The Steward of a Vineyard

Today’s Old Testament reading continues to focus on the life and times of the prophet Elijah.  Today’s story about Naboth’s vineyard is a cautionary tale about the misuse of power.  It is contemporary in every sense of the word as we still live in a world where despots (and/or those close to them) will use the authority entrusted to them (or, in some cases, taken by them) to get what they want by any means necessary.  Surely Naboth stands as a victim.  But there is much more to him and that is what I want to explore with you.  To me, before Jezebel manipulates his stoning, Naboth is an inspirational figure who embodies what it means to be a godly and goodly steward of what has been entrusted to him. 

Ancestral land was deeply valued in Israel.  It was a gift from God who commanded the people to “take possession of the land.”  The book of Deuteronomy describes the land of Israel as an “inheritance from the Lord.”  If you want to twist your tongue into a knot, go home, open your bible to the Book of Joshua, and read aloud chapters 13-21.  It describes with great specificity the boundaries between one tribe’s region and another.  This exacting detail points to the sacred nature of the land given by God who orders a census be taken and the land divided among the people.  The Book of Numbers describes which person received what lot (again, it is a tongue twister to read aloud).  It matters to God that each and every person has a plot of land.

If you own the deed to your property, it indicates on it that the land is not yours.  It may surprise you to learn you are leasing your property from the state.  The people of Israel owned their land.  It passed from one generation to another.  It was understood not so much to be a legal right as it was held to be a gift from God.  The writer of the 16^th Psalm says:

O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; *

it is you who uphold my lot.

The Old Testament contains several admonitions against moving a property marker because it was both a theft against the owner and a sin against God.  God directs Israel to have a Jubilee every fifty years where land that had been sold for purposes of survival was to be returned to its original ancestral owner.

So at one level, when Ahab approaches Naboth about trading or selling his land he is asking him to forsake what God has entrusted to him and Naboth will have none of it.  His commitment is to what God has given to him.  It is more important than money or moving up in the world.  He does not want cash nor does he want to trade up for a better lot.

What has God entrusted to you?  Your spouse, if you are married.  Your children and grandchildren.  Parents, if they are still alive.  Siblings.  It is easy to let other things get in the way of family.  Perhaps you have received an inheritance or a trust fund.  While resources such as this should be enjoyed, good stewardship demands you do not consume it, but rather shepherd it wisely so that it can be passed on to the next generation.  The good you can do with what you have is more significant than the myriad of ways you might spend it frivolously.

As I have mentioned, I am in the midst of reading through our church’s historical documents and as I do so I come away with a deeper sense of how this parish has been entrusted to us by 18-some generations of faithful people before us.  We are stewards of an impressive legacy of faith and far from being a burden, it gives us a sense of perspective and purpose.  What we do here matters, not only for today, but also for generations to come.  What has God entrusted to you?

God entrusted a vineyard to Naboth.  We are not told if the vineyard was started by Naboth or by one of his ancestors, but surely it required a great deal of work and care.  The PH of the soil has to be just right.  There is planting and pruning and training and trimming.  It can take up to three years before a new plant can yield grapes.  It is no small undertaking, especially when compared to the vegetable garden the king wants to plant.

The writings of Wendell Berry reminds me of the importance land holds for each of us.  Listen to his poem The Man Born to Farming:

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug.  He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing.  He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.  His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.  What miraculous seed has he swallowed that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water descending in the dark?

Berry writes about how when we are thinking about ‘the environment’ we have made a division between it and ourselves:

Our land passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land are part of one another, so all who are living as neighbors here, human and plant and animal, are part of one another, and so cannot possibly flourish alone.

Naboth is a person who understands this: the spirituality of place – how a specific place shapes and sustains us.  Just as it cares for us, we have a responsibility to care for it.  Without this connection we are diminished; we are lost.  Do you have a place like this? 

We live in a transient society that creates a sense of rootlessness.  I have moved a staggering twenty-six times in my life, and while several of these involved going to college and coming back ‘home’ for the summer, I sense how modern mobility has had an affect of me – some for good, some for ill.  Are you spiritually connected to your ‘place’?  How might you build and deepen a relationship with where you?

Naboth’s ‘place’ meant something to him spiritually and this, as well as an allegiance to inheritance, were factors in why he would not sell or trade.  There is one more component.  Ahab’s palace in Jezreel was a rather new addition to the community and served as his winter headquarters.  No doubt others sold their land to the king so he could build it.  Far from being a private transaction, this kind of decision affected the entire community.  The sale or exchange of property altered the social fabric of Jezreel. 

We are not told, but let’s assume, Naboth’s vineyard is the only one in the region.  He supplies wine not only for his household but for many of his friends and neighbors.  They, in turn, give to him from what they produce – wheat and honey and milk, etc.  If it isn’t produced locally it is brought in either from far away (at a cost) or done without.  Who knows what the community lost when the king bought the land for his palace, but it definitely had an impact.  Naboth was not willing to have his vineyard removed from the local economy and life of his friends and neighbors.

To be a good Christian steward is to have a place in the community.  This encompasses the work you do and the integrity with which you do it.  It involves how and where and why and when you connect with others.  It involves how you use what is yours to benefit others.  Christian stewards gratefully and faithfully accept their role in the community.  Where and how do you fit in?

