euangelion

The Reign of Christ the King

2011-11-19T12:42:00.005-05:00

Matthew's Kingdom Symphony:

A Sermon at Apostles' Anglican Church

20 November 2011

Let us pray.

Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth:
Set up your kingdom in our midst.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God:
Have mercy on us sinners.
Holy Spirit, breath of the living God:
Renew us and all the world. Amen.
-- N. T. Wright, Trinity Prayer

If you listen carefully to an orchestral work – perhaps a symphony or a concerto – you will notice in it a recurring musical theme, a leitmotif. It may be only a few notes or a few measures, but it is the essence of the piece, the core around which the complex composition develops, the core which provides unity and coherence, and indeed beauty, to the piece.

The theme may be announced emphatically by the full orchestra right at the opening of the piece, or it may be introduced more subtly and gradually by a soloist. It never stays in one place; it is passed around from section to section, from instrument to instrument, changing form and timbre as it goes, but always recognizable to a trained and listening ear. The theme will be expressed in many forms throughout the composition: sometimes major, sometimes minor, sometimes lowered a fifth or raised an octave, sometimes inverted so that we hear not the theme itself, but, in a musical sense, the negation – the opposite – of the theme. Sometimes it disappears altogether for a while. Then just when the listener begins to worry that the piece has taken a wrong turn, that it has lost its way, there it is again, over in the flutes trilled and high, echoed darkly by the oboes and bassoons, picked up hauntingly by the strings – those few notes, those few measures – the musical theme. And the listener who truly has ears to hear will then recognize that the theme has been there all along in bits and pieces scattered throughout the orchestra, but is now summed up in one grand moment, in one grand movement. In the hands of a masterful composer and a skillful conductor, the listener need never fear; the theme will emerge and all listening ears will hear.

This church year – from the first Sunday of Advent 2010 until today – the church has listened together to Matthew’s great symphonic presentation of the Gospel. Today, that concert ends; the final chords resound through the great hall and fall silent as the score is changed. The Gospel according to Saint Mark is next on the triennial concert rotation offered to the church in the lectionary. But one more time, before we close Matthew’s music and file his score away, let’s listen for the great theme that runs from first to last throughout his gospel. Not coincidentally, it is also the liturgical theme of the great feast day the church celebrates on this last Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Open the score to the first measure: Matthew 1:1. These first few notes announce the theme with brassy boldness and clarity.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham (Mt 1:1, NKJV).

To Jewish ears Matthew’s announcement of the theme is nothing less than thunderous: this is the story of Yeshua ha Meschiach – Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one, the one upon whom the kingdom of his father David rests, the one in whom the covenant of his father Abraham is fulfilled. And the entire orchestra picks up the theme – forty-two generations of players: fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the captivity, and fourteen generations from the captivity to Jesus. Do you hear it? Fourteen generations from covenant to kingdom, fourteen generations from kingdom come to kingdom lost, and fourteen generations from kingdom lost to kingdom restored and covenant fulfilled in and through Jesus the Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham. This is it; this is where the story of Israel was headed all along. This is the story of how God is restoring and redeeming Israel, and through Israel restoring and redeeming the cosmos. And it starts here, in the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. These few notes announce Matthew’s theme: the true and everlasting king of Israel has arrived and God’s kingdom has begun, on earth as in heaven. This is a kingdom symphony, from first note to last.

Some unfamiliar instruments with exotic, slightly mysterious tones, pick up this theme next. These instruments are played by magi from the East:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him” (Mt 1:1-2, NKJV).

The King of Israel – the King of the world – is born. The heavens herald his birth. All men – from East to West, from North to South, Jew and gentile alike – are called to worship him. The magi come on holy pilgrimage bearing royal gifts, tribute from their kingdom to His. They bend their knees and fall on their faces in worship before the infant king.

But not Herod, for here the theme turns dark and minor and discordant.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men (Mt 2:16, NKJV).

Herod hears Matthew’s theme, and hears it all too clearly. God is on the move. God is raising up the true king of Israel. God is at last restoring the kingdom and fulfilling the covenant. But Herod has his own tune to play, a tune in which he is the featured soloist. He tries, in vain, to drown out all other music – in blood and the sound of weeping. So for a time, Matthew’s theme disappears, hummed quietly in far off Egypt and whistled every now and again in Nazareth. A whole movement goes by – thirty years – in which the theme seems to be absent. And just when we are wondering if Matthew’s composition has lost its way, a great instrumental voice appears out of nowhere and proclaims the theme in fortissimo:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3:1-2, NKJV)!

Not only is the kingdom of heaven here – now – but the King is coming, one mightier than this herald, one who will baptize in Spirit and fire (cf Mt 3:11).

And from Galilee comes the King himself, the same Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham about whom we heard in the opening notes of this Kingdom symphony. And now the music is all regal-sounding brass, I think – French horns and trombones – because the King comes to be anointed.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mt 3:13, 16-17, NKJV).

There are so many sub-themes in this event – Exodus and end of exile are clear – but they cannot drown out the primary theme: the King has returned and has been anointed by God as His Messiah. Yes, the Kingdom of heaven is at hand in the person and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth: Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of God. From this time forth, wherever He goes the Kingdom is present. Whatever He does, the Kingdom is made manifest.

Of course, as we might expect, there is conflict in the score – discord and noise – as rival kings are challenged, as enemies, spiritual and human, plot and attack. It starts immediately in the wilderness with Satan himself, the Prince of the power of the air (cf Eph 2.2). In dark, velvet tones – violas, perhaps – the tempter plays his tune of seduction. The last measure is the most telling.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “’All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him (Mt 4:4-11, ESV).

Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in one moment. Perhaps Satan and Jesus know something about this composition that Matthew has yet to reveal to the listeners: that Jesus’ road from anointing to rule will be long and hard and painful, that it may not look like anyone expects, and that there will be casualties on the way. But Jesus has his own way of ascending the throne and his own kingdom agenda, and it starts with a rejection of this particular temptation to power. Satan’s music is silenced – at least for the time being. It is time for the King to begin his performance.

His won’t be a solo – thought he is, of course, the principal performer – but rather an ensemble: Simon, Andrew, James, John and many others – a flash mob orchestra traveling from venue to venue making surprising music in unexpected places. And what music!

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him (Mt 4:23-25a, ESV).

These great Kingdom acts of Jesus – healings and exorcisms – demand great Kingdom words of explanation. What does it all mean? In response, Jesus describes life in the Kingdom; he answers the question, What does it look like when God’s anointed – when God himself – becomes King? This movement is played on a mountain, with Jesus surrounded by eager listeners.

In the Kingdom of God the poor are given a place, the crying are comforted, the meek get their rightful share, the hungry and thirsty have enough and more than enough, the merciful have mercy shown to them, the pure in heart see God, the peacemakers are adopted as God’s children, and all those persecuted in this world get joy and gladness instead. There is blessing enough to go around in the Kingdom of God. This is the kingdom in a major key, lively enough to make the most miserable tap his feet with hope and excitement. This is a movement of Jubilee.

The Kingdom of God is a place where the heart matters: no lust there, no anger there, no hypocrisy there, no revenge there, no greed there, no idolatry there. But love and forgiveness are there. Yes: these are the hallmarks, the foundations of the Kingdom, and must fill the human heart to overflowing. And prayer is there. Jesus wants everyone to play this prayer tune in unison – because it is the great Kingdom prayer – so, he teaches the orchestra himself. And though we will pray it later this day, can we also do so together right now?

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

Thy kingdom come. Where? On earth as in heaven. There is Matthew’s theme again, crystal clear: The Kingdom of God is here and now and very much for this place and time – and all in the person of Jesus, Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of God.

For at least one year and perhaps as long as three, Jesus plays the music of the kingdom: in signs and wonders and acts of power, in discourses and parables – many of which begin “The kingdom of heaven is like…” – in healings and resurrections, and sometimes, in fact increasingly, in conflict with those who do not like the new sound, who perceive it as disturbing and even dangerous noise. In the concert hall, on the stage, in the music itself, the tension builds between Jesus and his ensemble and his rivals – those who do not want the Kingdom of God if this is what it looks like, those who do not want the Kingdom of God if Jesus is its king. The music turns dark and heavy and sinister as everyone senses the climax of the piece approaching.

It all comes to a head about a week before Passover. All music stops for just a moment. Jesus steps into the spotlight alone and – what’s that he’s doing? He’s riding into Jerusalem – the kingdom city – on a donkey. It is perhaps his most provocative kingdom act and its meaning is clear from the prophets:

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey’”(Mt 21:5, NKJV).

And all the musicians and even the audience members get the theme at last and all erupt in joyous song:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’
Hosanna in the highest” (Mt 21:9b).

Later in the same week, as hostile forces close in, as a trusted friend betrays him, Jesus calls together his chamber group – those who have been with him closest and longest – for a small and intimate interlude. The music is classical – Passover songs and psalms – and the tone is…well, it’s hard to say. It varies from celebratory to puzzled to subdued and even to bittersweet. Jesus feeds his followers; he gives them – and us – the Kingdom meal, a taste in the present moment of the heavenly wedding banquet: bread, wine, words – and something about body and blood. It is clearly a Kingdom meal, but of a confounding sort. “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom,” Jesus says, and leaves everyone a bit baffled.

The group plays the final note of this Seder meal, a psalm, and then walks a short way to a garden for prayer and maybe a bit of rest. And it is here that we lose the theme of Matthew’s symphony; rather it is here that the theme is inverted and played retrograde: upside down and backwards – distorted and jumbled and unrecognizable. For here the kingdom of hell – Remember the prince of the powers of the air? – and the kingdoms of the earth – Remember Herod and his sons? – conspire against God and against his anointed, conspire against the Kingdom of God.

Why are the nations in an uproar?
Why do the peoples mutter empty threats?
Why do the kings of the earth rise up in revolt,
And the prices plot together,
Against the LORD and against his Anointed (Ps 2:1-2, BCP 1979)?

And Jesus – Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of God – is arrested and tried and beaten and crucified, on the day the theme was lost, on the day the music died. All is silent. But look at the cross. Look at the sign above Jesus’ bowed head, a sign in three languages so that all the world might know:

THIS IS JESUS
THE KING OF THE JEWS.

The theme played silently and inverted and retrograde: this is what the world and hell think of God and His Anointed King.

But three day later, early in the morning on the first day of the week, as a group of women goes to the tomb where Jesus is laid, there is a terrible and wondrous commotion: all cymbals and tympani and percussion, like an earthquake – exactly like an earthquake:

And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said” (Mt 28:2-6a).

And the entire cosmic orchestra resurrects the Kingdom theme of Matthew’s symphony: Alleluia! Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

Forty days later Jesus gathers his closest disciples on a mountain in Galilee.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18-20, NKJV).

And here it is, in the final chords of Matthew’s great symphony: the Kingdom of God has come, all authority – in heaven and on earth – lies with Jesus, and we who have up until now been content to listen to the music, are given instruments and our own parts to play in the continuing composition of the Kingdom of God.

Our King has not gone far away and abandoned us to our own resources as some say. Rather he has ascended to the right hand of the Father – to His rightful position of power and glory – and has begun his reign, a reign ministered in part through you and me and all of us together, a reign empowered by the Holy Spirit through whom Jesus is eternally present with us. And, he has left us His Kingdom prayer to guide us and His Kingdom meal to sustain us.

Learn my Kingdom song, Jesus says, for soon I will reconvene the entire orchestra for the concert of the ages. You can’t just listen anymore. There are no seats in the audience. You must learn the song or leave the hall. And the Kingdom song is not composed of melody and rhythm, but of love and forgiveness and mercy. Those who have learned it will be invited to play in the orchestra of the communion of the saints:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’ (Mt 25:34-40, NKJV).

This is what the Kingdom looks like. This is what the music of the Kingdom sounds like. It is being played even now in every act of truth and beauty and compassion and forgiveness done in the name of the King and under his banner of love. Can you hear it? Will you play it?

Today the church celebrates the feast of the Reign of Christ the King. There is no better way to celebrate than to take up your instrument and join in the great Kingdom symphony, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sacramental Sightings

2011-10-15T09:02:00.002-04:00

I commend to your reading a new blog, Sacramental Sightings, by Fr. Jack King, Assistant Vicar of Apostles' Anglican Church (AMiA) in Knoxville, TN. The quality of his life and thought make his a welcome and compelling voice.

The Affront of Baptism

2011-06-14T16:19:00.005-04:00

A dear Christian brother – a young priest with a pastor’s heart and a theologian’s mind – plans to baptize his infant daughter within weeks. Frankly, I find the concept and practice of infant baptism an affront. It assaults and insults me with the claim that this precious new life is but dust and will one day to dust return, that death is the common lot of all men because all men bear the consequence – if not the guilt – of Adam’s sin, and that true life depends on new life in Christ. “You must be born again – of water and the Spirit,” Jesus said and says still, and the church insists this applies to all – “innocent” children and hardened adults as well. Infant baptism weighs in the balance and finds wanting all our cherished convictions about human nature: that each child is a tabula rosa on which we may write only the good and pure, or that men are inherently good and pure from birth. Instead, every baptismal font proclaims that every infant presented there is a cracked and tarnished icon of God: an image bearer, yes, but one with the perfect image of a holy God distorted by every selfish and errant choice made by every ancestor far and near, throughout the genealogy of all the world – begotten in sin, born in sin, and living in a sin-conditioned world. Every helpless, speechless child carried to the water by others, spoken for by others, speaks volumes to us all: you are broken and you are helpless and you are utterly dependent on the gift and grace of Another. Baptism is never more fully sacramental than when an infant is presented, for there the work is clearly and solely God’s: no false pride of adult choice or will or wisdom – just helpless acquiescence to the weak ministrations of men and the mighty acts of God. Such a baptism shames us in our weakness and glorifies God in his strength, a strength shown chiefly in the stooping down of love.

If you do not find infant baptism an affront, you are not paying attention. It is a slap in the face of our culture – of any culture. And precisely in that lies the truth and the power and the beauty of this sacrament; it shows the depth of our vanity and the breadth of God’s love. We cannot walk – as the Prodigal – to him, yet he runs – as the Father – to us. We cannot repent – as the good thief – and yet he promises us paradise this day and every day. We cannot say the words of the vows, yet we hear God speak – a thunderous whisper – This is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. If you do not find infant baptism an affront – and a joyous and marvelous gift of our gracious God – you are not paying attention. Thanks be to God for this sacrament.

My brother had planned the baptism for Pentecost – the great holy day of Spirit and church – but logistics conspired to make that impossible. Though disappointed, he knows there will be other holy days. He knows that any day on which the church baptizes is made holy by the very act of baptism: On this day the Lord has acted. We will rejoice and be glad in it. What is a holy day if not a day on which God has acted and on which we stop to rejoice? Certainly, then, baptism must render a day holy.

Perhaps, then, instead of seeking out established holy days for baptism, we should look for ordinary days, or even days of infamy, to redeem through baptism. Redeem the time, we are told, for the days are evil (Eph 5:12). Let us baptize on the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, striving to add one new life for every life taken. Let us baptize on the anniversary of 9-11, building for the kingdom of heaven even as the kingdoms of the earth were shaken to the core. Or let us simply seek through baptism to make holy every day that the world – and too often the church – considers ordinary, as if any day on which God says, “Let there be light,” could be anything less than extraordinary.

Any day my brother chooses for the baptism will become a holy day – St. Madeleine’s day – and saints in heaven and saints on earth will rejoice, and the calendar of eternity will mark the feast.

No Bad Things

2011-05-30T18:05:00.005-04:00

Some questions contain hidden assumptions or fallacies that render them nonsense, impossible to answer meaningfully. What color is yesterday? makes a category mistake; so too When is a square? What meaning would any answer offer?

My region of the country – the south and southeast – recently has experienced devastating storms, costly in property and, most tragically, in lives as well. In this we are not alone; the Midwest has suffered and is suffering still. More than once in the aftermath of these storms I have heard the age-old question, Why do bad things happen to good people? More lament than query, likely no answer is required, just prayer and compassion and assistance. That is just as well. The question as posed allows for no meaningful answer. Hidden assumptions and fallacies lie in wait for the unwary.

First, there is the notion of “good people.” This is a Romantic idea and perhaps an Enlightenment one. But, it is not a biblical notion. When hailed as “Good Teacher” by an apparently honest seeker, Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mk 10:18, NRSV). Following this line of assessment, Paul writes:

‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one;

there is no one who has understanding,

there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;

there is no one who shows kindness,

there is not even one.’

‘Their throats are opened graves;

they use their tongues to deceive.’

‘The venom of vipers is under their lips.’

‘Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.’

‘Their feet are swift to shed blood;

ruin and misery are in their paths,

and the way of peace they have not known.’

There is no fear of God before their eyes’ (Rom 3:10-18, NRSV).

The Christian faith is not unduly pessimistic, just unflinchingly realistic about human nature. G. K. Chesterton once remarked – tongue-in-cheek but quite accurately nonetheless – that original sin is the only truly demonstrable Christian doctrine. Christians – at least those who look honestly into Scripture and into their own hearts – understand “good people” as a category mistake not unlike a blue yesterday or a 5 o’clock square. There simply is no category of people – even the best of the lot – that may be called good and thus may be granted immunity from the difficulties and tragedies of life. Those Christians well grounded in the ancient faith are much more likely to ask why good things happen to bad people rather than the other way round.

Second, there is the notion of “bad things.” It takes a bit more work to see this also as a category mistake, but I think it is worth the effort.

Things – by which we generally mean actions or events – certainly may be evil. Christians consider anything that opposes the will of God to be evil. Nor does one need be a Christian to recognize evil, though the lack of absolute referent may be problematic. Christian or not, humans consider such atrocities as the Holocaust evil; to refuse to apply the word “evil” to such things is to bring one’s own humanity into question. There is, then, clearly a category of things labeled evil, a category usually reserved for the actions of men. And it is legitimate to question why evil things happen – not to good people but to any people at all. The Christian story offers an answer, though one I am afraid is much out of favor presently: sin. Evil is the product of human choice – free choice, yes, but free choice which has been conditioned by all the errant choices of humanity that have shaped a world in which evil is most often the easiest of choices to make. An addict is free to refuse the next drink or pill, but his freedom is conditioned by all the previous choices to feed his addiction and by the culture of addiction in which he almost certainly lives. This is not to reduce personal responsibility, but to place it within a context of corporate responsibility, as well. We are individuals, but also corporate members of humanity and our choices matter not only to ourselves, but to all men.

In a separate category, things may be tragic. These are impersonal events which violate a sense of proper order, a sense of how things “ought” to be: the untimely death of a child or young adult; the devastation wrought by tsunami, tornados, floods – “natural” disasters; the hardships wrought by drought and famine, and the like. Unlike evil things, there apparently is no one to blame for tragic events – unless one seriously considers them “acts of God.” Such events are nondiscriminatory and random – they just happen – making no distinction between saint and sinner or prince and pauper. Yet again, the Christian story offers the same explanation for tragic events as for evil ones: sin. Human sin has disrupted the order of creation and has introduced entropy and corruption where once there was order and incorruption (cf Rom 8). Clearly human behavior impacts nature: oil spills, greenhouse emissions, deforestation, etc. The Christian story sees these specific examples as signs of a disease that infects man at a much more fundamental level. The world is out of sorts because man has failed to fulfill his vocation as steward of God’s creation. Creation suffers at our hands, and we, in turn, suffer at creation’s hands.

We could add other categories. Painful things come to mind – loss and hurt common to all men – like the dissolution of a marriage, the death of an aged parent, the financial collapse of a family business: things not unusual or unexpected, but hurtful nonetheless. But no matter how many categories we add, one will be missing: bad things. For by “bad things” I mean irredeemable events that separate one from the love and will of God; and these simply do not exist.

As one case in point Scripture offers the story of Joseph: sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely accused of attempted rape, wrongly imprisoned, and forgotten. And yet, when time came that Joseph could exact revenge on the very brothers who instigated these evil events he said instead:

“Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today” (Gen 50:19-20, NRSV).

This text does not deny that Joseph’s brothers intended evil. Nor does the entire story deny that evil resulted from their actions; slavery and false imprisonment are clearly evil acts. But the story will not allow any of these things to be called bad precisely because God redeemed them and used them not only for Joseph’s salvation, but for the salvation of many – and ultimately for the salvation of all through the preservation of Israel.

The story of Joseph is but one of many examples offered in Scripture. Paul draws all the specific examples together in a grand theological picture of the good things in the providence of God:

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28, NRSV).

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35, 37-39, NRSV).

Evil things? Yes. Tragic things? Certainly. But bad things – things which are irredeemable by God, things which cannot be incorporated into his will for the salvation of man and the restoration of the cosmos? No. So, the Christian has no answer for the question of why bad things happen to good people because he knows it to be a meaningless question. Instead, the Christian would prefer to tell the story of a God who is even now through Christ putting all things to rights, who is even now drawing good from evil and tragic events alike. The Christian prefers to tell the final chapter of the story in which heaven and earth are joined, God’s will is done on earth as in heaven, and God is all in all – the final chapter:

God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away (Rev 21:3b-4, NRSV).

This is more than semantics and sophistry; it is the Christian faith and hope that praise God as sovereign over his creation, that recognizes that our God is good and never stands helpless before his creation. It is the faith and hope that allow us to enter into the pain of the world in redemptive prayer and work, knowing that our God draws straight with crooked lines. He is, after all, the one who brought life for all from the death of his son – the greatest good from the worst evil. In light of the cross, there are no bad things – only things which God can and will use for good, for the life of the world.

A Kingdom Response

2011-05-03T16:38:00.002-04:00

The recent death of Osama bin Laden and the general reaction in the media and across our nation have again emphasized the inherent tension between citizenship in the nations of the world and citizenship in the Kingdom of God. It has verified for me that, indeed, “Christian Nation” is an oxymoron – even more, a category mistake. Individuals may be Christian, but nations are not in the category of things that can be Christian.

It seems to me entirely reasonable for the Commander-In-Chief of the United States to order the elimination of an enemy sworn to the destruction of our nation; I find no fault in a President acting in this manner. It is also not unexpected that citizens of the United States – as citizens of the United States – should feel a great sense of relief, and perhaps jubilation, that the enemy leader is no more. I can even – and perhaps especially – empathize with the families of the victims of 9/11 – victims themselves – in mixed feelings of justice and vengeance. The problem is that none of the actions or reactions is Christian. Our Lord, Commander-In-Chief of the Hosts of Heaven, commanded his followers to forego vengeance and retaliation, to pray for enemies, to show mercy toward them. He commanded us to forgive – seventy times seven. He commanded us to lay down the sword and to lay down our lives. I do not think a nation can do these things and survive. But Christians? We cannot ignore these things and survive. And therein lies the tension. We are simultaneously citizens of the United States and of the Kingdom of God, with conflicting values and demands imposed upon us. I am no better at reconciling these conflicts than anyone else. How do we start?

First, we must refuse to rejoice over the death of our enemy; we must, instead, mourn for the victory of Satan who so perverted an image-bearer of God that he could become our – or anyone’s – enemy. God desires not the death of a sinner; can we? And – Dare I say this? – we must pray for God’s mercy upon Osama bin Laden, that if possible, even now his heart may be turned to embrace our Lord and become our brother instead of our enemy.

Second, we must pray for our enemies who remain, that peace may rule their hearts and ours and that together we might worship our Lord.

Third, we must pray for ourselves – for the strength to follow our Lord and for forgiveness of the myriad of ways we are complicit in making enemies and adding to the burden of sin in the world.

Forth, we must continually re-evaluate our priorities and our loyalties. We are a kingdom and priests to serve the God and Father of our Lord Jesus. We cannot serve with bloody hands, unless that blood be our own, unless that blood be Christ’s.

I write these things, brothers and sisters, not to remove the speck from anyone’s eye, but rather humbly to acknowledge the log in my own. Of your mercy, please pray for this sinner.

Resurrection and Homelessness: St. Demetrios Antiochian Catholic Church

2011-04-24T20:22:00.005-04:00

I do not solicit donations on this site. However, on rare occasions I call attention to need and commend certain ministries to your prayers. This is such a time.

St. Demetrios Antiochian Catholic Church is a small Orthodox parish that intentionally located in the heart of one of the poverty pockets of inner city Knoxville some seven years ago to serve the homeless and working poor. These good men and women have been faithful in difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, providing food, fellowship, and the Gospel to the many of the poor, alcoholic, drug addicted, and frequently incarcerated members of the community.

Among the other challenges facing such a minstry is the almost constant lack of adequate funding. The few, stable, working parishoners simply cannot bear the full financial burden and those served by the church are in no financial condition to contribute. St. Demetrios has always depended on the generosity of those in other churches or in no church at all who feel their work is important in showing Christ to a broken world. The worsening economy has taken a heavy toll on this good work, however. Contributions are fewer than in past years and are not adequate to allow St. Demtrios to fulfill its financial obligations of rent, utilities, and ministry expenses. The clergy have exhausted themselves physically and financially and the need is now severe. In a few days, the church will find itself homeless, unless significant contributions arrive.

I would like to commend this ministry to your prayers. And, if you feel led by God to make a financial contribution you may contact the bishop, Victor Mar Michael, at the following address:

St. Demetrios Antiochian Catholic Church

2001 Middlebrook Pike

Knoxville, TN 37921

The work is good, the people Godly, and the need urgent. What is needed is a moment of resurrection. As we have proclaimed many times this day:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Hristos Voskrese

2011-04-23T11:11:00.002-04:00

It is an old and simple tale, familiar in many forms, almost certainly apocryphal. Yet it is worth the telling again, for it is deeply true.

