The Voices We Hear

 

John 10:22-30

Easter 4 / Year C

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me.” 

After a detailed study, anthropologist Roberta Salmi determined babies recognize the voice of their mother within a few hours of being born.  During the last ten weeks of pregnancy, she found, a baby begins to absorb what it is hearing and shortly after birth can demonstrate a familiarity with the language spoken by its mother.  Even before we are born we learn to recognize a specific voice and begin to follow.

And while a mother’s is the first voice we hear, it won’t be the last.  In fact, there are so many voices competing for our attention, one of the most essential life skills we must develop is learning how to focus our attention on what matters most while tuning out rest of the stuff which can be little more than noise.  We call this skill discernment, which is something more vast than simply what we listen to, but it does involve this, and it is comforting to know we get a leg up in the womb when we begin to home in on one of the most important voices we will encounter during all our days.

In today’s reading, when Jesus tells his critics his sheep know his voice, he is (in effect) telling them they don’t know who he is because they are not his of his flock.  Most often we turn this around and take from it the message Jesus is the shepherd who calls us to follow him.  It harkens back to one of the unique features of shepherding, namely, sheep, even when intermingled amongst other herds, respond to the call of their specific shepherd.  They associate his voice with the one who leads them to food and water, protects them from harm, tends to their wounds, finds shelter from the storms, and (perhaps like David) even sings to them, creating an atmosphere of calm and peace.  

When we are baptized we promise to turn from…

·    Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God,

·    All the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, and

·    All sinful desires which draw us from the love of God.

As I say to those in baptismal preparation, we commit to renounce Satan, the world, and the self in order to turn to Jesus as our Savior (the One who frees us from the bondage of sin), our Lord (the One who we will obey), and our Guide (the One who shows us the way).  Satan, the world, the self, our Savior, our Lord, and our Guide: each has a voice that speaks to us and we must discern which is which.

I don’t think I have ever met a person who openly cultivates the voice of Satan, but I do know some colleagues who say they have.  I do know many who have followed the voices of evil which calls us (among other things) to dominate the weak or to seek revenge on our enemies or to use power to inflict pain for the sport of it. 

As for the world, it has many voices telling us how materialism is the path to happiness, beauty is the path to self-esteem, and consumption is the key to inner fulfillment.  Some people speak to us in a worldly way, perhaps an old teacher who said you will never amount to anything or a subordinate who butters you up for his or her own advancement.  I could go on, but you are discerning enough to do this work through your own analysis.

But what about the voice inside you?  What does the self say to you? 

I spent a summer in college scooping ice cream at a store in a shopping mall.  One night we had to work late and at some point the mall’s large fountain shut off.  The large concourse became dead quiet, like I had never heard it before in that space.  It was only when the fountain was still that I became aware of how much sound it was constantly making.

Our inner voice can be like this.  It is always on to the effect we may not even realize it, although we do hear it.  This can be good or bad, depending on what it is saying to you.  It might say, “You can do it!”, “Tomorrow will be a new day”, “You are good enough just the way you” or a thousand other things which remind you of your value and affirm your basic dignity and worth.

Or, your inner voice can be incredibly harsh and unforgiving: “Why am I always so stupid?”, “What else did I expect to happen given I’ve always been a failure?”, “Why didn’t I just keep quiet?  When will it ever sink into my head no one wants to hear what I have to say anyways.”  For some, this voice is cruel and unrelenting.  But it is not the voice of the Good Shepherd.  It is not the voice we turn to at our baptism.  It is the voice we renounce with the full conviction what Jesus says to us overrides everything else we are hearing.

God spoke to Jeremiah, little more than a child at the time, saying what we might expect a mother to say, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you” (Jeremiah 1:5).  Our shepherd’s voice is like this, speaking to us of how we a precious, special, deeply loved, and valuable beyond all measure… just as we are.  This is the voice we hear, and it is the one we follow because we know to whom we belong.  Learning to discern this voice amidst all the other voices vying for our attention and responding to it in the way a flock responds only to the voice of its shepherd is an act of discipleship.  It demonstrates we are followers of Jesus because we know his voice.