Ahab is the antithesis of all this.  He has no respect for the inheritance God has given to each and every person he rules.  He wants Naboth’s lot merely because it is convenient, sitting next to his winter palace.  He cares little about the spirituality of place as he pouts and refuses to eat.  And he wants to isolate himself from the community around him: if he grows his own vegetables he will not need to go to the local farmer’s market every Saturday.

And Jezebel, well, she is even worse.  Her most obvious offense is setting up the scheme to take Naboth’s life.  Less obvious, but equally as telling, once Naboth is out of the way, she implores Ahab to “take possession of the land”.  It mimics the very phrase God speaks in promising the land to the people of Israel and thus usurps God’s rightful place and promise.  

In the end this sad story is a reminder that goodness is not necessarily a protection from evil and harm.  Naboth’s reward for being a good and godly steward is found completely within the context of being a good and godly steward.  He is not delivered from his enemies.  Still, he lived his life in a way which was holy and admirable and marked with integrity – qualities no amount of money or power can procure.  He used well what was entrusted to him, connected deeply with the place where he lived, and was a part of the fabric of his community.  You may only have a single dollar in the bank or $100 million dollars or more, but the only way to be truly rich in life is to live as Naboth did. 

 

Cookout on Mt. Carmel

Debra Hails of Hartlepool, England tells the following story:

I was waiting at a customer service station at the store when the woman in front of me was returning a disposable barbeque.  When asked why she was returning it she replied, “There was no meat in it.”  The shop assistant patiently explained that the disposable barbeque was simply to cook the meat and it did not include any food.  Whereupon, the customer looked very embarrassed indeed.  The assistant checked the receipt and asked: “There are 3 barbeques on here, are you returning the other two as well?”  “I can’t,” said the woman, “they are at home in the freezer.”

Nothing says Memorial Day Weekend like a cookout.  I don’t know if the framers of the Lectionary had this in mind when they assigned the first reading to this day, but it sure fits, what with the altars, the wood, the sacrifices, the inability to get the darn thing to light, and finally the blazing fire.  I don’t know about you, but this reading makes me hungry and ready to do some grilling. 

But the story known as ‘Elijah’s contest with the prophets of Baal’ is not intended to get us in the mood for a cookout.  It arises from a serious situation, presents us with a serious question, and, in the end, raises other questions about the nature of religion that are deeply troubling.

Here is the background.  It is the 9^th Century BC and Ahab is the king of Israel.  He is married to Jezebel, the daughter of a Phoenician king.  Their parents arranged this marriage as part of the seal of a treaty between their two nations.  Jezebel is a devoted adherent of Baal, the Canaanite god of rain and fertility.  She sets up shrines to Baal and Asherah (his wife) all across the region and constructs a temple in the capital city of Samaria to be the worship center of her faith.  Then she persecutes the people who worship the God of Israel; slaughtering leaders and prophets by the hundreds. 

The prophet Elijah will have none of it.  He confronts Ahab in the name of Yahweh – the true and living God – and pronounces a three-year drought on the land as a way to show the powerlessness of the Canaanite god of rain.  Ahab sets out to kill Elijah who must stay on the run and fend for himself during this prolonged period of drought and famine. 

Finally, with today’s reading, Elijah reappears and confronts Ahab on Mt. Carmel.  All of Baal’ prophets are there and according to the text every Israelite is there too.  The prophet, standing alone, confronts them, “Why do you go limping forward with two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow God.  If Baal, then follow him.”

Baal worship had at least two things going for it.  First, it was tangible and material.  You could have your own statue of Baal in your house.  If it wasn’t working the way you wanted it to, you could trade it in for one bigger and better.  The positive psychological effect was exactly what we experience today when we buy a new suit or a new sofa or a new cell phone.  Material things have the ability to make us feel good, at least for a while.  Israelite religion strictly forbad any kind of image of God.  No part of the creation was allowed to stand in for the Creator.   Baal worship, with its emphasis on material things, offered an alluring alternative.

And speaking of alluring, here was the second thing Baal worship had going for it: sex.  It was woven right into the ritual of the service and much of the debauchery condemned throughout the Old Testament is in fact aimed at this practice. 

So this sets the stage for the cookout contest.  As weighty as Moses confronting Pharaoh, the destiny of the Yahweh faith hangs in the balance.  Elijah gives every advantage to Baal’s followers.  They set up their sacrifice and pray for hours, but there is no fire.  Elijah mocks them: “Maybe your god went to beach for the weekend.”  The prophets wail, they dance, they even injure their bodies, but nothing happens.  Whatever pride and prestige they had is transformed into a bloody, impotent, pathetic mess.

“Why do you go on limping forward with two different opinions?”  Elijah’s question to God’s people of that day is one we – God’s people today – need to ask ourselves.  When, where, why, and how do we try to have it both ways: trying to be faithful to God while at the same time shading it a bit so we can make it more comfortable to us?  Elijah’s image of limping suggests that trying to have it both ways does not lead to human flourishing.  Ultimately it is detrimental to who God has created us to be.

Now it is Elijah’s turn to light his grill.  Just as he gave his adversaries every advantage, he does everything he can to put himself at a disadvantage by pouring so much water over and around his altar that the sacrifice could almost float away.  Then he prays to God and God’s fire falls with such force that it consumes not only the offering and the water-drenched wood, but even the stone altar itself.  The people need no more proof.  They cry out, “The Lord is God indeed!”  And with this the appointed reading comes an end, but not the story.  In the very next verse, in an act of definitive judgment, the fire that consumes the offering consumes all of the prophets of Baal and Asherah – 850 people in all.  