It is the 1920s in Communist Russia. A minor Party functionary has been dispatched to a small town to close its Orthodox church. He gathers the entire populace in the square and for hours rails against the faith, demonstrating conclusively that its doctrines are false, its miracles – particularly the Resurrection – are lies, and it canons oppressive. The Party is the way forward; to the Party belongs the future. Satisfied with his commanding performance, the official prepares to leave when the town’s old priest rises and asks to address the people. Dismissively, the official grants him two minutes – not a second more. “I will not need that long,” says the priest. “I have only two words.”

The priest mounts the podium, faces the people, crosses himself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and in a loud voice proclaims to the crowd, “Hristos voskrese (Christ is risen)!” Hearing the words which had been proclaimed for a thousand years in all their churches, the people stand as one and shout, “Voistinu voskrese (He is risen indeed)!”

The church has been speaking this truth to power from the moment the stone rolled away from the tomb and Christ strode forward trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. Let us take our place in this long line of proclamation and confess, not only with our lips but in our lives:

Hristos voskrese.
Voistinu voskrese.

Christos anesti.
Alithos anesti.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Holy Saturday: Rejoice, O Adam

2011-04-22T21:29:00.005-04:00

You, O Adam, are become unto us as Egypt,
for in you were we sold into bondage,
in you did we know a harsh taskmaster,
a stubborn and heart-hardened Pharaoh,
in you did sin bind us and death strike us down.

Your firstborn son, O Adam, was not flesh and blood, but death:
his birthright your offspring,
his inheritance Hades.
To him did we all go down and make obeisance.
To him were we all enslaved.

But God came to Horeb, O Adam,
and there appeared in the womb of the Virgin –
a bush burning but not consumed,
a womb bearing but undefiled,
holy ground on which God spoke his name in flesh and blood.

I am the God of your father –
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt,
and I know their sorrows.
So I have come, O Adam; I will deliver them, O Egypt.

Behold, O Adam, the Paschal Lamb –
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – comes to you.
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go.
Harken not to this word, O Death, and harden your heart, O Sin,
that the Lord may strike you with the rod of his power.

Look now, O Adam; see the Lamb slain,
high and lifted up on the tree of life, blood staining doorposts and lintels.
Now is judgment come upon you, O Egypt,
now is the rod of iron shattered,
now are the chains rent asunder.

Woe to your firstborn son, O Adam,
for death has come upon death and the sea of Hades is parted
as a curtain rent from top to bottom.
A way is made through the sea, through the veil,
for all your free children are led by cloud and fire, by wind and Spirit.

Rejoice in this Passover, O Adam,
for you, too, are set free
and made in Him a land of promise.
You are not left desolate but are taken by the hand
and led forth in triumphal procession.

Rejoice in this Passover, O Adam,
for death is trampled down by death,
bondage is bound, and Hades is despoiled.
Rejoice in this Passover, O Adam, for the Lamb has paid the debt of your sin,
and by his blood delivered your faithful children.

[I commend to your reading a reflection for Holy Saturday by St. Epiphanios of Salamis posted at Full of Grace and Truth: Christ's Descent Into Hades.]

For They Do Not Know What They Do

2011-04-20T17:27:00.002-04:00

32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. 33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:32-34a, NKJV).

These words of Jesus puzzle me: they do not know what they do. But surely, no matter how we try to rehabilitate him, Judas knew that he was betraying a good and holy man into the hands of evil and violent men, all for the sake of thirty pieces of silver. Surely, Pilate knew, even as he washed his hands of the whole Jesus affair, that he was signing the death warrant of an innocent man, all for the sake of political expediency. Surely, Peter knew, even before the cock crowed, that his words of denial were lies told for the sake of personal safety: he did know the man and he did know his own cowardice in that crucial moment. What then can Jesus’ words mean: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”?

Could they mean this: that the scope and impact of sin go far beyond our ability to know and understand? Might it be that my sin – no matter how trivial it seems – further subjects all creation to futility ( cf Rom 8:19-25) and makes me complicit in earthquake, tsunami, famine, drought and all unnatural “natural disasters”? Might it be that my sin – no matter how trivial it seems – cedes spiritual territory in the Kingdom of God to the Rebel and Enemy and makes me complicit in the lies he spreads and the snares he sets, makes me complicit in the sum total of evil in the world? Might it be that my sin – no matter how trivial it seems – ripples both forward and backward in time and makes me complicit in the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide and in all such unspeakable acts that yet may occur? I do not know, and that is precisely the point: I do not know. God alone – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world – knows the full weight and scope and impact of my sin. And so he prayed, for me no less than for those who crucified him on that great and terrible day, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

I am a sinner; that I know. But, in the eyes of the law – really, any reasonable human law – my sins do not rise to the level of capital crimes. The death penalty is not even on the table. And yet, the cross proclaims otherwise. My sins, judged trivial by the courts of human justice and popular opinion – and, God forgive me, even by myself – caused our Lord Jesus to spread out his arms on the hard wood of the cross. My sin resulted the in capital punishment of God incarnate; I am guilty of deicide. I had no idea. I did not know. And that, again, is precisely the point. And so Jesus prayed, for me no less than for those who crucified him on that great and terrible day, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

While ignorance is no excuse, I suspect it is a great mercy. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer contains these lines in the Eucharistic prayer of confession:

ALMIGHTY God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.

If the limited knowledge we have of our sins is “grievous unto us,” if the “burden of them is intolerable,” then how could we possibly live under the weight of full knowledge? Ignorance is surely a grace-filled bliss. Thanks be to God that we do not know what we do. We need only know that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, who takes away our sins committed in ignorance. Thanks be to God that our Lord Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”

As We Forgive

2011-04-20T17:13:00.004-04:00

‘Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

The individualization of faith is a persistent problem in Western theology – the emphasis on the personal to the neglect of the corporate. “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” is the prime evangelical inquiry posed to each individual. There seems to be no corporate counterpart, however: “Have you, as a church, accepted Jesus Christ as your corporate Lord and Savior?” I have never heard that question, or any equivalent, asked.

Yet, scripture surely emphasizes the corporate as much as it does the individual. The narrative structure of the salvation story is corporate. God forms a family from Abraham and a people for himself and works cosmic salvation through Israel. Jesus comes preaching not personal salvation but the citizenship in the Kingdom of God. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit breathes life into individuals to form the church. The triune nature of God and of salvation history is inherently corporate.

St. Paul champions the corporate and unapologetically situates the individual within the corporate context of the church, as this extended selection from 1 Corinthians 12 shows.

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it (1 Cor 12:18-27, NRSV).

If one member suffers, all suffer together with it. Every individual action has corporate implications. Might the same hold true for sin? If one member sins, all sin together with it? I do not want to press this too far and eliminate individual responsibility, but neither do I wish to minimize the corporate effects of sin. It is simply not possible for an individual member of the body of Christ to sin without harming the entire body, without enmeshing the entire body in the consequences of that sin. Perhaps you have seen a church rent asunder by the sin of an individual, making corporate and public what was thought to be individual and private?

If sin is ultimately a corporate affair, then, forgiveness must also be corporate. If a member of the body sins against me and I refuse to forgive, then I bind that sin to the very body of which I am part. My refusal to forgive binds my brother’s sin to me and to the church of which we are both members. I cannot be forgiven if I am unwilling to forgive. Forgiveness of others is not an arbitrary prerequisite to my own forgiveness; it is the only forward into my own forgiveness. I cannot loose sin from myself by binding it to other members of the body to which I belong.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. This is not a bargain we make with God; I will forgive only so God will then forgive me. It is, rather, the very way in which God forgives. Unbinding my brother through forgiveness, looses his sin from the body and thus from me. It cannot be otherwise. In the body of Christ, nothing is purely individual – neither sin nor forgiveness. Thus, we confess our sin not only to God and not only to a priest, but to the whole body of Christ. The bidding to Confession of Sin in Morning Prayer (BCP 79) embodies this corporate aspect of confession and forgiveness:

Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of Almighty God our heavenly Father, to set forth his praise, to hear his holy Word, and to ask, for ourselves and on behalf of others, those things that are necessary for our life and our salvation. And so that we may prepare ourselves in heart and mind to worship him, let us kneel in silence, and with penitent and obedient hearts confess our sins, that we may obtain forgiveness by his infinite goodness and mercy. Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Following this bidding, we confess that we have sinned and we pray that God will have mercy on us. Through our incorporation into Christ, we become more part of one another than we can begin to imagine. Through the mercy of God, forgive this sinner please, even as I also forgive you.

Sermon: 4 Lent 2011 -- Signs and Miracles

2011-04-02T13:38:00.004-04:00

Sermon: 4 Lent 2011

(John 6:1-14)

Signs and Miracles: Abundance and Incarnation

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We now have come to the middle of our Lenten journey, a journey of prayer and fasting and almsgiving. Lent provides time and space for us to reflect on Jesus and on ourselves, on who we are and who, by God’s grace, we have yet to become. The Lenten pilgrimage is also a season of confession and repentance. And so, I will begin today with a confession of my own. I confess before God and you, my brothers and sisters, that I do not believe in miracles any longer. I once did, but I have repented of it. I mean, of course, that I do not believe in miracles as they are typically understood. In our prevailing Western culture, a miracle is a disruption of nature. A miracle is God stepping into the physical world from which he is normally absent and rarely welcome to violate the laws of nature that govern that physical world. Miracles are the creation of a people who have forgotten that God is everywhere present, filling all things. Miracles are the creation of a people who have forgotten that it is in God that we live and move and have our being. Miracles are the creation of a people who have forgotten that the sun rose this morning not because of Kepler or Newton or even because of natural law built into a clockwork universe, but because our God in his providential care spoke into the darkness once again and said, “Let there be light.” Miracles are not Christian; they are the stuff of mythology or paganism or deism, but not of Christianity. For in Christianity God is Emmanuel – God With Us – feeding the sparrows, clothing the flowers, making his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous – intimately involved with every aspect of his creation. God is not absent from us. He does not need to step into the world, for his is already and always here. Christ is in our midst: he is and ever shall be.

Our faith really owns only one miracle, for truly only one miracle has occurred from the foundations of the world: the incarnation of the Word.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5, 14, NKJV).

The incarnation – the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us – is the only true miracle, for in the incarnation God did step into his creation from outside it. God the creator became part of his creation in a way that he was not before, and that disrupted the laws of fallen nature: the incarnate God was born of a virgin; the incarnate God was tempted in all things as we are yet without sin; the incarnate God was crucified, died, and was buried; the incarnate God rose triumphant on the third day trampling down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowing life. The incarnation is the one and only, truly Christian miracle, and everything flows from it as surely as the blood flowed from the pierced hands and feet of our God-become-flesh, as surely as the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb (cf Rev 22:1).

St. John the Evangelist did not believe in miracles either, even though he saw wonder upon wonder in company with Jesus. He never uses the word “miracle” in his gospel, though some English translations impose it on him. Instead, John writes of the “signs” (semeion) that accompany Jesus’ presence. Following the changing of the water into wine at the wedding at Cana, John writes:

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him (John 2:11, NRSV).

Signs are not disruptions of nature, but are revelations of God’s presence in his creation, revelations of the glory of God in the face of Christ, given that we might believe. Signs are the inevitable result of the miracle of the incarnation, sparks scattered glowing and sizzling from the burning bush of God’s presence. If Christ is in our midst – if God is indeed among us in human form – then signs of his presence must follow.

Once John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to Jesus.

20 When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’” 21 And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. 22 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them (Lk 7:20-23, NKJV).

Well, of course: these are the signs that simply must follow the miracle of incarnation. When God is with us, creation is restored and men are saved and such signs point to Jesus. The signs that follow Jesus are not self-referential. They don’t point to themselves, but to something else; that is precisely what makes them signs. Signs point the way. Signs attract attention only to direct that attention to something else or to Someone else. The purpose of each healing was not merely to restore health, but to direct attention to the Healer. The purpose of each act of cleansing was not merely to restore ritual purity, but to direct attention to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The purpose of each sign was to direct attention to the miracle of the incarnation, to the miracle of God-With-Us, and to our incarnate God’s redemptive purpose among us.

One of the clearest signs of God-With-Us is abundance. When Israel left Egypt at the first Passover, they left as newly freed slaves with a slave mentality still firmly intact, a mentality of lack: lack of power, lack of freedom, lack of security, lack of rest. The grumbling into which they often lapsed during this period is a reflection of the lack they had known and of their uncertainty about Moses’ and his God’s ability to provide.

When the forces of pharaoh pursued Israel to the Red Sea, Israel cried out to Moses:

“Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness” (Ex 14:12b-14, NKJV).

We lack power. We lack security. But Moses replied, “The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace” (Ex 14:14, NKJV). The LORD is God-With-Us, and the sign of his presence is abundance of power and security.

On the fifteenth day of the second month of their freedom, Israel complained again against Moses and Aaron in the Wilderness of Sin:

“Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex 16:3b, NKJV).

We lack food – meat and bread. And the LORD rained bread from heaven – manna – and meat from the sky – quail – and everyone had enough. The LORD is God-With-Us, and the sign of his presence is abundance of food.

Finally, after forty years of unlearning the slave mentality of lack, Israel came to the land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land rich in grapes and olives and figs, a land of pasture for sheep. The LORD is God-With-Us, and the sign of his presence is abundance. When the LORD is God-With-Us, no one goes hungry; there is enough and to spare.

In this day’s Gospel another Passover is near and Israel gathers on a mountainside around the prophet – not Moses this time, but Jesus of Nazareth. They are hungry; they lack meat and bread. When Jesus proposes that his disciples feed them, Philip reminds him that they also lack money. Andrew snags a little boy’s lunch – five barley loaves and two fish – but what is that among so many? We lack food, Jesus – meat and bread – and we lack money with which to buy.

And so the stage is set for the great proclamation: God is with us, and the sign of his presence is abundance. When God is with us, no one goes hungry; there is enough and to spare.

“Make the people sit down,” is all Jesus says. Then he takes the loaves, gives thanks, and distributes them to the people, and then likewise with the fish: Jesus conducting a Eucharist of bread and meat.

John, who chronicles this event, wants us all to understand: this sign of abundance, like every other sign he documents, points to the one and only great miracle, the miracle of the incarnation – God is with us, in flesh and blood, in the person of this Galilean carpenter turned rabbi. One stands among us on this near Passover who is greater than Moses on that great, first Passover, for the one who stands among us is I Am. The one who stands among us giving us bread and fish is the same God who provided manna and quail to Israel. The one who stands among us brings such abundance that 12 basketsful of bread and fish remain – one for each tribe of Israel, one for each disciple of new Israel. Our God – this sign proclaims – is Emmanuel, the God of abundance, the God of leftovers.

Still, John presses the point; he will not let us miss the incarnation to which this sign of abundant bread points. He records a conversation between Jesus and the Jews just days later at the synagogue of Capernaum. Jesus says:

48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” 52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” 53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:48-58, NKJV).

Manna and quail, bread and fish: these fill the belly and sustain physical life for a time. But, the bread which comes down from heaven – the body and blood of God incarnate – that fills the soul and sustains eternal life, abundant life through the incarnation. The manna and the barley loaves were signs of the miracle of the incarnation – God-With-Us. The Eucharist with its bread and wine is the sacramental sign of the miracle of the incarnation, a sign which proclaims that God is still with us. In the Eucharist Christ becomes incarnate in bread and wine and in those who eat and drink, and abundant life follows.

If Christ is in our midst – if God is indeed with us and among us – then signs of his presence will and must follow. If Christ is indeed incarnate – not just as a rabbi teaching on the hills of Galilee, but in the bread and wine on which we feast and in the lives of those who eat and drink – then abundance must be manifest. If Christ is with even two or three who gather in his name – if Christ is with the Church – then the Church must exhibit such signs of abundance that the world can no longer ignore the miracle of the incarnation and the redemptive work of Christ in restoring the cosmos. And what are these signs of abundance?

Worship – an abundance of worship – is a sign the world cannot easily ignore: “Come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation” (Ps 95:1, BCP). Not just any worship will do, of course: certainly not worship from the lips when the heart is far from God, and certainly not worship as ritual or entertainment. No. True worship – worship in Spirit and truth, worship that gives right glory to our God and Father through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit – is worship that is unshaken by earthquake, worship that is not drowned by tsunami, worship that is unbowed before tyrants, worship that gives voice to all creation in praise that rises from the heart and pours from the lips in the first and natural language of mankind, the language heard in Eden before the fall: “Glory be to Thee, our God. Glory be to Thee.” This kind of worship is a sign to the world that indeed God is with us.

Love – an abundance of love – is a sign the world cannot easily ignore: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another,” Jesus said and says still (John 13:35, NKJV). Not just any love will do, of course, and certainly not the romance or lust or even the casual friendship that often pass for love. No. Love as a sign of the incarnation is love that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, binds up the broken, welcomes the stranger, forgives the enemy, prays for the persecutor, and lays down its life – all at once or day by day – for the sake of those who hate. This kind of love is a sign to the world that indeed God is with us.

Grace – an abundance of grace – is a sign the world cannot easily ignore. Not just any grace will do, of course, and certainly not grace as mere gentility or courtesy. No. Grace as a sign of the incarnation is nothing less than the presence and activity of God. An experience of true grace wakens the world from its sleep and makes it cry out like Jacob at Bethel, “The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it” (Gen 28:16b, LXX, The Orthodox Study Bible). Grace enters the pain of the world and stretches out its arms on the hard wood of the cross to share in, and as much as possible, to bear the pain of the world, bringing God’s presence into its darkest places. This kind of grace is a sign to the world that indeed God is with us.

Hope – an abundance of hope – is a sign the world cannot easily ignore. Not just any hope will do, of course, and certainly not hope that is barely disguised naïveté or rosy optimism. No. Hope as a sign of the incarnation is nothing less than stubborn and rock-solid eschatology – living in this present age with the certainty that Christ has already conquered every enemy and is even now putting the world to rights, living in this present age with the certainty that the last days have already dawned and the glorious consummation of all things is guaranteed, living in this present age with the proclamation always in our hearts and often on our lips:

Jesus Christ is Lord, and

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

This kind of hope is a sign to the world that indeed God is with us.

None of these are miracles; I do not believe in miracles. They are signs, and I do believe in signs of the one and only great miracle, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ through which he conquered sin and death and reconciled man to God. And I do believe that, with Christ in our midst, signs of abundance will and must accompany the church – abundance of worship, abundance of love, abundance of hope, abundance of grace. These signs in the lives of broken but redeemed men and women and children will awaken the world to the glory, wonder, and power of the incarnation. Five barley loaves and two fish fed a hungry crowd. A little bread and wine can feed the world and restore the cosmos. It does not take miracles – just signs. Amen.

Sermon, 2 Lent 2011: This Vexing Little "Dud" of a Story

2011-03-19T10:23:00.002-04:00

2 Lent 2011
(Matthew 15:21-28)
This Vexing Little “Dud” of a Story

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Most preachers, I suspect, hope for a text that allows for a certain rhetorical eloquence or else deep, theological reflection, or – well, anything other than what is on offer in this vexing little “dud” of story given us in the lectionary this morning, a story in which the very sympathetic character of a mother humiliates herself before Jesus and a crowd of onlookers for the sake of her sick child, only to be ignored and then rebuffed by the Master himself. Now, you tell me: what am I supposed to do with that?

Part of the problem is that the lectionary today, as it so often does, sets us down right in the middle of an ongoing drama and expects us to understand – without context – what is happening. I can, I think, at least remedy that part of the problem.

Jesus and his disciples are home, north in Galilee, by the sea. He has lately received news that his kinsman and forerunner, John, has been executed – albeit reluctantly – by the decree of Herod. Jesus wants to be alone for awhile: to pray, to reflect. But the crowds follow him, sick and hungry, a vast multitude of need. So, moved to compassion, Jesus heals them and feeds them, over five thousand men, with five loaves and two fish – a miracle Matthew describes with intentional Eucharist imagery.

Jesus then sends his disciples on ahead of him by boat to Gennesaret, while he dismisses the crowd and prays through the night. During the fourth watch – sometime between 3 and 6 a.m. – Jesus finally rejoins the disciples, walking on the water and calming the storm in which these experienced fishermen find themselves helpless. As so, this small boatload of weary men comes to Gennesaret. And a crowd gathers and once again Jesus heals them.

Then they arrive, the scribes and Pharisees; they arrive from Jerusalem with a burning question of crucial importance: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat” (Mt 15:2, NRSV). Really, guys? Herod has just executed your countryman, a man considered a prophet of God by the masses, and you walk 75 miles from Jerusalem just to question my personal hygiene? Really, guys? I’ve just fed five thousand men with a sack lunch and healed countless more by letting them touch the hem of my garment, and you want to talk about dirty hands? Really guys? I’ve just walked on water and calmed a storm – all with unwashed hands, I might add – and it’s the unwashed hands that interest you?

It really does sound ludicrous, doesn’t it – trivia in the face of monumental truth? But is wasn’t trivial at all to the Pharisees; it was a matter of national and religious survival and yes, they had walked 75 miles to challenge Jesus on this and they would have walked 750 miles, if necessary. Theirs was a mission of homeland security as it had been for nearly two hundred fifty years. They had learned from their fathers and grandfathers and from generations before that the only way to maintain national identity in the face of occupation and persecution was through strict and absolute fidelity to the Law. Their name was their philosophy: Pharisee – the separate ones, the ones who separated themselves from the pagans and from their apostate countrymen through faithfulness to the letter of God’s law, through their purity. So, yes, under the present Roman occupation the washing of hands was important. So, yes, under the present Roman occupation Jesus was a threat: a renegade rabbi and worker of wonders who gathered sinners and tax collectors, the poor and disenfranchised, and God knows who else about himself and taught them – by example, if not by word – to ignore the Law. It was a matter of purity, and purity was a matter of survival.

“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”

Jesus minces no words in his response; he, too, knows this is about purity, and he intends to properly redefine the whole notion.

7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8 ‘ These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” 10 When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man” (Mt 15:7-9, NKJV).

And there it is; for Jesus, purity is not a matter of the hands, but of the heart: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Ps 51:10) just as David had prayed. What the Pharisees do not yet understand, but perhaps suspect and fear, is that Jesus is redefining national and religious identity, creating a new Israel with himself at the center, a new Israel whose badges of identity are not purity of hands and faithfulness to the Law, but purity of heart and faithfulness to Jesus, a new Israel not defined by ethnicity but by humility.

This is a lot to process and, as usual, the disciples are confused, before and probably even after Jesus explains his purity code in detail:

16 So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Mt 15:16-20, NKJV).

And with this the group is off again, this time north to Tyre and Sidon, to a defiled gentile region where the purity-conscious Pharisees are unlikely to follow, and where the disciples can see true purity and faithfulness, where they can glimpse new Israel, incarnate in the person of a Canaanite woman.

And so, perhaps we come now to our vexing little “dud” of a story with clearer eyes and deeper understanding. We find that this encounter is nothing less than an in-breaking of the kingdom of God – in Tyre and Sidon, of all places – an eschatological moment in which the last days intersect this day and all is renewed and a Canaanite woman is redeemed by the God of Israel.

The story does not start that way, however.

21 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.” 23 But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us” (Mt 15:21-23, NKJV).

The irony here isn’t subtle at all, is it? The Pharisees, whom Jesus thought to leave behind in Gennesaret, have followed him to Phoenicia – in the persons of his own disciples. She is unclean, Lord, an impure gentile; send her away. And so, for a moment, Jesus plays the role they request and expect – plays a role in order ultimately to vindicate this Canaanite woman, to open the eyes of his disciples, to purify their hearts and minds, and to give us all a glimpse of the new Israel – the kingdom of God.

24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And this, of course, is true. Jesus is the fulfillment of the covenant given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus is the completion of the law and the hope of the prophets. Jesus’ mission is to the Jew first, but then also to the Greek. For in first becoming Israel’s messiah, Jesus also becomes the savior of the world, the redeemer of all men, the restorer of the cosmos. In coming first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Jesus comes to gather all lost sheep – from flocks we never dreamed of – into one fold, true Israel, with one shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.

25 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!” 26 But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.” 27 And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

What a climax for the story. Jesus affords this “impure” Canaanite woman the opportunity to vindicate herself in the eyes of his disciples who have yet to grasp the true nature of purity, gives her the opportunity to show that amidst all this abstract, theological talk of purity she is the one pure soul there – a soul made pure and shown to be pure by humility and faith: “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”

The next words were spoken by Jesus, and though he spoke to the Canaanite woman, I can well imagine that he looked straight at his disciples, straight into their pharisaical hearts and spoke to them, as well: See, it isn’t about washed hands or even about ethnic identity. It’s about this, about this woman, about this woman’s faith.

28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

And, as Anglicans are wont to say, Here endeth the lesson. But, the question hangs in the air, asked of the disciples and of us: What will you do with this vexing little “dud” of a story?

The answer comes, in part, through a hymn of the Eastern church – a hymn that lies very near the heart of Orthodox piety:

A most compunctionate hymn do I, the unworthy one, offer Thee, and like the Canaanitish woman, I cry to Thee: O Jesus, have mercy on me! For not a daughter, but a flesh have I which is violently possessed by the passions and troubled with anger. Grant Thou healing to me, who cry aloud to Thee: Alleluia ( from The Akathist Hymn To Jesus Christ, A Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians).

This hymn calls us to acknowledge that we are – each of us – the daughter of the Canaanite woman, a daughter grappling with forces too powerful for us, with “no power of ourselves to help ourselves” (The Collect, The Second Sunday of Lent, BCP 1928). It calls us to acknowledge that St. Paul’s words describe us better than we know or wish:

For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death (Rom 8:22-24, NKJV)?

