in America. Our church had a relationship with a little congregation there and each summer that year’s confirmation class put on a Vacation Bible School for local children. In the evenings we did different things in the area to get a feel for Appalachian life and culture. One night we attended a small, Pentecostal Church. It was an experience I will never forget. The tiny, white, clapboard structure was hot inside and packed. The choir was loud and in constant motion. The preacher was even louder and more energetic than the choir. And then it happened: members of the congregation ‘got slain in the Spirit.’ They were shaking. They were screaming. They were jumping. They were seeing ecstatic visions. They were talking gibberish. They were being anything but Rite 1 Episcopalians. I remember my friends and I being wide-eyed at the sight and a little afraid.
Throughout the Easter season, the assigned readings from Scripture point us in anticipation toward Pentecost – next Sunday – when we celebrate the gift of God’s Holy Spirit and the birth of the God’s church. Most Episcopalians are not big “Holy Spirit” type people. We don’t speak in tongues, lay hands on the sick expecting miracles, or get carried away shaking and dancing during the service. When we think about the Holy Spirit, we tend to think of the extreme manifestations of the Holy Spirit and thus assume that the Holy Spirit is not for us. Our Easter season readings challenge us to think otherwise; to name the fundamental works of the Holy Spirit, to claim them for ourselves, and to manifest them in our lives.
On Resurrection Sunday evening, Jesus appears to the Disciples as they are gathered together in a locked room. “Peace be with you,’ He says to them. And then the text says He “breathed” on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” And so here we see the first work of the Holy Spirit, that of bringing peace: peace where there is panic or grief or fear or worry and peace where there is brokenness or hostility between people.
There was a juried art show where participants were invited to submit works that centered on the theme of “Finding Peace.” Many different pieces were submitted and these of varying quality with vastly divergent interpretations. In the end, the contest came down to two paintings. The first depicted a placid, rural scene in the center of which stood a country farm house. It was surrounded by fertile fields of wheat which seemed so lifelike you could almost hear them rustle in the wind. A bright sun shone down from a blue sky with wispy clouds as cows stood under the shade of a tree, drinking from a cool, clear stream. All of this was nestled in a valley whose soft, distant hills made the world of the city – our world – seem light years away. The painting’s quality and composition were so well done, that you felt more at peace simply by gazing at it for a moment or two.
That was one painting. The other was very different. Its artist depicted a raging tempest, with trees swaying to and fro on a storm-lashed mountainside. The ominous sky was marked by zigzag flashes of lightning. Its turbulent content and use of color were deeply unsettling. At first glance, nothing about the painting projected the theme of finding peace. But a closer look revealed a small nest perched under a rock outcrop. In the nest was a bird, which, even though it had scant protection, appeared content in the face of all that swirled around it.
God’s Spirit leads us to green pastures and still waters; those times and places conveyed by the first painting. But the circumstances in which the Disciples found themselves when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit’s peace upon them more closely resembled the second painting, didn’t it.
Years ago I got one of those calls that pastors get: a woman in the parish was dashing to a trauma center because her husband had been in a horrific accident. I met her in the ICU and the situation was everyone’s worst nightmare. She and I talked about many different things, but the most important was what to say to her middle-school aged children. We discussed different options and (with my gentle leading) decided that they needed to face this together as a family. And once she made that decision, a peace came over her at that moment I will never forget. The months ahead were filled with many, many challenges and it was not an easy road for any of them, but the peace of God which passes all understanding – the peace which is a sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence – never left her.
The Holy Spirit’s presence: last Sunday we heard Jesus say to His followers, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth.”
There was a priest who was upset because some parishioners were leaving church after receiving communion and not staying for the final prayer and hymn. So rather than doing the obvious (like cutting down his sermons so everyone could get out on time!), he posted this message in the bulletin:
“It is a great dishonor to our blessed Lord if you leave the church before the end of the service. The Church tells us Jesus remains in our bodies fifteen minutes after we have received communion. [By the way, I have never heard that before] This means that our communion should last fifteen minutes long and we should not leave the church until our Lord is no longer with us.”
Well, if we followed this counsel we would never leave church at all. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, abides with us at all times and in all places. Sometimes we know this presence as a guide, other times as a comfort; sometimes as a source of great courage, other times as a fount of deep quiet. One of the reasons why the 23rd Psalm is so beloved is that its affirmation rings true with our experience: “You are with me.” That powerful sense of God’s abiding presence is a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Peace and a sense of God’s presence. Today’s reading adds to these one more part of the Spirit’s work in us. Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” Next Sunday we will hear again the Pentecost story where the Spirit gives power to the Disciples to reach across customs and cultures to proclaim the Gospel. In word and in deed we are given power by the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life.
At each baptism we make crazy professions and promises far beyond are ability to fulfill:
I renounce Satan, the world, and myself.
I will continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers.
I will persevere in resisting evil, and whenever I sin repent and return to the Lord.
I will proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ.
I will seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself.
I will strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.
And the only way these professions and promises make any sense at all is that as we make them we say, “I will [comma] with God’s help.” That help which we count on and claim is the sure and certain work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
I think back to that evening service at the Pentecostal Church so many years ago and can make no more sense of it today than I could then. Its witness to the Spirit is not one I have ever sought or experienced. My own experience of the Holy Spirit is one I proclaim to you: that the Holy Spirit is with you as a source of power and peace, conveying God’s abiding presence in your life.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
"Show us the Father"
The Apostle Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
There is a universal longing to know the One who is Holy and Other. It cuts across culture and time. Every week there is a headline that in one form or another touches on the human desire to encounter God. This week the renowned Oxford physicist Stephen Hawking made news by proclaiming heaven is a fairy tale and mathematics explains how creation came to be without the aid of a creator. At the other end of the spectrum a radio host garnered lots of attention by predicting the rapture would take place yesterday. Both of these in one just week.
12,000 years ago, human civilization began to take shape at a Turkish site known as Göbekli Tepe. Built some 7,000 years before the pyramids, it is the oldest know worship space ever discovered and the earliest known sign of an organized community. The ancient stone ruins bear witness to the human quest to search for the divine. In one form or another, the plea and the prayer “Show us the Father” has been uttered and offered for a long, long time.
Before we even begin to wonder “Who is God?” we might want to ask if the answer will matter. Many people will tell you they believe in God, but the real question is not the existence of God, but the importance of God. How does God make a difference in your life? How should it? I have never been to the South Pole and yet I believe it exists. Still, that geographical assertion makes little difference in my daily life. I don’t remember much about the Pythagorean Theorem, only that it is an abstract statement which does not really affect my daily life either. To believe that God exists in the way you believe in the South Pole or in the reality of an equation is not a religious stance. A god who exists but does not matter, who does not make a difference in the way you experience life, might as well not exist. As important as it is to know who God is and what God is like, that pursuit will be meaningless if, as we get closer to the answer, we are not fundamentally changed but what we are discovering.
So that is one question… if you see God will it make any difference. Here is another… can you see a God who looks any different than you? The 18th century French political commentator and part-time meteorologist Baron de Montesquieu said that if triangles had a god, it would have three sides. He was speaking of the human tendency toward graven images with the self being the model for the figure.
There is a story about a man who wanted to see God so he traveled the world searching for enlightenment. Eventually he was directed to a remote location in the Himalayas where a wise mystic was said to live. Upon meeting the holy man, the searcher told him of his dreams. “I can show you God if you follow me,” the mystic assured him. The searcher was led into a beautifully decorated chamber where an elaborately carved chest was prominently displayed. “Open the door of the chest,” the mystic instructed, “and you will see God.” The man opened the door only to find behind it another door. The mystic implored him to open that one. Again, there was another door. “Keep going,” he was told. Again, a door and then another and another. Finally he came to a small, simple, roughly hewn door that appeared to be at the center of the chest. “Open this door and you will see your God.” With great trepidation, the searcher opened the door, and there before him was a mirror with the image of his own face reflecting back at him. The mystic’s great insight was to highlight the human proclivity to conceive of God as being in our own spiritual, emotional, psychological, and even physical likeness. Triangles need to remember that God is not limited to three sides.
That is something we don’t and probably can’t understand when we are younger. Seven-year-old Kristi Pflanz said this about her notion of God:
"God makes people’s lives better. He made my dad be the pushover because he buys me more toys than my mom. But sometimes God’s sort of not nice because one time He made this machine where you try to set it to grab the stuffed animal. He didn’t give us any luck on that, and we spent four dollars... in quarters... And we didn’t get any stuffed animals."
William James, in his classic work The Varieties of Religious Experience, writes of “once-born” and “twice-born” people. The once-born are those who sail through life without ever experiencing something that shatters or complicates their faith. Yes, they have problems, but they never go through a time when they say, “The religion I was raised in is a lie; that’s simply not how the world works.” Their understanding of God when they are older is not much different from their view of God when they were children. They think of God as being a benign heavenly parent who keeps the world neat and orderly for them.