Peace be with You

 

John 20:19-31

Easer 3 / Year C

Imagine you are in Jerusalem gathered with friends in a room where days before you had shared the Passover meal.  It had been a warm event, not unlike the Agape Meal we experienced on Maundy Thursday.  Jesus, the host, washed your feet to demonstrate the power and place of loving one another as he loves us, spoke cryptically about an insider who would betray him, and, generally speaking, was in a dark mood.  Still, all things considered, you and the others are tired, but upbeat as you make your way out into the city and across the Kidron Valley to reach the group’s nighttime destination in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

Then everything changes and changes dramatically.  An armed palace guard arrests Jesus.  After being tried by the Sanhedrin, interrogated by Romans officials, beaten, whipped, humiliated, and mocked by soldiers, he is placed before a mob of fellow citizens who demand his execution.  He is forced to carry his own cross on a torturous uphill route to Golgotha.  There he is crucified – one of the most brutal forms of capital punishment ever devised.

And now, just three days later, you are huddled in the place where days before Jesus broke bread with you.  There are many questions and few answers.  Are the authorities looking to arrest you as they did Jesus?  Will locals be rewarded for turning you in?  What should your next move be?  How do you make sense of everything you had seen and heard and done over the last three years?  Why is Jesus’ body be missing from its tomb, as some of the women reported and Peter verified?  Will you ever be able to get over the crushing grief of losing your rabbi, your leader, and your friend?

The world on the other side of the door where you are gathered holds so many unknowns.  This much is certain, you and your friends are at great risk.  Fear permeates the air.  No one questions why the door is locked.  If anything, perhaps some wonder why it isn’t barricaded also. 

Nothing compares to the emotion you feel when your entire world collapses.  It is completely disorienting.  It is all-encompassing.  It is a kind of numb so painful you can barely breath.  This is where you and Jesus’ other followers find yourselves.

And then Jesus appears in the room with you.  I can’t conceive of a similar experience we might have to which it compares.  It is unlike anything else which has happened in human history.  Given this, the first thing Jesus says to those of us gathered takes on a special significance: “Peace be with you.”  Some commentators note this is merely a standard cultural greeting.  But given Jesus says it twice and then again when he appears eight days later, it seems to carry more weight than “Hi everyone, how is it going?”  The root of the Hebrew word for peace denotes “to join”, “to tie together into a whole”, and “wholeness”.  It conveys an image of something shattered being put back together.  In a fractured and broken world, God’s peace restores us to how God intends us to be. 

This is what Jesus brings to his followers gathered in that room.  And it is more than words.  He breathes on them to impart the Holy Spirit whose work it is to tie together, to make things whole.  This two-fold act, along with the awareness of the Resurrection, changes everything for those present.  Notice it changes nothing about the reality on the other side of the locked door.  The same thugs and sell-outs are still in charge.  It remains as hostile as before.  But with Jesus present the room becomes a sanctuary.  All fear is banished.  There is only peace and unspeakable joy.

Like those early disciples, we live in uncertain and ominous times.  If you ask a thousand people to describe the world today, I am confident not a single person would use the word ‘wholeness’ or anything like it.  And yet this is exactly what Christ offers to you, to me, and to us.  Our faith community is a place where we can be still and know what it is to be tied together by God’s Spirit, to abide in peace regardless of circumstances. 

I like that our Easter lessons have us reading from the Book of Acts because they remind us what the disciples say and do in the first weeks and months after the Resurrection.  The peace Christ imparts on them is anything but a private gift.  Rather, it empowers them to witness with boldness to the very people responsible for Jesus’ death.  It enables them to speak truth in a troubling time.  The disciples understand their wholeness is not intended to be solely a personal benefit.  They decern it to be God’s gift to the world, made possible in Christ.  This is what they proclaim.  This is how they live.

My hope and prayer is that as you gather here you will experience the presence of Christ, that this moment will be a sanctuary for you, that you will sense all things being tied together and made whole, and that you will go out into the world bearing the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Consummation & Bliss

 

Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday / Year A

Facebook has figured out something about me.  I am a sucker for videos of furniture restoration.  It knows this because it keeps feeding them to me… and, apparently, I keep watching them.  Have you seen any of these?  Someone finds, say, an old dresser thrown out on the curb, picks it up, and takes it home.  It’s crusted in layers of paint, each more hideous than the one before.  Perhaps a leg is missing, but there are always nicks, scratches, and various marks indicating a history of rough treatment.  In the best-case scenario, handles, knobs, and hinges are tarnished, in the worst case… they are gone altogether.  There is absolutely no mystery as to why this hunk of drawers had been discarded as trash.