Taken at face value, this story seems to suggest our religion is the only ‘right’ one and, more than wrong, everyone who believes something different is going to die.  The history of religious warfare is not very pretty and on this Memorial Day weekend those who have given their lives most recently have done so to defeat Islamic extremism.  Is our religion the only right one?  Is violence in the name of God every justified?

The gospel reading helps us to think about the first question.  In it Jesus learns of a Roman Centurion whose beloved servant is dying.  He knows of Jesus’ ability to heal and sends local elders to ask Jesus to come to his house.  The elders say some remarkable things about the centurion: he is worthy of a visit, he loves our people, and he built our synagogue.  The Roman soldier is not a Jew.  We are not told anything about his personal religion and practice, but we certainly see the fruit of it.  And while Jesus never actually meets him (he heals the servant from a distance) he says he has never found anywhere in all of Israel such an amazing, deep faith as the Roman’s. 

Is our religion the only ‘right’ one?  Well, according to this story there is a way to be an adherent to a different religion and yet still be a person of faith whose life is exemplary.  It is possible to worship in a different way and still flourish as the person God created you to be.

Is violence in the name of God every justified?  Just as the gospel proclaims there are good people in other faith traditions, the first reading reminds us there are those whose religious beliefs and practices call on them to harm, degrade, and kill others.  Ahab and Jezebel did not just institute a different brand of religion.  They hunted down and killed those who were faithful to Yahweh. 

When a religious perspective leads to the persecution of a specific minority, all people of faith must speak up and act.  When a religious perspective leads to violence, all people of faith must resist.  When a religious perspective instigates indiscriminant violence and death, all people of faith must stand and work together to make the world safe for human flourishing.  We must challenge religious violence and terror with methods and means consistent with God’s justice and righteousness.  We do not meet terror and violence by becoming like those who mean to do us harm, but rather in ways consistent with who God created us to be.

Well, I could go on exploring these big questions for some time if I wanted, but how about I let what I have said marinate for a while and you can ponder them over your grill this weekend.

The Bible's First Chapter - If I was in Charge!

A part of me wishes the 8^th chapter of the Book of Proverbs was the first chapter in the bible.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Genesis 1, with its story of creation in six days, and I like Genesis 2, with its description of how the first man and woman came to be, but these two chapters – too often taken literally – now function in a way that puts faith needlessly at odds with science.  A study done two years ago reported 42% of people in our country hold to a “creationist” perspective; believing God created everything more or less the way it is “described” “in the bible” approximately 10,000 years ago.  50% believe in some method of divine creative activity in and through the evolutionary process while the smallest minority (which is also the fastest growing) holds to a strictly secular understanding of evolution without divine involvement. 

William Brown, a Columbia University professor, wrote a book in 2010 titled The Seven Pillars of Creation. In it he articulates a unique challenge to those who believe creation came about “just the way it says in the bible” by examining not one, not two, but seven different creation stories in the Old Testament: Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Job 38-41, Psalm 104, passages in Isaiah 40-55, passages from Ecclesiastes, and today’s reading from Proverbs.  His examination leads to the conclusion these different accounts cannot be homogenized into one, single, comprehensive “biblical” story of creation.  To speak of “the story of creation” is to point to just one account, perhaps try to melt it in with another, while ignoring the testimony of the rest.  It is an approach which is selective at best and ignores the richness of the bible’s divergent views.  Brown wants to help his readers explore what the bible says about creation so we can engage science and faith in ways that are constructive rather than confrontational.

Today’s reading from Proverbs names God’s Spirit as ‘Wisdom’; personifying it and giving it a feminine identity: “Wisdom… she cries out.”  She, Wisdom, is present with God throughout the acts of creation as boundaries are established, limits are set, and order wisely infused into all there is.  It is a story about meaning in sharp contrast to another popular understanding at the time promoted through Babylonian stories and beliefs.  Their mythology imagined creation as a chaotic struggle between competing gods.  Their skirmishes spill over into the human realm, making our life unpredictable, placing us in constant flux, and consigning us as pawns to merciless whims beyond our control.  The Proverbs account describes life as being the product of an intentional and unified force.  Its members delight in each other and in what has been created.  Far from being removed, Wisdom herself is in the “inhabited world.”  Proverbs teaches there is a harmony and goodness to creation and invites us to live into its joy. 

Few if any people today hold to anything like the Babylonian view.  We are more likely to encounter the nihilistic perspective: those who reject religion and believe life is meaningless.  Nihilism is not science.  It is a belief like all other beliefs.  It cannot be proved scientifically to be a better or a worse belief than the Babylonian myths or the teachings of Proverbs.  The question is not which view is the “right” one, but rather what are the implications and consequences of each perspective.  What fruit does each produce in its adherents?  Does it help or hinder them from living in accordance with the way things seem to be. 

I wonder what our society’s conversations about science and belief might look like if Proverbs 8 was the first chapter in the bible, rather than being buried somewhere deep in the middle. 

Proverbs 8:30, as we heard it this morning, reads,

“When he [God] marked out the foundations of the earth,

then I [Wisdom] was beside him, like a master worker.”

