[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.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
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."]
Saturday, April 25, 2009
"How Bad it is Out Here"
One of the blogs I like to look at (you even see it listed on the right) is "Telling Secrets" by the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, an Episcopal priest from New Jersey. But a post I read there today brought me to a dead halt.
Its at least bad manners to reproduce a post on someone else's blog, so if you want to see the complete post (and I encourage it), click here. But here's some selected quotes, hopefully fair use.
She received a call from someone in financial distress:
"'... All of a sudden, we were getting these calls and letters from a lawyer who told us that if we didn't have the money by the end of the week, he was going to foreclose on our house.'
"'For $700?' I asked incredulously. 'He's going to leave a family homeless for $700 in medical bills?' ...
The attorney told them that he had just foreclosed on two other families just that week but he knew a place where they could get a loan that day and save their house. "We went down the street to a place called 'The Cash Store'. They seemed to know that we'd be coming. Within 15 minutes, the papers were all signed and we walked out of the place feeling relieved that we wouldn't lose our home."
When he got home and read over the paper work, he realized the mistake he'd made. The APR was 403%! They would have to make nine weekly payments of $108.50, followed by a payment of $805.50 for total payments of $1,785 on a $700 debt!
By the way, how did they get in trouble? They must have been "irresponsible spendthrifts", right?
His wife has a genetic disorder which their children now have. They lost one son to rectal cancer at 21, their 22-year-old daughter has rectal and brain cancer, and their 12-year-old son has colon cancer. And this is with health insurance! Any other questions?
She then called "The Cash Store" and found out that the loan information was true. The person she talked to said that, yes she did sleep well at night.
She talked to the drug store that was suing the man. They've had so many outstanding debts that he, in his words, "had to resort to a lawyer who has been a godsend to me. He's helping me save my business." When she tried to tell him what the attorney was doing, he said, "I don't want to hear it. I can't hear it. I have to provide for my family, too. You just don't understand how bad it is out here."
The attorney told her to "turn your goody-two-shoes in the opposite direction and mind your own damn business. You just don't understand how bad it is out here."
She worked with some fellow priests to come up with enough money for The Cash Store to let the family off the hook (after browbeating them a bit). Good news, right?
Yes, it is. But it left me with two thoughts:
1. I don't know which hurts the most: what these people were doing to their neighbors or the coldness in the hearts as they did it.
2. If it is "that bad out here", how in the name of God does anyone justify the Government not trying to do everything it can to get people working again?
Its at least bad manners to reproduce a post on someone else's blog, so if you want to see the complete post (and I encourage it), click here. But here's some selected quotes, hopefully fair use.
She received a call from someone in financial distress:
"'... All of a sudden, we were getting these calls and letters from a lawyer who told us that if we didn't have the money by the end of the week, he was going to foreclose on our house.'
"'For $700?' I asked incredulously. 'He's going to leave a family homeless for $700 in medical bills?' ...
The attorney told them that he had just foreclosed on two other families just that week but he knew a place where they could get a loan that day and save their house. "We went down the street to a place called 'The Cash Store'. They seemed to know that we'd be coming. Within 15 minutes, the papers were all signed and we walked out of the place feeling relieved that we wouldn't lose our home."
When he got home and read over the paper work, he realized the mistake he'd made. The APR was 403%! They would have to make nine weekly payments of $108.50, followed by a payment of $805.50 for total payments of $1,785 on a $700 debt!
By the way, how did they get in trouble? They must have been "irresponsible spendthrifts", right?
His wife has a genetic disorder which their children now have. They lost one son to rectal cancer at 21, their 22-year-old daughter has rectal and brain cancer, and their 12-year-old son has colon cancer. And this is with health insurance! Any other questions?
She then called "The Cash Store" and found out that the loan information was true. The person she talked to said that, yes she did sleep well at night.
She talked to the drug store that was suing the man. They've had so many outstanding debts that he, in his words, "had to resort to a lawyer who has been a godsend to me. He's helping me save my business." When she tried to tell him what the attorney was doing, he said, "I don't want to hear it. I can't hear it. I have to provide for my family, too. You just don't understand how bad it is out here."
The attorney told her to "turn your goody-two-shoes in the opposite direction and mind your own damn business. You just don't understand how bad it is out here."
She worked with some fellow priests to come up with enough money for The Cash Store to let the family off the hook (after browbeating them a bit). Good news, right?
Yes, it is. But it left me with two thoughts:
1. I don't know which hurts the most: what these people were doing to their neighbors or the coldness in the hearts as they did it.
2. If it is "that bad out here", how in the name of God does anyone justify the Government not trying to do everything it can to get people working again?
The First Sermon?
[Our readings were Acts 3:12-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7; and Luke 24:36b-48.]
It’s an ancient tradition that, during the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we hear from Luke’s account of the earliest days of the Church in the book of Acts. Today, we hear what Peter says to a crowd that has gathered around him and John in Solomon’s Portico of the Temple after the healing of the crippled beggar at the Beautiful Gate.
What did the crowd want? Healing for themselves? More miracles? An explanation? Perhaps they didn’t know themselves. What they got was a sermon, which is likely not what they expected. (In other words, you’re hearing a sermon about a sermon!) In fact, Peter’s sermon, not the miracle, is the center of the reading.
