[Our readings were Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:22-27; and John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15.]
Of the three major holidays of the church year— Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost—Pentecost is the one that has no secular tradition. There is no Pentecost equivalent of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Because we don’t have the distractions of candy canes or egg hunts, we can focus on the meaning of Pentecost to the Church. For, on Pentecost, we recall how, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church is given an identity and authority grounded in the proclamation of the Gospel.
This Easter, we have been hearing the stories from Acts of how the Spirit acted in the earliest days of the Church. We heard about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and how the Spirit wouldn’t even wait for Peter to finish preaching to alight on the members of Cornelius’ household. All this action back then can make us feel somewhat depressed today, when we compare what we read about with what we see today. We read about division and controversy and everything we do seems pale and weak compared to what we hear happened back on that first Pentecost. It’s no wonder that a French theologian, Alfred Loisy, said about 100 years ago, “Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom, and what came was the Church!” (Of course, he said it in French: “Jésus annonçait le Royaume et c’est l’Église qui est venue!”) How can reading an extract from John’s Gospel in several languages compete with the story of strangers from many languages speaking together with understanding on that first Pentecost?
Obviously, it can’t and it doesn’t need to. The story of Pentecost isn’t intended to show us what the church should look like every Sunday. Instead, the message of Pentecost is about the importance of the Church and how it is inseparable from Christ. Each year on Pentecost, we are reminded of who we are as a church, what message we proclaim, and the source of that proclamation.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church receives the power to proclaim the Gospel of the risen Christ. Even Peter, who publically denied Jesus, received the power to preach boldly.
The Church, whose “birthday” we celebrate on the Feast of Pentecost, has four major aspects which we sometimes refer to as the four “marks” of the Church and which we confess in the Nicene Creed when we say that we believe in “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” We believe that the Church—the body of Christ—has these four distinctive characteristics.
The Spirit calls us to be one Church throughout the world. As we say in the Baptismal liturgy: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” On several occasions Jesus prayed that we may all be one as he and the Father are one.
The Church is holy because it is the Church of Christ. It has been set apart for a special purpose by and for God. Thankfully, this holiness doesn’t depend on the sanctity of individual members.
The Church is catholic—small “c”—because it is intended to be universal. “Catholic” comes from the Greek καθολικός (katholikos), or “universal”. The Church is intended to be open to everyone: all classes, all races and nationalities, both genders. It is for all times and places and isn’t limited to a particular time or place.
The church is apostolic in that it is connected to the faith of the apostles who were taught directly by Jesus. Some parts of the Church—such as the Roman Church, the Orthodox churches and the churches of the Anglican Communion—believe that we maintain apostolicity in the apostolic succession in which today’s bishops are connected by a chain of consecration back to the original Apostles. Other groups believe that they maintain the links through following the teachings of the Apostles.
Of course, it isn’t that simple. We say the Church is “one” and yet it clearly isn’t. Even in our small town we have a multitude of Christian churches—Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran, among others—all of whom maintain distinctions between each other. But, the impulse for unity is still there as the Spirit calls us to be “One”. The churches work together at all levels to find common ground, even when they aren’t together organically.
We say the church is “holy”, but we have to admit that the Church as an institution and individual Christians have done some clearly “non-holy” things. Again, the holiness of the Church isn’t necessarily expressed in the individual holiness of its members. But, the Church is drawn to act in a more “holy” way and it often responds. And, as individual members, we are called to greater holiness in our lives.
The claim of catholicity is based on our willingness to welcome everyone. If everyone, regardless of race or gender or wealth, isn’t completely welcome in the church, how do we claim that we are truly catholic? In most churches, even where we don’t have formal restrictions, do we have informal customs that discourage people from joining or attending?
Even where we have an apostolic succession, it isn’t perfect. But all Christians believe that it is important that the Church today is linked in some ways to the Church of the Apostles, whether by organizational structures or by common beliefs.
The four marks or aspects reinforce each other. Oneness supports holiness which supports catholicity which supports apostolicity. To truly be a Christian community and part of the Church, all four of them must be present to some degree, even if they are impaired.
On Pentecost particularly, but actually throughout the year, the Holy Spirit allows us to speak boldly to the Church and the world about how things are and how God calls them to be. The message of Pentecost is that Jesus Christ offers salvation to all and the Church exists to proclaim that salvation.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Thoughts on Ethics and Integrity
I once read that integrity can be defined as "doing the right thing even though no one is watching." When you do the right thing only because you are afraid to be caught breaking the rules, your claim of integrity seems shallow.