One possible meaning of the Hebrew word ‘aman is ‘skilled worker’ or ‘architect’.  It makes sense here.  God has stitched together all of creation with a sense of wisdom and coherence.  There is order and predictability.  The best way to live in this world is to understand its wisdom and order your life accordingly.  To live at odds with how the Great Architect has created things to be is to be out of sorts.  Sin is more than just wrong.  Ultimately it makes life miserable because it is not the way things are supposed to be.  You reap the consequences of what you sow, for good or for ill.  This is just one of the meanings we can deduce about life as it is presented in the Proverbs 8 story of creation. 

But allow me to introduce a little hiccup.  In addition to ‘skilled worker’, that very same Hebrew word can mean ‘little child’ and ancient manuscripts are split about 50-50 as to which is the intended translation. 

“When he [God] marked out the foundations of the earth.

then I [Wisdom] was beside him, like a little child.”

This alternative does not seem to make as much sense as the first possibility, but look at the verses that follow it:

“I [Wisdom] was daily [God’s] delight,

rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the human race.”

In my experience workers work and little children delight in things.  These verses spawn in my mind the image of a little girl marveling at a doll house her father is making for her; pure delight, fascination, and joy.  One scholar suggests the passage portrays “the image of a giggling, joyful, little girl who laughs when God shows her God’s new creations -- the hilarious giraffe and hippopotamus, the monkeys and busy little ants.”  And the greatest joy and wonderment of all comes from us human beings.  We are the most amazing act of God’s creation and we have the potential to “delight” God in and through the things we do. 

Given this alternative interpretation, the Proverbs 8 story of creation invites us to see the goodness, joy, and wonder infused in and throughout creation.  It invites us to live with delight and to treat ourselves and others in a way that is delightful.  Terrence Fretheim, an Old Testament scholar, holds “that pleasure and playfulness are built into the very structure of things.”  Far from what many people assume to be true about religion – namely it exists to tell us all the things we are not allowed to do – “Wisdom opens up the world rather than closes it down.”

I don’t believe the images of Wisdom as an architect and as a little child are mutually exclusive.  Perhaps the writer of the passage intentionally crafted this ambiguity into the text so we might see both and recognize how each image expresses an important truth.  Either way, it is a refreshing change from the typical questions about “the  story of creation” in the bible:

Gone are these:

Did God really create the world in six days?

Were Adam and Eve really the first humans?

How do I reconcile what the bible ‘teaches’ about creation with what my brain tells me is true?

In are these:

How should I respond to the wise ordering sewn into the fabric of creation?

What does it look like to delight in God’s creative work?

This would be the conversation inspired by the first chapter of the bible if I was in charge.

"We are not Drunk"

A mother in the choir had a dilemma.  She wanted to bring her six-year old son to church, but realized he was too young to sit unattended.  Her solution, have the boy sit with his grandfather – her dad.  The only problem was grandpa was prone to falling asleep during the sermon.  The mother told her son she would pay him $5 if he kept his grandfather from nodding off.  Well, at some point during the rather lengthy sermon, the faint sound of snoring wafted through the church.  Sure enough, grandpa was fast asleep.  After the service the mother questioned her son.  Why didn’t he keep his grandfather awake?  Didn’t he want to make $5?  “Well, I did,” the little boy said, “until grandpa offered me $20 to let him sleep.”

Sermons.  This past week, while going through some of our historic artifacts, I came across this booklet.  It is a hand-written, pen and ink sermon on Luke chapter 8, verse 8 – “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  Now, there is no indication who wrote the sermon, but notations in the front and back of the booklet indicate when and where it was preached.  It was first delivered as a lecture in London, England on April 1, 1792 and then in February of 1793.  One week after the preacher arrived in the United States he delivered this sermon in Norfolk on March 20, 1796.  The notes indicate it was given in several other Virginia churches through 1808, but there is no record of it being preached here or how the booklet came to reside in our parish archives.

I spent this past week transcribing the sermon and let me just say before anyone suggests I should preach it here and now, please know that it is about six times longer than my typical sermon and – if I may be so modest – not nearly as gripping.  But, because I know you are curious, allow me to give you just a wee taste of what a sermon sounded like in 1792 by reading aloud its first two sentences:

He that knew what was in man, knew also of that slowness of apprehension, their grossnesses of conception, their blindness and inadvertency, the love of pleasures, the distraction of worldly cares, and the fear of persecution, were likely to prove great obstacles to their believing and embracing the doctrine of Christianity, and strong temptation to make them revolt from it, either in faith or practice, before they were well established in it.  And therefore, he acquaints them in this chapter under the Parable of the Sower, with the whole state and nature of the Christian dispensation, the different success and with his Gospel then did and would ever after meet with, and the main hindrances of its reception.

Shall I continue, “nay farther” (my favorite phrase from the sermon) with “the instruction in righteousness”, or do those of you in my “charge” – “careless and inattentive hearers” though you may be – desire and have appetite for me to move on?

Historic sermons.  In this morning’s first reading we hear the very first sermon ever preached in the Christian church.  The promised gift of the Holy Spirit has come upon the small band of Jesus’ followers and immediately they are empowered to proclaim and live out the faith.  Peter preaches the first sermon to a crowd which has gathered to figure out what all the commotion is about.  And what is the very first thing he says to them?  What is the first line of the first sermon ever preached?  Here it is:

“We are not drunk, as you suppose.”