So we cry: O Jesus, have mercy on us. Grant thou healing to those who cry aloud to Thee: Alleluia. And in response, dare we hear Jesus’ words to the woman as his words to us? “Great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire.” Dare we hope that, just as he healed that faithful woman’s daughter from that very hour, he will so heal us? Yes: thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:57, NKJV).

This vexing little “dud” of story is, in reality, a blessed great gem of a story, a kingdom story that proclaims freedom from bondage and abundant life for all who come in faith crying out: O Jesus, have mercy on us.

Still, the question hangs in the air, asked of the disciples and of us: What will you do with this vexing little “dud” of a story?

The answer comes, in part, through a prayer – a Eucharistic prayer – that lies very near the heart of Anglican piety:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

Each time we offer this prayer of humble access, we acknowledge that we are – each of us – the Canaanite woman, coming to Jesus with no righteousness of our own, coming to Jesus with no right to do so, coming to Jesus hoping against hope just to gather up crumbs under his table. And, expecting nothing, deserving nothing, through his astounding grace we are given everything: not our righteousness, but his perfect righteousness; not crumbs but a feast – the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. No longer are we impure: our sinful bodies are made clean by his body, and our souls are washed by his most precious blood. Like the Canaanite woman, we find ourselves vindicated in the sight of heaven and earth through humility, faith, and grace. Dare we hear Jesus’ words to the woman as his words to us? “Great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire.” Yes, for in this feast, our Father – and what a privilege to say those words – our Father,

dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merits of his most precious death and passion.

This vexing little “dud” of story is, in reality, a blessed great gem of a story, a kingdom story that breaks down all barriers of purity and ethnicity and creates a new people of God:

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal 3:26-29, NKJV).

The Church Fathers – Origen, Chrysostom, and others – saw the Canaanite woman as the archetype of the gentile church, the fulfillment of what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

17 ‘ And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved’ (Acts 2:17-21, NKJV).

Dare we find ourselves in this prophecy – sons and daughters, vessels of the Holy Spirit, those who, through the name of LORD, know the salvation of the LORD? Yes, for we know this vexing little “dud” of a story to be a blessed great gem of a story, a gospel story of great good news: forgiveness, healing, adoption, salvation.

Church tradition provides names for many of the “unnamed” characters in the Gospel narratives: Photini is the woman at the well in Sychar; Ignatius is the child Jesus called to his side as an example of humility. This Canaanite woman, though, is not given a name by tradition. Perhaps she remains unnamed because she is much more than a single individual, much greater than one person’s name. She is everyone who comes to Christ pleading for undeserved mercy, everyone who comes to Christ hoping for unmerited grace; everyone who comes to Christ to gather crumbs under his table only to be invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb. She is you and she is me and she is all of us together. And this vexing little “dud” of story is in truth a blessed great gem of a story – the gospel in the life and person of this one Canaanite woman. Amen.

Memory Eternal: John William Carty, II (1940-2011)

2011-03-16T18:04:00.003-04:00

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We were never meant to be here like this, mourning in the presence of death. It was not so from the beginning, when our God spoke into the void from the heart of the Trinity and said, “Let there be,” and worlds were born and the morning stars sang together.

We were never meant to be here like this, powerless in the face of an ancient foe. It was not so from the beginning, when our God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living being.

We were never meant to be here like this, standing at the edge of the grave. It was not so from the beginning when God planted in the Garden the tree of life from which man was to eat freely and so to live abundantly.

We were never meant to be here like this: aching, longing, weeping. It was not so from the beginning when God said, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

We were never meant to be here like this, mouths and bellies full of the fruit of that tree, slaves to sin and death, exiled from the Garden and from the tree of life, returning to the dust from which we came. It was not so from the beginning when God surveyed his creation and said, “It is good; it is very good.”

And yet, here we are, where we were never meant to be.

A stone’s throw from Jerusalem two sisters grieved the death of their beloved brother Lazarus. Standing at the sealed tomb they knew with heart-breaking certainty, we were never meant to be here like this. They had sent for the Master; they knew he could heal their brother. They had sent for the Master and he had not come. He was here now, too late. Each of the sisters confronted Jesus with that hard truth – first Martha, then Mary: If you had been here, our brother would not have died. And so, we are here now where we were never meant to be because you did not come. And Jesus’ words of comfort and truth almost surely fell on ears deafened by grief.

Jesus went to the tomb, and seeing it, he wept. He wept because he, better than any, knew the truth: We were never meant to be here like this. It was not so from the beginning when I called you into being, when I gave you life, when I made you lords of creation and called you to tend the garden and be fruitful. It was not so from the beginning when you were called to grow in grace and glory and share the very life of the Trinity. We were never meant to be here like this.

And so, Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out, for we were never intended to linger at the grave.

Some time later, on a hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem this same Jesus – the Resurrection and the Life – hung suspended between earth and sky on a cross of our own making, fashioned by the sins of the world, dying the death of all men. And his mother and a few faithful disciples – women and men – cried in their hearts at the foot of that cross: We were never meant to be here like this. And Jesus himself voiced the same as he cried out with a loud voice saying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He cried not for himself alone, but for all who in the face of certain death know we were never meant to be here like this; he cried out for us here, this day. And then, it was finished.

The disciples took their Master’s body, laid him in a tomb, and sealed him there with a great stone. They could not know the mystery about to unfold, the mystery hinted at in Scripture, written in icon, and sung in the praises of the church. He descended to the dead the Creed says. Indeed. And when he descended to the dead he stormed the gates of death and hell, took by their hands our righteous fathers and mothers – Adam and Eve; Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron and Miriam, Saul and David and Solomon, Isaiah and Jeremiah and John the Baptist – took them by their hands and led them forth from captivity with the shout, “Come forth! You were never meant to be here like this!”

And on the third day – on the first day of the week very early in the morning – on the outskirts of Jerusalem the earth trembled, the angels descended, and the great stone rolled away. The women – mourners come to anoint the body of Jesus – entered the tomb and saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here.” He was never meant to stay here; nor are you. Go, tell his disciples.

Just days ago we entered the season of Lent. Church tradition tells us that we are not to say the alleluia again until the great Vigil of Easter. But gathered here this day, gathered in the presence of death, gathered where we were never meant to be, we have no choice and so we cry out:

Alleluia! Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowing life.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

And if Christ is risen, then we, too, shall rise,

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality…Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15: selections, NKJV).

And so, Ginny, Pete, Kevin, and Ginny Lynn; Kathy, Kay, and Clare; all Bill’s family and friends, I say to you – yet, not I but the church – grieve, but not as those without hope. Grieve as those who know we were never meant to be here, as those who Christ has brought forth from a place of darkness and death into the realm of light and life. Grieve as those who know with a certainty passing all grief, that Christ met his servant Bill in the hour of death and said to him, “Come forth! You were never meant to be here like this.” Grieve for a time, but only for a time, for death has been swallowed up in victory, and we were never meant to linger by the grave. Grieve for a time, but only for a time, and then go forth singing:

Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Beloved, comfort one another with these words. Amen.

The Undue Weight of Forgiveness

2011-03-16T11:37:00.004-04:00

Anyone who has lived fully within the church has been both blessed and wounded by that relationship, sometimes, it seems, in about equal measure. It is true for any intimate human relationship, of course: friendship, marriage, family. The ability to wound is proportional to the ability to bless.

Some wounds inflicted by the church are irreparable; the injury cannot be undone and, in many cases, the damage cannot be mitigated. The harsh word spoken and received cannot be retracted. The crucial absence cannot later be filled. The broken vow cannot be bridged.

In such cases the church offers not repair, but redemption – the recovery of relationship pawned through intent or negligence, mortgaged through anger or selfishness. Such redemption is costly to both parties, but unduly and disproportionately so to the wounded. The one who sinned must confess and repent. While this is blessedly injurious to the sinful ego, it is, in some sense, merely an acknowledgment of the facts of the matter – “I acted wrongly; I hurt you.” – and a commitment to go and sin no more – “With God’s help I will not do so again.” With this confession and repentance, the burden of that guilt is unduly and unfairly placed fully upon the one already wounded. The pain of the injury is exacerbated by the obligation to forgive and the sure knowledge that only in forgiveness lies healing. How much easier it would seem if the perpetrator were intransigent. Then wounds could be nursed and grudges held with self-righteous justification. But repentance? Repentance adds insult to injury. Now all eyes are on the wounded one, not just in sympathy, but in expectation. Will the victim forgive as Jesus forgave? It is a heavy weight that can be laid down only with a broken heart.

I reflect on these things because, like you, I have wounded, because I have been wounded, and because I have seen those I love wounded. I reflect on these things in the midst of Great Lent, the season of woundedness and forgiveness. Protopresbyter Alexander Schemann writes:

In the Orthodox Church, the last Sunday before Great Lent – the day on which, at Vespers, Lent is liturgically announced and inaugurated – is called Forgiveness Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, at the Divine Liturgy, we hear the words of Christ:

"If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses..." (Mark 6:14-15)

Then after Vespers – after hearing the announcement of Lent in the Great Prokeimenon: "Turn not away Thy face from Thy child for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily! Draw near unto my soul and deliver it!", after making our entrance into Lenten worship, with its special memories, with the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, with its prostrations – we ask forgiveness from each other, we perform the rite of forgiveness and reconciliation. And as we approach each other with words of reconciliation, the choir intones the Paschal hymns, filling the church with the anticipation of Paschal joy.

What is the meaning of this rite? Now, forgiveness stands at the very center of Christian faith and of Christian life because Christianity itself is, above all, the religion of forgiveness. God forgives us, and His forgiveness is in Christ, His Son, Whom He sends to us, so that by sharing in His humanity we may share in His love and be truly reconciled with God. Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a return to it, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season. Thus, truly forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for the Lenten season.[1]

Forgiveness entails suffering and a hidden martyrdom, but also healing and exaltation. As St. Paul writes:

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church (Col 1:24).

What can be lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Only the embrace by each wounded one of His suffering by taking up the heavy burden of the cross of another’s repentance and carrying it to the Golgotha of forgiveness.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

[1] Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, Forgiveness Sunday, accessed 3/16/11 at http://www.schmemann.org/byhim/forgivenesssunday.html

Self-Destructive Behavior and the Way of Life

2011-02-27T20:01:00.002-05:00

Two tabloid regulars made the news again this week: Charlie Sheen for addictive behavior and unmitigated arrogance and Lindsay Lohan for theft and probation violations. The actor Martin Sheen, Charlie’s father and a Catholic Christian, has requested the public to pray for his son; it is, of course, the appropriate response of a father and the appropriate response of the Christian public: Lord, have mercy on Charlie, Lindsay, and on me, a sinner.

Sheen and Lohan point to a great Christian truth, ignored at our peril: Humans do not engage sufficiently in self-destructive behavior. Please read the last sentence again carefully; it is no mistake. The mistake lies in describing Sheen’s and Lohan’s behavior as self-destructive. It is not; it is self-indulgent, and the difference between self-indulgent behavior and self-destructive behavior is salvation itself.

“When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in The Cost of Discipleship. In this he echoes Jesus’ won self-destructive invitation:

If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Mt 16:24-25, NKJV).

Self-destruction is the cost of discipleship.

The sacrament of baptism – the initiatory rite of Christian discipleship[1] – should alert us to the self-destructive nature and demands of the faith. Baptism is preceded by renunciation: of Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, of the evil powers of the world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, of all sinful desires that draw [us] from the love of God. If we do not understand these renunciations as acts of self-destruction, we have been inadequately instructed. Then, the thanksgiving over the water reminds us that the baptismal font holds death – life too, but not before self-destruction: “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death.” Finally, the baptism itself, if administered by immersion, vividly portrays death and burial. We enter life only through self-destruction. St. Paul writes:

1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin (Rom 6:1-6, NKJV).

Even after baptism – especially after baptism – we must continue and escalate our self-destructive behavior. Though the power of sin has been broken, its effects remain; these are rooted out bit by bit, throughout a lifetime, by diligent and continual metanoia (repentance), a synonym for self-destruction.

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. 8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him (Col 3:1-10, NKJV).

And, if this putting off is self-destructive, so, too, is the putting on that discipleship requires.

12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection (Col 3:12-14, NKJV).

These words do not describe the self-indulgent public persona of Sheen and Lohan; too little do they describe my private persona. And so, I thank God that the season of Lent is rapidly approaching. In it the church invites us to embrace self-destructive behavior: to renounce all that separates us from God, to live the death of our baptism, to put off self and put on Christ – to die again and again, bit by bit, in the sure hope of Pascha and resurrection. For the way of self-destruction – the way of the cross – is ultimately the way, and the only way, to life.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and
peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.[2]

[1] As found in the service of Holy Baptism, BCP 1979, pp. 298-314.
[2] A Collect for Fridays, BCP 1979, p. 27.

Kingdom and Cross

2011-02-01T18:14:00.002-05:00

In a January 2011 speech at Bristol School of Christian Studies (Putting the Gospels Back Together: How We’ve All Misread Our Central Story) Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright makes a compelling case that modern hermeneutics often sacrifices either the kingdom (Gospels) for the cross (Epistles) or else the atonement (Epistles) for social engagement (Gospels). He maintains that these two – kingdom and cross – must never be divorced nor even held in tension, but rather seen as necessary complements: What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

The kingdom of God, which is nothing less than the reign of Christ over all creation, was inaugurated in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and reached its climax in the cross (and its aftermath of resurrection and ascension). Bishop Wright notes, in paraphrase, that the cross is the cutting edge of the sword of the kingdom. It is perhaps apt to consider the cross the means of accomplishing the goal of making present the kingdom. Redemption, while personal, is never private; it always has a corporate, kingdom dimension.

I suspect that, with this hermeneutic in place, we will catch glimpses – and more than glimpses – of the kingdom-cross union throughout scripture. As one small case in point, I offer the account of the healing of the paralytic in Luke 5:17-26.

17 Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. 18 Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. 19 And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus. 20 When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 25 Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. 26 And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today” (Lk 5:17-26, NKJV)!

The healing ministry of Jesus is an in-breaking of the kingdom; of this there is ample witness in scripture, not least in Mt 11. Thus, any healing must be seen in a kingdom context. But, the narrative structure of this healing account links it strongly with cross, as well. The visual imagery is perhaps the first key. There is, at the center of the story, a paralytic – confined to bed or pallet, unable to come to Jesus on his own. He is carried by friends, who metaphorically – and perhaps literally – dig through a roof to lower the man and pallet into Jesus’ presence. Can we see here a dead man, carried on a bier, and lowered into a tomb – not without hope – but dead nonetheless? And the cause of the man’s “death”? Sin, the condition which Jesus first addresses: “’Man, your sins are forgiven you.’” And with the forgiveness of sins comes resurrection and new life: “Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.” It is not a stretch to see this account as a textual icon of the harrowing of hell: Jesus in the midst of sin-bound and dead humanity – by his own death – reaching out to take Adam by the hand, lifting him up to life again. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Thus, what begins as a kingdom story of healing becomes a cruciform story of forgiveness and resurrection. The kingdom comes, this story proclaims, precisely through death, burial, and resurrection and precisely for the forgiveness of sins and the healing of the cosmos. Kingdom and cross belong together.

The purpose of this is not just to promote a more faithful and integrated reading of scripture – though that is no small thing – but a more faithful and integrated life in Christ. Some among us evangelize to save the soul but leave the body poor and hungry and naked and homeless; these must embrace Jesus’ kingdom vision – a kingdom that is already (Christ has begun his reign) but not yet (Christ’s reign in not yet universally acknowledged). Some among us pour out our lives in social ministry in the name of compassion and human dignity but not in the name of Christ crucified; these must embrace Jesus’ cross – a cross that is the very essence of compassion and human dignity.

Wright is right: kingdom and cross belong together – in our hermeneutics, in our proclamation, in our lives.

An Experiment In Knowing

2011-01-28T15:50:00.002-05:00

The faith I have received – the faith of the only, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church – claims that it is possible to see and to know God: to see God and not merely to imagine him, to know God and not merely to believe propositions about him. This claim is boldly dichotomous: either true or false, but not both. If it is true, then materialists – and many Christians live as functional materialists – are deluded; if it is false, then I am deluded.

The claim is not that everyone will see and know God, but only that everyone can see and know God, solely because God wills to make himself seen and known. The Judeo-Christian story – which is a single, unified narrative in multiple acts – is precisely the story of God’s revelation of himself to man through redemptive history. The story reaches its climax in Jesus Christ who said, “If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:7, 9b, NRSV). We see and know God the Father through his self-revelation in God the Son.

To the materialist these statements of Jesus are wholly unsatisfactory. His claim to reveal the Father does not substantiate itself; it is not true simply because he said it. (Actually, it is, but to insist on that now is to put effect before cause.) Compelling evidence is required. But, what evidence will suffice? Testimony will not do – though the unified testimony of millennia of the faithful should not be dismissed out of hand – because witnesses are often biased, sometimes mistaken, and occasionally untruthful. Faith, as generally understood by those outside it, will not do because it is the antithesis of evidence – that which is offered in lieu of knowledge. (Actually, faith is evidence – cf. Heb 11.1 – but only after knowledge is firmly established.) So, what is left? What have we to offer?

Let us propose an experiment – an experiment in which life is the laboratory, praxis is the method, and the heart is the instrument. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt. 5:8). What experiment could verify or falsify this claim? Only a life designed to purify the heart in the way Jesus specifies will suffice. And this is, of course, the rub. To determine if the Christians’ claim to see and to know God is true, one must dedicated oneself to living as if the claim were true. This is the experiment – and the only experiment – that will substantiate or refute the claim that it is possible to see and to know God through Jesus Christ. And this requires utter commitment to the pursuit of truth – a willingness to give one’s life, literally, to determine personally and conclusively if such knowledge of God is possible. It is a most costly experiment, and few there are who actually undertake it fully. This knowledge comes not at the end of a long chain of reasoning – the mind is not the instrument for knowing God or any person – but at the end of a long life of obedience: repentance, ascesis, prayer, sacrament, worship, fellowship – precisely those practices which purify the heart. If at the end of this long life of obedience one concludes that God cannot be seen and known – precisely because God has not been seen or known – then I have no defense to offer for the faith. But, if one rejects the faith before conducting the experiment, I have no apology to offer for the faith. The kingdom of God suffers violence and violent men take it by force (cf. Mt 11:12): it is not easy to see or to know God. Purity of heart is not easily achieved.

The knowledge gained through such a life experiment is real, but not demonstrable, knowledge. It is the knowledge that one person has of another – absolutely compelling, but not transferable; hearsay is inadmissible in this or any court. Each must come to know for himself, or die trying. Of course, there are hints and suggestions that such knowledge is possible; stand in the presence of those who have truly conducted the experiment for years – the church calls them saints – and one can almost see and know God in their faces, in their words, even in their silence. I have known a few of these and I know stories of many more. Their knowledge will not replace my ignorance, but it does offer hope that such knowledge is possible. And in that hope I press on.

So, to those who truly wish to know and to see God, the church offers a path – and, we believe, the path, to do so. And, if you are interested, we will walk it with you. At its end you will find Jesus – God who wills to be seen and known.

Sunrises and Kingfishers: An Epiphanytide Reflection

2011-01-20T16:45:00.003-05:00

The television commercial begins with vistas of our local region and a narrator’s homey voice: “I like it here. There’s nothing wrong with there, I guess, but I like it here.” I agree; so, with apologies to those who live there, I say that here – the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains – is one of the most beautiful places on this beautiful earth.

Five days each week, most weeks, I travel, with my daughter, toward these mountains at sunrise, a time when God does some of his best work -- this morning a case in point. Have you ever seen the oil paintings at “starving artists” sales – sofa-size paintings with colors so vibrant they strain the eyes and with pigments slathered on as thick as mayonnaise on a BLT? When God spoke this morning, when he said – as he does every morning – “Let there be light!” he painted as a starving artist, with blazing colors of rubies and sapphires and diamonds splashed across his cosmic-size canvas as deep as the waters that cover the seas. God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light, and it was good. It was very good.

And the sun and the mountains and the sky all praised the Lord in the way only they can, in the way he prepared for them:

Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord,
O heavens and all waters above the heavens.
Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Let the earth glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O mountains and hills,
and all that grows upon the earth,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.[1]

I had the distinct impression this morning that God was showing off – “Hey, watch this!” – not for the sake of his ego – though he alone is “I AM” – but for the sake of revelation, so that what is unseen – his eternal power and divinity (cf Rom 1:20) – might be glimpsed in and through what is seen. And what is epiphany if not this – God showing off, God making himself seen and known to us in and through his creation, God shining forth for us and for our salvation? “Hey, watch this!” God says in each epiphany, and if we are wise we will.

I live by a creek; so, too, does a pair of kingfishers. I see one or both of them most days, sitting on the wires above the street, looking intently into the water below, thinking inscrutable kingfisher thoughts. They are joyously bizarre birds: compact bodies, oversized heads with punk haircuts, long bills. They seemingly cannot fly without calling out – a unique, clicking chirp: “Hey, watch this!” These birds – no less than the sunrise – are epiphanies: God showing off his delight in the works of his hands, his exuberant energy made manifest in creation. Saint Francis preached to the birds, though probably not to kingfishers. These birds preach to me.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote of such “natural” epiphanies; her poem is itself such an epiphany.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes –
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Epiphanytide is a time to see earth crammed with heaven and every bush afire with God. Even more, it is a time to see the glory of God in the face of Christ, the fullness of God in human form: dwelling among us, teaching and healing, heading resolutely and inexorably toward a cross and tomb – the ultimate epiphany of the love of God for his creation. And it is a time to begin listening for the whisper that becomes a shout of victory – “Hey, watch this!” – as the tomb bursts open and Christ strides forth rising from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life: God showing off. Indeed.

[1] A Song of Creation (selections), BCP 88.

Reflection: Windows and Blinds

2011-01-15T12:20:00.004-05:00

[There are certain recurring themes in my thought and writing, among them the relationship between worship and transparency (cf. Opacity and Idolatry). Some thoughts by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom brought me back around to this topic.]

The difference between idolatry and worship is not the difference between material and spiritual, but the difference between opacity and transparency. That which fixes our gaze on itself and refuses to become transparent to the transcendent God, that which is seen and venerated as a “thing in itself” – that thing is an idol. All that separates St. Francis’ veneration of creation from idolatry, for example, is creation’s transparency to the Creator; in and through every created thing St. Francis sees the Creator God, as this excerpt from his Canticle of the Sun shows:

Most high, all powerful, all good Lord!

All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.
To you, alone, Most High, do they belong.

No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures…

Servants of the Lord are subject to a most subtle and insidious form of idolatry, especially dangerous because it mimics worship, both outwardly and inwardly. Metropolitan Anthony Bloom describes this most aptly:

One of the characteristics of a genuinely healthy spiritual life is temperance. We know in ordinary speech what sobriety means in comparison to drunkenness. One can get drunk in various ways, and not only through wine. Everything that fascinates us so much that we no longer can remember God or ourselves, nor the basic values of life: this is a form of drunkenness. It has no connection to what I have called inspiration – the inspiration of a scholar, of an artist, to whom God has give the ability to see behind the outward form to that which surrounds it: a certain depth of being, which he can draw out and express in sounds, or lines, or colors so as t make it accessible to the people around it who were blind to it. But when we forget specifically that very meaning revealed by them and create an object of delight out of that which should be the object of contemplation – then we lose our sobriety. In Church life it happens to often and so destructively, when people come to church because of the singing, or because of those emotions that are aroused by the harmony of the mystery of the divine service, when God is no longer in the center of everything but only the experience that is the fruit of his presence.[1]

Essentially everything in the corporate life of the church is subject to this danger. Music – often ill-described as “worship” – becomes performance and is rendered opaque to the One who inspired it, while at the same time stirring emotions that masquerade as worship: not always, of course, but too often. The apostles’ teaching, to which the church must be devoted, becomes flowery rhetoric prompting comments of “Good sermon,” but producing no changed lives. The liturgy – conducted perhaps beautifully, perhaps haphazardly – becomes either the object of devotion or the source of boredom and, either way, fails to open the heart to the God who is present there.

The Enemy delights in taking windows to God and drawing the blinds over them, in rendering opaque that which must remain transparent. Delusion lies in not recognizing the difference.

A life of constant watchfulness is our safeguard, the ascetic struggle our necessity: prayer, fasting, confession, obedience – crucifying ourselves to the world and the world to ourselves so that we may rise with Christ. Only in first relinquishing the world in its opacity can we then safely embrace the world in its transparency. Blessed are the pure in heart, our Lord says, for they shall see God.

[1] Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Essential Writings (ed. Gillian Crow). Orbis Books, 2010. p. 132.

Reflection: Bus Fare and the Gospel

2011-01-12T20:51:00.004-05:00

Terry[1] asked me for money today. As I read my Daily Office at First Church of Panera, he sidled up to a nearby table, took a seat, and very politely asked if I might help him with bus fare. I’ve seen him there before, poorly but cleanly dressed, waiting inside on cold mornings for the Knox Area Transit bus which stops very near the restaurant. He had never asked for money before, perhaps because I had never prayed that God would prompt him to ask me for help before – before today, that is.

We talked awhile and I learned that Terry is a regular guest at a local mission. They put these “guests” out at 7:30 each morning and let them back in at 5:30 each afternoon he told me, and I know it to be true. For ten hours – often very cold hours this time of year – Terry wanders the town trying to keep warm. This day, provided he could find bus fare, he planned to visit his mother before heading back to the mission.