I have enjoyed following British politics for many years. I began as a college freshman in the winter of 1974 walking to the Gorgas Library at the University of Alabama to read copies of The Times of London which were mailed to Tuscaloosa, obviously a few days after the publishing date. The British were embroiled in a sudden general election which would turn out to be a dead heat. I would have been astonished to know that 35 years later, I could read The Times immediately from the comfort of my home.
For some years, members of the House of Commons have been able to receive a second home allowance to help cover the cost of maintaing two homes, one in London and one elsewhere, usually in their constituencies. Not an unreasonable idea, but as people are wont to do, many MPs took advantage of this to get all kinds of work done on their homes at taxpayers' expense and some even redesignated or "flipped" what was their second home between London and elsewhere to get work paid for on both! One even got a fancy duck island in their pond (pictured) paid for! Not a bad deal, unless the public found out.
Well of course they have, and there is an absolute firestorm of rage against the offending MPs and against some who didn't offend much (or at all). A new election is required within a year, and this isn't the time to have to face your constituents who themselves are in the midst of hard times.
One of the defenses that some MPs have raised was that "it was within the rules" or that "no rules were broken". If the question is "What can I get away with without violating the letter of the regulations?", the questioner has missed the point of ethical rules entirely.
If we focus solely on whether we have crossed the line between fair or foul under the rules and ignore whether what we are doing is truly right or wrong, we may be safe from punishment, but we are a long way from acting ethically. If that is our focus, what in fact does it say about us?
We should follow ethical principles because we know they are right. If we are ethically people, we instinctively recoil from taking advantage of situations for our personal benefit, simply because either "it's within the letter of the law" wholly ignoring its spirit, or, even worse, because "they can't prove it."
In the Federal government, we have a lot of ethical rules and regulations. Because it is a part of my job to advise people on them, I have a binder thick with them. I can advise people where I think the boundary line between fair and foul is, but I can't make them want to do the right thing all the time. That has to come from within.
A recent column by the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject in The Times said:
Religion-based morality is often castigated for imposing irrational and arbitrary rules on people. But the truth is that its primary concern is with how to encourage us to act in such a way that we can be glad of what we have done--and can also recognise that bad actions diminish us. Of course there is a debased religious morality that is all about the fear of punishment. But the major faiths all see our task as becoming what we are made to be and called to be--as growing in integrity, in fact, and responding to a vocation. God sees the heart, so there is absolutely no possibility of hiding what is really going on in us.
Have these MPs truly been "glad for what they have done", even before this came out? Have our government officials who have taken advantage of their jobs for private gain been "glad for what they have done"? If we believe, as I do, that most of us has an inner sense of morality--a conscience, if you wish--don't we die a little inside every time we do something we know is ethically wrong and excuse ourselves with "it was technically within the rules"?
I have enjoyed following British politics for many years. I began as a college freshman in the winter of 1974 walking to the Gorgas Library at the University of Alabama to read copies of The Times of London which were mailed to Tuscaloosa, obviously a few days after the publishing date. The British were embroiled in a sudden general election which would turn out to be a dead heat. I would have been astonished to know that 35 years later, I could read The Times immediately from the comfort of my home.
For some years, members of the House of Commons have been able to receive a second home allowance to help cover the cost of maintaing two homes, one in London and one elsewhere, usually in their constituencies. Not an unreasonable idea, but as people are wont to do, many MPs took advantage of this to get all kinds of work done on their homes at taxpayers' expense and some even redesignated or "flipped" what was their second home between London and elsewhere to get work paid for on both! One even got a fancy duck island in their pond (pictured) paid for! Not a bad deal, unless the public found out.Well of course they have, and there is an absolute firestorm of rage against the offending MPs and against some who didn't offend much (or at all). A new election is required within a year, and this isn't the time to have to face your constituents who themselves are in the midst of hard times.
One of the defenses that some MPs have raised was that "it was within the rules" or that "no rules were broken". If the question is "What can I get away with without violating the letter of the regulations?", the questioner has missed the point of ethical rules entirely.