For James, twice-born people are those who lose their faith and then regain it as a new faith very different from the one they lost. Instead of seeing the world as flooded with sunshine (as the once-borns always do), they see a world where the sun struggles to come out after the storm, yet still manages to reappear. Theirs is a less cheerful, less confident, more realistic outlook. God is no longer the parent who keeps them safe and dry. God’s presence enables them to keep going in a stormy and dangerous world. From experience they learn to worship God, not because God makes the path smooth, but because God grants grace and determination to keep walking even when the path is rocky. God’s promise is not that they will be kept from stumbling, but that God’s hand will be there to help them get up again, no matter how often they fall. From the school of hard knocks, twice born people have learned that what is stretched out before us is as full of kindness as threat, as sensible as it is mystifying, as good as it was bad, and yet, through thick and thin, God is with us.
I think Archbishop Desmond Tutu would number himself with the twice-born:
"When I was young, I thought of God as a grandfatherly figure, which made God very accessible. Now, inside me is an almost imageless conception, a dark light, or a light darkness.
I am one who has a faith that is reasonably stable. There have been [difficult] moments. When I saw the awful things that police did to students at the University of Fort Hare, nearly 20 years ago, I broke down in a Eucharist service. I am not a pacifist, like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. I couldn’t stand by and see someone throw children into a gas chamber. How could God allow that? How could He make obviously evil people succeed against children?
Ultimately, all you can say is that God does not occupy an Olympian fortress, remote from us. He has this deep, deep solidarity with us. God became a human being, a baby. God was hungry. God was tired. God suffered and died. God is there with us."
The Christian faith asserts a bold, audacious claim. To the degree that the infinite Being who created all existence can be known by finite, limited creatures, to the degree that very light of very light can be contained in the flesh, we have seen the Father in the Son. There is no way to know God more deeply, to understand God more accurately, to see God more clearly than in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. We don’t want to demean automatically other religions because many of them have discerned from creation and the natural order of things significant truths about God and the way life is to be. But only God can make God’s self known completely and this God has done to fullest of our ability to comprehend through the Son.
In today’s Gospel reading, the Apostle Philip says to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” You can almost feel the frustration in Jesus’ reply, “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” It took Philip and the rest of the Apostles a long time to understand fully the implications of this but in time it dawned on them as it continues to dawn on us.
There is a story of a little girl who attended a Sunday School regularly. One day her teacher provided the class with paper and crayons and encouraged the children to draw whatever they wanted. Well, the girl dove into the project with such gusto the teacher had to ask her what she was coloring. “I am drawing a picture of God,” she said with great confidence. The teacher, not wanting to discourage an artist, but not wanting to encourage a heretic, replied gently, “But don’t you know no one has ever seen God. No one knows what God looks like.” Unphased and without missing a beat, the little girl looked up and proclaimed, “Well, they’ll sure know what God looks like once I’m finished!”
“Look at me,” Jesus says to Philip. “Look at me, and not at yourself. Look past your childish notions with new, realistic eyes. Look in a way open to being changed by what you see. Look at me and you will see the Father.”
There is a universal longing to know the One who is Holy and Other. It cuts across culture and time. Every week there is a headline that in one form or another touches on the human desire to encounter God. This week the renowned Oxford physicist Stephen Hawking made news by proclaiming heaven is a fairy tale and mathematics explains how creation came to be without the aid of a creator. At the other end of the spectrum a radio host garnered lots of attention by predicting the rapture would take place yesterday. Both of these in one just week.
12,000 years ago, human civilization began to take shape at a Turkish site known as Göbekli Tepe. Built some 7,000 years before the pyramids, it is the oldest know worship space ever discovered and the earliest known sign of an organized community. The ancient stone ruins bear witness to the human quest to search for the divine. In one form or another, the plea and the prayer “Show us the Father” has been uttered and offered for a long, long time.
Before we even begin to wonder “Who is God?” we might want to ask if the answer will matter. Many people will tell you they believe in God, but the real question is not the existence of God, but the importance of God. How does God make a difference in your life? How should it? I have never been to the South Pole and yet I believe it exists. Still, that geographical assertion makes little difference in my daily life. I don’t remember much about the Pythagorean Theorem, only that it is an abstract statement which does not really affect my daily life either. To believe that God exists in the way you believe in the South Pole or in the reality of an equation is not a religious stance. A god who exists but does not matter, who does not make a difference in the way you experience life, might as well not exist. As important as it is to know who God is and what God is like, that pursuit will be meaningless if, as we get closer to the answer, we are not fundamentally changed but what we are discovering.
So that is one question… if you see God will it make any difference. Here is another… can you see a God who looks any different than you? The 18th century French political commentator and part-time meteorologist Baron de Montesquieu said that if triangles had a god, it would have three sides. He was speaking of the human tendency toward graven images with the self being the model for the figure.
There is a story about a man who wanted to see God so he traveled the world searching for enlightenment. Eventually he was directed to a remote location in the Himalayas where a wise mystic was said to live. Upon meeting the holy man, the searcher told him of his dreams. “I can show you God if you follow me,” the mystic assured him. The searcher was led into a beautifully decorated chamber where an elaborately carved chest was prominently displayed. “Open the door of the chest,” the mystic instructed, “and you will see God.” The man opened the door only to find behind it another door. The mystic implored him to open that one. Again, there was another door. “Keep going,” he was told. Again, a door and then another and another. Finally he came to a small, simple, roughly hewn door that appeared to be at the center of the chest. “Open this door and you will see your God.” With great trepidation, the searcher opened the door, and there before him was a mirror with the image of his own face reflecting back at him. The mystic’s great insight was to highlight the human proclivity to conceive of God as being in our own spiritual, emotional, psychological, and even physical likeness. Triangles need to remember that God is not limited to three sides.
That is something we don’t and probably can’t understand when we are younger. Seven-year-old Kristi Pflanz said this about her notion of God:
"God makes people’s lives better. He made my dad be the pushover because he buys me more toys than my mom. But sometimes God’s sort of not nice because one time He made this machine where you try to set it to grab the stuffed animal. He didn’t give us any luck on that, and we spent four dollars... in quarters... And we didn’t get any stuffed animals."
William James, in his classic work The Varieties of Religious Experience, writes of “once-born” and “twice-born” people. The once-born are those who sail through life without ever experiencing something that shatters or complicates their faith. Yes, they have problems, but they never go through a time when they say, “The religion I was raised in is a lie; that’s simply not how the world works.” Their understanding of God when they are older is not much different from their view of God when they were children. They think of God as being a benign heavenly parent who keeps the world neat and orderly for them.
For James, twice-born people are those who lose their faith and then regain it as a new faith very different from the one they lost. Instead of seeing the world as flooded with sunshine (as the once-borns always do), they see a world where the sun struggles to come out after the storm, yet still manages to reappear. Theirs is a less cheerful, less confident, more realistic outlook. God is no longer the parent who keeps them safe and dry. God’s presence enables them to keep going in a stormy and dangerous world. From experience they learn to worship God, not because God makes the path smooth, but because God grants grace and determination to keep walking even when the path is rocky. God’s promise is not that they will be kept from stumbling, but that God’s hand will be there to help them get up again, no matter how often they fall. From the school of hard knocks, twice born people have learned that what is stretched out before us is as full of kindness as threat, as sensible as it is mystifying, as good as it was bad, and yet, through thick and thin, God is with us.
I think Archbishop Desmond Tutu would number himself with the twice-born:
"When I was young, I thought of God as a grandfatherly figure, which made God very accessible. Now, inside me is an almost imageless conception, a dark light, or a light darkness.
I am one who has a faith that is reasonably stable. There have been [difficult] moments. When I saw the awful things that police did to students at the University of Fort Hare, nearly 20 years ago, I broke down in a Eucharist service. I am not a pacifist, like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. I couldn’t stand by and see someone throw children into a gas chamber. How could God allow that? How could He make obviously evil people succeed against children?
Ultimately, all you can say is that God does not occupy an Olympian fortress, remote from us. He has this deep, deep solidarity with us. God became a human being, a baby. God was hungry. God was tired. God suffered and died. God is there with us."
The Christian faith asserts a bold, audacious claim. To the degree that the infinite Being who created all existence can be known by finite, limited creatures, to the degree that very light of very light can be contained in the flesh, we have seen the Father in the Son. There is no way to know God more deeply, to understand God more accurately, to see God more clearly than in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. We don’t want to demean automatically other religions because many of them have discerned from creation and the natural order of things significant truths about God and the way life is to be. But only God can make God’s self known completely and this God has done to fullest of our ability to comprehend through the Son.
In today’s Gospel reading, the Apostle Philip says to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” You can almost feel the frustration in Jesus’ reply, “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” It took Philip and the rest of the Apostles a long time to understand fully the implications of this but in time it dawned on them as it continues to dawn on us.
There is a story of a little girl who attended a Sunday School regularly. One day her teacher provided the class with paper and crayons and encouraged the children to draw whatever they wanted. Well, the girl dove into the project with such gusto the teacher had to ask her what she was coloring. “I am drawing a picture of God,” she said with great confidence. The teacher, not wanting to discourage an artist, but not wanting to encourage a heretic, replied gently, “But don’t you know no one has ever seen God. No one knows what God looks like.” Unphased and without missing a beat, the little girl looked up and proclaimed, “Well, they’ll sure know what God looks like once I’m finished!”