Would I help him? I admit to a certain ambivalence about giving money like this. There is a liquor store next to the bus stop. Might Terry seek warmth there? Possibly: I’ve helped others before only to learn that they have abused the help in this or some other way. I’ve struggled to find a generic rule for how to respond to such a request. For some reason, things were clarified for me today through Terry’s request. Perhaps it was the Bible and prayer book he saw on the table that put things in context. Terry was not asking me for my money, though he may have thought so. He was asking a disciple of Christ if the Master had enough mercy to spot him bus fare. He was asking money tou Christou, from Christ, a Greek expression that attributes all good gifts to the Lord.

I knew in that moment that any judgment Terry might make based upon my response would be a judgment on the One whose name I bear, upon the One who said, “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away” (Mt 5:42, NKJV). Of course, it would also be a judgment on my obedience to the One who said that.

I know the arguments against giving money – many of them quite reasonable. I know that such requests might be scams; I’ve been scammed before. But none of this seemed to matter this morning. I choose to believe that the Lord can and will draw good from the obedience of his people, reasonable arguments and scams notwithstanding. I cannot solve homelessness nor can I ensure that even one man will use well the little I have to offer. But, this morning, I could commit into God’s keeping the little bit of money requested and, by so doing, offer God’s mercy. I know this: Terry gave me this morning far more than I gave him. Thanks be to God.

[1] Not his real name

Feast of the Holy Name of the Lord Jesus Christ: 1 January 2011

2011-01-01T09:32:00.003-05:00

The incarnation of the Lord marked him as the flesh-bearing son of Adam, subject to sin – though not guilty of it – in solidarity with all men. The circumcision of the Lord marked him, in the flesh of his incarnation, as the covenant-bearing son of Abraham, subject to the Law – though not guilty of it – in solidarity with all Israel. These two – incarnation and circumcision – locate Jesus in a particular story, in the Story of God’s redemptive purpose for all the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve through this on, particular son of Abraham and the only-begotten Son of God.

St. Paul weaves these two Christological themes together with yet a third theme – baptism – and thereby locates us in the same story:

9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (Col 2:9-15, NKJV).

Our baptism – a spiritual circumcision which removes not a small piece of skin but the entire body of flesh and sin – marks us as the Spirit-bearing sons and daughters of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in solidarity with the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Lord. In one Anglican rite of Holy Baptism, the bishop or priest places a hand on the head of the newly baptized, marks on the forehead the sign of the cross in Holy Chrism, calls the new child of God by name and says: You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever. Amen (BCP 1979, 308). Yes, indeed: Amen.

Enthroned on high with the Eternal Father and Your divine Spirit,
O Jesus, You willed to be born on earth of the unwedded handmaid, your Mother.
Therefore You were circumcised as an eight-day old Child.
Glory to Your most gracious counsel;
glory to Your dispensation;
glory to Your condescension, O lonely Lover of mankind.
Troparion of the Circumcision of the Lord (oca.og)

And on that eighth day, when the son of Mary and Son of God was circumcised, he was also named in accordance with the word spoken by the angel:

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us” (Mt 1:20b-23, NKJV).

Jesus, savior. Immanuel, God with us. Glory to God for the incarnation, circumcision, and name of our Lord Jesus, the name at which every knee will bow and which every tongue will confess – Jesus is Lord – to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Eve of the Nativity: 24 December 2010

2010-12-24T13:30:00.004-05:00

O come, let us rejoice in the Lord, as we declare this present mystery: The partition wall of disunion hath been destroyed, the flaming sword is turned back, and the Cherubim withdraw from the Tree of Life, and I partake of the food of Paradise, whence, because of disobedience, I was expelled. For the Image Immutable of the Father, the Image of his Eternity, taketh the form of a servant, having come forth from a Mother unwedded, yet having suffered no change: for that which he was that he remaineth, being very God; and that which he was not he hath assumed, becoming very man because of his love toward mankind. Unto him let us cry aloud: O God, who wast born of a Virgin, have mercy upon us.

Let heaven and earth today prophetically exult, and let Angels and men spiritually rejoice: for God hath revealed himself in the flesh unto those who were in darkness and sat in the shadow, and hath been born of a Virgin. The cavern and the manger have received him; Shepherds proclaim the marvel, and Magi from the Orient bring gifts unto Bethlehem. And we, also, with lips unworthy, do bring unto him praise in Angelic wise: Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace: for the Hope of the nations is come, and having come hath saved us from bondage to the enemy.

Christ is born: extol him! Christ from heaven: go to meet him! Christ on earth: be ye lifted up! Sing unto the Lord, all the whole earth, and praise him in song with joy, O ye people: For he hath glorified himself.

Glory to thee, O our God; glory to thee.

Andjeli Pevaju : Angels Sing -- A beautiful Serbian Christmas song

Prayers and hymns taken from the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, Hapgood, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

Advent 2: Christmas Carols and the Love of God

2010-12-10T21:01:00.005-05:00

A local radio station begins non-stop Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. As hard as I try to observe Advent and Christmas as separate liturgical seasons, I confess that I do reset my car radio dial (buttons, really) to make this the station of choice. After all, you don’t want to miss Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey.

I like the schmaltzy old Christmas tunes and their classic singers: Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Burl Ives, Perry Como, and that whole generation of crooners. I don’t much like modern re-makes; their performers seem to try too hard to be novel, to “put their own spin” on the songs, and it mainly comes off as labored or pretentious or just poor quality music. I do very much like the instrumentals – selections from the Percy Faith Orchestra to the Windham Hill Christmas collections to Tingstad and Rumbel to Mannheim Steamroller. My wife and daughter mainly share these preferences so that our home and car are filled with music and there are no epic battles for control of the CD player or radio.

What I don’t care for are the songs – primarily of recent vintage – that get all touchy-feely with God’s emotions as he beholds his Son made flesh. A song new to me this year, and typical of the genre, treats God as a proud and protective Papa looking over his sleeping child, soothing him and wishing him sweet dreams. I've done that with my child; probably every father has. So it only makes sense that God acts this way too. Right? The trouble with this, with such cheap and easy sentimentality is that it reasons upward from man to God, that it creates God in our own image – God as man writ large. It posits God’s love as different in degree only – and not in kind – from human love. Take the best in man, increase it by a notch or two, and there you have God. While there is not a total disconnect between man and God – we are, after all, created in God’s image and likeness – reasoning upward from man to God is always moving in the wrong direction. We don’t know the love of God by comparison to human love; we know the love of God because he has revealed it to us in Jesus Christ and we try our best, in the Spirit, to conform our human love to this pattern. We do not so much reason our way to God as we listen to and observe his revelation, and ultimately as we unite ourselves to his revelation in Christ through faith and sacrament and obedience. As the great Advent prophet Isaiah calls to us:

Seek the Lord while he wills to be found; *
call upon him when he draws near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways *
and the evil ones their thoughts;
And let them turn to the Lord, and he will have compassion, *
and to our God, for he will richly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, *
nor your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, *
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.[1]

Christmas is a sentimental time, bound inextricably with memories of family and friends and children – especially children. But, we can’t allow our sentimentality to compromise our theology. God is love, as shown in the incarnation of Christ, yes, but also as shown in the Garden, on the cross, and in the tomb – not so much sentimental as absolutely determined to put creation to rights regardless of the cost. God’s love is a purifying fire, a “reckless, raging fury” as Rich Mullins described it.

These truths don’t necessarily make good Christmas carols, but they do make good Christians who can and do and will sing the praises of God now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

[1] The Book of Common Prayer, 1979. Canticle 10, The Second Song of Isaiah.

Advent 2: Icons and Suffering

2010-12-09T15:38:00.003-05:00

What follows cannot really be considered an Advent reflection except by the strictest of definitions: it is Advent and I have been reflecting on this lately; thus, it is an Advent reflection. Thematically, however, it is not so. Rather, it is a reflection on icons and suffering, occasioned by a book I have been asked to read – The Pursuit of God – and by certain experiences of my own which should and will remain private. Even out of season, I pray it might prove helpful to some.

Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father’s heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.[1]

A. W. Tozer interprets God’s command to sacrifice Isaac as the destruction of an idol – an unholy love for the son of the covenant – that had displaced Abraham’s single-hearted devotion to God. Perhaps it is so, since both Old Testament and New Testament commentators consider the binding of Isaac as a test of the old man’s faith in and devotion to God.

If we read the text Christologically, however, as did the Church Fathers, we find much more than a test of loyalty there. If in Isaac we see a type of Christ, then in Abraham we must also see a type of God. In asking him to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, God was inviting Abraham – and what an agonizing invitation it was – to image God before his son and ultimately before the world. Abraham was given the opportunity – and dare I say, the privilege – to become a flesh and blood icon of the God who would one day complete the sacrificial offering Abraham was asked only to initiate. It was in this act of faithful sacrifice that Abraham was conformed most fully to the likeness of the God who had called him. As with Abraham, so with Isaac: Isaac was never more conformed to the likeness of Jesus as when he was bound on the altar awaiting the fall of the knife.

Do we consider these men blessed to have been made iconic through their sacrifices: Abraham of his son and Isaac of his life? Is there any greater blessing than to be an image-bearer of God the Father or God the Son? How we answer these questions is important, not least because we have been called likewise to be image-bearers, specifically to be conformed to the likeness of the Son. And we will never be more iconic than when we are united to the suffering of Christ. It may well be that the world will never see Christ in us until we lay bound on our own altar of sacrifice awaiting with faithful fear the fall of the knife. May we, like Abraham and Isaac be faithful in our day as they were in theirs.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.[2]

[1] Tozer, A. W. The Pursuit of God.
[2] The Book of Common Prayer 1979. Morning Prayer II, Collect for Fridays.

Advent 1: Watch

2010-11-28T14:55:00.003-05:00

We inhabit and are formed by story, inescapably so; our only real choice is which story or stories will form us. And many compete for that role. There is the patriotic story that forms us first as citizens ready to sacrifice all for the good of the nation/state. There is the commercial story that forms us first as producers and consumers willing to sacrifice all for economic security. There is the humanist story that forms us first as free and self-realized individuals willing to sacrifice all for personal happiness. And, there is the Christian story, that forms us first as the image-bearers of God, whose God was willing to sacrifice all for our salvation and for the reclamation of the cosmos. Which story will it be? We all must choose or others will be happy to choose for us.

Each story creates symbols and seasons, moments and rituals and objects in which the story is embedded and embodied. The Fourth of July is such a season and Old Glory is such a symbol in the patriotic story. Black Friday – and the whole season from just before Thanksgiving until just after New Year’s Day – serves the commercial story in a similar fashion. The Christian story has its Sacraments and its daily and weekly and yearly liturgies. Just now, the Christian story offers a symbol in time – the season of Advent. It is a way of making the story present to us again, of making us conscious of our place in it. And such consciousness is by no means easy to maintain. Advent shouts at us: Wake up – the night is far gone and the day is at hand. Your salvation is nearer now than when you first believed.

Advent relocates us in the midst of the story, far from Alpha, at an unknown remove from Omega and calls out – watch. St. Benedict began the prologue to his rule with the imperative listen; Advent begins with look. Look well in every direction possible: backward to the first advent – incarnation; forward to the last advent – parousia. But don’t forget to look around in the present, for we do not simply remember the once-present, now-absent Lord who will one day come again. We even now look around to see the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth Who is everywhere present and filling all things, the Treasury of good things and the Giver of life. We look for the Holy Spirit within and without to manifest God’s continuing presence with us. We look for the body of Christ, the church, to manifest God’s continuing presence with us. In the midst of the story, in the present moment, Advent proclaims, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come.”

Advent is the time to look, to keep watch, to be prepared. We keep on believing; we keep on loving; we keep on obeying. But,

We are not simply to believe, but to watch; not simply to love, but to watch; not simply to obey, but to watch…to be detached from what is present, and to live in what in unseen; to live in the thought of Christ as he came once, and as he will come again, to desire his second coming.[1]

The Anglican collect for this first Sunday of Advent says it well:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Watch.

[1] John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, quoted in Jon M. Sweeney, Cloister Talks.

Thanksgiving and Personhood

2010-11-20T09:34:00.003-05:00

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar, a distinguished professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a prolific author, and an agnostic – made so by his personal struggles with theodicy, the problem of suffering in a world created and ruled by a good God. I once heard a debate between Ehrman and Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright – himself a New Testament Scholar and recognized expert on the historical Jesus and Pauline studies– on this topic. Each scored a few debating points; neither offered much new in the perennial debate. The discussion was generally forgettable, with the exception of one moment of personal reflection by Ehrman. In recounting his loss of faith and its aftermath, Ehrman acknowledged a void left behind: the lack of anyone to give thanks to for the many moments of grace in his life. Without God, it is impossible to give thanks – though one may be genuinely thankful – for the many “accidental” blessings of life: the presence of a loving companion, the health of family, the abundance of goods, the joy of meaningful work. What do we do with these deep feelings of gratitude when no one is responsible for the blessings, when there is no one to thank? This is Ehrman’s – and any agnostic’s – dilemma, and Ehrman truthfully and courageously confesses it.

This haunting confession points to a deep truth of thanksgiving. It is not enough to feel vaguely, if genuinely, thankful. Thanks must be given; it must be expressed personally – from person to person. So one Eucharistic Prayer begins:

Celebrant: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Celebrant: It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks; for you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever.

We come as person -- gathered in communion with other persons -- to Person. Christian thanksgiving -- and all true thanksgiving -- begins in personhood, in the recognition that the other has enriched you, that the other is a source of blessing. Christian thanksgiving begins with doxology, with the recognition and acknowledgement that God is the Other from Whom all blessings flow. Christian thanksgiving begins with prayer to God who is everywhere present and filling all things, the Treasury of good things and Giver of life.

Orthodox anthropology tells us that man is a tripartite being: body, soul, and spirit. The soul is both life force and mind, the reasoning, discursive aspect of man that grapples with such things as theodicy. The spirit is more central still. It perceives truth directly, unmediated by reason, truth revealed by Person to person. Thanksgiving lives in the spirit and transcends rational doubt. Ehrman knows -- and knows in the spirit -- that it is good and right, always and everywhere, to give thanks to the Father, the Almighty. More's the pity that he has no way now to do so.

By God's grace we do. And so, on this Feast of Thanksgiving -- and every day -- let us offer our tribute of thanks and praise to God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.

Feast of All Saints

2010-11-06T12:19:00.004-04:00

All Saints’ Day: 7 November 2010
A Service of Memory at Lonsdale United Methodist Church
(Sirach 44:1-10, 13-15/1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
A Poor Sort of Memory

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the little corner of the Kingdom of God that I occupy, I would now greet my brothers and sisters in the Lord with these words: The Lord be with you.
And they would respond: And also with you.
And so, my dear brothers and sister in the Lord in this holy place, I greet you in the Lord’s name: The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Hear the word of the Lord, given to Ben Sirach, some two centuries before the birth of Christ.

Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
our ancestors in their generations.
The Lord apportioned to them great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,
and made a name for themselves by their valor;
those who gave counsel because they were intelligent;
those who spoke in prophetic oracles;
those who led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the people's lore;
they were wise in their words of instruction;
those who composed musical tunes,
or put verses in writing;
rich men endowed with resources,
living peacefully in their homes--
all these were honored in their generations,
and were the pride of their times.
Some of them have left behind a name,
so that others declare their praise.
But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
But these also were godly men,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
Their offspring will continue forever,
and their glory will never be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives on generation after generation.
The assembly declares their wisdom,

and the congregation proclaims their praise (Ecclus 44:1-10, 13-15)[1].

On this feast of All Saints’, the scripture, and our hearts, tell us that it is a good and right and holy thing for the body of Christ to assemble and declare the wisdom of our fathers and mothers, to proclaim the praise of our godly brothers and sisters in the Lord – parents, children, husbands, wives, friends, relations – who have preceded us to the reward that awaits us all in Christ Jesus. So, let us sing the praises of those gone before, indeed; let us recount their righteous deeds. Let us remember.

Such memory lies very near the heart of our faith, and has from the beginning. The defining moment of the Jewish experience was, and is, the Exodus from Egypt, the moment when the Covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became the Savior God of his people, when he delivered them from bondage with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And even before that deliverance was complete, God had given his people a way to remember it: blood smeared on the doorposts and lintels of the houses; a hurried meal of roasted lamb, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and wine; a festival of praise – the Passover.

“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
When you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’ you shall say, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And [hearing this] the people bowed down and worshiped (Ex 12:14, 25-27).

Such memory lies very near the heart of our faith, and has from the beginning. The defining moment of the Christian experience was, and is, the crucifixion, the moment when God the Son became God the Savior of all people, when he delivered them from the bondage of sin and death with pierced hands and outstretched arms. And even before that deliverance was complete, our Lord had given his people a way to remember it: blood poured out and body broken – the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation – a festival of thanksgiving, the Eucharist.

[The] Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor 11:23b-26).

Such memory lies very near the heart of our faith, and has from the beginning.
The defining moment of the Church was, and is, Pentecost, the moment when God the Holy Spirit became God the Sanctifier of all flesh – sons and daughters, young men and old men, slaves, both men and women – when he filled them and empowered them with a mighty wind and with flames of fire. And even before the wind died down and the flames guttered out, our Lord had given his Church a way to remember.

So those who welcomed [Peter’s] message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:41-42).

Yes, memory lies very near the heart of our faith, and has from the beginning. So, we remember the Exodus, which is, after all, our story, too – the story of all the spiritual offspring of Abraham. We remember the Lord’s death with bread and wine. We remember the Spirit’s presence with baptism, with the apostles’ teaching, with our fellowship, with the breaking of bread – the Lord’s Supper and our potluck suppers – and with the prayers. We remember too, the saints gone before: their righteous deeds, their witness, their encouragement. As Saint Paul reminds the Hebrews and us, we are surrounded by them, a great cloud of witnesses – the saints – among whom we count those whose names we call in this place and whose lives we celebrate on this day. Thanks be to God who is glorious in his saints.

Memory is central to our faith, but not just any kind of memory will do. As the White Queen said to Alice in Through the Looking Glass: “It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” And, if true for Alice, how much more so for the people of God. It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards – poor and unbecoming a faith such as ours. The beginning of the revelation of Jesus Christ given to Saint John is these words of Christ: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” to which John adds, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8) – past, present, and future. And near the end of that same revelation – after seals are broken and trumpets blown and bowls poured out, after angels and beasts and dragons – the same words again: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev 22:13). The Alpha and the Omega, Jesus says repeatedly: I am the A and the Z. The trouble is, in this spiritual alphabet, we live somewhere around L, M, N, O, or P – stuck in the middle, far from A and Z. What we must have, then, is the kind of memory that looks not only backwards toward Alpha, but forward toward Omega, as well. What we must have is the kind of memory that Jesus sanctified when he gave us his great feast of memory: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The communion we share with bread and wine, body and blood, is precisely the kind of memory we need. It is a memory that looks backwards to the Lord’s death and forward to his coming again. It is a poor sort of memory that only works backwards, but a powerful and holy memory that stands in the middle of time and sees both the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

If our memory works only backwards, then this day’s All Saints’ observance, this service of memory we share, is a sad and pitiable thing: a time to remember what we once had but now have lost forever, a time to mourn love defeated by death, a time to stand helpless and hopeless before the same end that awaits us all. This is not celebration but lament, not feast but fast.

So, what is it that makes the difference between a poor sort of memory that works only backwards and a holy memory that stands in the middle of time and sees both beginning and end, A and Z, Alpha and Omega? What is it that allows us to stand in the midst of death and indescribable loss and yet see life and immeasurable gain? It is the great, good news of the gospel we proclaim this day and every day: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. It is the ancient victory cry of the church: “Christos anesti. Alithos anesti. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” It is the grand truth of Christ’s unconquerable love and boundless eternal life that allows us to stand by the graveside and through our tears yet raise the victory song, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! It is the faith of the saints gone before – the faith of these holy men and women we remember this day – saints far away and saints near, saints kin to us in spirit and saints kin to us in blood. This is what makes the difference between a poor sort of memory that works only backwards and a holy memory that stands in the middle of uncertain and troubled times and looks both backwards to God’s promises and forward to God’s blessings: Christ’s death, resurrection, and coming again.

If Christ has been raised, then we who are his will also be raised with him and like him. If Christ has been raised, then these saints we remember surround us not in silent, past testimony only, but as a living and present cloud of witnesses, cheering us on in the race of faith set before us, struggling with us for our salvation. If Christ has been raised, then

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ 55 ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:50-57).

And so, brothers and sisters, know this:

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a [man], the resurrection of the dead has also come through a [man]; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ (1 Cor 15:20-22).

Thanks be to God for a holy and glorious memory that works both backwards and forward. And now, looking forward brothers and sisters, now is the time of our sainthood. Now is the time, in the presence of this great cloud of witnesses, for us to lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely. Now is the time for us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2, adapted). Now is the time for us to be “steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because [we] know that in the Lord [our] labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58, adapted). Now is the time to celebrate the saints gone before. Now is the time to celebrate the saints among us. Now is the time for us to take our place in that great cloud of witnesses. Now is the time to remember.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, you have surrounded us with a great cloud of witnesses:
Grant that we, encouraged by the good example of your servants,
may persevere in running the race that is set before us,
until at last we may with them attain to your eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Logic of Atonement

2010-11-03T17:30:00.003-04:00

I start with two confessions.

First, I am wholly inadequate to write about, or even to contemplate, the atonement, by which I mean the full scope of Christ’s redeeming work for the cosmos: incarnation, life, death, descent into hell, resurrection, ascension, return, and judgment. So, you would be perfectly justified – no pun intended – to stop reading at this point; you would be wise, indeed, to do so if you expect wisdom to follow. And, yet, I am compelled to contemplate and to write – even with fear and trembling – if for no other reasons than to marvel at the atonement and to worship the One who loved us so.

Second, none of the atonement theories on offer make any sense to me – and, please know that I have none better to offer. East and West, Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and Arminian: none of them makes sense to me. Every atonement theory, or so it seems to me, attempts to apply an external logic that compels God to behave in a certain way. And therein lies the problem.

“That which is not assumed, cannot be healed,” Gregory of Nazianzus tell us by way of logically compelling the incarnation. But why? Could God not heal in another way? Is he helpless before some external logic and forced to act in this particular way of incarnation?

Because God is perfectly just he cannot forgive sin only; he must punish it, Anselm, and hosts of others, tell us by way of logically mandating the crucifixion. Again, why? Surely, the father of the Prodigal Son did not stand on honor or justice but rather delighted in forgiving sin and reconciling his son to himself. Is God more constrained by some external logic than the God-figure in the story told by God the Son?

Every atonement theory I have encountered falls prey to this same problem: each invokes some external logic to compel God’s behavior. In essence, each theory might well start with, “Oh, God had to do this (whatever this is) because …”. And that, I cannot accept. While we might argue over human free will, certainly we must accord God the status of being truly sovereign. God had to do nothing. God chose to do everything. And the difference is vast.

I find nothing logical about atonement history. Read the Old Testament – on its own merit and not through the lens of the New Testament. (I know this is not really feasible, but imagine it nonetheless.) Would you really have predicted the incarnation, death, and resurrection of God the Son? I find no inherent logic in the story that compels God to act as he chose to act in Jesus. Reading the Gospels for the first time I can imagine someone responding, “Who would have guessed?” Oh, there are hints and shadows and prophecies aplenty in the Old Testament, but they are apparent, if at all, only after the facts of the New Testament. Philip started with Jesus and explained the prophets to the Ethiopian and not the other way around. Starting with Jesus you can understand the Old Testament, but, starting with the Old Testament, I don’t think you can predict Jesus and the atonement. My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts, God said, and truly this is so.

So, I find that I cannot say, “God did this because.” Instead, I can and must say, “Because God did this…”. I mean simply this: I cannot logically explain the atonement, but I can enumerate the blessings of the atonement. Unlike Saint Gregory, I cannot say that God had to assume my nature in the incarnation to heal my nature, but I can and do say that because God assumed my nature in the incarnation, my nature may be healed. Unlike Anselm, I cannot say that God had to punish sin to satisfy the just requirements of the law, but I can and do say that because God destroyed sin in the body of Christ crucified, the law lays no legitimate claim on me. There is an enormous difference – and not mere semantics – between “God had to,” and “Because God did.”

Perhaps I’m doing little more than echoing Saint Paul:

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ 20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Cor 1:18-25, NRSV).

While I am convinced that there is no external logic that compelled the atonement, I know also, beyond reason or doubt, that there is an internal logic to the atonement that compels me – an internal logic that transcends reason and makes meaning, that transcends death and makes life.

At some point perhaps we stop trying to understand the cross of Christ by external, human logic and simply start trying to stand under the cross of Christ by the mercy and grace of the God who so loved us in this shocking and unprecedented manner. With the mind in the heart, let us venerate the cross of Christ and worship the One who died there for us.

Opacity and Idolatry

2010-10-26T16:13:00.004-04:00

Idolatry is inevitable in an opaque world; true worship requires transparency.

Consider the veneration of icons by Orthodox Christians. If the icons are spiritually opaque – if they are only things in themselves, made by human hands with wood and paint, and seen in this way – then the lighting of candles before them, the prostrations, the kissing is all idolatry, for it is addressed to the work of our hands, to our own creation. But, if the icons are spiritually transparent – if, as is claimed, they are windows into heaven through which to glimpse our God who is beautiful in his saints, and are seen in this way – then all the acts of veneration are truly acts of worship to the One seen through the icons.