But then the treasurer hunter gets to work: stripping off old paint, replacing lost chips, fabricating missing pieces, and sanding… lots and lots of scraping and sanding.  And then comes the payoff… the refinishing… something which brings out the wood’s grain and gives the piece an up-to-date, luxurious look anyone would be proud to own.  The before and after pictures never fail to astonish me.  What had been cast off is turned into a gem… an heirloom… a showpiece that will bring dignity and grace to its new home.  The refurbished piece has been resurrected; brought back from the dead and given breathtaking new life.

I suppose folks celebrate Easter for different reasons.  For some, it is little more than a joyful reminder winter has passed, and the earth is springing back to life.  Some see in it proof Jesus is the Son of God.  Others rejoice in its promise our sins are forgiven and we will inherit eternal life.  But me, I give thanks for the hope one day we will find (to use the language of the prayer book) our “consummation and bliss” with Christ in his eternal glory.

What do I mean by consummation and bliss? 

Well, we who have been baptized into the Christian faith and life, dedicate ourselves to forsaking our sins, to patterning our lives after our Savior, and to walking with him daily throughout our earthly pilgrimage.  And though this is our aim, it is a destination we never fully reach.  In addition, life has a way of leaving its marks on us.  Some are inflicted by others, while many are self-imposed.  Let’s just say we leave this life and enter the next in need of repairs.  For some it requires only a little polishing, others need a bit more touch-up work, while for people like me, a total make-over will be in order.  The idea of consummation and bliss suggests to me it will be God’s work to make us who we have always striven to be, but never quite could achieve.  It will be God’s work to heal what is hurt, to replace what is broken, to clean up what is tarnished about us.  This, for me, is our ultimate consummation – what awaits us in the end.  This, for me, is our ultimate bliss – the highest possible happiness. 

When Jesus emerges from the tomb he emerges just as he entered, wounds and all, because he lived his life completely as God intends.  We, well we who have fallen short of this will be changed into his glorious likeness.

Perhaps what St. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi resonates with you:

All of the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life.  Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung.  I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him…  I gave up all that inferior stuff so I might know Christ personally, experiencing his resurrection power…  I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have made it my own.  But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me.  Friends, don’t get me wrong; By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus.  I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.  (3:8-14, The Message)

On this day as we celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord and Savior, we give thanks one day our life-long pursuit of being like him will be complete.

Providing a Place for Resurrection to Happen

 

Good Friday

An innocent man falsely accused and punished by the state.  An insurrectionist released.  Public influencers manipulating the thoughts and actions of the people.  The initial Good Friday, occurring almost 2,000 years ago, disturbingly mirrors what is transpiring in our country in our own day and time.  The cast of characters may have changed, but the dynamic of the events from back then, which we gather at this noon hour to lament, are being replayed once again. 

More and more, people are asking me as their spiritual leader what they can do – what they should do – at an hour such as this.  I wish I could climb Mt. Sinai and return with ten directives etched in stone for folks to follow, but I can’t.  Ranting on social media may make you feel good for a moment, but affects very little change.  Contacting your congressional representatives likely is going to be met with a form-letter reply.  Arguing with a family and friends is worse than fruitless. 

I have clergy colleagues advocating for people in my position to speak up and speak out because silence means complicity.  I continue to weigh my ordination vow to boldly and prophetically proclaim the word of God with my vow to care for all people in the flock I serve, regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation, or political affiliation.  I continue to seek discernment on the tension between prophet and pastor, but again, Mt. Sinai has not weighed in with something definitive.

In the biblical account of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution, we read about Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea, two people whose witness has something to say to us.  Both are members of the Great Sanhedrin, a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly of seventy elders.  It is this body which tries Jesus and finds him guilty, a decision neither Joseph or Nicodemus endorses.  They represent for us what it looks like not to support the status quo and yet be powerless to affect a different outcome. 

At a great deal of personal risk and no little personal expense, they approach Pilate and request permission to give Jesus’ body a proper burial.  By tending to the body, in spite of all the chaos and insanity surrounding them, Joseph and Nicodemus find a moment and an opportunity to reaffirm basic human dignity; to hold true to the standards and time-honored sensibilities of the Hebrew tradition.  Their actions do not bring Jesus back to life.  They do not sway public sentiment.  They do not set wrongs.  But here is what they did do.  By setting Jesus’ body in a tomb they provide the setting for the Easter moment.  They provide a place for Resurrection to happen.