Now that is a fantastic way to begin a sermon ever, isn’t it!

It may not be what you expected, but at its heart it is something we still have to address in our own time; namely the need to give an account of why we are a part of what our Presiding Bishop calls ‘the Jesus movement.’  The majority of people in our society have little or no connection to an organized faith community, they have no idea why we are here, what the things we doing here mean, and what we receive from our experience of being here. 

Why do you give your money to support the operations of this church?  Why do you give your time to teach in the Sunday School, change the Altar hangings, sing in the Choir, or pull weeds?  What fuels your deep compassion, your readiness to forgive, your strength in adversity, and your sense of hope and joy even at the darkest times?

The first sermon was preached because three things happened:

First, something very powerful happened to the faithful.

Second, the world new something happened to them, but didn’t know what, how, or why.

And third, Peter not only felt the need to explain himself, but also understood the importance of taking advantage of the opportunity.

“We are not drunk,” he said.  “God’s Spirit has been poured into us.” 

God’s Spirit has been poured into us.  Think about that for a moment.  Let it sink in.  Do you remember how, in last week’s sermon, I described God as being a perfect Relational Harmony – that this Relational Harmony is at the core of all existence and the fundamental essence of all reality?  I said the life of this Relational Harmony revolves around the qualities of mutuality, generosity, selflessness, and respect. 

When Jesus came to earth, he manifested this perfect Relational Harmony in human flesh and bone.  We could see it, touch it, engage it, listen to it, learn from it.  Peter, in explaining what has happened to him and his fellow believers, proclaims something even more astonishing: the perfect Relational Harmony, the core of all existence and the fundamental essence of all reality, had been poured into them.  It lives in them and they in it.  It lives through them and they through it.  And by referencing the prophet Joel, Peter touches on a historic awareness of the perfect Relational Harmony’s desire to share its life with all people and all of creation.

What do you believe?  How do you describe the hope that is in you?  We who are here today no longer do what everyone else is doing.  We are a distinct minority.  The grim possibility of eternal damnation does not hold sway in our time the way it did in 1792.  I can’t image you are here primarily to avoid it.  So why are you here? 

In the year 2260, if someone is tinkering with the ancient and long forgotten method of opening a Microsoft Word document on the hard drive of a personal computer and just so happens to come across today’s sermon, I am confident they will find it to be a curious novelty with a kind of language and process of thought distinctly unfamiliar to their own.  But I am also confident of two more things:  First, the Christian faith will be alive and well, but perhaps organized in a way very different from our time.  And second, the faithful will still need to give an account not so much of what they believe, but why they believe it.

I am not prepared for the fallout of what might happen should we all rush out of this service speaking in different languages, but I do expect us to be occupied by the Spirit of the perfect Relational Harmony and to manifest its qualities of mutuality, generosity, selflessness, and respect.  In and of itself, this will cause people to take notice and to wonder what in the world is going on with us.  What will you say to them?  A good opening entrée – something to lighten the mood – might be to follow Peter’s lead: “Well, I am not drunk.”  What you say from here is up to you.  Why are you here?

Relational Harmony & Ever-Widening Circles of Fellowship

Jesus prayed for his disciples, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… that they may be one as we are one… so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.”

This reading from the Gospel of John – with all of its “I am the walrus”–sounding language – gives us a glimpse into the very nature of all reality.  Let me explain by describing my core theology. 

At the heart of all existence there is a perfect Relational Harmony – a term which by its very nature implies a plurality, which we Christians confess as the Holy Trinity consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  This Relational Harmony exists as One, although it is comprised of separate, individual members.  The life of this Relational Harmony revolves around the qualities of mutuality, generosity, selflessness, and respect.

It existed before all things and independent of all things, but sought to share its life beyond itself.  The Relational Harmony brought forth creation and all living things in it to share in its life.  We human beings have tried to live into this reality, but far too often come up short.  Too often we live for ourselves and lack concern for anyone or anything else – call it relational dysfunction, or by another name ‘sin’.

Jesus Christ – the human manifestation of the Relational Harmony – lived as one of us to call us back to who we were created to be.  He invites us to be a part of the Relational Harmony and to grow in ever-widening circles of fellowship with other human beings as well as with all of creation.  Jesus’ prayer for us – “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… that they may be one as we are one… so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them” – is expressive of God’s deep desire to share the essence of God’s Relational Harmony with us.

Simple, right!

The truth is we can only live partially into this reality, but this does not mean it should not be our aim.  Our circles of fellowship can grow ever-wider as we allow the life of Relational Harmony to live in us.  As we know ourselves to be loved we find ourselves able to love.

Consider today’s reading from the Book of Acts.  Think about Paul.  When we first met him he was not exactly the embodiment of relational harmony; running all over the place arresting Christians, having them beaten, and even killed.  He was not the picture of mutuality, generosity, selflessness, or respect.  But all of this changes when the Risen Christ appears to him on the road to Damascus.  And while Paul does not become a perfect human being by any stretch of the imagination, we see him throughout the Book of Acts building an ever-widening circle of fellowship with the aim of manifesting God’s Relational Harmony.