Anything that is opaque may become an idol. Some speak of Bible-olatry, and rightly so. The Bible, if studied as any other book and considered a thing and end in itself, becomes an idol. It is, in reality, a verbal icon, a textual window through which to see God and through which to draw his people into worship. It is either this, or it is an idol. The same may be said of Liturgy or prayer or fasting or works of service. The same may be said of our children or professions or possessions or pleasures. That which is venerated – in thought, word, or deed – in opacity, is an idol.

The danger is real; so, too, is its opposite. If the opaque is subject to idolatry at one end of the continuum, it is subject to contempt or disregard at the other. Nature, for example, is creation which has been rendered spiritually opaque by materialism. It is no longer a window through which to glimpse the everlasting power and divinity of the Creator (cf Rom 1:20), but a venue and means for indulging human passions. Once we studied a transparent creation to know God; now we utilize an opaque nature to please ourselves. Or, consider the homeless man. If he is opaque to us, he is a problem to be solved, a cause to be championed, a nuisance to be ignored. Only if he is transparent to us is he the least of the brothers of our Lord, through whom we may glimpse and minister to the Lord, himself. If opaque, my job is just a job; if transparent, it is a ministry. If opaque, my wife is just my spouse, there to help me. If transparent, she is my sister in Christ for whom I will sacrifice my very life, as Christ gave his life for the church. If opaque, everything is just as it seems and I am free to worship it idolatrously or equally free to disregard it contemptuously. But, if transparent, everything is sacramental, allowing us to glimpse through it the God who is everywhere present and filling all things, to whom alone belongs glory and honor, worship and praise.

And then, there is the matter of ourselves: opaque or transparent? We were – all of us – created to be living icons of God, made in the image of God, transparent so that God’s glory might be witnessed in and through us. Christians are doubly so – transparent by nature and by vocation. When we turn from that nature and vocation, when we turn to embrace an opaque world, we lose our transparency and become opaque ourselves. The struggle – the ascesis – of the Christian life is the struggle to become transparent and to retain that transparency, to be nothing in ourselves, to say with Saint Paul, “it is no longer I who lives, but Christ in me.”

Salvation and Judgment

2010-10-12T17:24:00.004-04:00

Like Jude, I have much that I wish to say about the salvation that we share; I think several posts will follow on this topic. I begin here with a re-post from October 2007 that sets out some of the fundamental notions underlying my thoughts -- and, I hope, the thoughts of the church -- on our great salvation.

I’ve always thought of hellfire-and-damnation preachers much like I think of grits and sweet, iced tea – as home grown Southern commodities. Oh, I suppose you can get all of then north of the Mason-Dixon line, but there they would be only dim shadows of the full reality we have here in Dixie. Here we have the real Brother Love.

Hot August night and when you’d almost bet
you can hear yourself sweat he walks in.
Eyes black as coal and when he lifts his face
every ear in the place is on him.
Starting soft and slow like a small earthquake,
but when he lets go, half the valley shakes.

Cause it’s Love, Brother Love,
say Brother Love’s traveling salvation show.
Pack up the babies and bring the old ladies
cause everyone goes, everyone knows it’s Brother Love’s show.

-- Neil Diamond (adapted)

I like grits: butter, salt, pepper: please, no sugar – that’s for Yankees who even put it in their cornbread! And sweet tea? Well, that’s the house wine of the South. But, other than as cultural icons – kind of like Elvis – I’m not so fond of hellfire-and-damnation preachers. They tell you with tears in their eyes and a catch in their voice just how much God loves you. Then a moment later – sometimes without missing a single breath – they stride across the stage and with red face and popping veins terrorize you with the eternal fires of hell where the flames are never quenched and the worm never dies and where God is only too pleased to send you forever if you don’t repent this very night. And this always brings the shouts of Amen! from the crowds. “Are you saved, brothers and sisters? If you leave this place and on the way home die in a terrible car wreck, do you know where you’d spend eternity?”

I’ve heard my share of these preachers. They weren’t part of my spiritual traditional directly, but I’ve heard them often enough. And I’ve known a few – genuinely good men worthy of respect. Even so, I don’t care for their preaching. And it’s not just a matter of style; I don’t care for the style, but that’s just personal preference and not important at all. It’s not the simple and unsophisticated faith they typically express that bothers me; after all, God has not chosen to use the wisdom of the world for his glory, but rather the foolishness of the cross proclaimed with simplicity and power – the very wisdom of God. No, it’s their theology; that’s the problem. I find their vision of God more than a little confusing and frankly, disturbing. God loves me and God is willing to torture me forever in the fires of hell. These two notions need a lot more reconciliation than their sermons usually provide, and really than their theology provides. And the incessant question, “Are you saved?” makes me wonder: In their theology am I being saved by God, for God, or from God? It truly begins to sound like the latter. God, who is good, is disposed – by his very goodness – to send me, wretched sinner that I am, to eternal punishment. But Jesus interposes himself between my sinfulness and God’s righteous wrath to save me from God’s vengeance. Jesus saves me from God. Can that be right? Is that really the biblical image of salvation?

Such preaching always leaves me feeling vaguely disquieted, even a bit irritated. It’s taken me a while to realize why, but I think I understand now. These preachers’ vision of God is the God of my childhood; theirs is the same, slightly schizophrenic theology that I’ve struggled to shake but haven’t quite managed to. I find it hard to love their God – easy to fear him, but hard to love him. I find it hard to believe that he loves me. I find it hard to say that their God is good in any normal sense of the word good. And yet, I find it hard to let go of that theology. I am a Western Christian, a product of the Reformation, and that is the God of the Reformation. What is left if I let go of that image – some wimpy, culture-formed god who just wants us all to get along and who embraces us all in the end? That can’t be right either. What I want is the real God. What I want is the true theology of the church – faithfully received from the Apostles and faithfully preserved in Scripture and in the faith and practice of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church. What does the church say about God’s judgment?

He will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is the unanimous testimony of the creeds, Scripture, the Fathers, and the historic church itself. And it must be our starting point: Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Judgment is certain. At issue is what that judgment will look like. At issue is the nature and outcome of that judgment. At issue is our very understanding of God. Perhaps that’s why, in discussing judgment with Nicodemus, Jesus starts with God.

16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God’ (John 3:16-21, NRSV).

Any discussion of judgment must be firmly rooted in this passage and must keep coming back to it as a compass continually returns to true north.* Let’s lay out the major points here and then flesh them in later.

1. God’s fundamental and unchanging disposition toward the world is love. “For God so loved the world,” means just that. This is true corporately – God loves the whole world – and individually – God loves you. Imagine yourself at your best moment, at that time when you were closest to God. He loved you then. Imagine yourself at your worst moment, at that time when you were farthest from God. He loved you then. God’s unchanging disposition toward the world is love.

2. God sent his Son into the world to save the world – the most costly rescue mission ever mounted. Let’s get this straight at the outset: we are not saved from an angry God by the sacrifice of Jesus. We are saved by the loving God and for the loving God through the sacrifice of Jesus. I think my preacher friends knows this; it’s just that their theology doesn’t give them such a good way of expressing it. It is God’s desire and intent to save the entire world – not just to pardon sinners but to restore all of creation – through his unique Son, Jesus Christ.

3. Judgment began the moment Jesus entered the world as Christ, the Messiah, because at that moment people began making decisions about their relationship with him and to him. The Magi chose to bow down in worship and sacrifice. Herod chose to rise up in rebellion and murder. Jesus’ very presence makes judgment unavoidable. And here is the irony on which everything hinges: we worry about how Jesus will judge us when, in reality, we are the ones judging Jesus.

4. The nature of judgment lies in the human response to the presence of Jesus. “19And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” I read this verse and imagine roaches in a dark, filthy room scurrying for cover when the light is turned on. Jesus’ presence provokes a response and that response is a self-judgment. Not only do we judge Jesus – whether we will bow before him or rise up against him – we also judge ourselves. If we are resolutely evil – evil and beyond repentance – we will flee from his presence. If we looking for the kingdom of God – perhaps even unknowingly – we will be drawn toward the light of Christ. Our response to the presence of Jesus is the judgment for or against us, and it is ours to make.

Now let’s put some flesh on these bare bones of theology. What does this judgment look like incarnationally? As usual, Jesus tells a story.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1-2, NRSV).

Already in these introductory verses judgment is occurring; it provides the context for the following parables. Jesus is present and people must make decisions, judgments, about their relationships to and with him. Notice that when the light of Christ shone on Israel it wasn’t the tax collectors and sinners who scurried away toward the dark nooks and crannies, but the religious elite who did so. Unrighteousness wasn’t judged harshly; self-righteousness was.

11 Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. 13A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ ” 20So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” 22But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.
25 ‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” 31Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:11-32, NRSV).

In this story one player remains steadfast, unchanging in his true character throughout; one player experiences radical repentance, a recreation of heart and mind; and one player is revealed for what he truly was and is.

From first to last, what is the father’s disposition toward his sons in this parable? Love. Whether the sons are near or far, rebellious or obedient, shameful or upright, the father never wavers in his love for them. His sole judgment is that he will continue to love his sons – no matter what – simply because they are his sons. God’s fundamental and unchanging disposition toward the world is love. God’s fundamental and unchanging disposition toward you is love. Are you a sinner? Well, I am and I can only suppose you are, too. But more importantly, we are children of God through our Lord Jesus Christ and we are the undeserving recipients of God’s unchanging love.

The younger son is a jerk. There’s no need to paint a rosy picture where none exists: he is unconscionably disrespectful, intolerably selfish, unimaginably arrogant, and unashamedly sinful. In short, he looks a lot like me. Until…until the light of the memory of his father’s love pierces the darkness of his despair and he comes to his senses. And this memory forces a judgment. What will be his relationship to the father? Will he return and bow humbly before him seeking hesed, loving compassion, or will he, in continued arrogance distance himself even farther from his father’s grace? Judgment began the moment the memory of the father’s love surfaced, and that judgment was in the hands and heart and mind of the prodigal son. Judgment begins for us the moment Jesus becomes present to us. Jesus’ very presence make judgment unavoidable – not that Jesus judges us, but that we judge him.

The elder son has a thin veneer of righteousness. I even believe his claims – that he had worked faithfully for his father and that he had never disobeyed – don’t you? Externally, here was the perfect son. But he didn’t have his father’s heart. He was every bit as concerned with inheritance as his younger brother had been – concerned with position and pride and importance. And when the light of the father’s love blazed openly upon the returned prodigal, it was the self-righteous elder son who scurried for the darkness of anger and selfishness. The presence of the father’s love revealed the true heart of the elder son and provoked a response of self-judgment and rejection. Our response to Jesus reveals our heart and in that revelation lies the judgment for or against us. When our hearts are opened the judgment we have made about Jesus, and therefore our judgment upon ourselves, is revealed. Perhaps this is what John recorded symbolically in the Revelation:

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books (Rev 20:11-12, NRSV).

And maybe that’s what Paul had in mind in his instruction to the Roman Christians.

Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honour and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury (Rom 2:4-8, NRSV).

Both John and Paul speak of the judgment as an opening, a revelation, of what a man has written in the book of his life, of what he has stored in his heart. This is not as much God’s judgment on man as it is self-judgment. Let’s see what you’ve become. Let’s see your response to the light. What is it that you really want as revealed by the storehouse of your heart? Then that is what you shall have.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is the testimony of the Creed, Scripture, and the voice of the faithful for two millennia. I believe it. Each of us will be judged – will judge ourselves – based upon the totality of our lives and the totality of our response to the Lord Jesus. Did we bow down in worship or did we rise up in rebellion? Did we scurry away from the Light of the World or did we let it fill us so that we became a light for the world? Will our opened hearts reveal the Father’s love or the emptiness of man turned inward upon himself? These are the judgments we will make. These are the judgments were are even now making.

Like the hellfire-and-damnation preachers I believe God loves us. And like them I, too, am concerned with being saved, but not saved from God – rather saved by and for our loving God through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. In fairness, I’m sure that is what many of them mean. So, we live not in fear, but in love and expectation.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in the world we are like him (1 John 4:15-17, NIV).

He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Even so come, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Predestination and Eschatology

2010-10-09T11:03:00.003-04:00

I believe in predestination – not at all as the Reformers conceived of it, but as scripture presents it in the cosmic, eschatological vision of the Apocalypse. I believe in predestination as seen in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, in whom the blessed end is present from the beginning. I believe in predestination as revealed in the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. I believe in predestination as visioned by Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

What does it look like, this eschatological predestination?

1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. 2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” 6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. 7 He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. 8 But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Rev 21:1-8, NKJV).

It looks like the consummation of all things in Christ Jesus, the renewal of all things in him according to the foreknowledge and will of God. It looks like the free choice of all men honored by God: the water of life granted to those who thirsted for it and the lake of fire bequeathed to those who refused to turn from it. It looks like the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven – a kingdom come in answer to the prayer Jesus taught us and made us bold to pray.

1 And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever (Rev 22:1-5, NKJV).

It looks like life and healing and purity and worship and light – the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus, a light penetrating and transforming and finally shining from the righteous, the sons and daughters of men made sons and daughters of God. It looks like blessing.

14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. 15 But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie (Rev 22:14-15, NKJV).

It looks like – and this is where I must depart from the Reformers – invitation, not for some, but for all.

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Rev 22:17, NKJV).

This is the great predestination of God: that in his abundant mercy he determined from before the beginning of creation the glorious end of creation and determined to make available to all who freely come to him, freely the water of life.

So, I believe in predestination: that our sovereign God, by his sovereign choice made from before all creation, will put all things to rights, for our God is righteous; that our merciful Savior, slain from the foundations of the world, offers light and life to all men, for our God is gracious and the lover of mankind.

Our God, who spoke the first word of creation, speaks also the first word of new creation: a word predestined in the gracious will of God.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! 21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen (Rev 22:20-21, NKJV).

Creation and Eschatology

2010-10-07T10:14:00.003-04:00

Last evening I joined an all too brief discussion on creation theology and eschatology. It reminded me of this sermon, originally posted on 9 September 2007. One day I will express these same ideas better -- there is much room to do so -- but for now, I offer this again.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

16Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. 19Lamech took two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. 21His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Gen 4:16-22a, NRSV).

There was no music in the Garden. Oh, the birds sang almost certainly. But the sound of wood and string – the harp and lyre – and the sound of wood and wind – the flute and the pipe – well, these were not heard. Human music was generations away, east of Eden. There was no art in the Garden. Oh, the artistry of the Creator filled the earth and the sea and the heavens above them both. But the work of human hearts and hands – bronze sculpture and statues – well, these were not seen. Human art was generations away, east of Eden. There were no cities in Eden, no tended flocks. These, too, lay generations away and to the East. Much that is distinctive about human nature – our culture and civilization – was nowhere to be found in the Garden.

All these human accomplishments – music, art, tools, architecture, animal husbandry and the like – followed man’s original sin; but, there is no biblical reason to believe they proceeded from it. If anything, this human development shows that man, even in his fallen state, is capable of and is drawn toward God-ordained growth and maturity. Had man remained in the Garden, lovelier music and art would have graced Eden than that which we now know. Tools would have cultivated the garden and not ravaged it; never would plowshares have been beaten into swords. Architecture and agriculture would have ensured homes and food for all Eden’s inhabitants; homelessness and poverty – certainly born of sin – would never have been known.

A garden is not only an idyllic place of beauty and rest, it is also a place of fertile potential, a place where growth toward abundance is both possible and natural – expected. Perhaps we should envision Eden not as a beautifully landscaped but essentially static English garden, but rather as a newly-furrowed working farm awaiting the seed. As stewards of the Garden our first parents were commanded to be fruitful and multiply, which has implications far beyond mere physical reproduction. Grow, develop, mature in your relationship with creation, with one another, and with God – learn to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself: these were the divine mandates spoken into the very nature of man when God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,” (Gen 1:26, NIV). From creation man was oriented toward God – not statically, but dynamically – moving ever closer, growing in grace and knowledge, reflecting ever more clearly and fully the image and likeness of God. Man was to become like God through an obedient relationship with God. This was, and still is, our nature and vocation.

And then sin entered the Garden. If you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will be like God, the tempter promised. You will be like God. Do you see the temptation, the snare? Becoming like God is the God-given nature and vocation of man; it is what we were created to do and to be, but only through obedience, only in relationship with God. The tempter offered another way, an apparently quicker and easier way – a way of death masquerading as a way of life. And our parents fell for it. They turned from the Creator to the creature. Man who was oriented toward God, moving ever closer and growing in grace and knowledge, turned his back on God and charted his own path.

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death (Pr 14:12, NIV).

And death it was, for our parents chose to separate themselves from the Source of life, from God their Creator. Not death only, but exile too – life east of Eden. Still man’s nature calls; still man’s vocation beckons. We were made to be the sons and daughters of God, to be partakers – to share – in the divine nature. It is that union with God for which we continue to long and to strive. So, in this land east of Eden, let there be music. Let there be art. Let there be tools and cities and farms and flocks. Let us be fruitful and multiply. For this is good and God-ordained.

But for all this, even our best efforts are tainted by the sin which surrounds us and forms us from the womb. As Michael Card observes, man was meant to wake up in a garden, but finds himself instead in a sin-impregnated world. That sin pulls us away from our vocation and entices us to act contrary to our nature. The ultimate goal of union with God eludes us.

26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ 29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 34Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ 35The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 38Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-35, 38, NRSV).

This is the mystery of the incarnation, a mystery beyond our comprehension, beyond our best mathematics and biology: one God in three Persons, one person – Jesus Christ – comprised of two natures. Try to do those theological sums: 1 person + 1 person + 1 person = 1 God, or is it 1 nature + 1 nature = 1 person? Try to construct the Punnett Square for a hereditary cross between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Is divinity dominant and humanity recessive, or is it the other way round? All we can do is echo both Mary’s wonder – How can this be? – and her faithfulness – Let it be according to your word.

The Creed distills this account, this mystery, into very few words: He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. And these few words change the course of human history. Actually, these words – and the truth behind them – put human history back on course again.

In Jesus, specifically in the incarnation, the union of man and God that eluded us in the Garden – the union that we rejected through our disobedience – was accomplished on our behalf by God himself. Perfect obedience, perfect relationship, perfect union: these are the gifts of the incarnation. What we did not, and now cannot, achieve on our own God achieved for us through the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit and the life-accepting yes of the Virgin Mary: He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

When the proclamation of the Gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit gives birth to faith in us, when we are baptized into Christ’s death and raised to walk in Christ’s life, we become the sons and daughters of God and are made partakers in the divine nature. What is true for Jesus through his incarnation is made true for us and for all who are in him through faith.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and this is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is (1 John 3:1-2, NRSV).

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4, NRSV).

The incarnation has returned us to the Garden, reawakened us to our true nature, reoriented us toward a relationship with God and placed us once again on the path toward perfect union with God through Christ Jesus. We are once again on the path – not yet at the final destination – but able, in the light of Christ, to see the path and in the power of the Holy Spirit to walk the path. And walk it we must. Peter, who tells us that through Christ we may become participants of the divine nature, calls us to walk the path toward perfect union.

For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are your and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble. For in this way, entry into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be richly provided for you (2 Peter 1:5-8, 10-11, NRSV).

Through the salvation that is ours in Christ – a salvation that begins with his incarnation – perfect union with God is made possible. It is promised – not as a completed event but as an ongoing process. As with so much in our faith, it is “already but not yet;” already made possible and sure but not yet fully completed, already inaugurated but not yet consummated. And so we must cooperate with the Spirit. We must struggle. We must discipline ourselves. We must repent. We must work out our salvation. It is a struggle through life, for life. And though we have an essential part to play in this process, the power behind it all, the enabling power and grace are God’s.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified (Rom 8:28-30, NRSV).

It is our God-ordained destiny – our nature and vocation – to bear the image of God, to be conformed to the image of his Son. He calls us; he justifies us; and he will glorify us. Those who are in Christ Jesus and who abide in him will one day – on the day of his appearing – be transformed fully into his image.

45Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Cor 15:45-52, NRSV).

One day we will all be changed, all those who are in the last Adam, Jesus Christ. But we can’t wait for that day. We must walk the path of transformation now. We must press on in obedience toward our high calling as the image bearers of God, certain that even now we are being changed into the likeness of Christ through the power of his incarnation.

Amen.

Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels

2010-09-28T17:15:00.002-04:00

In the Preface to The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis writes:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

Might the same be said for angels?

To disbelieve in the existence of angels is to deny the clear teaching of Scripture and the witness of the Church and her saints. To believe in angels and to feel an excessive interest in them to is shift the central focus from Christ, to choose the lesser part of our faith. A middle way between the extremes of the spectrum is needed: a way that acknowledges and honors the angels as servants of God – and often as God’s ministers on our behalf – but which leaves the mystery of these servants in the hands of God and worships God alone.

Several prayers in The Book of Common Prayer find and walk this via media.

Collect of Saint Michael and All Angels
Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: Mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Collect at Compline
Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace; and let your blessing be upon us always; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

During the Great Thanksgiving (Eucharistic Prayer D)
Countless throngs of angels stand before you to serve you night and day; and, beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you unceasing praise. Joining with them, and giving voice to every creature under heaven, we acclaim you, and glorify your Name as we sing,

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.

In these prayers the church attends to God in praise and petition. In these prayers the church declares its solidarity and communion with the angels and with every praising creature under heaven in worship of the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of power and might. In these prayers the church places its hope in the Lord who commends us to the protection and ministry of his servants, the angels.

Worship God. Honor the angels, God’s servants and our fellow-servants. Stand with them and with all creation in praise. Acknowledge the incomprehensible mystery of God and his angelic providence for us and on our behalf. Amen.

Mere Christianity?

2010-09-22T17:19:00.002-04:00

In the Preface to Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis writes:

I hope no reader will suppose that “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions – as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable…and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house.

I have been thinking lately of mere Christianity – not just the classic by C. S. Lewis, but the notion behind the work, the notion that there is an essential Christianity that may be abstracted from the various culture-laden and denominational-bound expressions of the faith, a “hall” of faith as distinct from the rooms. Call it minimal Christianity, pure Christianity, mere Christianity or whatever you will. That is what Lewis sought to express; that was his project.

I suspect—the greatness of his work notwithstanding – that such a project is bound to fail. It requires a neutral place in which an objective observer may stand outside the faith to judge what is essential in the faith. If Postmodernism has taught us anything useful at all it is this: there are no neutral places and there are no objective observers. We are all storied people; we all stand within a story and we are all formed by that story. I can only say, “To me this element of the faith is essential and that one is not,” but you have every right to contradict my opinion. If an Orthodox writer had attempted Mere Christianity, for example, there surely would have been a chapter on icons; they are an essential element of the Orthodox faith. And yet many other faithful view them as optional sacred art – at best – and as “graven images” – at worst. One man’s mere Christianity is another’s cultural accretion.

It probably does little good to appeal to St. Vincent of Lérins dictum here either: That which has been believed always, everywhere, and by all. This does not codify mere Christianity – what must be in the essential faith. It merely says what we cannot include in the faith. We cannot claim as the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church that which lacks antiquity, ubiquity, and unanimity. Even those tenets of faith and rituals of worship that are ancient and universally accepted also originated in a cultural setting. Simply because they persisted across cultures does not mean that they are therefore essential.

So, I think it may not be possible to define mere Christianity except, perhaps, to explain to non-Christians – or even “new” Christians – some of the things that most Christians tend to believe and practice. This seems a worthwhile task of communication – many writers, ancient and modern, have attempted it – provided the limits of the task are clearly stated, much as Lewis does in his preface. Mere Christianity may provide a textbook synopsis of the faith, but not a description of a faith that may be lived.

The task that I do not find worthwhile – and even find antithetical to the faith – is that of creating and practicing a mere Christianity designed to appeal to the prevailing culture through accommodation to that prevailing culture, when, in short, the church turns over to the culture the task of determining what is truly essential in the faith. The result is a minimalist faith that seeks to eliminate everything intrusive or offensive from the gospel. And the result is predictable – and observable in many churches. A primitive worldview that embraces spiritual forces, miracles, virgin birth, etc., is not truly essential; a rationalist and deistic approach will suffice. A social morality that addresses how and with whom we have sex, how we earn and spend money, how we relate to rich and poor and to allies and enemies is not truly essential; an ethic of tolerance will suffice. A kingdom loyalty that prophetically speaks truth to power, that proclaims Jesus – and not any earthly Caesar – as Lord is not truly essential; patriotism and a voter’s registration card will suffice. And when the culture has stripped all nonessentials from the faith, when culture has defined mere Christianity, the church has been reduced to just another civic club that is useful for service projects and for sanctioning the public exercise of cultural religion.

Instead of mere Christianity, we need the fullness of the faith – everything the faith has to offer: the Church, the Scriptures, the creeds, the councils, the patristic texts, the ancient hymns and prayers and liturgies, the sacraments, the ascetic teaching and practice. In mere Christianity less is not more; less is merely less.

Elevation of the Holy Cross

2010-09-14T15:01:00.007-04:00

As God makes clear through his prophet Isaiah, not all religious rituals are equal: not all are holy, not all have the power to make holy. Condemning Israel’s vain fasting, God asks:

6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am (Is 58:6-9).

As the church elevates and exalts the cross of Christ this day, we do well to listen for prophetic words once again.

Is this not the elevation of the cross that I choose:
to take up your own cross – to lay down your own life – and follow me?
Is this not the exaltation of the cross that I choose:
to have within yourself the mind of Christ,
who, being in the form of God,
did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
but made Himself of no reputation,
taking the form of a bondservant,
and coming in the likeness of men?
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death,
even the death of the cross.
Is this not the elevation of the cross that I choose:
to be crucified to the world and for the world to be crucified to you?
Is this not the exaltation of the cross I choose:
to boast in nothing except the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to know nothing but Christ and him crucified,
to embrace the foolishness of the gospel of the cross
– a foolishness wiser than men --
and the weakness of God – a weakness stronger than men?