These days, more and more, I find myself reflecting on the Velvet Revolution, a series of 1989 events unfolding over six weeks in Czechoslovakia which led to the downfall of the Soviet-backed communist party and the election of Hàclav Havel, a poet and playwright, as the president of a free country.  The revolution was fueled by students and other dissidents who gathered nightly for prayer and the singing of hymns before going out onto the streets to conduct peaceful protests.  In less than a month, the movement, starting with a relatively small number, began to double daily, and eventually drew over a million people.  Czechoslovakia became the first domino to fall in what resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the demolition of the Berlin Wall.  It would be impossible to pinpoint a specific factor which launched the Velvet Revolution, but it is fair to say what happened provided a place for Resurrection to happen.   

It seems every year I remind us the Good Friday liturgy calls the faithful to prayer, specially to the Solemn Collects.  They remind us now that as Jesus’ work is finished, ours begins… and it begins with prayer.  This year, a part of my prayer is our actions might provide a place for Resurrection to happen.      

A Mighty Purpose

 

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday / Year C

Luke 22:14-5:56

Have you watched any of the Master’s Tournament this weekend?  I haven’t, even though it is the most prestigious event in the golfing world.  The purpose of golf is pretty straightforward: hit the ball down the fairway toward the green and into the cup using the fewest strokes possible.  Some are better at it than others. 

What is the purpose of life?  The answer to this question is a bit less clear and varies from person to person.  In fact, how we answer – if we have an answer at all – may even vary from day to day and certainly shifts over the course of one’s life.  If we don’t know what the purpose of life is, how do we know if we are living it well?  In golf you have a scorecard.  It tells you how you are doing over the course of eighteen holes.  But what about life?  How do we measure the way we are living?

I read of a gentleman who upon meeting a person for the first time never asked conventional questions such as “What do you do for a living?” or “Where are you from?”  He asked people “What have you done that you believe in and are proud of?”  For some it is an unsettling question, but not for all.  One woman told him that she was doing a good job raising her three children.  A cabinetmaker told him, “I believe in good craftmanship and practice it.”  Another person told him she had started a flower shop and it was the best for miles around.”  Perhaps the first step to finding your purpose of life is to have a good answer to the question “What have you done that you believe in and are proud of?” 

Every year as I listen to the Passion reading I am always struck by how Jesus was in charge of nothing yet in control of everything.  He lived his life with purpose and with passion: healing the sick, calling the lost, forgiving the sinner, lifting up the outcast, challenging the proud, confronting the powerful, and proclaiming the presence of the Kingdom of God in the midst of a society that looked like anything but.  He knew who he was, he embraced his calling, and he accepted the consequences that came with it.

In the preface to his book Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw wrote this:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 

This quote helps me to understand why I so deeply admire Jesus.  He lived with a mighty purpose, he persisted to the end, and strove in all ways to make the world a better place.  I admire his singular clarity about living.  I suspect if we could ask Jesus what he had done that he believed in and what he was proud of, he would say he believed in the Kingdom of God and was proud of the way he lived and died for it.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, contemplating Jesus’ example, wrote, “The purpose of life is not to be happy, but to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived life and lived it well.”

As you listen again to the Passion of our Lord I wonder if you come away with the same sense I do, that your life is small in comparison.  It is not that we have to be the Messiah, the one who saves all humanity.  This is not our goal, our calling, or our purpose.  But don’t you sit back and wonder if you are doing great things well within your ability and doing them to the fullest?  The old evangelist Billy Sunday once noted more people fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent.  I suspect he is right. 

Jesus died because he had a purpose to his life; a purpose which called humanity to live as God intends and as a result he threatened those in power.  I am suggesting many of us fail to live because we have not discerned a great purpose in life; a purpose worthy of the name ‘Christian’ – a follower of Christ.

Perhaps you can identify with the main character in the Afghani author Khaled Hosseini’s novel And the Mountains Echoed who says,

The cities, the roads, the countryside, the people I meet – they all begin to blur.  I tell myself I am searching for something.  But more and more, it feels like I am wandering, waiting for something to happen to me, something that will change everything, something that my whole life has been leading up to.

For many of us Holy Week will be the most spiritual time of the year.  We will attend services, gather in fellowship, listen to the bible, and relive the last moments of our Lord’s life.  I encourage you to use this week to think about your purpose in life.  Perhaps your prayer can be, “O God, I want to be like Jesus.  Please guide me to something I can believe in that will honor you and make me proud of what I do.”