On his journey with Silas, Paul comes across a girl with what the text describes as a ‘spirit of divination’ that enables her to discern people’s future.  Because there is money to be made from such an ability, she has been enslaved by her ‘owners’ who make a small fortune off of her.  For several days the girl cries out at Paul whenever she sees him until finally he commands the spirit to come out of her.  It does and the girl’s owners lose their money-maker.

What does relational harmony look like?  The girl’s owners were concerned with how they could use her for their own gain whereas Paul found a way to serve her.  How do you measure your relationships with others?  Are you focused on what you get out of them or on what you can give to them and do for them?  Do you wonder how you can use other people and manipulate other people for your own benefit, or do you wonder what the other person needs – perhaps a word of encouragement, a listening ear, an act of kindness, a measure of forgiveness, an assurance that his or her life matters – and do you search for a way to give it?  The Relational Harmony that is the Holy Trinity exists not to take from other members, but to give.  This is at the core of reality and a life lived any other way will be at dissidence with it.

When the girl’s owners realize she can no longer make money for them, they seize Paul and Silas and have them arrested, beaten, and imprisoned – not exactly a good position to be in when you are alone in a foreign land.  The text tells us Paul and Silas spend the night singing hymns and praying.  What does this tell you?  God’s Relational Harmony is not limited by circumstances.  When times are good and when times are bad, when times are easy and when times are tough, when times are sweet and when times are hostile we can live and move and have our being in God’s Relational Harmony. 

One of our Food Pantry clients took me aside last Monday because she wanted a word with me.  She told me how grateful she was for all we have done for her and the other clients.  Then she took my hand and slipped into it a crumpled up piece of paper.  “I want you to use this to help other people,” she told me and then walked away.  I looked in my hand and unfolded what she had given me.  It was a $20 bill.  That, I thought, was a lot of money for her to give.  I am sure she could have used it for many other things – some helpful, others frivolous.  She gave it to the Food Pantry while she was waiting in line to get food from the Food Pantry.  It was an act congruent with God’s Relational Harmony because her deep desire was to use what she had for the benefit of others.

Well, while Paul and Silas are singing and praying the night away in jail, an earthquake hits the region.  Their chains are loosened and the prison doors burst open.  Most would suspect they are free to go, but not these two.  They use it as an opportunity to witness to their jailor.  He and his family get baptized.  It is tempting to approach life wondering how we can take advantage of opportunities, but Paul looks for ways to share God’s love and life through the circumstances that surround him.  Paul draws the jailor and his family into his ever-widening circle of fellowship and as a result his world more closely resembles God’s perfect Relational Harmony.

Each one of us has the opportunity to live this way; in a way that aligns us with the essential reality of existence – Relational Harmony.  We won’t get it right 100% of the time, but it can be the mark for which we aim and the destination we hope to reach: serving others rather than taking from them, recognizing the possibility for goodness in every circumstance, and finding in ever opportunity the prospect of widening the circles of Godly fellowship in our lives.

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us… that they may be one as we are one… so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.”

Waiting by the Water

Thirty-eight years is a long time.  Think about where you were and what you were doing in May of 1978.  I was getting ready for my senior prom and preparing to graduate from high school.  And take a moment to ponder everything that has happened in your life sense then.  Think of all you have done and accomplished.  Think of the adversities you have faced and the challenges you have overcome.  Think about how life has changed.  In 1978, our house had only rotary dial telephones.  Today I carry my phone with me wherever I go and – as its name suggests – it is smarter than I am. 

Can you imagine what your life would be like if nothing about it had changed since 1978?  In this morning’s gospel reading we meet a person who can.  For thirty-eight years he has sat on a mat next to a pool of water.  He is unable to walk and so with other invalids he waits by the pool for an opportunity to be healed.  This kind of pool, known as an Asclepieion, could be found throughout the Roman Empire.  Followers of Ascelpius held that this Greek god had the power to heal and they referred to him as their “savior.”  From time to time Asclepius would touch a pool of water and the first person to bath in it would be healed or so the story went and thus Asclepieions attracted the desperate and hopeless.  

The text tells us the pool’s name is Beth-zatha, which in Hebrew can had a double meaning: either it could mean “House of Mercy” or “House of Grace” or it could mean “House of Shame” or “House of Disgrace”.  No doubt one’s interpretation depended on how much credence you gave to the healing power verses how much contempt you held for the superstitious and infirmed.  Its constituents probably evoked the same kind of response we have for people holding cardboard signs at a street light – either “you poor thing” or “go get a job.”

Albert Einstein is credited with saying the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.  If that is the definition, then this guy by the pool is the poster child.  For thirty-eight years he continues to suffer and to waste away.  No drive.  No initiative.  Doing nothing.  Producing nothing.  His really is a sad, pathetic story.  No wonder Jesus asked him if he wanted to be made well.  For thirty-eight years this fellow has done not one thing to help himself.  He is has not changed one thing about himself even though what he was doing clearly was not working.

This healing story is different from all the others in the gospels.  The lame man does not call out to Jesus and no one brings him to Jesus’ attention.  Jesus approaches him.  For his part, the lame man does not exhibit a shred of faith in Jesus – or in himself, for that matter.  When asked if he wants to be made well, the lame man’s lame response is “I have no one to put me in the water.  Someone else always gets there first.” 