The Elevation of the Holy Cross is far more than the commemoration of an historical event and more that a great feast of the church. It is a commitment to a cruciform life and a cruciform death, in the certainty of a glorious resurrection.

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted
high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world to
himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery
of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and
follow him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Corners

2010-09-09T16:04:00.004-04:00

DISCLAIMER: A link to this post has been placed on the blogsite Official Street Preachers.com without notifying me or asking my permission. I find much on that blog offensive and opposed to the gospel message as I understand it. The street preachers I reflect upon in the following post bore no resemblance to many in evidence on the Street Preachers blog -- nor do I.

Following is a reflection on the preaching life written in May 2008.

Corners mark intersections and sometimes turning points. In the southern Appalachian Bible Belt of my youth they also marked the preferred pulpits of street preachers. With dripping white shirts, loosened black ties, and bibles swinging wildly to punctuate each point and sweep away all objections, this pair – prophetic like Moses and Elijah, thunderous like James and John – filled the sticky summer air at the corner of Market and Union with the sulphurous stench of hell. It was a cosmic battle of aromas each noon: brimstone on one corner, Nan Denton’s corn dogs on the next. The fate of immortal souls hung between in the balance. I usually brought my lunch to work and wasn’t often tempted to stray from manna to corn dogs. After all, at Nan Denton, Bobby just wanted to know my order. But these two on the other corner, they wanted to know where I would spend eternity – you know, if I just happened to die that night. Considering my apparently imminent demise, foregoing a corn dog seemed wisdom.

I watched them as they strode the small corner that was their earth, prophets of old somehow called forth like Samuel from his sleep. They bellowed and whispered and accused and plead. In a spiritual tag-team whose rules eluded me, when one tired and grew hoarse, the other, as if on cue, rose to continue the apocalyptic word uninterrupted. Rarely did the message vary: man’s sin, God’s love, the certainty of fearful judgment, and the urgent need for decision. People’s reactions varied. Some hurried by, late for a meeting or simply afraid of being drawn into the drama. Others grabbed a nearby park bench or concrete planter ledge, happy for the fifteen-minute diversion from the tedium of the day. Some listened and even mumbled an occasional, embarrassed, Amen. Rarely was anyone overtly rude and certainly never hostile. There was, in the South of that day, a genuine reverence for the message of God and a respect for the messengers of God, even if those messengers were – what? Characters? Yes, that’s what many would have said about them. They’re real characters, bless their hearts.

Not that they seemed to care what anyone thought. They were in the grip of the Spirit, witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth – the world compressed to a point, to a single street corner of a single block in a single southern city on this single summer day. As far as I could tell they were faithful witnesses in their way. That’s not a little thing.

The downtown of my youth is no more. The open-air farmers’ market surrounded by hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop shops has been replaced by the trendy vacuum of new age boutiques and vegan restaurants. Nan Denton is gone. And the preachers. I wonder about them from time to time. It’s been twenty-five years; if still alive the pair have grown old now. What do they do, street preachers in forced retirement? Shopping malls are the corners of our time, or maybe Starbuck’s. But it is hard to imagine street preachers there: mall preachers? coffeehouse preachers? I miss them. I miss the intersections and turning points they marked. I lament the landscape with too few signposts. I grieve the maps with no compass rose and no streets marked because “all roads lead to the same destination anyway and, after all, it’s the journey that matters.”

I preach. Each week I struggle and cooperate, battle and submit to God over the texts chosen for me, and each Sunday I preach my gleanings from the field of the Spirit. And though my little flock knows it not – and could scarcely imagine it – in the holy of holies of my heart, I am a street preacher, standing on the corner, marking intersections, longing to mark turning points. That corner of Market and Union lives now only in my memory, as likely do the Paul and Silas who preached there. I hope they live no less in my sermons, for I too stand at the corner of market and union – of Mammon and God. We all gather there seeking signposts: Which way? Manna or corn dogs? These intersections of our lives are no less real – and I think even more so – than the crisscrossing streets of downtown geography: the corners where our faith and our culture intersect and where decisions must be made. Straight or turn? And there I take my stand, pointing with words, gesturing toward a road less traveled. From a distance it appears a mere alleyway. I am convinced that, in the walking, it becomes a royal highway.

I preach. And when I do I stand at the intersection of heaven and earth, pointing, pointing. Perhaps I am as anachronous in my way as the street preachers – one born out of due season – and as foolish as they appeared to many gathered on that corner. I guess I hope so. Because the gospel is foolishness, as is its preaching. And I hope it is that foolish gospel that I preach. But what appears as foolishness to those who are perishing is to those being saved the very power and wisdom of God. That is the corner on which I stand, the intersection which I mark, the turning point for which I pray.

Grab a park bench or planter ledge if you will. Bring your lunch. Sit for fifteen minutes at the corner, at the intersection of Foolishness and Wisdom. I’ll preach there if the two faithful witnesses will tag me in. And, when it’s over, when the last Amen has been mumbled, feel free to enjoy a corn dog. Or manna.

Announcements and Eucharist

2010-09-09T15:46:00.002-04:00

I am always a bit disconcerted when a priest interrupts the rhythm of the Divine Liturgy to make routine – and often mundane – announcements. We are gathered in the presence of angels and archangels, in the company of saints and martyrs, in the fellowship of the church in heaven and the church on earth and the best we have to say is, “And don’t forget the potluck brunch next Sunday morning between services”? Right after the passing of the peace and right before we lift up our hearts to the Lord, why must we hear about choir practice, and the budget committee meeting, and the prayer luncheons, and all the rest of the nuts-and-bolts of church business/busy-ness?

Why? Because it is part of our lives and part of our life together, and because the essence of worship is bringing all that we have and all that we are before the Lord and making of it there an offering: all the things we deem holy and all the things we deem mundane. Because singing in the choir and balancing the budget and serving on church committees, all of it is good work – work done through the grace of God and work done for the glory of God. Because we intend to celebrate the Eucharist and it is fitting and right to remember the extraordinary ordinariness of a life in Christ with great thanksgiving. Because we seek direction and blessing in all the routines of our life together.

One post-communion prayer in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer captures the integral connection between our Eucharistic worship and our daily work beautifully:

Almighty and everliving God,
we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food
of the most precious Body and Blood
of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ;
and for assuring us in these holy mysteries
that we are living members of the Body of your Son,
and heirs of your eternal kingdom.
And now, Father, send us out
to do the work you have given us to do,
to love and serve you
as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.
To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

And so we connect our meetings and our ministries and our daily work and lives to the holy mysteries of the Eucharist where everything is sanctified, where everything is given meaning through the most precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The problem, it seems, is not with the announcements, but with a heart that fails to see the stuff of announcements as the real in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. So, just perhaps, I won’t be too disconcerted by the announcement of the potluck brunch between services next Sunday. It, too, is a holy meal. Amen.

Sin And All "That"

2010-09-07T18:34:00.003-04:00

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom 8:18-23, NKJV).

We were – each of us – born into a world conditioned and malformed by sin. Rain, which should fall from the heavens to water the earth, bringing forth life and giving growth, seed for sowing and bread for eating[1], falls instead to flood and destroy crops and villages and lives. The earth, founded upon the firm pillars of the creative word of God – “Let there be…” – trembles and quakes and levels massive skyscrapers and fragile shantytowns. Drought parches fertile land and devastates the hope of farmers. Fires rage, licking up forests and blackening the air with smoke. The earth itself bears witness to ancestral sin.

So, too, do we. Sin resides in our DNA. We, the image-bearers of God, are born corruptible, spiraling downward toward non-being from the moment of our first breaths.[2] We see it in the sickness of bodies and souls, in useless limbs and deaf ears and blind eyes. The outside of some us mirrors the inside of all of us.

1 Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind” (John 9:1-2, NKJV)?

It is a logical question in a culture that correlates personal sin to personal calamity, with cause and effect certainty. And, as scripture maintains, the true answer is yes, this man and his parents have sinned, and the cumulative sins of fathers and mothers and sons and daughters from ages past have produced a sin-infested world in which children are born blind. But the apostles are looking for a more direct causal relationship: some particular sin of the parents or child that resulted in this particular affliction. “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” It is all there in the little word "that", hina in the Greek of the New Testament: that – indicating cause and effect. Whose sin directly caused the man’s blindness?

While all illness is ultimately caused by sin, Jesus disabuses his disciples of the notion that this particular illness is caused by that particular sin; there simply is no one-to-one correlation of personal sin to personal infirmity.

3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him (John 9:3, NKJV). This man’s blindness is not the result of specific personal sin – either the man’s or his parents’ – but rather it is the opportunity for God’s power and glory to be manifest in and through the restoration of sight. It is all there again in the little word "that": that – this time indicating purpose and result. Though the world is ravaged by sin, though men and women are broken by iniquity, God’s purpose through it all is to manifest his power and glory in and through the restoration of all things: that the works of God should be revealed in him.

There is much darkness in the world, but God is working in the darkness that light may be manifest:

5 “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” 6 When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing (John 9:5-7, NKJV).

Sin and all “that.” Amen.

[1] See The Second Song of Isaiah, BCP 1979, p. 86.
[2] See On the Incarnation, St. Athanasius.

Prophets and History

2010-08-30T20:45:00.004-04:00

There is no secular history.
Fr. David Sincerbox

Orthodox Christians believe that the world – this world – is the arena in which God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – works out the salvation of mankind and indeed the restoration of the entire created order (cf Rom 8). History is the record, in time, of that work. Thus, as Anglican deacon, Fr. David, rightly says, “There is no secular history.” If, as we pray, the Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth is everywhere present and filling all things, then God is present in all times, working through all events for the reconciliation of the world. No event – past or present – is devoid of God. No event – past or present – may be understood apart from God. This is the wisdom of the prophets, to see God’s movement in and through history for the renewal of all things – not secular history, but holy history.

Joel is a case in point. He sees the same devastating plague of locusts that his countrymen witness, but he discerns more. They see insects; he sees the army of God. They see natural disaster; he sees holy chastisement. They see starvation; he sees fasting. They see hopelessness; he sees blessing:

25I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
26 "You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.And my people shall never again be put to shame. 27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else.And my people shall never again be put to shame.

28 "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit (Joel 2:25-29, ESV).

They see secular history; he discerns holy history, the hand of God at work in the world and for the world. This is the unique charism of the prophets: to discern the presence and activity of God in the ordinary and extraordinary events of the day and to awaken us to the eternal dimensions of history. “Thus says the Lord,” is the prophets’ response to all history. Picking out his words distinctly from amidst the surrounding clamor is the gift and vocation of the prophets.

On the evening of September 11, 2001 my wife was scheduled to officiate at Evening Prayer in a large, Episcopal parish. Generally at such services the attendance ran somewhere between 3 to 5 people, including the officiant and lector – but not on that night. On that night the chapel was full to overflowing. People came looking for a prophet. People came to hear someone say, “Thus says the Lord.” People came looking for the presence and activity of God in the extraordinary events of the day, looking for the eternal dimensions of the present-moment tragedy. That same scene was repeated at churches throughout the country and at churches abroad. In that moment, in all such moments, the world believes – or at least hopes – that my brother David is right, that there is no secular history. For, if history is secular, then it is without meaning and without redemptive power.

Where is God in a terrorist attack? Where is God when hurricane after hurricane and then earthquake devastates further the already destitute Haitian people? Where is God in the midst of the rising floodwaters in New Orleans, Nashville, Pakistan? “Where is God?” is the right question to ask, then and now and always, just as it was the right question to ask on that day outside Jerusalem when the son of man and Son of God cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Listen and the prophets will answer. Listen for their, “Thus says the Lord.” God is present in all the tragedies of all of history – present in the person of the Crucified One who united with his suffering all the suffering of the world. God is present in all of history – there is no secular history – acting with a love beyond our comprehension for the salvation of man and the restoration of all things. So the prophets say, and so we believe.

Jerusalem is destroyed. The temple is razed. The people are in exile in Babylon. Where is God in this history? And Jeremiah – a true prophet – speaks:

10"For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile” (Jer 29:10-14, ESV).

This is the essence of the prophetic message. “Thus says the Lord.” I have plans for you, plans for a future and a hope. History is not without meaning. Tragedy is not without redemption. There is no secular history. Repent, seek me, call upon my name and I will be found.

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets (Eph 4:11a, NKJV). Indeed. Amen.

Relief for Christians in Pakistan

2010-08-26T16:51:00.002-04:00

I offer the following link for those interested in providing targeted disaster relief for the Christians in Pakistan.

Open Doors Pakistan Disaster Relief

Reflection: Personhood

2010-08-19T17:09:00.002-04:00

Following is a very personal reflection, as you will see. Perhaps it will have some meaning for you, as well.

Three times recently I have borne the brunt of decisions made by others with some degree of authority over me: one decision made for me, one made about me, and one made with total disregard for me. Each of the decisions has been hurtful; each has struck at some important facet of my identity and each has left me feeling not quite myself. In fact, the cumulative effect of these decisions has forced me toward a deep and radical reassessment of my identity and of the source of my identity. And, though the process has been, and still is, painful, it is a gift from God – a grace and joy for which I am grateful.

Though none of those who made the decisions actually spoke these words, each would have assured me that the decision “was nothing personal.” And therein lies the problem; truly none of the decisions was personal. Yet, I am a person. And those making the decisions are persons. Thus, the relationship between us cannot be other than personal. To treat me – to treat anyone – as less than or different from person is to violate the God-given nature of humanity. To refuse to recognize and acknowledge the essential personhood of the other is a grave sin not only against the person, but against God who created that person, against Christ who redeemed that person, and against the Holy Spirit who draws that person into the life of the Trinity.

As a candidate prepares for the mystery of baptism in the Episcopal Church, he enters into covenant by answering a series of questions with the reply, “I will, with God’s help.” The final questions have never appealed to me; both the language and intent appear too culturally accommodating. Yet, I must admit that, if taken seriously and biblically, they are spot on.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Both of these are person-questions: Will you treat your neighbor as a person? Will you treat every human being as a person? It is highly significant, I think, that the church requires the candidate preparing to become more deeply and thoroughly person through union with Christ to publicly acknowledge the personhood of all others and to vow, in the name of Christ, to treat all others as persons. So, those of us who find our personhood in Christ dare not say to anyone, “It’s nothing personal.” Through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, our Lord has made it all personal. The cross is the ultimate symbol of personhood: Jesus, who united God and man in his person, freely and victorious giving himself for persons waiting – though often in ignorance – to be united in their persons with God.

So, there can be no I-It relationships among us, only I-Thou: person-to-person, mediated through the grace of God. We are truly defined by nothing else so much as our personhood: a personhood created by God, redeemed by our Lord Jesus, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit – a personhood made complete as we become partakers of the divine nature, the sons and daughters of God.

Reflection: Communion of Saints

2010-08-15T11:21:00.003-04:00

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints…

The small Methodist congregation began in the 1820s, meeting in a log cabin in the Cades Cove area of what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Almost a century later their descendants built the present structure, a simple, white siding building with two front doors – one for the men, the other for the women. The story goes that one man, a blacksmith and carpenter named J. D. McCampbell actually built it in 1915 in 115 days for $115, and then served as the congregation’s minister for several years.

The chapel sits empty now, the children of the builders evicted by the government when the Cove and the surrounding mountains were given national park status. The building is occupied only momentarily and sporadically by visitors who poke their heads in the doors and wander through the adjacent cemetery, or by wedding parties who sometimes seek out the beauty of Cades Cove and the novelty of the old church for their ceremonies, or by local churches who sometimes hold services there as prelude to their annual picnics in the park. But, it is still a holy place, made so by the worship and prayers and sacrifice of generations of mountain folk seeking – and finding – God in that place, by those who, by the grace of God, took their place in the communion of saints.

Just yesterday my wife and I visited this church again for the first time in several years. We said our prayers there and we sang the familiar hymns. As Clare played the old piano – which sounds now as tinny as any old western barroom piano – played “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” and as we sang together, our choir of two swelled in size to include angels and archangels, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all the company of heaven – the communion of saints – and those holy men and women of that small Methodist church lifted again their hymns of praise with us to our one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So the Scriptures and the Liturgy assure us.

The church of my childhood met in this old building several times, and saints of both groups – visible and invisible – mingled: Merl and Kathleen, Homer, Bob and Blanche, Carl and Mary Kate, Daisy, Edith, Wilsie – the names roll onward like a flood in my memory, all now in the heavenly kingdom. Those saints taught me of the great communion of saints, though they gave it a different emphasis. To them, the communion of saints was a present reality in the visible church, in the one, holy, catholic and Apostolic church of our Lord Jesus Christ – a communion that extended to the Baptists one street over, to the Methodist a couple of blocks east, to the Holiness Church on the corner, and yes, to the African-American church that met just across the alley running behind my house. Had they known of the Orthodox Church on Kingston Pike they would have included it, too, and the Catholic churches spread all over Knoxville. For them, the communion of saints was the reality of Paul’s words to the Ephesian saints:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph 4:5-6, NKJV).

I come from less mystical than practical stock, but I believe they were right in what they taught me: if you can’t commune with those you see, it’s not likely that you can commune with the great, invisible host gone before.

And so, I celebrate this great communion of saints in that holy place in Cades Cove and in every holy place where the Gospel is truly proclaimed, the sacraments faithfully administered, and the faith fully embraced.

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers (and Mothers), Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen.

Reflection: To Kiss An Icon

2010-08-04T20:27:00.002-04:00

The following quote is from Patmos: A Place of Healing for the Soul by Peter France – one of my favorite books. At this point in the account of his new-found life on Patmos, Peter is an agnostic moving ever so slightly toward the Orthodoxy that his wife has previously embraced. He finds himself in church for the night service before the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. He writes:

A long queue of local people was waiting to kiss the wonder-working icon. Not having escaped to the fringes of the crowd, I was pulled in. We shuffled along, and as I chatted with people I knew – the electrician, the grocer, the carpenter, the plumber – I was struck by the fact that these people, practical workingmen with no very obvious religious slant to their lives, were doing something extremely odd. They were all patiently standing in their best suits waiting to kiss a painting. What was really going on?

I remembered something that Philip Sherrard, an Orthodox writer whom I admired, had written about Western society’s having lost its way. Materialism had become the creed of the majority, and it was opposed not by the churches but by those who claimed a vague spiritual allegiance or inkling which they insisted had nothing to do with “organized religion.” But Sherrard pointed out that any genuine religious tradition provided for some formal discipline as a means of spiritual realization. He wrote that people who attached themselves to these modern, rather gaseous trends of New Worldism were spiritually inferior to the simple believers who practiced a faith sincerely but with only the slightest knowledge of the metaphysical principles on which it was based.

As we stood in the queue at Diasozousa, I realized that these people, by the simple act of kissing the icon, were rejecting the closed system of materialism in which most people of the West are living today. Even if the act is a formal one, done because everybody does it, to revere an icon is to perform an action which proclaims that the material world is not the end – that there is a spiritual dimension to life which we may not understand and which we may ignore in our daily business of living but which on occasions such as this we can come together and publicly acknowledge. To kiss an icon, to cross oneself, to say “an theli o Theos” (“God willing”), however perfunctorily or unthinkingly these actions are performed, is to strike a blow at the closed universe of the materialist.

Living Prayer: Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom)

2010-07-19T09:47:00.003-04:00

The following quote is from Living Prayer, by Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom):

In our struggle for prayer the emotions are almost irrelevant; what we must bring to God is a complete, firm determination to be faithful to him and strive that God should live in us. We must remember that the fruits of prayer are not this or that emotional state, but a deep change in the whole of our personality. What we aim at is to be made able to stand before God and to concentrate on his presence, all our needs being directed Godwards, and to be given power, strength, anything we need that the will of God may be fulfilled in us. That the will of God should be fulfilled in us is the only aim of prayer, and it is also the criterion of right prayer. It is not the mystical feeling we may have, or our emotions that make good praying. Theophane the Recluse says: ‘You ask yourself, “Have I prayed well today?” Do not try to find out how deep your emotions were, or how much deeper you understand things divine; ask yourself: “Am I doing God’s will better than I did before?” If you are, prayer has brought its fruits, if you are not, it has not, whatever amount of understanding or feeling you may have derived from the time spent in the presence of God.’

Words and Things

2010-07-15T09:47:00.004-04:00

We easily mistake the word for the thing, the theory for the reality. In many ways, we prefer to. Words are malleable; things are substantial. Theories may be spun and re-spun at will, but reality is – well, reality is intransigent; it cares not one whit what we think of it or say about it. Objects still fell before the word gravity was applied to their falling. They accelerated at a constant rate before Galileo expressed the mathematics. No cosmic gravitational change rippled outward when Einstein reformulated Newton’s earlier notions: curved space-time and not action at a distance. We are free to accept or reject any theory of gravitation we wish. But, jump from a ten-story building and – well, don’t, because gravity is operative regardless of words and theories and cares not one whit what we think about it or say about it.

Words give the impression of understanding, though, as often as not, they mask our ignorance. “Why do things fall?” a child asks and we respond “Gravity,” as if we understood, as if the word actually explained anything. At their best, words are a shorthand or code for a deeper understanding that we share in common – a sort of inside joke. At their worst, words are mere cover-up or hedge about our ignorance. We use words because they are the commonest tools at hand – mallets for brain surgery, perhaps, but the best tools we have. We honor words because in the beginning God spoke and because the Word that was in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us and we have beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. But, the limitlessness of the Word made flesh always reminds us of the limits of our flesh-made words.

I return to these thoughts often as I ponder the mysteries of our faith, particularly the central mysteries of Christ: the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection. We stand before the cross, in some ways the central mystery of our faith, and use our most heavily-freighted words – words like propitiation, sacrifice, ransom, reconciliation, and atonement. We somehow know we need large words, important words. And, in the end, while none of these words is without importance, while none of these words is small, they are merely words – Spirit-inspired, human-penned words – but merely words nonetheless. And the words are not the thing; the theories are not the reality. The thing is the cross, the hard wood on which Jesus of Nazareth – son of man and Son of God – stretched out his arms for us and for our salvation. The reality beyond our theories is simply this: that in this way – God alone knows why and how – God reconciled the world to himself, brought forth light from darkness and life from death, and made from his enemies sons and daughters. If asked why, we too quickly and too easily respond love. But love is not the explanation for the cross. The truth lies in the opposite direction; the cross is the explanation of – the very definition of – love. Nothing, absolutely nothing, explains the cross. The cross explains absolutely everything: no words, just hard wood.

Scripture and tradition offer us many metaphors for atonement, perhaps because none is sufficient to capture the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I treasure these biblical images, I ponder them, and I will be most happy to discuss them with you over coffee, should we have the pleasure of meeting. But, with God’s help, I will not mistake our atonement theories – our mere words – for the atonement itself. I might not even try to convince you that my theory is better than yours.

(The icon above is featured in Holoviak's Church Supply , Inc. - ONLINE CATALOG.)

Reflection: Irreligion -- On Knowing God

2010-06-25T09:56:00.002-04:00

I was doing what I do as often as I can – browsing the shelves of a local bookstore – when I happened upon irreligion by mathematician John Allen Paulos. I spent little time with the book, but I was intrigued by one reviewer’s comment: “[Paulos] is as sure-footed as a tiger as he prowls through the theocratic landscape, pouncing on sloppy thinking. To a large extent he succeeds in demolishing the arguments of believers” (Phillip Manning, The News & Observer, Raleigh).

Well, good for Paulos: to the extent that he demolishes false ideas about the God in whom I believe, may that same God in whom he does not believe bless him. This is, after all, venerable work, the same work – through not conducted in the same spirit/Spirit – as that of the Fathers, of the theologians and teachers of the Church, of the Ecumenical Councils and Creeds. It was the work of St. Paul, a work he described as warfare.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every though into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:4-5, NKJV).

As believers, we inevitably formulate and express ideas about God. Those called to academic theology seek to systematize those ideas, to make connections among them – to build arguments, the review might say – to express a faithful worldview or body of Tradition. When this is done well, when the work passes the test of time and earns the general approval and acceptance of the Church, we believe it is the holy work of the Holy Spirit. It is not always done well, either personally or corporately. When it is not, the Church creates and bows before false conceptual idols. In its better moments, when the Church is truly the Church, it welcomes Elijah – even in the person of a skeptical mathematician – to cast down and destroy the false prophets of Baal with their false teachings and detestable idols.

I doubt, though, that Paulos was engaged in this type of holy work. Having read a few of his other books – all mathematically oriented – I suspect that in irreligion he seeks to destroy any notion of God, at least of any god other than human reason. I have seen such efforts before; they follow a similar tack: believers make foolish and logically inconsistent statements about God – here, let me show you a few – thus, the god in whom they believe – and, by extension, every god – must fail to exist. Since human reason has dethroned every false contender for the title “God”, reason must be the closest thing we have to god; let us, therefore, bow in worship unto ourselves and our marvelous intellect.

This process, this type of thinking, has a fatal flaw at its core: destroy every notion or argument believers have about God, notions true and false, and you still have not touched the essence of God, for God is not idea or argument but Person(s). The point here is ironically Cartesian: the fact that all thought may be erroneous does not negate the existence of the thinker. Likewise, the fact that all thought about God may be foolish and inconsistent – and certainly much thought is – does not thereby disprove the existence of God. Sloppy human thinking does not necessarily negate the Subject (I cannot say object) of that thought.