If we focus solely on whether we have crossed the line between fair or foul under the rules and ignore whether what we are doing is truly right or wrong, we may be safe from punishment, but we are a long way from acting ethically. If that is our focus, what in fact does it say about us?
We should follow ethical principles because we know they are right. If we are ethically people, we instinctively recoil from taking advantage of situations for our personal benefit, simply because either "it's within the letter of the law" wholly ignoring its spirit, or, even worse, because "they can't prove it."
In the Federal government, we have a lot of ethical rules and regulations. Because it is a part of my job to advise people on them, I have a binder thick with them. I can advise people where I think the boundary line between fair and foul is, but I can't make them want to do the right thing all the time. That has to come from within.
A recent column by the Archbishop of Canterbury on the subject in The Times said:
Religion-based morality is often castigated for imposing irrational and arbitrary rules on people. But the truth is that its primary concern is with how to encourage us to act in such a way that we can be glad of what we have done--and can also recognise that bad actions diminish us. Of course there is a debased religious morality that is all about the fear of punishment. But the major faiths all see our task as becoming what we are made to be and called to be--as growing in integrity, in fact, and responding to a vocation. God sees the heart, so there is absolutely no possibility of hiding what is really going on in us.
Have these MPs truly been "glad for what they have done", even before this came out? Have our government officials who have taken advantage of their jobs for private gain been "glad for what they have done"? If we believe, as I do, that most of us has an inner sense of morality--a conscience, if you wish--don't we die a little inside every time we do something we know is ethically wrong and excuse ourselves with "it was technically within the rules"?
Memorial Day 2009
[Here's a prayer I used last year. It seems appropriate still after another year of war and loss.]Almighty God, we give you thanks for the service of the men and women of our armed forces through the years and we especially remember those men and women who have laid down their lives in the service of our country; grant to those who are commemorated on our memorials and those who are written in our hearts your mercy and the light of your presence; also give, Lord, to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; these things we ask in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Archbishop Tutu in Carolina
I was watching the CBS Evening News tonight and they showed a medley of commencement speeches from President Obama, President Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and several others. For me the highlight was a clip from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's speech at the University of North Carolina. Archbishop Tutu is to me one of the heroes of the Faith of our time and I have no doubt that he will someday be recognized in Lesser Feasts and Fasts or its successor Holy Men, Holy Women. I went to the University web site to see if the entire speech was available and it was. The whole speech is a joy to read and a video of it is also available. Here are some excerpts:
Sometimes they say to you when you come to gatherings such as this, “Oh this man or woman is well known and doesn’t need to be introduced.” Well, one day I was in San Francisco, and a lady came up and she was quite effusive and warm, and she said “Hello, Archbishop Mandela!” (Laughter.) Sort of getting two for the price of one.
***
When there is injustice and oppression, God doesn’t normally send a lightning bolt. We might wish that’s what God did, but God does not normally send a lightning bolt to zap the perpetrator of injustice and oppression. God waits! God waits on all of us who are prepared to become God’s fellow workers, God’s partners.
***
God has a dream. God has a dream. And we say, “Hey, God, that was really Martin Luther King Jr. who said that.” And God says, "I know, Martin had a dream, I have a dream, too. I have a dream that my children everywhere will know that they belong in one family, a family that has no outsiders." You know, Jesus said “I, if I be lifted up, I will draw–he didn’t say I will draw some–he said I will draw all, all, all! I will draw all! Rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful; yellow, red, black, gay, lesbian, so-called straight.” (laughter)
God said “All. All. All. All. All. All.” And you know this is radical. All, all, all all men. Palestinians. Israelis. (cheering) All, all. Bin Laden … you know … George Bush … all, all, all, all belong in this family, and God says, “Help me, help me to realize my dream. Help me, help me, help me."
***
God says, “Go on dreaming. Go on being the idealistic people you are. Go on being the ones who believe that poverty can indeed be made history. Go on believing that it is possible to eradicate hunger. How can we live and sleep comfortably, knowing that millions of our sisters and brothers go to bed hungry? God says “Please, please, help me; help me to make this world a little more compassionate. Help me, please, help me to make this world a little more gentle.”
Sometimes they say to you when you come to gatherings such as this, “Oh this man or woman is well known and doesn’t need to be introduced.” Well, one day I was in San Francisco, and a lady came up and she was quite effusive and warm, and she said “Hello, Archbishop Mandela!” (Laughter.) Sort of getting two for the price of one.