“Look at me,” Jesus says to Philip. “Look at me, and not at yourself. Look past your childish notions with new, realistic eyes. Look in a way open to being changed by what you see. Look at me and you will see the Father.”
Monday, May 9, 2011
Caught in a Stare at More than Meets the Eye
Luke 24:13-35
That very day, the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?”
They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The Sermon
The Chapel sits at the far end of the court yard of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Smaller than our worship space here, it was an intimate place for our group to gather in prayer each morning of the study program I attended two years ago. Built in 1690 of stone and ornate, dark carved wood, it is as traditional as traditional gets. Hanging above the altar is a painting, The Supper at Emmaus by Ceri Richards. Colorful and contemporary, it is the polar opposite of the space it graces. The setting and art work well together, complementing and augmenting what the other lacks.
Richards’ painting portrays the biblical story we heard read moments ago. Jesus is at table with two disciples. Only a few hours after the resurrection, when news of the event is still garbled and its meaning is still allusive, Jesus has spent the day walking with His followers, explaining how his death and resurrection is to be understood through the lens of the Hebrew scriptures. He holds them in rapt attention, but for reasons we don’t understand they do not recognize who he is. Jesus remains for them a stranger; one who is with them but they do not know, until at supper he blesses and breaks the bread. Through this Eucharistic moment their eyes are opened, they see Jesus for who he is, and then he disappears from the room.
The obvious features of Richards’ painting are its use of color and his characteristic exaggeration of the hands and feet. Jesus is sitting at table. We can see his face. One disciple’s back is to us. We can not see his face, which must register complete astonishment, because, having recognized Jesus, he appears to be falling off his chair. The other disciple sees none of this yet, because – interestingly – he is saying grace. Hands folded, eyes closed in prayer, he does not see the incredible epiphany before him. Jesus himself is framed in a yellow cross, a part of which serves as the painting’s table. Bread and wine and Christ are all part of the cross. Richards has captured that moment after recognition and before disappearance when Jesus is beginning to fade from view.
While the painting conveys many meanings, hanging above the altar in St. Edmund Hall Chapel, it clearly invites each worshipper to look for Christ in the Eucharistic meal and moment. It challenges us to consider how we might be blinded to Christ by our own prayers and religious devotion.
I came upon Denise Levertov’s poem while reading one day, but had never seen Valasquez’ painting. One incredible benefit of the internet age is how things we have never seen or read are only a lightning quick google search away. Levertov does a wonderful job of depicting the painting by giving words to the thoughts of Valasquez’ servant girl. Perhaps difficult to see in your reproduction, she is a kitchen preparing a meal. Over her right shoulder, in the top left hand corner of the painting, we see two figures sitting at table. Is it Jesus and one of the followers or is it the two followers, with Jesus obscured from our view, but not hers? I’ll let you decide. Interestingly, this part of the painting was hidden for years. No one knew it was there until restoration work brought it out. Until then, the painting was revered simply for showing a servant at work in a kitchen. Now we see that it depicts a moment when Jesus’ followers have not yet recognized him, but the servant girl, catching a reflection on the jug, perceives him to be the Risen Christ in their midst.
Although the servant girl is a fictional character not a part of the gospel story, Valasquez challenges us through her. She is a woman. She is black. She is an uneducated maid or perhaps even a slave. She could not possibly be lower of the social ladder. And yet she is the first to recognize Jesus. And she does so in the midst of the most mundane of daily activities, while tending to the chore of serving the meal.
The Servant Girl at Emmaus asks us to ponder how each person, and especially those to whom we are most dismissive, might help us to know and to see Christ. It asks us to ponder how Christ is unknowingly present in a the daily routine.
I spent some time this week pondering those moments when I sensed Jesus was with me – not in some intellectual, theological, doctrinal sense, but really with me… when I was completely aware that I was not alone, that I knew the Holy One was in our midst. I have had such moments in my life, but they are rare. I have not had a moment like that for a while. To what degree, I wonder, do these epiphanies come only as a gift from God and to what degree are they always here if only we had eyes to see?
At baptism we promise with God’s help “to seek and serve Christ in all persons.” Does this mean that Christ is here in the person sitting next to you in the pew? Is Christ to be found this afternoon at the grocery store in the tired and overworked cashier, in the oblivious shopper whose cart is in your way, and in the mother whose child is running wild, screaming up and down the aisles? Does it mean that Christ will be sitting at your dinner table tonight, and at the table across from you tomorrow at McDonald’s, and at a table in the parish hall at our Thanksgiving Community Dinner? Does it mean Christ can be found in your coworkers and neighbors and social acquaintances? Yes, this is exactly what it means. But it is not something we see plainly, it is something we must seek.
Many mornings I begin my day with the Prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate:
Christ as a light, illumine and guide me.
Christ as a shield overshadow me.
Christ under me. Christ over me.
Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
Be in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
And when I offer this prayer, I know that the challenge is not will Christ do this, but will I perceive it. Christ in the person on my left and my right. Christ in the heart of each person I talk to and in the words of each person who speaks to me. I know that my day would go differently if I could truly see this and I know that my attitude and demeanor toward others would be different if I believed it. I am still a work in progress, more often like the Richards’ praying disciple than Valasquez’ servant girl.
I know that I am not alone in this. I know that there are many who are just like me, wanting to see Christ as a real presence on my left and my right, but somehow not quite putting it into practice. We long for those moments described in another poem about today’s gospel called The Day by Harold McCurdy, when “caught in a stare at more than meets the eye they starring lost the seen man in the unsearchable Divine.” I pray that this morning, this Eucharist moment might be a time when bread is blessed and broken, and we, caught in a stare at more than meets the eye, might recognize Christ above, below, within, without, on our left and our right, in the face of those to whom we speak, and in the words of those who speak to us.
The Servant Girl At Emmaus by Denise Levertov
She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her,
once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?
Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread
from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid
on the dying and made them well?
Surely that face—?
The man
they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man
whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?
Those who had brought this stranger home
to their table
don’t recognize yet with thom they sit.
But she in the kitchen,
absently touching the winejug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.
That very day, the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?”
They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The Sermon
The Chapel sits at the far end of the court yard of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Smaller than our worship space here, it was an intimate place for our group to gather in prayer each morning of the study program I attended two years ago. Built in 1690 of stone and ornate, dark carved wood, it is as traditional as traditional gets. Hanging above the altar is a painting, The Supper at Emmaus by Ceri Richards. Colorful and contemporary, it is the polar opposite of the space it graces. The setting and art work well together, complementing and augmenting what the other lacks.
Richards’ painting portrays the biblical story we heard read moments ago. Jesus is at table with two disciples. Only a few hours after the resurrection, when news of the event is still garbled and its meaning is still allusive, Jesus has spent the day walking with His followers, explaining how his death and resurrection is to be understood through the lens of the Hebrew scriptures. He holds them in rapt attention, but for reasons we don’t understand they do not recognize who he is. Jesus remains for them a stranger; one who is with them but they do not know, until at supper he blesses and breaks the bread. Through this Eucharistic moment their eyes are opened, they see Jesus for who he is, and then he disappears from the room.
The obvious features of Richards’ painting are its use of color and his characteristic exaggeration of the hands and feet. Jesus is sitting at table. We can see his face. One disciple’s back is to us. We can not see his face, which must register complete astonishment, because, having recognized Jesus, he appears to be falling off his chair. The other disciple sees none of this yet, because – interestingly – he is saying grace. Hands folded, eyes closed in prayer, he does not see the incredible epiphany before him. Jesus himself is framed in a yellow cross, a part of which serves as the painting’s table. Bread and wine and Christ are all part of the cross. Richards has captured that moment after recognition and before disappearance when Jesus is beginning to fade from view.
While the painting conveys many meanings, hanging above the altar in St. Edmund Hall Chapel, it clearly invites each worshipper to look for Christ in the Eucharistic meal and moment. It challenges us to consider how we might be blinded to Christ by our own prayers and religious devotion.
I came upon Denise Levertov’s poem while reading one day, but had never seen Valasquez’ painting. One incredible benefit of the internet age is how things we have never seen or read are only a lightning quick google search away. Levertov does a wonderful job of depicting the painting by giving words to the thoughts of Valasquez’ servant girl. Perhaps difficult to see in your reproduction, she is a kitchen preparing a meal. Over her right shoulder, in the top left hand corner of the painting, we see two figures sitting at table. Is it Jesus and one of the followers or is it the two followers, with Jesus obscured from our view, but not hers? I’ll let you decide. Interestingly, this part of the painting was hidden for years. No one knew it was there until restoration work brought it out. Until then, the painting was revered simply for showing a servant at work in a kitchen. Now we see that it depicts a moment when Jesus’ followers have not yet recognized him, but the servant girl, catching a reflection on the jug, perceives him to be the Risen Christ in their midst.
Although the servant girl is a fictional character not a part of the gospel story, Valasquez challenges us through her. She is a woman. She is black. She is an uneducated maid or perhaps even a slave. She could not possibly be lower of the social ladder. And yet she is the first to recognize Jesus. And she does so in the midst of the most mundane of daily activities, while tending to the chore of serving the meal.