Of course, we – believers – are complicit in the error of such skeptical thought to the extent that we present God as idea and not Person, to the extent that we replace relationship with that Person with thought or talk about that idea. Certainly, we must think about and talk about God, but we must never mistake our thoughts or words about God for God himself; the map, after all, is not the territory, nor is the word the thing. A judicious, humble apophaticism – a “not knowing” intellectually – is often appropriate.

The Church is the remedy for these errors in thought and emphasis: in the faith it lives (as well as proclaims), in the Sacraments it administers, in the life of askesis it prescribes. All of these offer the real possibility of relationship with the real Person of God, a relationship that subsumes thought and argument. Water, oil, bread, wine: these host the real Presence of the real God. Word, prayer, fasting, service: these are not ideas, but gifts of God for the people of God. All of these are given to initiate and sustain our relationship with Him, until we become full partakers of the divine nature.

Those who are willing to engage only ideas about God through the agency of human reason but not God, himself, through His abundant gifts of Presence are unlikely to find God. Even our best ideas about God seem foolish when confronted with the cross and gospel of Jesus Christ.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD” (1 Cor 1:26-30, NKJV).

Amen.

Reflection: Eschatology and Catastrophe

2010-06-20T14:09:00.001-04:00

I stood at the graveside of a good woman recently and watched her husband of sixty-two years grieve the loss of his better-half, the “brains of the operation” he called her. At the memorial service the evening before, family and friends told stories about her past and about the lasting impact she has made on those going forward into a future without her. And the minister spoke true and comforting words:

Jesus said, I am the resurrection and I am life.
Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live,
and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,
the first and the last.
I died, and behold I am alive for evermore,
and I hold the keys of hell and death.
Because I live, you shall live also .

I like what The United Methodist Book of Worship calls the whole constellation of public events surrounding a Christian death: Services of Death and Resurrection. Indeed. It is not only at such services, but perhaps best there, that we are shaken from our myopic focus on the present – the clamor of the daily – and grasp again the fundamental and essentially eschatological nature of our faith. Our faith is a storied faith and we are a storied people: rooted in the past, sojourning in the present, and hoping in and heading toward a glorious future. It was not for nothing that Jesus described himself to John – exiled in the present – as the past and future One:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev 1:8, NKJV).

And while the present is an essential part of the story, it is, after all, only part of the story; so, Paul reminds us: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable” (1 Cor 15:19, NKJV).

The eschatological understanding of our faith – the wrapping up of all things past and present in Jesus, all heading toward future fulfillment in him in the last day (eschaton) – is the antidote for both the unbridled optimism and the abject despair that plague our culture in about equal proportions. It takes only a catastrophe – either personal, as a death, or corporate, as a terrorist attack or an oil spill, to reveal these spiritual follies. In the days immediately following such a disaster, the Optimists often rule with their grandiose plans and their assurances of success.

Optimism is a way of staying useful and being hopeful without having recourse to God. It requires, of course, a much reduced perception of catastrophe if it is to maintain credibility. Optimism comes in two forms, moral and technological. The moral optimist thinks that generous applications of well-intentioned goodwill to the slagheaps of injustice, wickedness, and the world’s corruption will put the world gradually, but surely, in the right. The technological optimist thinks that by vigorously applying scientific intelligence to the problems of poverty, pollution, and neurosis, the world will gradually, but surely, be put right. Neither form of optimism worships God, although the moral optimist sometimes provides ceremonial space for him. Optimists see that there are few things left to do to get the world in good shape, and think that they are just the ones to do it (Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination).

Should the problem be less than amenable to the Optimists’ solutions, should it drag on interminably, then the Pessimists arise with dire predictions and a pervading sense of hopelessness.

In such a moment let the faithful of God come, those who inhabit the Story, those who are caught up in the eschatological vision of God. Let them come proclaiming the sure end of the Story: a world put to rights, all creation restored and renewed, the holy people of God in worship before him, the holy city – New Jerusalem – come down from heaven to earth with God dwelling in the midst of his people unto the ages of ages. In short, salvation. The holy, eschatological people of God must waste no time with optimism or pessimism; we must be the true realists who face every blessing or catastrophe with the same proclamation: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. And because his is risen, we, too, shall rise, and all things shall be made new.

Admittedly, this vision dims from time to time. It is difficult to maintain, in spite of apparently copious evidence to the contrary, that God is even now brooding over the often dark and void face of the earth, renewing the earth and its people, speaking new creation into being through Christ and with Christ and in Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Yet, it is so. The church is, and must be, the evidence we offer for such a vision: a people being made new and whole; a people singing the eschatological hymn – Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come! – and giving voice to all creation; a people feasting on the eschatological banquet of bread and wine and inviting all to the table:

And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely (Rev 22:17, NKJV).

Let the church hold fast the eschatological promise of its Lord: “Surely I am coming quickly.” And let the church answer with its eschatological prayer: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

Amen.

Reflection: The Praying Life -- For the Salvation of the World

2010-06-16T18:18:00.004-04:00

From The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton:

By this time [1939], I should have acquired enough sense to realize that the cause of wars is sin. If I had accepted the gift of sanctity that had been put in my hands when I stood by the font in November 1938, what might have happened in the world? People have no idea what one saint
can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell. The saints are full of Christ in the plentitude of His Kindly and Divine power and they are conscious of it, and they give themselves to Him, that He may exercise His power through their smallest and seemingly most insignificant
acts, for the salvation of the world.

As bold as Merton's meditation, I think it is understated. It is not only war that is caused by sin, but every evil on the face of the earth: personal, corporate, structural, natural. And, just as each of us is responsible for all the sin in the world, each of us has the capacity -- through purification and prayer -- to participate in the restoration (dare I say "salvation") of all the world. "Pray without ceasing," St Paul tells us. Amen.

Reflection: The Eucharistic Life

2010-06-16T14:19:00.003-04:00

The eucharistic life consists of taking what bread and wine we have -- the hours and minutes of each "ordinary" day, our labor and leisure, our friends and enemies, our successes and failures -- taking all these and all else that we are and have and placing them on the altar before God with a prayer of great thanksgiving:

We pray you, Gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon these your gifts that they, too, may be sacraments of the Body of Christ and his Blood of the new Covenant, uniting us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

And, if this were not difficult enough, we must then accept that these gifts we bring -- the bodies we have presented as our reasonable worship -- now manifest the real presence of our crucified and risen Lord and that we go out into the world to do the work he has given us to do as living members of the body of Christ and heirs of his eternal kingdom. Alleluia.

George Herbert on Prayer

2010-06-04T09:16:00.003-04:00

PRAYER. (I)

PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,

Gods breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;

Engine against th' Almightie, sinner's towre,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six daies world-transposing in an houre,

A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,

Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,

Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,

The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,

The land of spices, something understood.

Reflection: On Marriage

2010-06-03T17:17:00.004-04:00

Christian marriage is a sacrament and thus a great mystery, as St. Paul recognizes:

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30because we are members of his body.* 31‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church (Eph 5:28-32, NRSV).

I have been married nearly thirty-three years and this relationship is no less mysterious to me now than on that early September evening when two foolish kids, having little clue what they were getting themselves into, said “I do,” and “I will,” to each other before God and a host of witnesses. Only grace has kept us together I am certain: God’s grace and the graciousness we have learned to show one another. I am grateful beyond measure.

Why do some marriages “make it” and others do not? Why, after forty years of marriage, do a couple like Al and Tipper Gore announce their separation, simply having grown apart? What counsel might the church offer – and I can speak only of Christian marriages – to a couple contemplating marriage or to a couple struggling to sustain one?

Wedding vows are secondary to and ultimately dependent upon baptismal vows. How fitting it would be for each wedding ceremony to include a renewal of baptismal vows prior to the making of marriage vows, for the primary human relationship is with God.

Question Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel

against God?

Answer I renounce them.

Question Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and the creatures of

God?
Answer I renounce them.

Question Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
Answer I renounce them.

Question Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
Answer I do.

Question Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
Answer I do.

Question Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?
Answer I do.

And then, following the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the bride and groom would join with the entire assembly in these commitments:

Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread,

and in the prayers?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent

and return to the Lord?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of

every human being?
People I will, with God’s help.

Only a firm commitment to these primary vows, empowered by the grace of the Holy Spirit, will enable bride and groom to keep the secondary vows they make to one another. For better, yes, but for worse? For richer, certainly, but for poorer also? In health (and beauty and vitality), obviously, but in sickness (and wrinkles and disability)? Yes to all: because you have renounced Satan, the evil powers of this world, and the sinful desires that draw you from the love of God (and the love of neighbor and spouse). Yes: because you have turned to Jesus, accepted him as Savior, placed your trust in his grace and love, and promised to follow and obey him. Yes: because you have taken your place in the Church, pledged to resist evil and to repent having failed. Yes: because you have made solemn and holy covenant to seek and serve Christ in all persons (even your spouse), to love your neighbor as yourself (and, by extension, your spouse as your own body), to strive for justice and peace among all people (even your spouse), and to respect the dignity of every human being (even your spouse). Wedding vows are simply one means by which and through which a man and woman live out their baptismal vows. Fail to take the baptismal vows seriously and the marriage is at risk. A failed marriage is first and foremost a failure to live in the light of baptism.

Related to this is a powerful truth I first heard expressed by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his work Life Together (HarperCollins Publishers, 1954): we must never relate to one another directly, but only through the mediation of Christ. Christ must always stand between me and you, even – and perhaps especially – between husband and wife.

Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. The other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ’s; I must meet him only as the person that he already is in Christ’s eyes. This is the meaning of the proposition that we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ. Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men.

Though written about life in the Christian community – life among brothers and sisters – Bonhoeffer’s insight applies equally well to husbands and wives.

Accordingly, I must never speak of my husband or my wife in the possessive sense as if the other is defined primarily in relation to me. My spouse is defined by his or her relationship with God, who has then placed my spouse in relationship with me for our mutual good, which is to say for our salvation. Attempts at direct human relationships unmediated by Christ are always distorted and often coercive and abusive, dominated by human selfishness and passion. My relationship with Christ, and my recognition of my spouse’s relationship with Christ, must always take priority over our relationship with one another; indeed, the relationship with Christ determines the nature of the relationship with one another. The other is Christ’s, and only in Christ, mine.

I am saddened, but not surprised, when a marriage of forty years dissolves. Christian marriage is a sacrament and thus a great mystery; we often think we can negotiate it on our own terms. We are often wrong.

Reflection: Oil and Repentance

2010-06-01T08:55:00.006-04:00

Take a moment to view the images of human loss and environmental destruction caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Explorer oil platform . Who is to blame? I am, and you are, and we are, all of us together. There are many obvious ways in which we are complicit: we use -- and use extravagantly -- the petroleum-based products such an enterprise produces and we want them at the lowest possible cost, even at the cost of safety; we work in the oil industry or in subsidiaries made possible and profitable by the industry; we elevate energy independence to the level of national security and wage political and economic warfare over the issue; and so on.

But our guilt and complicity run far deeper still. We are -- individually and collectively -- the fallen image bearers of God. Our fallenness, our sin -- individually and collectively --is responsible for a humanity curved inward on itself through greed, self-interest, power and domination. Our sin -- individually and collectively -- has subjected all nature to a futilty under which it groans for release. In short, I have and you have and we have, all of us together, produced a world in which such disasters are not only possible but inevitable. It is a terrible dilemma for which the only answer is Jesus Christ -- crucified and risen -- and the only course of action is repentance.

Let the engineers and scientists look for technical solutions for the immediate problem. Let the politicians debate legislation to reduce the likelihood of future disasters. Let the lawyers assess criminal and civil responsibility. But let all God's people fall on their knees and cry continually: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Reflection: Memorial Day

2010-05-31T09:41:00.002-04:00

In observance of Memorial Day, I simply offer these prayers.

Almighty God our heavenly Father, guide the nations of the world into the way of justice and truth, and establish among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, they they may become the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Amen, indeed.

Reflection: Sunday of All Saints

2010-05-30T08:10:00.005-04:00

While the Western church observes this day as Trinity Sunday, the Eastern church commemorates it as the Sunday of All Saints. The following reflection -- a very personal one that I wrote initially for my daughter -- captures a bit of each holy day, moving from the trinitarian essence of our faith as expressed in the Apostles' Creed to the great and ongoing influence of saints -- great and small, named and unnamed -- upon our faith and our lives. As the Orthodox pray: Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen. Amen, indeed.

I thought you should know: I am a Christian.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

This is my faith, though not mine in the sense of having made it or even of having discovered it myself. No, I received this faith as pure, gracious gift from my parents and from a small community of the faithful at the corner of Burnside and Delaware. My role in the reception of faith was limited to knowing a good thing when I see one and to keeping my hands and arms and heart open wide to receive this gift – grace upon grace.

Mine is the faith of saints: Mama Snow, who raised three young daughters alone and still somehow found time to pray for the rest of us, all her other children; Pauline, a gifted teacher of scriptures penned millennia earlier by her namesake; Wilsie, who fed us vanilla wafers and the word of God in the old Sunday School room with the red, tiger stripped couch just the right size for us kids; Carl, who always asked the Lord to “forgive our sins of omission as well as commission,” as we gathered at the Lord’s Table; and Preacher Black – I still cannot call him Bob – who received my confession of the faith that I received at his feet, and who baptized me in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To this day, when I read or teach the Old Testament, it is his voice I hear echoing in the old sanctuary – that holy place that lives now only in my memory – echoing before we foolishly installed the acoustical tile ceiling, and it is his approval I seek. Yes, I received my faith from my parents and from a small community of the faithful at the corner of this world and the world to come: upon them be peace.

Faith is a mystery and a miracle. The gospel is proclaimed and one day you realize that you believe it. For some this comes at the end of a long, intellectual struggle – a perilous trek from one worldview to another. For others, it happens in an instant: there is a light and a voice, and, like Saul on the road to Damascus, you find yourself knocked off your ass and lying face down on a dusty road confronted by Jesus, himself. I used to envy people like these, the ones with grand testimonies: heroic struggles for truth or mystical revelations. They were the popular kids at youth group when it came time to tell your conversion experience, to witness to the faith that was in you.

I don’t believe I ever had a conversion experience, at least not one like these. There simply wasn’t a time I didn’t believe. There was no great struggle toward faith, no blinding revelation. For me, the only conversion possible was a rejection of faith; I could have been reborn an atheist, but not a believer. I was baptized – immersed – into Christ when I was around six, and I know that marked a fundamental change: buried with Christ in water, I was raised to walk in newness of life, a child of God, sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit. While the good saints who raised me never used the word sacrament, I now know that baptism is one – that it is a sign through which God’s grace becomes active in a human life and fundamentally changes the reality of that life. I was different after baptism – I had become a partaker of the divine nature – but not different in terms of my faith. I believed before, I believed after, and I believe still.

Some will say that a received faith is no faith at all. Your father’s faith can’t save you. Neither can your mother’s. I understand that theological position. But I bear on my upper arm the mark of a smallpox vaccine given to me because of my parents’ faith in modern medicine. For all I know, that faith – their faith – saved me many times over. And I bear on my soul the mark, the seal, of the Holy Spirit given to me because of my parents’ faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I do know, with certainty, that their faith, which became my own, saved me. I believe because they believed and because they raised me in a community of folks who believed.

And so I have taken my place in the communion of saints – that mystical body of the faithful formed into the mystical Body of Christ – a fellowship spanning time and space, crossing cultures, bridging divides. Each Sunday when I celebrate Holy Eucharist – the feast of our Lord’s resurrection – this body gathers with the small community of worshippers in our chapel: the patriarchs are there, and the apostles; martyrs are there along with all those persecuted for the sake of righteousness; angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim and all the company of heaven join the celebration as we sing, “Holy, holy, holy!” and confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Mama Snow is there, and Pauline: Wilsie and Carl and Bob and Kathleen and Merl and Bill and Mary. And by God’s grace, through the faithfulness and prayers of these saints and countless others I will not know until that great day of Christ’s return, I am there.

The only story I can tell – the only story worth telling, I am convinced – is the story they passed along to me: a story in word and song and sacrament, a story in bread and wine and vanilla wafers, a story in water and blood and Spirit. This is my story. I thought you should know: I am a Christian.

Reflection: Pentecost and Immigration

2010-05-28T11:49:00.002-04:00

Hospitality or national security, baptismal seal or citizenship papers, national borders or kingdom of God: these dichotomies collide head-on at the intersection of faith and practice, at the corner of church and state. It is ironic and fitting that as the church celebrates Pentecost the United States Congress debates immigration policy. Jesus’ voice echoes once again in sacred assemblies, in halls of power, and across borders: “Render under Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” And this voice calls us – if we have ears to hear – to distinguish carefully between the two.

One major theme of Pentecost is the destruction, by the wind and fire of the Holy Spirit, of all national, cultural, and ethnic barriers to the gospel of Christ. The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the struggle of the church to understand and implement the Spirit’s mandate. (The history of the church chronicles the ongoing struggle.) Every step along this journey was contentious: Philip preaching to the Samaritans, Peter and Paul and Barnabas and Silas preaching to the gentiles. Grudgingly, haltingly, the church tenuously grasped the truth:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all (Eph 4:4-6, NKJV).

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:27-28, NKJV).

Unity in Christ, through the one Spirit, supercedes all arbitrary distinctions and loyalties based upon national, cultural, or ethnic identities. There simply are no borders in the kingdom of God. There are, of course, such borders in the kingdoms of the world, and it is quite reasonable for any government to control their borders. Arizona has legitimate concerns about illegal immigration from Mexico, concerns about safety and increased demands upon infrastructure. The United States has legitimate concerns about porous national borders, particularly given the present terrorist threat. But, none of these concerns are Christian concerns. Whatever the states and nation decide, the Christian ministry is still reconciliation; the Christian mission is still the proclamation of the gospel to all the world; the Christian mandate is still to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit those in prison, to care for the orphans and widows; “to do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal 6:10, NKJV).

All those baptized into Christ are fellow-citizens with us in the kingdom of God, the only citizenship that truly matters, the Spiritual citizenship that trumps national citizenship. Many the United States might call illegal aliens, we must call brothers and sisters.

And what of those who are not in Christ? Are they hungry? Then we must feed them? Are they homeless? Then we must shelter them. Are they sick? Then we must care for them. We do not, we cannot expect – nor is it reasonable to demand – that the government do these things or even approve of these things. It is much more reasonable to expect the government to make every effort to exclude such people. These actions – these acts of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ – are demanded of the church, not of the government. But, its obedience may well place the church in conflict with the government, and will certainly place the church in conflict with strong public opinion and state and national self-interest. It is not easy to live in the season of Pentecost.

The church stands witness before the governments of the world – pray God it does so – that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not, that all governments must either kneel in submission to the Lord or else rise up in rebellion against him, that all governments must give account for their stewardship of the temporal power given them by Jesus Pantocrator – Jesus the Almighty. The church stands witness before the nations of the world – pray God it does so – that there are but two kingdoms – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world – and that we must each give account for our citizenship. The Spirit stands witness before and within the church that the church must indeed render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor (cf Rom 13:7). The state has valid claims upon God’s people, but not all the state’s claims are valid.

I am grateful that my earthly citizenship is in the United States, but I rejoice greatly that

our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Therefore, my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved (Phil 3:20-4:1, NKJV).

Such is the promise and challenge of Pentecost. Amen.

Relection: Theological Discernment

2010-05-21T15:01:00.002-04:00

As I have aged – I will not say matured – my approach to theology has aged, as well. I pray more and argue less. I submit more and speculate less. I reason more with the mind in the heart and less with the mind in the head. At least, I hope so.

And so, my approach to disputed theological matters has changed significantly. I have found myself – really rather unconsciously – resorting increasingly to two criteria for assessing theological truth claims: the Vincentian Canon and the Canon of the Martyrs.

If the Church has spoken definitively on a matter, I consider it settled. The important doctrines codified in the Nicene and Apostolic Creeds, for example, are not subject to debate. Other issues I refer to the Church Fathers and to the consensus fidelium, the consensual voice of the faithful, under this general rubric: that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all (Vincentian Canon, St. Vincent of Lérins). This canon rules out geographically local innovations (everywhere), chronological novelties (always), and denominational distinctives (by all). In short, if the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church has spoken with a united voice – in Scripture, Creed, liturgy, accepted faith and practice – I accept its testimony and there take my stand.

If the Church has not so spoken I then appeal to the Canon of the Martyrs: Can this expression of the faith explain the willingness of men and women to die joyfully for our Lord Jesus? Granted, this is more subjective than the Vincentian Canon, but not, I think, less valid. I am currently in a discussion with a brother who apparently rejects the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist in any meaningful or historical sense. To him, the Eucharist is essentially a symbolic memorial of the death of Christ enacted, primarily, as mnemonic and proclamation of that death until Christ comes again. While I think this theology fails under the Vincentian Canon, I know it fails under the Canon of Martyrs. Depending on circumstances and context I might or might not cross the street to “celebrate” a Eucharist in which Christ is proclaimed as absent, but I certainly would not die for such a Eucharist. The faith of martyrs must be sufficient to support the sacrifice of the martyrs. It is that faith – and its theological expression – that I want.

While some – perhaps many – will find these two criteria wholly inadequate, I find them to be quite helpful. But, I will not argue about them.

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Reflection: Taking John 3:16 Seriously

2010-05-13T21:33:00.002-04:00

Taking John 3:16 Seriously

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16, KJV).

For God thus loved the cosmos, that he gave his unique Son so that all those believing in him are not being destroyed, but are receiving the life of the ages.

I offer this second translation of John 3:16 not because it is superior to the traditional rendering, but because it is different and thus perhaps startling. Familiarity with the text – its use as memory verse and sporting events poster and bumper sticker – has perhaps dulled this living and active, two-edged sword of the word. If it no longer startles and amazes and thrills us, we have lost the very heart of the gospel. If so, it is time we hear this verse again and take it seriously.

John starts with the most basic and essential premise of all: God loved. Nothing is more important for grasping the gospel – and being grasped by it – than this: God’s unfailing, essential predisposition toward creation is love. John is bold to insist: “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love” (1 John 4:16, NRSV, emphasis added). If this is true, then to live and move and have our being in God (cf Acts 17:28) is to exist in and through – surrounded and supported by – unfailing, divine love. God’s every thought, every action toward his creation – toward you – is motivated by and expressive of his love. It is a love revealed in and through Jesus Christ, which is to say that it is a sacrificial, forgiving, merciful love, and yet a love strong enough and determined enough to take upon itself all the sin and pain and evil of the world and conquer them. It is not sentimental; it is resigned.

Because God’s love is revealed in and through Jesus Christ, it cannot be different than the love we see in Jesus. Nor can God’s loving character be different than Jesus’ loving character. With no particular desire to enter the atonement debates – at least not in this present context – any atonement theory that pits an angry, wrathful God the Father against a loving, merciful God the Son runs aground on John 3:16. God is love through and through: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That does not mean, of course, that God is “soft” on sin or that he will let evil have its way. It simply means that the cross, upon which God dealt decisively with sin, is a symbol of love and not wrath.

So yes, God loves you. But in one sense that does not make you special; it just makes God indiscriminate. The fact is – and here we must take John 3:16 more seriously than we have in the past – God loves not just us, but the entire cosmos, all of his created order. Before man was created, the world and all that was in it was declared to be good. The sad reality is that God created a perfect cosmos, gave it into our care, and we broke it by breaking ourselves. And this brokenness of man and creation is so inextricably bound that God will not – and perhaps cannot if he is true to his love – heal creation apart from healing man. Creation waits with eager longing for the redemption of the children of God so that it may be released from the futility imposed upon it by human sin (cf Rom 8:20-25). The cross is not merely a symbol of God’s love for humankind, but a declaration of his love for the entire cosmos and a recognition that atonement reaches beyond humankind to set the world – all of created order – to rights again. Yes, there will be a new heavens and a new earth, but not because these present ones do not matter – precisely the opposite. The present heavens and earth matter so much to God – God so loved them – that he sent his only begotten Son so that we might believe and the cosmos might be restored. John’s description of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world means precisely that – the sins of the world. The implications for environmental stewardship are as vast as the cosmos and must be taken seriously by all those who take John 3:16 seriously.

The embodiment – literally, the incarnation – of God’s love is his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love is absolutely and unapologetically Christocentric. It is only the love of God revealed in and through Jesus Christ and received through our faith in his faithfulness that spares us from destruction and fills us with the life of the ages. But note, once again taking John 3:16 seriously, that the destruction from which God’s love in Jesus spares us is not some arbitrary punishment. Rather, it is the nature consequence of a life lived in sin apart from God. If it is God’s love in Christ that gives and sustains life, then rejection of that love in Christ naturally and inexorably leads to death. Just as surely, the love of God received through faith in Christ leads to eternal life. The exclusive centrality of Jesus Christ for the life of the world must propel the church in mission. If God loves the world – and he does – then the church must reflect that love in its proclamation of the gospel of Christ.

Taking John 3:16 seriously is the serious business of the church.

Amen.

Reflection: The Ascension of Our Lord

2010-05-12T22:35:00.003-04:00

Ascension and Eschatology

The feast of the Ascension of Our Lord is the much-needed, annual reminder that the church is – by nature and vocation – an eschatological community. His ascension into glory at the right hand of the Father marks the beginning of our Lord’s reign over all creation. But, it is a reign that becomes apparent only in the eschaton, only on that last great day when the trumpet sounds and the dead in Christ arise to be forever with the Lord. In the meantime, the nations rage, the peoples mutter empty threats, the kings of the earth rise up in revolt, and the princes plot together against the Lord and against his Anointed (cf Ps 2). But, in the midst of all this, the church is that one community called and blessed to live out the eschatological reality of the reign of Christ in the present moment. The church brings the last days forward into the present when it is the church, when it lives under the reign of Christ, when it shows forth God’s will on earth as in heaven. The church is an eschatological community or it is nothing at all. So the Ascension of our Lord reminds us.