***
When there is injustice and oppression, God doesn’t normally send a lightning bolt. We might wish that’s what God did, but God does not normally send a lightning bolt to zap the perpetrator of injustice and oppression. God waits! God waits on all of us who are prepared to become God’s fellow workers, God’s partners.
***
God has a dream. God has a dream. And we say, “Hey, God, that was really Martin Luther King Jr. who said that.” And God says, "I know, Martin had a dream, I have a dream, too. I have a dream that my children everywhere will know that they belong in one family, a family that has no outsiders." You know, Jesus said “I, if I be lifted up, I will draw–he didn’t say I will draw some–he said I will draw all, all, all! I will draw all! Rich, poor; clever, not so clever; beautiful, not so beautiful; yellow, red, black, gay, lesbian, so-called straight.” (laughter)
God said “All. All. All. All. All. All.” And you know this is radical. All, all, all all men. Palestinians. Israelis. (cheering) All, all. Bin Laden … you know … George Bush … all, all, all, all belong in this family, and God says, “Help me, help me to realize my dream. Help me, help me, help me."
***
God says, “Go on dreaming. Go on being the idealistic people you are. Go on being the ones who believe that poverty can indeed be made history. Go on believing that it is possible to eradicate hunger. How can we live and sleep comfortably, knowing that millions of our sisters and brothers go to bed hungry? God says “Please, please, help me; help me to make this world a little more compassionate. Help me, please, help me to make this world a little more gentle.”
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sanctify Us in Truth
[Our lessons were Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; and John 17:6-19.]
In our Gospel reading from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John, we are reminded of the role of the Church and Christians in the world.
It is often tempting for Christians to want to retreat from the world—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively by trying to confine the Church to the four corners of a building. The idea of escaping from the world is tempting for nearly everyone; the advertisements of the travel industry should make that clear.
But for Christians, while a luxury resort may not seem like the best thing, we may at times long for a community and a way of life that avoid the clamor and conflict of the world. The hope is that we can create a space, unencumbered by the world that would allow for a fuller realization of a faithful, holy life. For the community that was the audience for John’s Gospel toward the end of the First Century, this might have been even more compelling, as their world was a very dangerous place, filled with persecution by the Roman Empire.
But that is not the path that Jesus sets out. Our Lord sets out an alternative to retreating from the world without surrendering to the values of the world. Jesus says several times that his followers do not “belong to the world”. The claims and values of the world do not shape our essential identity, faith, and values. But, even so, there is no escape from the reality of the world: “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete” among themselves. We can be a community of faith, but that community is not to abandon the world. “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them.” We are to live in the world under God’s protection.
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Jesus’ own life was a life of involvement in the world of his time. His ministry was not one of contemplation, but one of healing and feeding, of action.
The holiness we might seek in escape is instead to be found in action in love and truth. “Sanctify them in truth.” We are to be consecrated by truth, living in truth, acting in truth. We are to do things that lead to truth. We are to be witnesses to truth. Only in truth lies the path of true reconciliation.
This can be a daunting task, because this search for truth can lead to naming corruption and unmasking idolatries where we worship other things like money or national security instead of God. When we do things as a society which are evil, like torture or emphasizing individual financial gain at the expense of the community, we turn good ideals to evil purposes. As a Church, we can not be apathetic, complacent or indifferent to these issues. How do we as a society remain true to the Gospel and God’s values?
We begin with truth. Only with truth can healing begin. Only with truth can reconciliation begin.
In our Gospel reading from Jesus’ farewell discourse in John, we are reminded of the role of the Church and Christians in the world.
It is often tempting for Christians to want to retreat from the world—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively by trying to confine the Church to the four corners of a building. The idea of escaping from the world is tempting for nearly everyone; the advertisements of the travel industry should make that clear.
But for Christians, while a luxury resort may not seem like the best thing, we may at times long for a community and a way of life that avoid the clamor and conflict of the world. The hope is that we can create a space, unencumbered by the world that would allow for a fuller realization of a faithful, holy life. For the community that was the audience for John’s Gospel toward the end of the First Century, this might have been even more compelling, as their world was a very dangerous place, filled with persecution by the Roman Empire.