The Servant Girl at Emmaus asks us to ponder how each person, and especially those to whom we are most dismissive, might help us to know and to see Christ. It asks us to ponder how Christ is unknowingly present in a the daily routine.
I spent some time this week pondering those moments when I sensed Jesus was with me – not in some intellectual, theological, doctrinal sense, but really with me… when I was completely aware that I was not alone, that I knew the Holy One was in our midst. I have had such moments in my life, but they are rare. I have not had a moment like that for a while. To what degree, I wonder, do these epiphanies come only as a gift from God and to what degree are they always here if only we had eyes to see?
At baptism we promise with God’s help “to seek and serve Christ in all persons.” Does this mean that Christ is here in the person sitting next to you in the pew? Is Christ to be found this afternoon at the grocery store in the tired and overworked cashier, in the oblivious shopper whose cart is in your way, and in the mother whose child is running wild, screaming up and down the aisles? Does it mean that Christ will be sitting at your dinner table tonight, and at the table across from you tomorrow at McDonald’s, and at a table in the parish hall at our Thanksgiving Community Dinner? Does it mean Christ can be found in your coworkers and neighbors and social acquaintances? Yes, this is exactly what it means. But it is not something we see plainly, it is something we must seek.
Many mornings I begin my day with the Prayer of St. Patrick’s Breastplate:
Christ as a light, illumine and guide me.
Christ as a shield overshadow me.
Christ under me. Christ over me.
Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me,
lowly and meek, yet all powerful.
Be in the heart of each to whom I speak;
Be in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.
And when I offer this prayer, I know that the challenge is not will Christ do this, but will I perceive it. Christ in the person on my left and my right. Christ in the heart of each person I talk to and in the words of each person who speaks to me. I know that my day would go differently if I could truly see this and I know that my attitude and demeanor toward others would be different if I believed it. I am still a work in progress, more often like the Richards’ praying disciple than Valasquez’ servant girl.
I know that I am not alone in this. I know that there are many who are just like me, wanting to see Christ as a real presence on my left and my right, but somehow not quite putting it into practice. We long for those moments described in another poem about today’s gospel called The Day by Harold McCurdy, when “caught in a stare at more than meets the eye they starring lost the seen man in the unsearchable Divine.” I pray that this morning, this Eucharist moment might be a time when bread is blessed and broken, and we, caught in a stare at more than meets the eye, might recognize Christ above, below, within, without, on our left and our right, in the face of those to whom we speak, and in the words of those who speak to us.
The Servant Girl At Emmaus by Denise Levertov
She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her,
once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?
Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread
from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid
on the dying and made them well?
Surely that face—?
The man
they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man
whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?
Those who had brought this stranger home
to their table
don’t recognize yet with thom they sit.
But she in the kitchen,
absently touching the winejug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.
Monday, April 25, 2011
The Rush to Galilee
Two features make Matthew’s telling of the resurrection distinctive from the other three gospels. One has to do with pace – everything seems to happen very quickly – and the other revolves around talking, silence, and lies.
First the pace. The other gospel writers describe how the women go to the tomb with burial spices and tell us they wonder how they will get passed the huge stone. In Matthew, the women go only to “see” the tomb. Other gospels describe the empty tomb and the women going into it. In other accounts there is a messenger who tells them Jesus is alive, but they don’t completely understand. In other accounts the women tell the disciples the tomb is empty and the body is missing. Some of the disciples investigate for themselves. In Matthew’s telling there is none of this. The women get it right away: Jesus is risen!
In John’s gospel, Mary remains near the tomb, crying. She encounters a man she assumes to be the gardener/caretaker of the gravesite. She asks him if he has moved Jesus’ body to a different location. Only when He speaks her name does she realize that it is Jesus. But here in Matthew’s gospel both Marys meet Jesus and recognize Him instantly.
These details are not contradictions because the gospelers never intended out to write a historically accurate account by our standards today. Each writer set in narrative events they had witnessed or heard about and did so in a way that conveys meaning.
Matthew’s description is lean compared to the other gospels. The pace rushes along without developing side stories. Think about the words he employs: suddenly, go quickly and tell, they ran, suddenly Jesus appeared, go and tell. The 17th century Italian writer Filippo Pananti picked up on this and developed it into an epigram, which is a short, memorable, witty saying:
Christ risen from his sepulcher at last,
appeared to the women first
so that the news would travel very fast.
Well, beyond Mr. Pananti’s rather sexist notion that women talk more than men, we might want to ask what is the hurry all about? It means something very important to Matthew, but what is it? What is the rush to get to Galilee?
Interjected into the frenetic pace of Matthew’s Easter story is the very detailed report about the guards getting paid off. Only Matthew tells this part of the story, the other gospels don’t describe it at all. Temple guards were men of high integrity, deeply devoted to their work. Their word was their bond. Their testimony was held to be impeccable. In that society women held the exact opposite status. They were not allowed to testify in court because their word was considered suspect. So God entrusts the message of resurrection to the powerless and disrespected. The powerful and elite are bribed to remain silent to the truth they have witnessed. But the truthful testimony of the women trumps the toothless tale of the guards.
Matthew does not tell us what the women said to the disciples, but whatever it was it must have been persuasive. The next thing we are told about Jesus’ band of followers is that they are in Galilee and the Risen Lord appears to them. Again, think about how Matthew constructs his narrative. He omits much that the other gospel writers include: Jesus appearing in the closed room in Jerusalem, confronting the doubts of Thomas, appearing to the two disciples walking to Emmaus, appearing at the lakeshore. Matthew moves quickly from earthquake to angel to Jesus to the guards’ conspiracy to Galilee.
Again, why the rush to get to Galilee? The other gospels don’t describe this; Luke, in fact, actually has the disciples staying in Jerusalem for fifty days until the feast of Pentecost. Why is Matthew in such a hurry to get them home? Well, home is the answer. There is a direct link between where you live and where you witness; between where you make your home and where you do the work of the kingdom. It is in their home country that the Risen Jesus gives them the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” The message to the disciples is clear: the good news of Easter is for all people and it starts right here… at home… where you live… where you work… where you play… where you worship.
Matthew constructs his narrative to prod his readers who lived some forty years after the resurrection. In his day, the church in Jerusalem had grown complacent and inwardly focused. Its members were content to sit around and wait for Jesus to return in glory. The church had no missionary zeal, no ministry to the poor and needy, and no voice calling for a just world in this world. Matthew crafts his story to say “Get up, get out of Jerusalem, go to Galilee, and lets get going with the work God has given us to do.”
And that Easter message will always be timeless because every faith community needs to assess and reassess if the good news of New Life is for it simply a warm and fuzzy message or a call to go forth and make disciples of all nations, starting in your house, on your block, with your friends, among your coworkers, and in our community. I describe the mission of St. Paul’s Church this way: “We are building faith, making friends, and serving needs in downtown Suffolk.” To the degree we live into this Matthew would say we have gotten to Galilee. To the degree we have not, we are just hanging out in Jerusalem waiting for another nice, festive celebration to lift our spirits.
When it comes to the sharing the Good News, we Episcopalians tend to be not like Mary – who told the disciples what had happened – and not like the guards – who were paid to spread a lie. We tend to be silent. Always remember there are many different ways to preach. Let me leave you with these words from St. Francis that many of us found very moving at a Wednesday evening service ten days ago:
The deeds you do may be the only sermon some person will hear today.
It is no use walking anywhere to preach the gospel unless our walking is preaching.
Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
Now, in the words of a famous Japanese blessing, “Go into the world with a daring and tender love. Go in peace. The world is waiting. And all that you do, do it for love, and in the name of Jesus Christ who is Lord.”
First the pace. The other gospel writers describe how the women go to the tomb with burial spices and tell us they wonder how they will get passed the huge stone. In Matthew, the women go only to “see” the tomb. Other gospels describe the empty tomb and the women going into it. In other accounts there is a messenger who tells them Jesus is alive, but they don’t completely understand. In other accounts the women tell the disciples the tomb is empty and the body is missing. Some of the disciples investigate for themselves. In Matthew’s telling there is none of this. The women get it right away: Jesus is risen!
In John’s gospel, Mary remains near the tomb, crying. She encounters a man she assumes to be the gardener/caretaker of the gravesite. She asks him if he has moved Jesus’ body to a different location. Only when He speaks her name does she realize that it is Jesus. But here in Matthew’s gospel both Marys meet Jesus and recognize Him instantly.
These details are not contradictions because the gospelers never intended out to write a historically accurate account by our standards today. Each writer set in narrative events they had witnessed or heard about and did so in a way that conveys meaning.
Matthew’s description is lean compared to the other gospels. The pace rushes along without developing side stories. Think about the words he employs: suddenly, go quickly and tell, they ran, suddenly Jesus appeared, go and tell. The 17th century Italian writer Filippo Pananti picked up on this and developed it into an epigram, which is a short, memorable, witty saying:
Christ risen from his sepulcher at last,
appeared to the women first
so that the news would travel very fast.