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

Reflection: On Faith And Knowing (Part 1)

2010-05-11T16:28:00.003-04:00

Reflection: On Faith And Knowing (Part 1)

I want to say this well, not least of all for my daughter’s benefit. It is no easy thing being Christian in a culture that doubts whether truth exists and, if so, whether it can surely be known. It is no easy thing being Christian in a culture that elevates diversity and tolerance to the highest realms of virtue. It is no easy thing being Christian in the public education system, in the private workplace, in the sociopolitical arena. She needs all the help she can get to navigate these shoals of faith – all that I can offer and more – as do we all. So, I want to say this well, though I am not up to the task. I trust that the ideas, and not my expression of them, are the important thing, and that the Spirit can work through the word faithfully, if not articulately, offered.

There is a line in the climactic scene of Tim Allen’s Santa Claus 2: The Mrs. Claus that elevates the film from just good-humored, family entertainment to high theology. Charlie, Santa’s son, says to the skeptical, future Mrs. Claus: “Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing.” And in that moment, her eyes are opened and a new reality breaks in.

How do you know what you claim to know? is always a valid question about the sources, methods, and limits of knowledge. As Christians, when we start our creeds, “I believe,” or “We believe,” we really mean to say “I know,” or “We hold this true,” so skeptics have the right to respond, “That may be fine for you, but how do you know, really?” The best and only answer we can give – and the answer the Apostolic church always has given – is: “Seeing isn’t believing. Believing is seeing.” Or, as the writer of Hebrews words it: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” (Heb 11:1, NKJV). It is by faith that we understand, he goes on to say (cf Heb 11:3). Faith is both the source and mode of knowledge through which we may ascertain truth – not opinion or preference, but an understanding that corresponds to the deepest, most fundamental reality.

This is true because the most fundamental knowledge is not abstract or objective, but personal and relational. Since God is the truth in which we live and move and have our being (cf Acts 17:28), the source and means of knowledge is personal relationship between creature and Creator, a relationship made possible by faith. We understand truth – we know – because faith draws us into a personal relationship with the one who is the Truth. Through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, we become partakers of the divine nature and are led from faith to virtue and from virtue to knowledge (cf 2 Pe 1:4-5).

The knowledge we gain in this way is not new revelation; it is personal certainty of the truth passed down by the church in sacred tradition: in scripture, liturgy, hymn, sacrament. God is love, the church tells us, for example, and through faith we apprehend the truth of this in an experiential, relational way. We reach a point where we no longer need say only, “The church teaches,” but “We know.” I am wary of God-talk that begins, “God spoke to me and said,” and ends with claims unsubstantiated by the church and sometimes rejected by the church. But I am no longer skeptical of God-talk that ratifies the tradition of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church. I, too, have heard God speak in this way, and there are certain truths that I now know.

The connection I’ve described between faith and knowledge is not well accepted in secular, materialist environments such as those created and dominated by Enlightenment philosophy; modern Western thought is still enthralled by Descartes, Newton, Bacon, et al, for whom knowledge meant knowledge of the material world gained through rational, objective, and materialist methods. And, we must grant them their due measure of success; their methods lead to considerable predictive power over natural phenomena. But, theirs is a restricted, minimalist view of knowledge. As Christians, faith provides us a deeper and prior source and means of knowledge. It is important that we not give way before the materialists’ exclusive claims to the source and means of knowledge. Simply because they say that reason and objectivity are the only ways to know does not make it so. That is their story to which they have a right. But we have a different story and a different knowledge that subsume and transcend the reductionism they offer. We know, through faith, what they can never know through reason. And it is knowledge, the very wisdom of God.

9 But as it is written:

“ Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual (1 Cor 2:9-13, NKJV).

So, the church lays claim to knowledge – knowledge transcending the material and imparted through relationship and spiritual (Spiritual) revelation. It is not merely private, subjective impression but objective knowledge verified by the experience of the faithful for two millennia – knowledge available to all those who come to God through faith in Christ. When the church speaks with a single voice – when it proclaims that which has been believed always, everywhere, and by all (St. Vincent of Lérins) – we can accept its voice as the voice of knowledge and truth. Faith is not what the church offers instead of knowledge; faith is the knowledge the church offers.

Saint Athanasius the Great: 2 May 2010

2010-05-01T19:29:00.004-04:00

Saint Athanasius, champion of Orthodoxy, defended the dogma of the divine nature of our Lord Jesus against the heretical notions of Arius who claimed that "there was a time when Jesus was not." When the Arian controversy threatened the faith -- and the stability of the empire -- Constantine called a council of bishops in 325; 250 met at Nicea and codified the faith of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church in the Nicene Creed. In no small part through the sacrifice and faithfulness of Athanasius at the council and for years afterwards, Orthodoxy prevailed.

Apolytikion in the Third Tone
You became a pillar of Orthodoxy, strengthening the Church with divine dogmas, O Hierarch Athanasios. For by preaching that the Son is one in essence with the Father you put Arius to shame. O venerable Father, to Christ our God pray earnestly, entreating that great mercy be on us bestowed.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
Having planted the dogmas of Orthodoxy, thou didst cut out the thorns of false doctrine; and with the rain of the Spirit, thou didst increase the seed of the Faith, Wherefore, we praise thee, O righteous Athanasius.

Collect

Uphold your Church, O God of truth, as you upheld your servant Athanasius, to maintain and proclaim boldly the catholic faith against all opposition, trusting solely in the grace of your eternal Word, who took upon himself our humanity that we might share his divinity; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Recommendation: Making Choices by Fr. Stephen Freeman

2010-04-27T16:09:00.003-04:00

I commend to you a recent post by Fr. Stephen Freeman, priest at St. Anne's Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and author of the Glory To God For All Things blog. Fr. Freeman's writing is among my favorite on the web -- always thought-provoking and often quite humbling.

Making Choices

Saints Mary and Martha: Sabbatical

2010-04-20T18:20:00.003-04:00

For years, like Martha of Bethany, I have bustled about the kitchen of the Kingdom of God, doing good and necessary work while sometimes ignoring the better part of simply sitting at the feet of Jesus. I now have an opportunity to change that, an opportunity to take a long-overdue sabbatical. It is a gift not to be ignored.

So, for the next three or four months I do not plan to write or post new sermons. I plan to listen to Scripture as God’s word to me, and not as God’s word through me to others. I plan to compose new songs for the glory of God alone. I will read good books and perhaps begin a writing project of my own. I will sit at the feet of Jesus with Mary and pray long, leisurely prayers. I will rest in God. From time to time I will post reflections on this whole process or on other aspects of the Christian experience that seem important to me during this process. As always, I welcome your comments and I covet your prayers.

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!

Reflection: The Diary of Anne Frank -- Complicity In Sin and Salvation

2010-04-19T18:27:00.002-04:00

My family recently attended this season’s final performance of The Diary of Anne Frank at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. It is a play that demands reflection. How does the Jewish holocaust occur, or the Rwandan genocide, or countless mass acts of terrorism? Who is responsible for these unimaginable but all too real evils? I know for certain – with a certainty beyond reason – that I am, and you are, and we are – all of us together. Through our solidarity with all men – our kinship to Adam of which St. Paul makes much in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 – my sin and yours ripples outward through all space and time making each of us entirely complicit in the sins of all men, everywhere and everywhen. I must repent of the holocaust because the burden of my sin has contributed to the fallenness of a world in which not only is the holocaust possible, but well nigh inevitable. Time is no barrier against sin. Why should the effects of my sin be unidirectional – forward only, but not backward? If Christ was slain for my sins from before the foundation of the world, then past, present, and future have no power to imprison sin – or grace. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, we pray and we cannot even begin – most of us – to comprehend the magnitude of the sin or the mercy for which we pray. Thanks be to God that he grants us only that degree of self-awareness that his grace makes it possible to bear.

But, if we are complicit in the world’s sin, so too are we complicit in the world’s salvation. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us, we pray, invoking the prayers of those who were, who are, and who are yet to come. And our prayers are there, too. As others pray – long ago or yet far away – they bind their prayers to ours and our prayers to theirs for the salvation of the world. Who can know what affect my prayer this day had on the grace that allowed faith to survive through the holocaust and to triumph over it? Who can know what affect the prayer of one in generations yet to come has on my faithfulness this day? But that no man lives unto himself alone, that I know for certain.

Given the complicity of all in the sins and salvation of all, we see forgiveness as essential. When a brother sins against me, I must also accept responsibility for his sin; I contributed to the corruption of the world and the relationship in which the sin was possible. (If this is difficult to accept, put it aside. It is helpful only when you are truly convinced – when you experience – that it is true.) If I then am to be forgiven of my part in his sin, I must forgive and must pray for his forgiveness: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. If I do not forgive my brother how can God forgive me, since his sin and mine are inextricably intertwined?

A life in Christ is always personal – I and Thou – but never individual – I and Thou, alone. Sin and grace, fall and salvation: all is accomplished in the company of the other, for the life of the world. Amen.

Sermon: Thomas Sunday (11 April 2010)

2010-04-09T21:34:00.002-04:00

Sermon: Thomas Sunday (11 April 2010)
(Acts 5:27-32/Psalm 150/Revelation 1:4-8/John 20:19-31)

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!

The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the week past (Pascha through the following Saturday) as Bright Week. It is the celebration – in time – of the Paschal’s candle’s witness in fire and light and the Exsultet’s proclamation in word and melody:

Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth,
bright with a glorious splendor,
for darkness has been vanquished by our eternal King.

Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church,
and let your holy courts, in radiant light,
resound with the praises of your people (BCP 286).

In an Eastern Orthodox church, the Royal Doors on the iconostasis – which conceal the altar and are kept closed throughout the year – are thrown open throughout Bright Week, a visible symbol that the stone sealing the tomb has been rolled away and that the glory of God in the face of the resurrected Christ is even now and will be evermore streaming forth and enlightening the world.

In chronos – clock-time – Bright Week lasts seven calendar days. In kairos – the time of God’s acting – Bright Week is but a single day, the eighth day of the week. In the creation account, God rested from his labors on the Sabbath, on the seventh day. The next day, Sunday, marked a commemoration of the first day of creation – a one-week anniversary. Likewise, in the Passion account, Christ’s body rested in the tomb on the Sabbath, on the seventh day. The next day – Pascha Sunday, the day of resurrection – is not just a commemoration of the first day of the old creation, but is the beginning of God’s new creation in Christ: if any man is in Christ – Behold! new creation (cf 2 Cor 5:17). The church found the existing calendar too small, too restrictive to account for this beginning of new creation and so itself created a new day – the eighth day – Bright Week to herald the restoration of all things through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Bright Week marks the day of God’s new creation.

No fasting is allowed during Bright Week, only feasting. The normal round of daily prayer services is replaced with the Paschal Hours, including these praises:

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tombs bestowing life.

Having beheld the resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We worship Thy cross, O Christ, and Thy Holy Resurrection we hymn and glorify; for Thou art our God, and we know none other beside Thee, and we call upon Thy name. O come, all ye faithful, let us worship Christ’s holy Resurrection, for behold, through the Cross joy hath come to all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, we hymn His Resurrection; for, having endured crucifixion He hath destroyed death by death.

Bright Week is the church’s proclamation – in time – that in Christ new creation has begun: death has been conquered, hell has been vanquished, sin has been overcome, and man has been reconciled to God. Bright Week is the church’s proclamation – in time – that through his resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ has defeated all those powers – whether spiritual or earthly – arrayed against him and has become King and Lord of all creation.

Bright Week ushers in a new reality seen by those in Christ, seen by those who have seen the resurrection, a new reality that changes our relationship with all the powers that be. So, when Peter and the other apostles are brought before the Sanhedrin and the High Priest (cf Acts 5:27-32) – the religious powers that be – brought before the Sanhedrin for violating the council’s command to refrain from teaching in the name of Jesus, Peter gives a Bright Week response:

“We ought to obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. 31 Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:29b-32, NKJV).

And when John – who was certainly with Peter that day before the council – is exiled to Patmos by command of Imperial Rome, he greets the seven churches with a Bright Week doxology and blessing:

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (Rev 1:4b-6, NKJV).

Peter and John see the new reality that the world cannot see – new creation and Jesus enthroned – because they have seen the resurrection. Peter and John live in Bright Week because they live in the reality of the resurrection.

Bright Week comes to a close – liturgically – today, on Thomas Sunday. The Royal Doors are closed, the Paschal Hours are no longer chanted daily, and the weekly fast days return. This liturgical practice presents a twist on history. For seven days the apostles, and other disciples as well, had lived in their own Bright Week; they had seen their resurrected Lord on Pascha. But not Thomas: Thomas still lived in the darkness of the crucifixion, in the gloom of a reality in which corrupt powers dominate and old creation winds down toward corruption and non-being. The others had told him of the resurrection; they had tried to usher him into Bright Week, but to no avail.

25 The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:25, NKJV).
So Thomas, at least for the moment, shuts the doors on Bright Week. But, bidden or unbidden, doors open or shut, the resurrected Jesus has a way of breaking through.

26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”

And, just at the moment Bright Weeks ends for the church, it begins for Thomas – a twist of history: 28 And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:26-28, NKJV)!

Regardless of liturgical practice, in a sense the church lives continually in Bright Week: Christ, having risen from the dead will never die again; the gates of hell having been broken open will neither be rebuilt nor shut; new creation having begun will not cease until all is renewed and there is a new heaven and a new earth, a new and holy Jerusalem with God dwelling in the midst of his people. Each Sunday is a bright day, a liturgical reminder that we live our lives in Bright Week. And yet, the annual contrast of Bright Week and Thomas Sunday, the contrast of this day’s lessons, is a valuable reminder that much of the world still lives not in Bright Week, but as Thomas did: in a reality very different from ours, in a reality where sin dominates and the powers oppress and death is an ever-present companion, in a reality that has never experienced the resurrection. And so, Jesus commissions his church.

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18b-20, NKJV).

It is our vocation and our joy to announce the gospel – the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ – to all the world, to show to all those dwelling still in darkness the glories of Bright Week.

As tragic as it is for the world to dwell in darkness when Bright Week beckons, it is more tragic still when the church does so: when the church lives as if the resurrection never occurred, when the church lives as if new creation had not begun.

The church lives in darkness when it becomes re-entangled in the sin from which Christ’s death and resurrection set it free, when the church compromises with the culture to the extent that holiness is no longer the church’s driving passion.

The church lives in darkness when it bends the knee in worship before any authority save its resurrected Lord and Christ, when its chief loyalty is to nation or political party or social ideology or self-interest.

The church lives in darkness when it quakes in fear of any defeated enemy, even of death itself.

The church lives in darkness when it places its hope and trust in anything or anyone but Christ, whether in money or power or family or nation.

The church lives in darkness anytime it fails to lift its voice in the triumphant song: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. How appropriate and powerful it would be if the church – and those of us blessed to be part of the body of Christ – developed the habit of greeting any news – good and bad alike – with Christos anesti! Christ is risen! What proper perspective that would give everything. My wife and I exchanged the following brief emails during this Bright Week:

“The rain has come through Maryville. I have my windows open, the air is clean and cool, and the birds are singing. Christos anesti!”

Response:

“It is still raining in Oak Ridge. My nose is still stuffed up. The door is leaking. Alithos anesti!”

Yes, exactly.

Truth be told, though, it is hard sometimes to live in Bright Week, to insist that the true reality is the one hidden from human sight, the one perceived only by the purified heart, not least because Bright Week is an eschatological reality, a last-days reality: already present but not yet realized in its fullness. It is not unlike our own salvation: We are saved; we are being saved; and we hope one day to be saved completely. With the resurrection of Christ new creation has begun and is moving toward its fullness when Christ will return and God will be all and in all. But it is not there yet. With the resurrection of Christ all rival powers have been defeated and Christ has begun his reign. But the powers that be have not yet yielded or disarmed. With the resurrection of Christ death has been overcome by life. But death still has its brief moment in each life, before the final resurrection when we shall be forever with the Lord. And so we live in Bright Week in fits and starts, here and there catching a glimmer of the glory ahead, holding on to the hope the resurrection gives us. We need reminding that all this talk of resurrection and victory and new creation is true. So each year we light the Paschal candle and chant the Exsultet. Each year we greet one another with Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Each year we break the Lenten fast with a week-long Paschal feast. Each year – in churches that have them – we throw open the Royal Doors and pray the Paschal Hours. In a Thomas world, we live – for a time at least – in Bright Week. And, as Bright Week draws to a close, we kneel with Thomas in the presence of Jesus of Nazareth and exclaim, “My Lord and my God!” because he is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Paschal Hours

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During Bright Week -- from Pascha (Easter Sunday) through the following Saturday -- we replace Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer with the Paschal Hours. The following is taken from Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church Daily Prayers with minimal adaptation.

PASCHAL HOURS

PRIEST: Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages

(But a layman sayeth: Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us.)

Amen. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. (Thrice)

Having beheld the resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only Sinless One. We worship Thy cross, O Christ, and Thy holy Resurrection we hymn and glorify; for Thou art our God, and we know none other beside Thee, and we call upon Thy name. O come, all ye faithful, let us worship Christ's holy Resurrection, for behold, through the Cross joy hath come to all the world. Ever blessing the Lord, we hymn His Resurrection; for, having endured crucifixion, He hath destroyed death by death. (Thrice)

Forestalling the dawn, the women came with Mary, and found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, and heard from the angel: why seek ye among the dead, as though He were a mortal, Him Who liveth in everlasting light? Behold the grave-clothes. Go quickly and proclaim to the world that the Lord is risen and hath slain death. For He is the Son of God Who saveth mankind.

Though Thou didst descend into the grave, O Immortal One, yet didst Thou destroy the power of hades. And didst arise as victor, O Christ God, calling to the myrrh-bearing women: Rejoice! And giving peace unto Thine apostles: Thou Who dost grant resurrection to the fallen.

In the grave bodily, but in hades with Thy soul as God: in Paradise with the thief, and on the throne with the Father and the Spirit wast Thou Who fillest all things, O Christ the Inexpressible.

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

How life-giving, how much more beautiful than Paradise, and truly more resplendent than any royal palace was Thy tomb shown to be, O Christ, the source of our resurrection.
Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

O sanctified and divine tabernacle of the Most High, rejoice! For through thee, O Theotokos, joy is given to them that cry: Blessed art thou among women, O all-spotless Lady.

Lord, have mercy. (Forty times)

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify.

PRIEST: O Lord Jesus Christ our God, for the sake of the prayers of Thy most pure Mother, of our holy and God-bearing fathers, and of all the saints, have mercy on us.

If a Reader's service: O Lord bless.

Amen. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life. (thrice) Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

PRIEST: May Christ our true God, Who rose from the dead, and trampled down death by death and on those in the tombs bestowed life, through the intercessions of His most Pure Mother, and of all the saints have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and the Lover of mankind. Amen.

If a Reader's service: O Lord bless!

Easter Vigil Sermon: 3 April 2010

2010-04-03T19:43:00.002-04:00

This Is the Night

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, saints of God: now we join with angels and archangels, with cherubim and seraphim, with apostles and martyrs, with all the company of heaven and all the saints on earth, to give voice to all creation as together we proclaim, “This is the night!” How holy is this night. How blessed is this night. For this night is the climax of salvation history. Every past act of God points toward this night and every future act of God radiates outward from this night. It is both the last of the first days and the first of the last days, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end – the alpha and the omega.

This night we tell the story – the story of creation and fall, of God’s good and very good creation ruined by our failure to bear God’s image, by our refusal to be God’s instruments of grace and life in his world. Why is there evil in this world? Why corruption? Why pain and sickness and loneliness and despair and death? Why plague and famine, slavery and poverty? What is wrong with God’s good creation? I am and you are and we are, all of us together, as it is written:

“There is no one who is righteous,
not even one;
there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God” (Rom 3:10-11, NRSV).

Adam, Cain, Lamech: generation after generation we spiraled downward into corruption and dissolution. We did this, for this is your story and mine.

We knew God but we did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but became futile in our thinking and darkened in our senseless minds. Claiming to be wise we became fools; and we exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles (cf Rom 1:21-23).

The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created,” (Gen 6:5-7a, NRSV).

But God had mercy on our father Noah – a righteous man, blameless in his generation – and preserved him, along with his family, through the great flood. Yet sin survived the flood as well, carried by the very hope of our kind, Noah, who in hung-over rage cursed his son Canaan to slavery and began anew man’s downward spiral toward the hubris of Babel and the alienation of person from person, nation from nation.

But God had mercy on our father Abraham.

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:1b-3, NRSV).

This is the covenant, the promise God made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever: election, nation, land, blessing.

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ (Gal 2:16, NIV).

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: each carried the seed of blessing and each carried the thorn of sin. The ones chosen to be the means by which God would put to rights the world were themselves part of the problem: blessing and curse, freedom and slavery. And slavery came as the house of Abraham went down to Egypt and was ruthlessly oppressed with forced labor by Pharaoh who made their lives bitter in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields (cf Ex 1:11-14).

But God had mercy on us and raised up for us a deliverer, Moses, who commanded Pharaoh in the name of our God, “Israel is my firstborn son. Let my son go that he may worship me” (cf Ex 4:21-23). But Pharaoh would not, so God struck him again and again – ten times God struck Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm until the pride of Ham, the firstborn sons of Egypt, lay dead, and Israel, the firstborn son of God, was driven from Egypt with the riches of the land and the blessing of the people, until the might of Egypt lay drowned on the shore of the Red Sea, until our fathers and mothers, former slaves all, could sing together,

I will sing to the Lord, for he is lofty and uplifted;
the horse and its rider has he hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my refuge;
the Lord has become my Savior (The Song of Moses, BCP 85).

To Sinai we came, to Sinai where our God called us a holy nation, a kingdom of priests to serve him; to Sinai where God gave us his commandments; to Sinai where we bowed the knee before idols made by hand; to Sinai where we sat down to eat and rose up to play; to Sinai where we traded glory for shame; to Sinai where we inherited the curse of the Law and not its blessing.

But God had mercy on us nonetheless and brought us into a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the land promised on oath to our father Abraham. There we became fat and arrogant – a stubborn and stiffnecked people – and rebelled against our God, prostituting ourselves before the gods of the peoples of the land. And God punished us, delivered us over to our enemies, yet forgave our sins when we called upon him: again, and again, and again.

But God had mercy on us and raised up for us a man after his own heart, David, son of Jesse, sweet psalmist and king of Israel. And to David, the LORD Almighty said,

I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed.

The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son (2 Sam 7:8-14, selections, NIV).

But David, even David, turned from the Lord and embraced Bathsheba, embraced the lust and sin within him and within us all. Confronted and beguiled by the prophet Nathan, David pronounced his own condemnation; “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die” (2 Sam 12:5)! David rightly placed himself and all men under the righteous judgment of God.

But God had mercy on us and sent us prophets who again and again called us to repent and return. And though we were faithless, God remained faithful. Though we were false, God remained true. Again he made covenant with us, a covenant through the promised seed of Abraham. He says,

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

This is what the LORD says – the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel – to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers: “Kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you” (Is 49:6-7, NIV).

And about this light for the Gentiles, about this one chosen by the Holy One of Israel, the prophet says,

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth (Is 53:4-9, NIV).

And God had mercy on us, for he came, this one, in the fullness of the times. He came, the last Adam. He came, the seed of Abraham. He came, the fulfillment of the Law. He came, the son of David. He came, the hope of the prophets. He came, the anointed of God, the savior of Israel, the light of the Gentiles. He came.

Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross (Acts 2:22-23, NIV).

God have mercy on us. For in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. All the promises of God found their fulfillment. All the righteousness of God bore all the sin of the world. God have mercy on us. For we put to death the author of life, the Messiah of Israel, the hope of the world.

And so it all comes down to this, to this night when all creation holds its breath, when all promises are pending, when all hope peers forward in the blackness of night into the darkness of the tomb. This night is the climax of salvation history. Every past act of God points toward it and every future act of God hinges on it. This is the night when all of watching creation – in heaven, on earth, and under the earth – will learn whether Adam’s sin will be forgiven, whether man will be renewed in God’s image and will bear that image before a creation set to rights, whether God’s promises to Abraham will be fulfilled, whether David’s son will receive an everlasting throne, whether the hope of the prophets will be vindicated, whether the Messiah of Israel will become the light of the Gentiles and the Lord of all creation. This is the night. And on this night the One on whom all this depends lies in a tomb – beaten, broken, and crucified for the sake of all.

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me’ (Mt 28:1-10, NRSV).

This is the night: the night of sorrowing women, the night of earthquakes, the night of angels, the night of the empty tomb, the night of fear and great joy, the night of Jesus – suddenly Jesus – risen from the dead and going ahead of us, the night of Jesus saying, “Do not be afraid.” This is the night when Adam’s sin is forgiven and man is reconciled to God. This is the night when man is restored to the image of God, when men and women and children are renewed in nature and vocation, and when nature itself experiences the firstfruits of its liberation from the bondage of corruption. This is the night when God’s covenant with Abraham is fulfilled and the world is blessed through his seed. This is the night when David’s son takes his everlasting throne. This is the night when the prophets are vindicated and the Messiah of Israel is shown to be the light of the Gentiles and the Lord of all creation. This is the night that marks the dawn of the first day of God’s new creation. This is the night of resurrection.

Christ is risen and all is made new.
Christ is risen and death is conquered.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

This is the night!

Amen. Alleluia.