But that is not the path that Jesus sets out. Our Lord sets out an alternative to retreating from the world without surrendering to the values of the world. Jesus says several times that his followers do not “belong to the world”. The claims and values of the world do not shape our essential identity, faith, and values. But, even so, there is no escape from the reality of the world: “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete” among themselves. We can be a community of faith, but that community is not to abandon the world. “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them.” We are to live in the world under God’s protection.
“As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Jesus’ own life was a life of involvement in the world of his time. His ministry was not one of contemplation, but one of healing and feeding, of action.
The holiness we might seek in escape is instead to be found in action in love and truth. “Sanctify them in truth.” We are to be consecrated by truth, living in truth, acting in truth. We are to do things that lead to truth. We are to be witnesses to truth. Only in truth lies the path of true reconciliation.
This can be a daunting task, because this search for truth can lead to naming corruption and unmasking idolatries where we worship other things like money or national security instead of God. When we do things as a society which are evil, like torture or emphasizing individual financial gain at the expense of the community, we turn good ideals to evil purposes. As a Church, we can not be apathetic, complacent or indifferent to these issues. How do we as a society remain true to the Gospel and God’s values?
We begin with truth. Only with truth can healing begin. Only with truth can reconciliation begin.
Monday, May 18, 2009
All You Need is Love?
[Our readings were Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; and John 15:9-17.]
We have heard a lot about love the last few weeks. I’m old enough that they’ve made an old Beatles song from the ‘60s run through my head: “All you need is love.” I don’t know what type of love the Beatles were singing about. I suspect it might not have been the agapē—love that gives without expecting a reward—that we normally talk about. But, is that really true? Is “love all you need”?
Most of us know that the English word “love” is used to translate several Greek words that mean quite different things. The Beatles may well have been singing about eros more than agapē, but fundamentally all love comes from God. The love of man and woman, the love of parent and child, the love of one Christian for his or her neighbor, all of these come from God.
In fact, the first encyclical by Pope Benedict—Deus Caritas Est or “God is Love”—was about love.
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.
In our readings from Acts this Easter, we have seen the unpredictable power of the Holy Spirit, moving in front of us, breaking down barriers. In today’s selection, Peter is preaching to Cornelius’ household. Peter has been sent to Cornelius by the Spirit—those who are being saved are not to stand still and wait for the lost to come to them.
Before Peter has even finished preaching, the Holy Spirit comes upon “all who heard the word.” (I suspect that brought a sudden end to his sermon.) The circumcised Jews who accompanied Peter were astounded that the Holy Spirit “had been poured out onto the Gentiles.” “Astounding” or “astonishing” events in Scripture are signs of God acting in our lives as God wishes, not necessarily how we want God to act.
Peter finishes his sermon by asking the Jews who came with him “Can we refuse to baptize these people who have already received the Holy Spirit?” Of course, the answer is no. The church is not ours, but God’s. We are not the hosts here, we are God’s guests just as much as anyone else. We aren’t called to welcome as much as to remember that we are all welcomed into God’s grace and love.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
This commandment of Jesus, stated shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion is simple—we must love each other—but not easy. It isn’t easy because of the part “as I have loved you.” After all, how far did Jesus love mankind?
Jesus’ love for mankind wasn’t expressed as some warm, mushy sentimental feeling. Jesus acted that love—healing the sick, feeding the hungry and eventually accepting his death and resurrection for all mankind by “laying down his life for his friends.”
We are called to live out that love, not merely believe it; to live out the Resurrection in our lives. According to Kierkegaard, “Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but a life to be lived.”
We are called not just to worship the Risen Lord, but to follow him. Loving one another means to act, not just talk. To paraphrase that familiar hymn, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Not so much our love for each other gathered here, but our love for those who are not here. We have to go out to them, not in arrogance claiming that we have the Golden Ticket, but in humility, with a love that shows the Resurrection to be a life-giving event today, not just something that happened nearly two millennia ago.
We can’t be Christians without each other, all of us. We are not Christians as individuals, but instead in a communion of faith, the Body of Christ. We can easily be tempted to take our life together for granted. In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison cell
It is true that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let the one who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let us thank God on our knees and declare: it is grace, nothing but grace that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brothers and sisters.