Well, beyond Mr. Pananti’s rather sexist notion that women talk more than men, we might want to ask what is the hurry all about? It means something very important to Matthew, but what is it? What is the rush to get to Galilee?
Interjected into the frenetic pace of Matthew’s Easter story is the very detailed report about the guards getting paid off. Only Matthew tells this part of the story, the other gospels don’t describe it at all. Temple guards were men of high integrity, deeply devoted to their work. Their word was their bond. Their testimony was held to be impeccable. In that society women held the exact opposite status. They were not allowed to testify in court because their word was considered suspect. So God entrusts the message of resurrection to the powerless and disrespected. The powerful and elite are bribed to remain silent to the truth they have witnessed. But the truthful testimony of the women trumps the toothless tale of the guards.
Matthew does not tell us what the women said to the disciples, but whatever it was it must have been persuasive. The next thing we are told about Jesus’ band of followers is that they are in Galilee and the Risen Lord appears to them. Again, think about how Matthew constructs his narrative. He omits much that the other gospel writers include: Jesus appearing in the closed room in Jerusalem, confronting the doubts of Thomas, appearing to the two disciples walking to Emmaus, appearing at the lakeshore. Matthew moves quickly from earthquake to angel to Jesus to the guards’ conspiracy to Galilee.
Again, why the rush to get to Galilee? The other gospels don’t describe this; Luke, in fact, actually has the disciples staying in Jerusalem for fifty days until the feast of Pentecost. Why is Matthew in such a hurry to get them home? Well, home is the answer. There is a direct link between where you live and where you witness; between where you make your home and where you do the work of the kingdom. It is in their home country that the Risen Jesus gives them the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” The message to the disciples is clear: the good news of Easter is for all people and it starts right here… at home… where you live… where you work… where you play… where you worship.
Matthew constructs his narrative to prod his readers who lived some forty years after the resurrection. In his day, the church in Jerusalem had grown complacent and inwardly focused. Its members were content to sit around and wait for Jesus to return in glory. The church had no missionary zeal, no ministry to the poor and needy, and no voice calling for a just world in this world. Matthew crafts his story to say “Get up, get out of Jerusalem, go to Galilee, and lets get going with the work God has given us to do.”
And that Easter message will always be timeless because every faith community needs to assess and reassess if the good news of New Life is for it simply a warm and fuzzy message or a call to go forth and make disciples of all nations, starting in your house, on your block, with your friends, among your coworkers, and in our community. I describe the mission of St. Paul’s Church this way: “We are building faith, making friends, and serving needs in downtown Suffolk.” To the degree we live into this Matthew would say we have gotten to Galilee. To the degree we have not, we are just hanging out in Jerusalem waiting for another nice, festive celebration to lift our spirits.
When it comes to the sharing the Good News, we Episcopalians tend to be not like Mary – who told the disciples what had happened – and not like the guards – who were paid to spread a lie. We tend to be silent. Always remember there are many different ways to preach. Let me leave you with these words from St. Francis that many of us found very moving at a Wednesday evening service ten days ago:
The deeds you do may be the only sermon some person will hear today.
It is no use walking anywhere to preach the gospel unless our walking is preaching.
Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
Now, in the words of a famous Japanese blessing, “Go into the world with a daring and tender love. Go in peace. The world is waiting. And all that you do, do it for love, and in the name of Jesus Christ who is Lord.”
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
God's Unflinching Desire
Every era and every culture has to interpret (and some times reinterpret) the Cross from its own experience. The first Jewish believers, steeped in a culture of animal sacrifice, saw in the Cross the ultimate sacrifice for human sin. Romans, who knew what it meant to have to buy back forfeited family property, saw in the Cross the ultimate act of redemption; Christ securing the purchase of those lost in sin. In a fourth century sermon, John Chrysostom described how the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden brought death and how the fruit of Christ’ blood on the tree at Golgotha brought life. For John, the Cross represents the restoration of the Divine intent for all of creation.
I remember reading once about a missionary who labored for years on a South Pacific island attempting to convert its inhabitants to Christianity. The biggest challenge was not winning their trust nor was it learning the language. The biggest challenge was this: the native culture so valued treachery that when they heard the story of the Passion, based on their experience, they thought the hero in it all - the person they most wanted to emulate - was Judas. The missionary spent years learning about the culture in order to find a way to explain the Cross the natives would understand and appreciate.
We study the bible and the biblical era in order to understand its culture so that we can understand their perspective on the Cross. Words like sacrifice, atonement, and redemption are meaningless to us apart from that culture’s experience of them. The Cross is all these things… and so much more. These are aspects of the Cross, but no single human word, experience, analogy, or metaphor can sum up the totality of the Cross.
All of this is to say that I search diligently for an image of the Cross that resonates with our own culture and era; and I do so knowing that such an image will shed light on the meaning of the Cross while at the same time being a grossly inadequate representation of it. I described this image in a sermon a few weeks ago and want to restate it again this morning.
I make sense of the Cross in light of relationships, specifically the relationship between God and all of creation. Every human relationship yields both joy and pain. While there are many benefits to being in relationship with another, there is also always a cost. Sometimes that cost is so great that the relationship suffers, and sometimes it ends.
In the relationship between God and creation, and especially in the relationship between God and humankind, there is much joy and blessing. There is also great cost and pain for God. We call this cost and pain ‘sin.’ Sin is our actions toward God, towards one another, toward creation, and even toward our very selves which cause God pain and threaten to break the relationship we have with the Most High.
You may recall that a few weeks ago I drew on the analogy of a parent’s love for an unruly and rebellious child. A parent’s love can be strained, but not easily broken and the hope is the child will return to a right and loving relationship with the parent as he or she matures. We are like the unruly and rebellious child while God is like the long-suffering parent.
The story of Noah and Flood is grounded in this understanding of sin. Human action so pained God that God set out to destroy all that had been created, save for the life in a small ark. But after all was said and done God realized the pain of breaking relationship with us was greater than the pain of enduring our sin and, as the story goes, God set the rainbow in the sky as an ongoing reminder to God not to break away in a response to our brokenness.
So for me, the Cross is the ultimate sign that God desires to be in relationship with us and will bear whatever it costs to do so.
This morning we will use a Eucharist prayer fashioned from The Pastoral Prayer of Aelred of Reivaulx. We encountered Aelred at one of our Wednesday evening services and this prayer, which we did not hear then, lends itself beautifully to the Sunday of the Passion. He prays:
Lord, you see in my soul
the traces of my former sins
my present perils,
and also the motives and occasions
for others yet to be.
I think his notion that our sins – past, present, and future – are ever before God is important because it highlights the price God pays to be in relationship with us. Aelred continues:
You see these things, Lord,
and I would have you see them.
You know well, O searcher of my heart,
that there is nothing in my soul
that I would hide from you.
For Aelred the idea is not to hide from God or to pretend we are something we are not, but to open to God all that we are because God seeks to heal, not to punish. His prayer concludes with this:
This, then, is what I ask, O Font of Pity,
trusting in your mighty mercy
and merciful might:
I ask you, by the power of your most sweet Name,
and by the mystery of your holy humanity,
to put away my sins
and heal the languors of my soul,
mindful only of your goodness,
not of our ingratitude.
In the phrase “mindful of your goodness” I see my understanding of the Cross; that it is the ultimate sign God’s desires to be in relationship with us and will bear whatever the cost of this will be.
This morning, this painful morning when our shouts of “Hosanna” become cries of “Crucify him”, we are reminded in the most vivid way possible that God suffers by being in relationship with us. But we are also reminded that God does this willingly. In Christ on the Cross we have a demonstration of God’s unflinching desire to be in relationship with us. Our sins, while painful and destructive, can never separate us from God. Christ on the Cross tells us this is so.
The Great Thanksgiving crafted from
The Pastoral Prayer of Aelred of Reivaulx:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.
It is a right and good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere, to give thanks to you,
Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For our sins he was lifted high upon the cross,
that he might draw the whole world to himself;
and, by his suffering and death,
he became the source of eternal salvation
for all who put their trust in him.
Therefore we praise you,
joining our voices with Angels and Archangels
and with all the company of heaven,
who forever sing this hymn
to proclaim the glory of your Name:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Lord, look at our souls’ wounds.
Your living and effective eye sees everything.
It pierces like a sword, even to part asunder soul and spirit.
Assuredly, Lord, you see in our souls
the traces of our former sins
our present perils,
and also the motives and occasions for others yet to be.
You see these things, Lord,
and we would have you see them.
You know well, O searcher of our hearts,
that there is nothing in our souls that we would hide from you,
even had we the power to escape your eyes.
Woe to the souls that want to hide themselves from you.
They cannot make themselves not to be seen by you,
but only miss your healing and incur punishment.
So see us, sweet Lord, see us.
Our hope, most merciful, is in your loving kindness;
for you will see us,
either as a good physicians sees, intent upon healing,
or else as a kind master, anxious to correct,
or as a forbearing father, longing to forgive.
On the night before he died for us,
Jesus gathered with his disciples,
and seeing their sins and shortcomings,
took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and shared it with them
saying,
“Take. Eat. This is my body which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
Then our Lord took a cup of wine, gave thanks, and shared it, saying:
“This cup is my blood of the new covenant
given for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.