The text does not tell us what motivates Jesus.  Is he moved by compassion or just exasperated with this man?  Here is my translation: “This is pitiful.  Quite wasting your time!  Stand up right now!  Pick up your mat and get on with your life.”  One commentator, noting this is a location for pagan worship, says it would be as if “a Muslim walked into a Pentecostal healing service, strode up to the oldest wheelchair-bound person he saw, and, right in front of the preacher, healed the person in the wheelchair.”  Perhaps Jesus wants to confront superstition itself; whether it be in the form of pagan worship or religious restrictions on doing good on the Sabbath day.  God knows there has always been a direct correlation between bad theology and real human suffering.  Jesus will have none of it.

Whereas the gospel reading leaves us with questions, today’s first reading gives us insight.  We know what motivates Paul to take the Gospel into present-day Europe for the first time.  He is responding to a vision of a man pleading with him to come and help.  So Paul goes.  This may not seem all that remarkable, but what a contrast it is to the lame man by the pool.  Evolutionary theory holds the advantage goes not to the strongest or to the most numerous, but to the organism best able to adapt to a changing environment.  While the lame man was stuck on his mat, Paul is (to use a current buzzword) nimble as nimble can be.

His agility is on full display as he strikes up a conversation with a group of women who, in something of a parallel, are also gathered by a body of water.  But unlike the lame man, these ladies are working.  Text tells us about Lydia.  She is a worshipper of God and she deals in purple cloth, which was the color of nobility in the Roman Empire and very rare.  Lydia’s was a lucrative trade.  The dye used to make the cloth came from the secretions of a particular sea snail, which Lydia and the other woman no doubt were harvesting as they talked with Paul.  She decides to be baptized, along with everyone else in her household, and becomes a leading figure in the early church.

Throughout the Book of Acts, the various disciples whose activities are chronicled are constantly on the move.  The Spirit is driving them to new places and guiding them through new experiences.  The early Church, infused with the dynamic life of Jesus, was not content to sit on a mat for thirty-eight years or to wait to see if something might change.  It was open and responsive to God’s initiative.  It learned to adapt to changing cultures, political climates, and norms in order to tell the story of Jesus. 

Today’s two stories challenge today’s church.  The seven-word mission of too many congregations is “We’ve never done it that way before!”  Something to this effect would have been an appropriate epitaph on the lame man’s tombstone until Jesus showed up in his life.  Congregations that sit back passively and expect things to change are dying.  They are running out of life far quicker than they are running out of members or money. 

But those congregations with a sense of a God-given mission and purpose beyond themselves are discovering new sources of vitality, even if membership and money are stagnant.  From my perspective, St. Paul’s Food Pantry has given us a way to focus on people in our immediate community and the hospitality and compassion we show to them has transformed the way we welcome new people into our parish – an increasingly important skill given the transient nature of our community.  We continue to find God’s goodness, God’s joy, and God’s compassion as we come together and we extend it to every person who comes through our doors.

These two readings also say something important to us as individuals.  They challenge us to take a hard look at our lives, to recognize where, how, and why we have been stuck; perhaps for years and years.  They challenge us to examine deeply held beliefs and assumptions in order to identify those notions that have kept us passive and paralyzed when it comes to moving forward and moving on.  Jesus comes to the man by the pool with a startling new idea – stand up and walk.  It is hardly a revolutionary idea, and yet it breaks through every inner idea holding down this man.  No more waiting for a ripple in the water.  No more complaining he has no one to help him.

It reminds of a story about a pilgrim on a journey who, while walking through a field, comes to a large wall blocking his way.  It is too high to scale and from his vantage point it seems to stretch for miles and miles in either direction.  What is he too do?  He can’t climb over it and can’t walk around it?  Will his journey stop at the wall?  Then an idea comes to the pilgrim.  He wonders how thick the wall might be.  He touches it and what do you know, the wall turns out to be thin as paper.  He walks right through it and continues on his way.

Many of the problems that paralyze us in life – especially when powered and fueled by our emotional response to them and fear of them – are just like that wall.  We can’t figure out how to get over them or around them and so we just stop and let it get the better of us.  The thing is, with Jesus, many of our problems are so thin that if we just walk through them they go away.  Notice how the text says Lydia’s heart was open as she listened eagerly to Paul.  Listen to God with an open heart.  You just might hear the words, “Stand up and walk.”  Don’t wait thirty-eight years.  In fact, don’t wait another day.

Emulating Jesus

Words have the potential for incredible power; power that can transform lives and the world we live in.  And it doesn’t take many words either.  Consider the impact these four statements have had on our world, even though each is less than fifteen words long: 

  “Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

  “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

  “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” – Teddy Roosevelt

  “Your time is limited.  Don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

In this morning’s reading from the Gospel of John we hear Jesus say fourteen words that have reshaped the course of history and human interaction: “A new commandment I give you: love one another as I have loved you.”  Spoken after diner in the upper room on Maundy Thursday and just hours before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, this new command becomes the final teaching Jesus gives to his followers. 

If “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” forms the core basis of all Christian ethics, then “love one another as Jesus loves you” is the primary mark of discipleship.  In fact, Jesus says, “By this everyone will know you you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  From reading the gospels, to considering the history of the Christian church, to casual observations of how we ‘believers’ get along with one another in our own day, it is obvious loving one another is no simple task. 