I began by speaking of one type of love. So similar to agapē is the love of a parent for a child. Parents don’t love their children because they expect the children to love them back, they just do it. I learned this week that a good friend of mine has begun that marvelous, terrifying journey of parenthood by adopting a young child from Russia. She and her husband went through a lot of effort to become parents, an effort upon which many people—probably including me—would not have followed through. To me this is a clear example of how the Holy Spirit can strengthen us in hard times. Let us give thanks to God for bringing little Kelly Maria into the lives of her parents and pray that they will be guided by love in all the challenges and joys of the years ahead.
We have heard a lot about love the last few weeks. I’m old enough that they’ve made an old Beatles song from the ‘60s run through my head: “All you need is love.” I don’t know what type of love the Beatles were singing about. I suspect it might not have been the agapē—love that gives without expecting a reward—that we normally talk about. But, is that really true? Is “love all you need”?
Most of us know that the English word “love” is used to translate several Greek words that mean quite different things. The Beatles may well have been singing about eros more than agapē, but fundamentally all love comes from God. The love of man and woman, the love of parent and child, the love of one Christian for his or her neighbor, all of these come from God.
In fact, the first encyclical by Pope Benedict—Deus Caritas Est or “God is Love”—was about love.
“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.
In our readings from Acts this Easter, we have seen the unpredictable power of the Holy Spirit, moving in front of us, breaking down barriers. In today’s selection, Peter is preaching to Cornelius’ household. Peter has been sent to Cornelius by the Spirit—those who are being saved are not to stand still and wait for the lost to come to them.
Before Peter has even finished preaching, the Holy Spirit comes upon “all who heard the word.” (I suspect that brought a sudden end to his sermon.) The circumcised Jews who accompanied Peter were astounded that the Holy Spirit “had been poured out onto the Gentiles.” “Astounding” or “astonishing” events in Scripture are signs of God acting in our lives as God wishes, not necessarily how we want God to act.
Peter finishes his sermon by asking the Jews who came with him “Can we refuse to baptize these people who have already received the Holy Spirit?” Of course, the answer is no. The church is not ours, but God’s. We are not the hosts here, we are God’s guests just as much as anyone else. We aren’t called to welcome as much as to remember that we are all welcomed into God’s grace and love.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
This commandment of Jesus, stated shortly before his betrayal and crucifixion is simple—we must love each other—but not easy. It isn’t easy because of the part “as I have loved you.” After all, how far did Jesus love mankind?
Jesus’ love for mankind wasn’t expressed as some warm, mushy sentimental feeling. Jesus acted that love—healing the sick, feeding the hungry and eventually accepting his death and resurrection for all mankind by “laying down his life for his friends.”
We are called to live out that love, not merely believe it; to live out the Resurrection in our lives. According to Kierkegaard, “Christianity is not a doctrine to be taught, but a life to be lived.”
We are called not just to worship the Risen Lord, but to follow him. Loving one another means to act, not just talk. To paraphrase that familiar hymn, “They will know we are Christians by our love.” Not so much our love for each other gathered here, but our love for those who are not here. We have to go out to them, not in arrogance claiming that we have the Golden Ticket, but in humility, with a love that shows the Resurrection to be a life-giving event today, not just something that happened nearly two millennia ago.
We can’t be Christians without each other, all of us. We are not Christians as individuals, but instead in a communion of faith, the Body of Christ. We can easily be tempted to take our life together for granted. In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison cell
It is true that what is an unspeakable gift of God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded by those who have the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let the one who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let us thank God on our knees and declare: it is grace, nothing but grace that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brothers and sisters.
I began by speaking of one type of love. So similar to agapē is the love of a parent for a child. Parents don’t love their children because they expect the children to love them back, they just do it. I learned this week that a good friend of mine has begun that marvelous, terrifying journey of parenthood by adopting a young child from Russia. She and her husband went through a lot of effort to become parents, an effort upon which many people—probably including me—would not have followed through. To me this is a clear example of how the Holy Spirit can strengthen us in hard times. Let us give thanks to God for bringing little Kelly Maria into the lives of her parents and pray that they will be guided by love in all the challenges and joys of the years ahead.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
What is Love?
[Our readings were Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; and John 15:1-8.]
One of the things we see in our readings from Acts every Easter is that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. Today we hear the story of Philip being sent on the wilderness road to Gaza where he encounters the Ethiopian eunuch.
We never learn the name of the Ethiopian eunuch. We learn that he is a court official—the treasurer—of the Queen of the Ethiopians. He appears to be a “God-fearer”, a person who had been exposed to the Hebrew Scriptures, but who was not a full member of the people of Israel. He was barred from full membership by his nationality and his being a eunuch, since Deuteronomy barred eunuchs from “the assembly of the Lord.”