Whenever you drink this, do this in remembrance of me.”
Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ is died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
We bring before you these gifts of bread and wine,
praying that the Holy Spirit would sanctify them
to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.
And we pray that your Holy Spirit would sanctify us
in heart, soul, mind, and strength.
This, then, is what we ask, O Font of Pity,
trusting in your mighty mercy and merciful might:
We ask you, by the power of your most sweet Name,
and by the mystery of your holy humanity,
to put away our sins and heal the languors of our souls,
mindful only of your goodness,
not of our ingratitude.
All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ.
By him, and with him, and in him,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father,
now and forever. Amen.
I remember reading once about a missionary who labored for years on a South Pacific island attempting to convert its inhabitants to Christianity. The biggest challenge was not winning their trust nor was it learning the language. The biggest challenge was this: the native culture so valued treachery that when they heard the story of the Passion, based on their experience, they thought the hero in it all - the person they most wanted to emulate - was Judas. The missionary spent years learning about the culture in order to find a way to explain the Cross the natives would understand and appreciate.
We study the bible and the biblical era in order to understand its culture so that we can understand their perspective on the Cross. Words like sacrifice, atonement, and redemption are meaningless to us apart from that culture’s experience of them. The Cross is all these things… and so much more. These are aspects of the Cross, but no single human word, experience, analogy, or metaphor can sum up the totality of the Cross.
All of this is to say that I search diligently for an image of the Cross that resonates with our own culture and era; and I do so knowing that such an image will shed light on the meaning of the Cross while at the same time being a grossly inadequate representation of it. I described this image in a sermon a few weeks ago and want to restate it again this morning.
I make sense of the Cross in light of relationships, specifically the relationship between God and all of creation. Every human relationship yields both joy and pain. While there are many benefits to being in relationship with another, there is also always a cost. Sometimes that cost is so great that the relationship suffers, and sometimes it ends.
In the relationship between God and creation, and especially in the relationship between God and humankind, there is much joy and blessing. There is also great cost and pain for God. We call this cost and pain ‘sin.’ Sin is our actions toward God, towards one another, toward creation, and even toward our very selves which cause God pain and threaten to break the relationship we have with the Most High.
You may recall that a few weeks ago I drew on the analogy of a parent’s love for an unruly and rebellious child. A parent’s love can be strained, but not easily broken and the hope is the child will return to a right and loving relationship with the parent as he or she matures. We are like the unruly and rebellious child while God is like the long-suffering parent.
The story of Noah and Flood is grounded in this understanding of sin. Human action so pained God that God set out to destroy all that had been created, save for the life in a small ark. But after all was said and done God realized the pain of breaking relationship with us was greater than the pain of enduring our sin and, as the story goes, God set the rainbow in the sky as an ongoing reminder to God not to break away in a response to our brokenness.
So for me, the Cross is the ultimate sign that God desires to be in relationship with us and will bear whatever it costs to do so.
This morning we will use a Eucharist prayer fashioned from The Pastoral Prayer of Aelred of Reivaulx. We encountered Aelred at one of our Wednesday evening services and this prayer, which we did not hear then, lends itself beautifully to the Sunday of the Passion. He prays:
Lord, you see in my soul
the traces of my former sins
my present perils,
and also the motives and occasions
for others yet to be.
I think his notion that our sins – past, present, and future – are ever before God is important because it highlights the price God pays to be in relationship with us. Aelred continues:
You see these things, Lord,
and I would have you see them.
You know well, O searcher of my heart,
that there is nothing in my soul
that I would hide from you.
For Aelred the idea is not to hide from God or to pretend we are something we are not, but to open to God all that we are because God seeks to heal, not to punish. His prayer concludes with this:
This, then, is what I ask, O Font of Pity,
trusting in your mighty mercy
and merciful might:
I ask you, by the power of your most sweet Name,
and by the mystery of your holy humanity,
to put away my sins
and heal the languors of my soul,
mindful only of your goodness,
not of our ingratitude.
In the phrase “mindful of your goodness” I see my understanding of the Cross; that it is the ultimate sign God’s desires to be in relationship with us and will bear whatever the cost of this will be.
This morning, this painful morning when our shouts of “Hosanna” become cries of “Crucify him”, we are reminded in the most vivid way possible that God suffers by being in relationship with us. But we are also reminded that God does this willingly. In Christ on the Cross we have a demonstration of God’s unflinching desire to be in relationship with us. Our sins, while painful and destructive, can never separate us from God. Christ on the Cross tells us this is so.
The Great Thanksgiving crafted from
The Pastoral Prayer of Aelred of Reivaulx:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.
It is a right and good and joyful thing,
always and everywhere, to give thanks to you,
Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For our sins he was lifted high upon the cross,
that he might draw the whole world to himself;
and, by his suffering and death,
he became the source of eternal salvation
for all who put their trust in him.
Therefore we praise you,
joining our voices with Angels and Archangels
and with all the company of heaven,
who forever sing this hymn
to proclaim the glory of your Name:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Lord, look at our souls’ wounds.
Your living and effective eye sees everything.
It pierces like a sword, even to part asunder soul and spirit.
Assuredly, Lord, you see in our souls
the traces of our former sins
our present perils,
and also the motives and occasions for others yet to be.
You see these things, Lord,
and we would have you see them.
You know well, O searcher of our hearts,
that there is nothing in our souls that we would hide from you,
even had we the power to escape your eyes.
Woe to the souls that want to hide themselves from you.
They cannot make themselves not to be seen by you,
but only miss your healing and incur punishment.
So see us, sweet Lord, see us.
Our hope, most merciful, is in your loving kindness;
for you will see us,
either as a good physicians sees, intent upon healing,
or else as a kind master, anxious to correct,
or as a forbearing father, longing to forgive.
On the night before he died for us,
Jesus gathered with his disciples,
and seeing their sins and shortcomings,
took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and shared it with them
saying,
“Take. Eat. This is my body which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
Then our Lord took a cup of wine, gave thanks, and shared it, saying:
“This cup is my blood of the new covenant
given for you, and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.
Whenever you drink this, do this in remembrance of me.”
Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ is died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
We bring before you these gifts of bread and wine,
praying that the Holy Spirit would sanctify them
to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.
And we pray that your Holy Spirit would sanctify us
in heart, soul, mind, and strength.
This, then, is what we ask, O Font of Pity,
trusting in your mighty mercy and merciful might:
We ask you, by the power of your most sweet Name,
and by the mystery of your holy humanity,
to put away our sins and heal the languors of our souls,
mindful only of your goodness,
not of our ingratitude.
All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ.
By him, and with him, and in him,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father,
now and forever. Amen.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Ere It Call Again...
It has been helpful these past few weeks to have the Gospel lessons read like we read the Passion Story. They have been long readings containing lengthy dialogue between multiple characters. Hearing a distinctive voice for each person helps us to make sense of all that unfolds, of all that is said. In today’s reading we hear the voices of Jesus, the disciples, Thomas, Martha, Mary, and their friends. Did you pick up on something about this list? Of all the people in the reading, only one person says nothing at all; only one character has no lines in the drama. Do you know who it is?
Lazarus! First in sickness, then in death, and finally even in life, he is shrouded in silence. John’s Gospel gives us great insight into what Jesus is thinking and feeling. We learn quite clearly what the sisters think and feel and we know much about their grieving friends. We know the doubts, questions, and concerns of the disciples. But we know nothing at all about Lazarus.
This void must have inspired the poet Henry Coleman (who died in 1640). Wanting to explore what the silent figure might have been thinking, he wrote “On Lazarus Raised from the Dead.” It is written in the first person from the perspective of the body in the tomb:
Where am I, or how came I here, hath death
bereaved me of my breath,
or do I dream?
Nor can that be, for sure I am
there are no ensigns of a living man,
beside, the stream
of life did fly
from hence, and my blessed soul did soar on
and well remember I,
my friends on either side
did weeping stand
to see me die;
most certain then it is my soul was fled
forth on my clay, and I am buried.
These linens plainly show this cave did keep
my flesh in its deep sleep,
and yet a noise
me-thought I heard, of such strange force
as would have raised to life the dullest corpse,
so sweet a voice
as spite of death
distilled through every vein a living breath,
and sure heard it charge
me by my name, even thus
O Lazarus
come forth at large,
and so nought hinders, I will straightway then
appear, (though thus dressed) ere it call again…
I like that the poem begins with confusion. What is going on here? Where am I? What happened to me? Once these questions are settled a disruption is inserted: “Me-thought I heard something.” But what? A noise, a sound, a voice. Just as in the first part of the poem, understanding and clarity emerge only over time. Next comes a strange feeling: “distilled through every vein a living breath.” Just like Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, something restorative begins to happen to Lazarus. Coleman’s wonderful image invites us to ponder what it might feel like to have life reenter a body it had departed. Now Lazarus is able to make out quite clearly Jesus’ voice calling him forth. I love how the poem ends as Lazarus realizes he is not properly dressed, yet wants to move forward ere the voice have to call again.