One of the most important projects I am a part of right now is gathering monthly with a multi-denominational, interracial group of clergy here in Suffolk.  We are sharing our stories and learning together more about what is happening in our community.  It interests me that our group is tempted to want to “produce” something for Jesus, something like say, a tent revival with music and preaching and an inflatable bounce house for kids.  It is an idea resting on solid biblical teaching: Jesus did say, “Go out into all the world making disciples and baptizing in my name.”  But today’s reading reminds us that how we live with one another is just as important to Jesus as what we say about him to others.  Inviting seekers into our Christian way and life is pointless if our fellowship is not characterized by the love Christ has for us.  I have said it before: our being (who we are as people of faith) is just as important as our doing.  What we do for Jesus always emanates from who we are together with Jesus.  For now, I believe the best thing our clergy group can do is allow our Christ-like love for one another to grow.  The bounce house can wait.

“Love one another as I have loved you.”  What exactly is Jesus asking us to do?  His actions form the foundation for our behavior toward one another, but how?  Let me suggest a couple of things this is not, as well as a possibility for what it is:

  Clearly Jesus is not calling us to mimic him.  To mimic is to copy someone’s mannerisms and expressions.  Since we have never met Jesus in the flesh it is impossible for us to mimic him.

  Obviously Jesus is not commanding us to impersonate him.  When we love one another as he loves us we are not trying to fool other people into thinking we are Jesus.

  Perhaps Jesus is commanding us to imitate him; to do something in the same way he did it.  But this too has problems.  Think about the setting for today’s reading.  Jesus has already acted out for the disciples what it looks like to love one another as he loves.  He stood up after the meal was finished, stripped off his cloths, wrapped himself in a towel, and performed the role of a servant by washing his followers’ feet.  Imitating this action would not be hard, but would it be effective?  Does the act of foot washing convey across all time and through all cultures what Jesus’ love is to look like?  I don’t suggest you walk into Wal-Mart, take off your clothes, wrap yourself in a towel, and offer to start washing feet (although I am curious as to what Judge Moore would say when you appeared before him in court).

So here is one final possibility: perhaps Jesus is calling us to emulate him.  People often treat imitation and emulation as interchangeable words, as if they meant the same thing, but they don’t.  Imitate means to do something in the same way as something or someone else.  Emulation is different.  If you are a stickler for words, you may be familiar with Paul Brian’s book Common Errors in English Usage.  In it he writes this:

People generally know what “imitate” means, but they sometimes don’t understand that “emulate” is a more specialized word with a purely positive function, meaning to try to equal or match.  Thus if you try to climb the same mountain your big brother did, you’re emulating him; but if you copy his habit of sticking peas up his nose, you’re just imitating him. 

Here is something else that may help to clarify the difference.  Italian Renaissance artists believed the best way for a young artist to learn how to paint was to copy in exacting detail the works of a great master.  This work of imitation gave the artist a foundation upon which to step out in order to create his or her own unique style.  This process, rooted and grounded in the master’s work, but expressive of the young artists’ individual talent and perspective, is what emulation looks like.

Chris Goslow, a pianist and composer, encountered this distinction in his own life and wrote about it on his blogsite:

I got mixed up over the difference between learning from those I admired and thinking that I should try to be JUST LIKE them.  In other words, I confused imitation with emulation.  Ultimately, I found that trying to follow in someone else’s footsteps does not work.  Instead, I have found that I must follow my own creative path, even as I’m inspired by learning from others.  It is the key to creative happiness and fulfillment.

When Jesus says, “You are to love one another as I have loved you,” he is commanding us to emulate him; to take his example and make it our own by putting our own unique stamp on it – loving as Jesus loved in a way that is true and authentic to who we are as a created and beloved child of God.

Years ago at a Vestry meeting at a previous church I served, a person brought up an exciting new idea.  He had learned of a church in Tennessee where a group of men got together every Saturday morning and offered to do basic maintenance for parishioners’ cars – things like change the oil, fill the fluids, check the belts, adjust air pressure… that kind of thing.  It is, in my estimation, a wonderful way to emulate Christ’s love and that Vestry thought it would be a great ministry for us to offer to our parish.  Then came the crucial question: who in our church likes to work on cars?  The answer: no one.  Then the question became this: what do we like to do?  It was not our call to imitate the ministry of the church in Tennessee.  It was our call to emulate their example by finding our own unique way to live out Christ’s teaching.

Through this morning’s baptisms we welcome four new people into the Christian faith and life.  They are now a part of our wonderful fellowship of disciples who seek to emulate Jesus’ love for one another.  Though our prayers we will ask God to fill them with the holy and life-giving Spirit.  We will ask God to teach them to love others in the power of the Spirit.  And we will ask God to send them into the world in witness to God’s love.  And while they will be filled with God’s Spirit, not one thing about their flesh and bones will be changed.  They will continue to be who they are and act in ways unique to who God has created them to be.  They won’t mimic, impersonate, or even imitate what it means to be a Christian.  They will emulate it by being the Christian only they can be.

Like a young Italian Renaissance artist, if you are going to love others as Christ loves you, you will need to spend some time imitating what you see in Jesus.  But this must give way to emulation as you grow in your sense of self and calling.  Only you can be you.  Only you can manifest Christ’s love in the way you do.  Do you believe in yourself enough to do this?  Do you value yourself enough to create your own unique way to love others as Jesus loves you?