So this powerful court official has been to Jerusalem to worship, where he would have been barred from the Temple. He clearly has wealth, because he has a copy of Isaiah, and wealth was a requirement for that in those pre-printing days. He has education, because he can read it, probably in Greek. So he is an exceptional man of those times, yet he has been barred from the Temple.
This story has a sense of urgency about it. The angel tells Philip to “get up and go” and he does: “he got up and went.” The Spirit tells Philip to go over to the chariot and Philip runs. When the eunuch has been baptized and, presumably Philip’s work there is done, the Spirit snatches Philip away, and “the eunuch saw him no more.”
The part of Isaiah which the eunuch was reading was what we often refer to as the words of the second Isaiah, an unnamed prophet who came several centuries after Isaiah, but whose words have been included with his. It’s probably no coincidence that the second Isaiah also promises that eunuchs who keep the Sabbath will be welcome in the house of God.
This excerpt is one of the “suffering servant” passages which moves the eunuch to ask if the prophet was referring to himself or to someone else. It’s as if he is asking, “Is this only about Isaiah and his time or is it about me as well? Is this God’s word to someone else, back then, or does it speak to me, today?”
God’s Word is never merely about “back then.” It always speaks to us, this day, in this place and these circumstances. When Philip shows the eunuch how, to use Jesus’ words from Luke, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” it is better news than the eunuch could have imagined. Not only did God understand the humiliation and outcast status of the eunuch, God had experienced humiliation and ostracism as Jesus! And in Jesus—the “sheep led to the slaughter”—shame and suffering is transformed into a story of redemption and hope.
“What is to prevent me from being baptized?” What would bar the eunuch from full membership in the Body of Christ? We can think of many things that could have been raised—his nationality, his sexual status are only starters. Perhaps his race might have been an issue. If someone were to ask us that question today, what would be our answer? The Spirit’s answer obviously was “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” Another human who has felt lost and humiliated is found and restored and goes on his way rejoicing.
Philip’s actions show God’s love. Our reading from John’s letter is a paean to Christian love. One problem we have is that we use the English word “love” for concepts which other languages have different words. John uses the Greek word agapē—love that gives without expecting a return. He addresses those to whom he writes as agapētoi, or “Beloved.” God is agapē; Jesus died for us as an act of agapē and we ought to agapē one another.
This love is not a warm feeling, it exists in action or it doesn’t exist at all. If we love God, we must love each other, or, as John says, we are liars. If we do not love—if we do not act in love!—to our brothers and sisters in this world, how can we claim to love our “God whom we have not seen”?
One of the things we see in our readings from Acts every Easter is that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable. Today we hear the story of Philip being sent on the wilderness road to Gaza where he encounters the Ethiopian eunuch.
We never learn the name of the Ethiopian eunuch. We learn that he is a court official—the treasurer—of the Queen of the Ethiopians. He appears to be a “God-fearer”, a person who had been exposed to the Hebrew Scriptures, but who was not a full member of the people of Israel. He was barred from full membership by his nationality and his being a eunuch, since Deuteronomy barred eunuchs from “the assembly of the Lord.”
So this powerful court official has been to Jerusalem to worship, where he would have been barred from the Temple. He clearly has wealth, because he has a copy of Isaiah, and wealth was a requirement for that in those pre-printing days. He has education, because he can read it, probably in Greek. So he is an exceptional man of those times, yet he has been barred from the Temple.
This story has a sense of urgency about it. The angel tells Philip to “get up and go” and he does: “he got up and went.” The Spirit tells Philip to go over to the chariot and Philip runs. When the eunuch has been baptized and, presumably Philip’s work there is done, the Spirit snatches Philip away, and “the eunuch saw him no more.”
The part of Isaiah which the eunuch was reading was what we often refer to as the words of the second Isaiah, an unnamed prophet who came several centuries after Isaiah, but whose words have been included with his. It’s probably no coincidence that the second Isaiah also promises that eunuchs who keep the Sabbath will be welcome in the house of God.
This excerpt is one of the “suffering servant” passages which moves the eunuch to ask if the prophet was referring to himself or to someone else. It’s as if he is asking, “Is this only about Isaiah and his time or is it about me as well? Is this God’s word to someone else, back then, or does it speak to me, today?”