A Very Human Need

John 12:1-8

Lent 5 / Year C 

“Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard and anointed Jesus’ feet.” 

A little background on nard.  It comes from the root of a plant in the honeysuckle family which only grows in the Himalayas at an altitude roughly between 10,000-15,000 feet above sea level.  Its roots, when crushed and distilled, form a thick, amber-colored oil with a very pungent, musky aroma.  In biblical times this product was used to scent perfume, included in recipes, and added to wine.  In addition, it was an herbal medicine used to treat a wide variety of health conditions, everything from insomnia to depression to wound care.  And because it had such a powerful, lingering fragrance, it was used in the burial process to mask the odor of decay.  Rare and expensive at the time, we are blessed to live in an age when you can purchase pure nard on Amazon as an oil, an air freshener, and even as a roll on starting at $11.99 on up.

In John’s gospel, Mary’s action, like most every other event he records, is deeply symbolic.  Jesus himself sees it as foreshadowing of own burial which is less than a week away.  But, as with the other signs, what holds deep significance also has a very practical, very human purpose.  The water turned to wine at Cana signals new life, but it is also a basic staple of a celebration. The water at the well in Samaria points to the living water Jesus makes available through the Spirit, but is also a refreshing drink at the noon hour on a blistering day.  The wine and bread at the Last Supper represent Christ’s body and blood, but at a fundamental level provides nourishment to a group of hungry people.   

Mary’s action addresses a very human need.  Jesus’ feet are dirty.  They ache.  They may have bruises or blisters or abrasions.  Taken at this level, what she does is thoughtful and kind.  It is a kind of grace, unneeded and yet much appreciated.  It is just one of those things which makes life easier to bear by easing a little bit of another person’s burden.  You never know when a simple act offered at just the right time will be for another an enormous source of relief and encouragement in the struggle which is life.

I do not consider myself to be the most attentive, situationally aware of the needs of others kind of person, but there are times when I do pick up on something and find myself inspired to act; and yes, I use the word ‘inspired’ intentionally because the impulse to do a specific thing to help another most often comes ‘to’ me, not from ‘within’ me.  Pilgrimages helped me with this.  I tended to finish each day’s walk before many in our group and, after resting a bit, I often backtracked (particularly on the long, difficult days) to welcome in those who, unaware, were closing in on the day’s destination, saying, “You are almost there!”  It was a small gesture, but always appreciated.

Mary’s gesture is much deeper than this.  In the culture at the time, her action speaks of humility, devotion, and service; with perhaps devotion being most significant to her.  Jesus had healed her father Simon of leprosy.  She sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him teach while her sister Martha stewed in the kitchen.  And, after her brother Lazarus had been in the grave for several days, Jesus brought him back to life.  Yes, she is deeply devoted to Jesus and is keenly attuned to his needs.  The nard must have felt luxurious as she applied it to his feet.  And more than one commentator suggests its scent would have lingered long enough for Jesus to sense it even as he hung on the cross. 

In Mary we have a model of thoughtfulness and selflessness, sacrificing an alabaster jar of expensive nard which some commentators posit was a dowry, others a retirement investment.  And a good sermon might end with the preacher encouraging listeners to be like Mary, maybe even pointing out whatever act of compassion you offer to another you extend to Jesus as well.  It is a lesson worth keeping in mind to be sure.

But what does Jesus model for us to emulate?  He shows us what it is like to be human – to be physically tired, to be sore to the core, to be done in by the demands of the daily round.  He is aware of how he feels and receptive to an effort to ease what ails him.  He embraces the ministry of another’s care because he, like us, has physical needs.  

Throughout Lent we have been focusing on the metaphor of pilgrimage.  To see yourself as a pilgrim is to acknowledge life begins, continues, and ends in God.  Of the three, continues is the most challenging.  From time to time, we find ourselves physically spent, emotionally drained, and spiritually dry.  Jesus knows this because he knew it in his own life.  He willingly accepted Mary’s thoughtful and compassionate act.  His posture invites us to welcome gladly the grace others extend.  And it reminds us to seek refreshment at the Lord’s Table, where our Heavenly Companion offers us a balm which lingers long to meet our every need.

No Longer from a Human Point of View

 

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 & Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Lent 4 / Year C

St. Paul writes, “From now on we regard no one from a human point of view.”  We might want to ask, “What is a human point of view?” and “What has changed so that we no longer categorize people in this way?”