Coleman’s poem helps me to remember that there are many different kinds of dying each of us will experience in life before we experience the death of our body. Our very first moment in life comes only as we die to life in our mother’s womb. We form friendships and friends move away. We fall in love with a novel, but the book ends. We pour ourselves into the life of a school, only to graduate and leave it all behind. We are young and vital, but as we age our physical capacities and condition diminish. We have a career, but change jobs or even change vocations, and eventually retire. We marry, but every marriage ends either in death or divorce. We have children, but children grow up and move on. Only a precious few manage to sail through life without being touched by tragedy – the untimely or cruel loss of someone or something near and dear. We experience many kinds of dying in this life before we experience the death of our body.
Coleman’s poem has identified a pattern we go through in some form or another after each death we experience in life. His is the poetic version of Kűbler-Ross’ more clinical five stages of grieving. First there is confusion. We don’t understand all that we are feeling and may not even recognize that we have lost something. Confusion eventually yields to insight. And while understanding is important, it is not enough. We can know exactly what is gone in our life and we can identify precisely how it has affected us, but that is not enough to get us going again. We can stay stuck or shutdown for a very long time.
But then there comes what we only hear as a noise, then as a sound, and finally as a voice – God’s voice – calling us to new life. This too can come about quite slowing or it may come upon us suddenly, dramatically or it may be some combination of both. Our stories of finding new life after loss are as unique and distinctive as the death we experienced.
I read once something Jess Trottier, one-time dean at Virginia Seminary, said years after the suicide of his son: “I have been to the depths and God has brought me back.” Can you identify with that? Do you know what he means? Death has many different forms and faces. It takes us to different depths and places of darkness. Through it all, one thing is constant: God’s ability to bring us back.
The last question posed in The Outline of the Faith (commonly called The Catechism) in the Book of Common Prayer is this: “What is our assurance as Christians?” The answer: “Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “Nothing, not even death” is a phrase that rolls a lot together in a way which makes it easy to overlook the first in light of the second. Listen to it this way: “Death shall not separate us from the love of God.” “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.” Somehow the first is easier to believe than the second, isn’t it!
There are times in this life when we feel so broken, so down, so afraid, so unworthy, so unloved or unlovable, that God’s love feels lost. But it is not, not ever. Somehow, somewhere, at some time which marries God’s choosing with our readiness, we hear a noise that becomes a sound that we come to recognize as a Voice. We come to sense that distilled through every vein of our life there is once again a living breath. God has called us back from the depths and we reenter life, wearing something new and being someone new for all that we have been through.
Haven’t you experienced this? I have. And that is why I am so assured. Since nothing in this life has ever kept me separated from God’s love in Christ Jesus, I am convinced that death will not either. Some day I will die. I don’t know what it will feel like at first, nor do I have any sense of what it will be like in the beginning. But I believe with all my heart that there will come a time when I will hear the Voice I have heard so often in life, calling me by name one final time. And I believe at that moment I will respond immediately to a great, new adventure, ere the Voice should have to call me again.
Lazarus! First in sickness, then in death, and finally even in life, he is shrouded in silence. John’s Gospel gives us great insight into what Jesus is thinking and feeling. We learn quite clearly what the sisters think and feel and we know much about their grieving friends. We know the doubts, questions, and concerns of the disciples. But we know nothing at all about Lazarus.
This void must have inspired the poet Henry Coleman (who died in 1640). Wanting to explore what the silent figure might have been thinking, he wrote “On Lazarus Raised from the Dead.” It is written in the first person from the perspective of the body in the tomb:
Where am I, or how came I here, hath death
bereaved me of my breath,
or do I dream?
Nor can that be, for sure I am
there are no ensigns of a living man,
beside, the stream
of life did fly
from hence, and my blessed soul did soar on
and well remember I,
my friends on either side
did weeping stand
to see me die;
most certain then it is my soul was fled
forth on my clay, and I am buried.
These linens plainly show this cave did keep
my flesh in its deep sleep,
and yet a noise
me-thought I heard, of such strange force
as would have raised to life the dullest corpse,
so sweet a voice
as spite of death
distilled through every vein a living breath,
and sure heard it charge
me by my name, even thus
O Lazarus
come forth at large,
and so nought hinders, I will straightway then
appear, (though thus dressed) ere it call again…
I like that the poem begins with confusion. What is going on here? Where am I? What happened to me? Once these questions are settled a disruption is inserted: “Me-thought I heard something.” But what? A noise, a sound, a voice. Just as in the first part of the poem, understanding and clarity emerge only over time. Next comes a strange feeling: “distilled through every vein a living breath.” Just like Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, something restorative begins to happen to Lazarus. Coleman’s wonderful image invites us to ponder what it might feel like to have life reenter a body it had departed. Now Lazarus is able to make out quite clearly Jesus’ voice calling him forth. I love how the poem ends as Lazarus realizes he is not properly dressed, yet wants to move forward ere the voice have to call again.
Coleman’s poem helps me to remember that there are many different kinds of dying each of us will experience in life before we experience the death of our body. Our very first moment in life comes only as we die to life in our mother’s womb. We form friendships and friends move away. We fall in love with a novel, but the book ends. We pour ourselves into the life of a school, only to graduate and leave it all behind. We are young and vital, but as we age our physical capacities and condition diminish. We have a career, but change jobs or even change vocations, and eventually retire. We marry, but every marriage ends either in death or divorce. We have children, but children grow up and move on. Only a precious few manage to sail through life without being touched by tragedy – the untimely or cruel loss of someone or something near and dear. We experience many kinds of dying in this life before we experience the death of our body.
Coleman’s poem has identified a pattern we go through in some form or another after each death we experience in life. His is the poetic version of Kűbler-Ross’ more clinical five stages of grieving. First there is confusion. We don’t understand all that we are feeling and may not even recognize that we have lost something. Confusion eventually yields to insight. And while understanding is important, it is not enough. We can know exactly what is gone in our life and we can identify precisely how it has affected us, but that is not enough to get us going again. We can stay stuck or shutdown for a very long time.
But then there comes what we only hear as a noise, then as a sound, and finally as a voice – God’s voice – calling us to new life. This too can come about quite slowing or it may come upon us suddenly, dramatically or it may be some combination of both. Our stories of finding new life after loss are as unique and distinctive as the death we experienced.
I read once something Jess Trottier, one-time dean at Virginia Seminary, said years after the suicide of his son: “I have been to the depths and God has brought me back.” Can you identify with that? Do you know what he means? Death has many different forms and faces. It takes us to different depths and places of darkness. Through it all, one thing is constant: God’s ability to bring us back.
The last question posed in The Outline of the Faith (commonly called The Catechism) in the Book of Common Prayer is this: “What is our assurance as Christians?” The answer: “Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “Nothing, not even death” is a phrase that rolls a lot together in a way which makes it easy to overlook the first in light of the second. Listen to it this way: “Death shall not separate us from the love of God.” “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God.” Somehow the first is easier to believe than the second, isn’t it!
There are times in this life when we feel so broken, so down, so afraid, so unworthy, so unloved or unlovable, that God’s love feels lost. But it is not, not ever. Somehow, somewhere, at some time which marries God’s choosing with our readiness, we hear a noise that becomes a sound that we come to recognize as a Voice. We come to sense that distilled through every vein of our life there is once again a living breath. God has called us back from the depths and we reenter life, wearing something new and being someone new for all that we have been through.
Haven’t you experienced this? I have. And that is why I am so assured. Since nothing in this life has ever kept me separated from God’s love in Christ Jesus, I am convinced that death will not either. Some day I will die. I don’t know what it will feel like at first, nor do I have any sense of what it will be like in the beginning. But I believe with all my heart that there will come a time when I will hear the Voice I have heard so often in life, calling me by name one final time. And I believe at that moment I will respond immediately to a great, new adventure, ere the Voice should have to call me again.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Let's See What God can Do
Several themes and thematic questions run through the Old Testament. Generation after generation wrestle and struggle with various ideas and concerns; especially as they encounter God and God’s on-going revelation in through their own experiences. Questions like “who is God?”, “how do I treat the foreigner?,” and “what is justice?” Today’s Gospel reading picks up on a theological discussion that has been played out for centuries. Jesus and His disciples happened past a blind man and so they raise the question, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents.” Rabbi – teacher, what say you?
God’s people have been trying to understand the nature and ramifications of sin for a long, long time. After creation, it is the second theme taken up in the bible. The Garden of Eden, the fruit of the forbidden tree, Cain and Able, the tower of Babel, the Flood – the first Genesis stories revolve around the notion and nature of sin and its consequences. The Exodus stories of the golden cafe, the grumbling for food and water, and Moses striking the rock twice when God said once: all continue to explore and develop this motif. Saul is chosen as king, then rejected for offering a priestly sacrifice before battle when Samuel is delayed. David is chosen as king, then judged for his indiscretions with Bathsheba that led him to arrange the death of her husband, Uriah. Centuries later, a moral and theological reform sweeps through the nation under King Josiah after the old book of the law is rediscovered. It holds that God blesses those who obey and punishes those who don’t. But after the Assyrians devastate the northern kingdom of Israel and the Babylonians destroy the southern kingdom of Judah, leveling the temple in Jerusalem and forcing survivors to live into exile, some begin to wonder if this theology holds water. The book of Job is the sharpest critic; offering the challenge that some suffer much, much more than can be justified by their ‘sins.’