God’s Word is never merely about “back then.” It always speaks to us, this day, in this place and these circumstances. When Philip shows the eunuch how, to use Jesus’ words from Luke, “this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” it is better news than the eunuch could have imagined. Not only did God understand the humiliation and outcast status of the eunuch, God had experienced humiliation and ostracism as Jesus! And in Jesus—the “sheep led to the slaughter”—shame and suffering is transformed into a story of redemption and hope.
“What is to prevent me from being baptized?” What would bar the eunuch from full membership in the Body of Christ? We can think of many things that could have been raised—his nationality, his sexual status are only starters. Perhaps his race might have been an issue. If someone were to ask us that question today, what would be our answer? The Spirit’s answer obviously was “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” Another human who has felt lost and humiliated is found and restored and goes on his way rejoicing.
Philip’s actions show God’s love. Our reading from John’s letter is a paean to Christian love. One problem we have is that we use the English word “love” for concepts which other languages have different words. John uses the Greek word agapē—love that gives without expecting a return. He addresses those to whom he writes as agapētoi, or “Beloved.” God is agapē; Jesus died for us as an act of agapē and we ought to agapē one another.
This love is not a warm feeling, it exists in action or it doesn’t exist at all. If we love God, we must love each other, or, as John says, we are liars. If we do not love—if we do not act in love!—to our brothers and sisters in this world, how can we claim to love our “God whom we have not seen”?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
"But not Christ, I think"
[Our readings were Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; and John 10:11-18.]
Our Gospel reading gives us the familiar metaphorical image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. (It's a metaphor because there is absolutely no Biblical language that indicates that Jesus was ever really a shepherd of sheep.) There is art going back as the Fifth Century of Jesus as a shepherd, and we have all seen at one time or another a painting of Jesus as a shepherd carrying a lamb—all very cute, cuddly, clean, and unrealistic. Being a shepherd was dirty work and claiming to be a “good shepherd” was not an entrée into polite society. It would be about the social equivalent of being a migrant worker today.
If we carry the allegory into today’s world, where many of us have never seen sheep (except, perhaps, in a zoo), and even more of us have never seen a shepherd, who is the shepherd and who is the flock? While it might be tempting to thinking of the clergy as the shepherds, it is still Jesus who is the shepherd. And who is the flock? Who are the “other sheep that do not belong to this fold?” In our world, there are many “others”—from other races, other lands, other faith traditions to whom God has revealed Himself differently. Anyone who has been pushed to the margins is an “other” sheep. They also are Jesus’ sheep and they hear Jesus’ voice and he must bring them also, just as much as us.
In the allegory of the Good Shepherd we see that we are connected to the other “sheep” in the world as well as the shepherd. That connection is described in the passage from John’s letter as one of love.
“We ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Christian love is not just a warm, mushy feeling, it expresses itself in action. For Christians, self-sacrifice should not be extraordinary. John’s challenge isn’t a grand challenge for heroic action, but is rather a statement of how we should live every day of our lives. “Laying down our Lives” doesn’t necessarily mean death, but it can, as the martyrs of the faith attest, even to our day. We lay down our lives when we put others first, when we live for the good of others. How do we claim to receive God’s love and yet withhold our love from others?
I read a story this week that said that a survey said that, in the United States, the support of torturing suspected terrorists for information was higher among more frequent churchgoers than among those who rarely attend church! I would love to ask the respondents to that survey how they align their answers with our duty to love our neighbors as ourselves and the fact the all are our neighbors. In the Episcopal Church, we promise in our Baptismal Covenant to “respect the dignity of every human being.” Are our fingers crossed when we say that?
Some people ask whether torture works. That is the wrong question. Even if torture produced reliable information about terrorist activity, we should reject it. We are people of principle. Our faith and values should now motivate us to lead the world in rejecting torture of any human being, for any reason.
In the movie Kingdom of Heaven, the lead character, Balien of Ibelin asks whether knights being hanged for murdering Muslims are being punished for doing what the Pope would command them to do. The reply he receives is, “But not Christ, I think.”
Would Jesus torture? “Not Christ, I think.”
[For more thoughts on torture, you can go to the National Religious Campaign against Torture.
See also this story from Christianity Today, "5 Reasons Torture is Always Wrong."]
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