Well, let me illustrate what a human point of view looks like.  Years ago I officiated a wedding and after the service, the wedding party went off to take pictures at a lovely city park featuring a picturesque lake with a charming arched bridge crossing at its narrowest point.  At least 30 other parties were there for the exact same reason.  And, as you can imagine, the bridge was a setting very much in demand.  Each individual group might hold it for twenty minutes or more as a photographer clicked away from every possible angle.  As soon as one wedding party vacated the bridge another pounced to get it.  All in all, the scene was quite comical, like something out of a Monty Python movie.  At one point I heard a photographer scream, “The bridge is empty.  If we most fast we can take it!”, launching a full-on sprint by a young woman in a wedding dress with her new husband hard charging right behind her.

The people gathered in the park that afternoon could have regarded one another by any number of perspectives they shared in common: all were young, all were celebrating a new marriage, all are members of the human family.  But how did they view one another?  As combatants seeking to occupy the same ground.  This is one snapshot of what it looks like to regard another from a human point of view.

Why does Paul say “we” no longer regard any person from a human point of view?  Because we are “in Christ”, made a new creation by embracing God’s reconciling love for us.  Everything about us before, including perceiving others from “a human point of view”, has passed away.  We now see the world in an entirely new light.  We see every person as God sees them.

And there is no better illustration of God’s perspective than today’s gospel reading… Jesus’ parable known as the Prodigal Son.  We find in the father’s love for his wayward son an image of God’s love for us.  Based on the father’s behavior we learn God grants us enough leeway to choose our own path (even when it can be destructive), is longsuffering as we stray, and receives us with open arms whenever we return.  Why?  Because from God’s point of view we are beloved, not because we earn it, but because we are.  No conditions are attached.  Our proper response to God’s unconditional love is to come home, or as Paul says, to “be in Christ.” 

In the elder brother we see what it looks like to regard another from a human point of view.  He sees his younger sibling in the full, unvarnished light of all his misdeeds, slights, foolish decisions, and willful disobedience.  And this is not an inaccurate assessment.  He describes his brother perfectly from a human point of view.  And did you notice how he sees himself from the same perspective?  He thinks of himself as being hard working, deserving on account of his loyalty and sacrifice, and (most of all) underappreciated.  And again, from a human point of view, he calculates his value accurately.  But the father’s calculation, like God’s, begins and ends with his unfailing love for each of his sons. 

Paul says we who are in Christ now view everyone from this perspective.  In fact, we are appointed as ambassadors to manifest this in the world and to proclaim it to all people… especially to Tyrell Montrel Echolas, a 40-year-old from Tennessee. 

Why do I mention him?  Because last Wednesday he began to send text messages to our parish members claiming to be me, pretending I needed money to for some pastoral need.  It was, of course, a scam and I know several of you were confused by it.  Someone shared with me information about Mr. Echolas garnered from a web service (including the fact he has 62 criminal infractions and has been in prison multiple times).

Armed with this report, I thought about calling him directly and giving him a piece of my mind.  From a worldly point of view, he deserved it.  But, because at the time I also was pondering what Paul wrote, I began to wonder what it would look like to approach him as an ambassador for Christ charged with sharing how God sees him as beloved.  I didn’t figure out what Ambassador Keith should do before I learned from one of you his phone is not set up to receive calls.  Still, I ponder the question because Paul says I should no longer view Tyrell from a human point of view.

One of the blessings of being a pilgrim on the Camino is how it transforms the way you experience others who are walking the Way with you, be they companions or total strangers.  The earthly perspectives of age, gender, nationality, physical condition, and more, gives way to a realization we are all on a spiritual journey.  It is a connection which becomes palatable as arriving pilgrims gather in the square in front of the Cathedral in Santiago.  We all had finished what we had set out to do and each one of us was in some way transformed by the experience.  Sensing this bond gives insight in what it looks like to see one another from God’s point of view.

We who are in Christ aim to live life informed by this reality.  We don’t need Mr. Echolas to remind us it can be a real challenge.  But still, with every step we take in the pilgrimage of life, we begin to connect with others from a perspective not merely human.  Gradually, more and more, our lives begin to embody one of my favorite prayers in the prayer book:

“Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship and show us your presence in those who differ most from us” (p. 840).   

From now on, we regard no one from a human point of view.