Through today’s Gospel reading, we enter into a facet of this ongoing search. In the book of Exodus, God warns that a person’s sins will be visited on his or her children, even to the fourth generation (20:5). Centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel challenges this notion by insisting that children do not suffer on account of their parents’ sins. God punishes the individual who committed the sin, the prophet proclaimed, not the innocent offspring (18:20). Well, these two positions are mutually exclusive and so, in an effort to reconcile the two, scholars concluded that it was possible for a child to sin while in the womb; thus causing birth defects. Not everyone was satisfied with this, thus the debate raged on. Given this background, you can see what the disciples are getting at when the ask Jesus – the Rabbi/teacher – to weigh in.
“Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus response is neither. “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Another translation puts it this way: “This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Either way, Jesus’ answer is problematic because, while it lays to rest the idea that birth defects are punishment for sin, it opens the door to the idea that God causes them in order to show off what God can do.
Craig Koester is a New Testament professor at Lutheran Seminary in Minnesota whose writing on the book of John has helped me make sense of several difficult passages. After looking at the original Greek, he says a better way to translate Jesus’ response is this: “Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of Him who sent me while it is still day.” “Instead of trying to look back to determine what lay behind the blindness,” Koester writes, “Jesus looked ahead to what he might do with the blindness.”
So here is what Jesus adds to this age-old discussion: He does not categorically reject the idea that God punishes sin nor does He deny that human actions can and do have negative consequences. What He says is that not all suffering is caused by sin and that suffering elicits God’s compassion and God’s power to heal and God’s desire to make all things whole.
Years ago, when I was married, my wife miscarried several months into a pregnancy. I was devastated and while it in no way reflected my theology then or now, in my pain and grief all I could do was remember every sin I ever committed and I interpreted the loss as their consequence; as a punishment. As I said, this is not what I believe theologically, but it is what I experienced personally. Maybe it was the result of the Tempter’s taunts in a moment of weakness or maybe it is a natural human response in the face of overwhelming loss. Over time I began to know once again the same Jesus who touched the man born blind; the Jesus who was not interested in assigning blame, but who wanted to do God’s work for the broken-hearted.
More than one of you has sat in my office or called me on the phone or sat across a table from me and described the pain and the brokenness and the messiness of your life. You know that, as I listen, I always say it is worth exploring your part in all that has unfolded. How did you contribute to it? What have you learned? What will you do differently the next time? Pain and suffering, while unwanted, have a way of bearing the fruit of wisdom and insight. And while I say this to you, you also know that most of what I do is try to untangle you from the notion that you somehow deserve what is happening to you. My experience has been that most of the pain in my life has been disproportionate to whatever sin may have caused it and that is the sense I get when I listen to your stories as well.
To this century’s old deliberation about the nature of sin and its connection of suffering, Jesus says this: “Let’s not try to figure out who is to blame. Let’s figure out what God is capable of doing with it.” God’s work for the man born blind restored his sight. The ultimate work of Jesus in the face of sin was accomplished on the Cross. There we see most fully God’s willingness to be in relationship with us even though it causes God pain and suffering. “I will bear your sins,” God says, “because my love for you cannot be broken”; it is much the same as a parent who endures a child’s tantrums, a child’s fears, and a child’s sicknesses because the joy of being in relationship far outweighs the cost.
“Neither this blind man sinned or his parents, but do you know what I see here? I see an opportunity to do God’s work.” Jesus has a marvelous way of reframing the question, doesn’t He. But it is also one that is very challenging. Someone recently posted this on facebook: The good news is God answers prayers… the bad news is God uses people like me and you to do it. Jesus still walks from place to place and Jesus still encounters suffering disproportionate to anything a person deserves. Jesus stills sees opportunities to be doing the work of God in that person’s life. The only difference between now and when He encountered the blind man is that Jesus needs to work through you and through me to do it. Your compassionate touch, my merciful embrace, our healing love can mediate God’s power if we are willing to be a part of the work God seeks to do.
God’s people have been trying to understand the nature and ramifications of sin for a long, long time. After creation, it is the second theme taken up in the bible. The Garden of Eden, the fruit of the forbidden tree, Cain and Able, the tower of Babel, the Flood – the first Genesis stories revolve around the notion and nature of sin and its consequences. The Exodus stories of the golden cafe, the grumbling for food and water, and Moses striking the rock twice when God said once: all continue to explore and develop this motif. Saul is chosen as king, then rejected for offering a priestly sacrifice before battle when Samuel is delayed. David is chosen as king, then judged for his indiscretions with Bathsheba that led him to arrange the death of her husband, Uriah. Centuries later, a moral and theological reform sweeps through the nation under King Josiah after the old book of the law is rediscovered. It holds that God blesses those who obey and punishes those who don’t. But after the Assyrians devastate the northern kingdom of Israel and the Babylonians destroy the southern kingdom of Judah, leveling the temple in Jerusalem and forcing survivors to live into exile, some begin to wonder if this theology holds water. The book of Job is the sharpest critic; offering the challenge that some suffer much, much more than can be justified by their ‘sins.’
Through today’s Gospel reading, we enter into a facet of this ongoing search. In the book of Exodus, God warns that a person’s sins will be visited on his or her children, even to the fourth generation (20:5). Centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel challenges this notion by insisting that children do not suffer on account of their parents’ sins. God punishes the individual who committed the sin, the prophet proclaimed, not the innocent offspring (18:20). Well, these two positions are mutually exclusive and so, in an effort to reconcile the two, scholars concluded that it was possible for a child to sin while in the womb; thus causing birth defects. Not everyone was satisfied with this, thus the debate raged on. Given this background, you can see what the disciples are getting at when the ask Jesus – the Rabbi/teacher – to weigh in.
“Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus response is neither. “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Another translation puts it this way: “This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Either way, Jesus’ answer is problematic because, while it lays to rest the idea that birth defects are punishment for sin, it opens the door to the idea that God causes them in order to show off what God can do.
Craig Koester is a New Testament professor at Lutheran Seminary in Minnesota whose writing on the book of John has helped me make sense of several difficult passages. After looking at the original Greek, he says a better way to translate Jesus’ response is this: “Neither this man sinned nor his parents, but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of Him who sent me while it is still day.” “Instead of trying to look back to determine what lay behind the blindness,” Koester writes, “Jesus looked ahead to what he might do with the blindness.”
So here is what Jesus adds to this age-old discussion: He does not categorically reject the idea that God punishes sin nor does He deny that human actions can and do have negative consequences. What He says is that not all suffering is caused by sin and that suffering elicits God’s compassion and God’s power to heal and God’s desire to make all things whole.
Years ago, when I was married, my wife miscarried several months into a pregnancy. I was devastated and while it in no way reflected my theology then or now, in my pain and grief all I could do was remember every sin I ever committed and I interpreted the loss as their consequence; as a punishment. As I said, this is not what I believe theologically, but it is what I experienced personally. Maybe it was the result of the Tempter’s taunts in a moment of weakness or maybe it is a natural human response in the face of overwhelming loss. Over time I began to know once again the same Jesus who touched the man born blind; the Jesus who was not interested in assigning blame, but who wanted to do God’s work for the broken-hearted.
More than one of you has sat in my office or called me on the phone or sat across a table from me and described the pain and the brokenness and the messiness of your life. You know that, as I listen, I always say it is worth exploring your part in all that has unfolded. How did you contribute to it? What have you learned? What will you do differently the next time? Pain and suffering, while unwanted, have a way of bearing the fruit of wisdom and insight. And while I say this to you, you also know that most of what I do is try to untangle you from the notion that you somehow deserve what is happening to you. My experience has been that most of the pain in my life has been disproportionate to whatever sin may have caused it and that is the sense I get when I listen to your stories as well.
To this century’s old deliberation about the nature of sin and its connection of suffering, Jesus says this: “Let’s not try to figure out who is to blame. Let’s figure out what God is capable of doing with it.” God’s work for the man born blind restored his sight. The ultimate work of Jesus in the face of sin was accomplished on the Cross. There we see most fully God’s willingness to be in relationship with us even though it causes God pain and suffering. “I will bear your sins,” God says, “because my love for you cannot be broken”; it is much the same as a parent who endures a child’s tantrums, a child’s fears, and a child’s sicknesses because the joy of being in relationship far outweighs the cost.
“Neither this blind man sinned or his parents, but do you know what I see here? I see an opportunity to do God’s work.” Jesus has a marvelous way of reframing the question, doesn’t He. But it is also one that is very challenging. Someone recently posted this on facebook: The good news is God answers prayers… the bad news is God uses people like me and you to do it. Jesus still walks from place to place and Jesus still encounters suffering disproportionate to anything a person deserves. Jesus stills sees opportunities to be doing the work of God in that person’s life. The only difference between now and when He encountered the blind man is that Jesus needs to work through you and through me to do it. Your compassionate touch, my merciful embrace, our healing love can mediate God’s power if we are willing to be a part of the work God seeks to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