This sermon is probably the first where Jesus’ resurrection is preached. And, as Archbishop Rowan William has written, the crowd is not ignorant of Jesus and is neither neutral nor wholly innocent. The audience for this sermon is itself part of the story. So, when Peter said “you rejected” and “you killed”, there was some literal truth there.
Some of these words have been the excuse for hideous acts of anti-Semitism over the centuries. Jews as late as our time have been forced to pay the penalty for an act that occurred almost two millennia ago. But Peter’s purpose is not punishment but reconciliation, in fact, he excuses them and, I believe, would have been horrified to see how those who called themselves Christians used his words to persecute Peter’s own people.
The first point Peter makes is that the people misunderstood the source of the healing and thought it came from Peter and John. It seems to be human nature to assume that some person has healing powers and they can make them available to us. We desperately want to believe that they can bring healing and wholeness to our lives. So we order that CD, go to the tent rally, or watch the TV program. As Peter tells the crowd, “Why do you think it was our power that healed? This is about God’s power.”
Peter’s second point is that the crowd wrongly thinks that brokenness is the rule and healing the exception in life with God. We often tend to think this way—that life is apart from God, only punctuated with astonishing acts by God. That’s why the crowd rushed to the Temple; Peter and John’s ministry of healing seemed to be an astonishing exception to life as usual. But Peter asks “Why do you wonder?” and teaches of the Kingdom of God, where God’s healing and forgiveness are as commonplace as sunshine and rain.
Finally, the crowd (as often we do) thinks that healing only calls for astonishment. When we see a sign of God at work in the world—someone is healed, a broken relationship is restored, a hungry child is fed, despair yields to hope—people are filled with wonder and joy. But Peter calls for more. God’s healing reveals a different place, a different kingdom that we can glimpse amidst the ruins of this one. These glimpses summon us to repent—to change our path to God’s path—so that we can claim our citizenship in the Kingdom of God and truly become a part of God’s work in the world.
It’s an ancient tradition that, during the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we hear from Luke’s account of the earliest days of the Church in the book of Acts. Today, we hear what Peter says to a crowd that has gathered around him and John in Solomon’s Portico of the Temple after the healing of the crippled beggar at the Beautiful Gate.
What did the crowd want? Healing for themselves? More miracles? An explanation? Perhaps they didn’t know themselves. What they got was a sermon, which is likely not what they expected. (In other words, you’re hearing a sermon about a sermon!) In fact, Peter’s sermon, not the miracle, is the center of the reading.
This sermon is probably the first where Jesus’ resurrection is preached. And, as Archbishop Rowan William has written, the crowd is not ignorant of Jesus and is neither neutral nor wholly innocent. The audience for this sermon is itself part of the story. So, when Peter said “you rejected” and “you killed”, there was some literal truth there.
Some of these words have been the excuse for hideous acts of anti-Semitism over the centuries. Jews as late as our time have been forced to pay the penalty for an act that occurred almost two millennia ago. But Peter’s purpose is not punishment but reconciliation, in fact, he excuses them and, I believe, would have been horrified to see how those who called themselves Christians used his words to persecute Peter’s own people.
The first point Peter makes is that the people misunderstood the source of the healing and thought it came from Peter and John. It seems to be human nature to assume that some person has healing powers and they can make them available to us. We desperately want to believe that they can bring healing and wholeness to our lives. So we order that CD, go to the tent rally, or watch the TV program. As Peter tells the crowd, “Why do you think it was our power that healed? This is about God’s power.”
Peter’s second point is that the crowd wrongly thinks that brokenness is the rule and healing the exception in life with God. We often tend to think this way—that life is apart from God, only punctuated with astonishing acts by God. That’s why the crowd rushed to the Temple; Peter and John’s ministry of healing seemed to be an astonishing exception to life as usual. But Peter asks “Why do you wonder?” and teaches of the Kingdom of God, where God’s healing and forgiveness are as commonplace as sunshine and rain.
Finally, the crowd (as often we do) thinks that healing only calls for astonishment. When we see a sign of God at work in the world—someone is healed, a broken relationship is restored, a hungry child is fed, despair yields to hope—people are filled with wonder and joy. But Peter calls for more. God’s healing reveals a different place, a different kingdom that we can glimpse amidst the ruins of this one. These glimpses summon us to repent—to change our path to God’s path—so that we can claim our citizenship in the Kingdom of God and truly become a part of God’s work in the world.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Heart Attack + 1 [Year, that is]
Today makes the first anniversary of a rather important event in my life. I had a heart attack. Here is how I described it a few days later.
Why do I want to remember having a heart attack? Because I know I was lucky to go in to get help as quickly as I did (thanks to a wise and wonderful wife!), even more, I was lucky to come home at all, lucky to have a job with a large sick leave balance so I could recuperate at home without fearing for my paycheck, lucky to have excellent health insurance, and lucky to have caring friends.
I've made diet changes, some exercise changes (somewhat hindered by arthritis) and lots of medication changes. I'm 35 pounds lighter than a year ago and I'm told I look several years younger.
I want to remember my heart attack to remind myself not to do anything to increase my chances of going back there. There are no guarantees of getting to go back home.
I like stories about alternate histories--where the Civil War turned out differently, for example. As Data said in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "For any event there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. According to a theory, everything that can happen does happen in some other quantum reality." (In the picture, the infinite number of versions of a character get together.)
An unhappy alternate history: somewhere maybe I didn't listen to my wife or just things turned out a little differently. And I didn't come home. My wife would have been a widow for the last year, I wouldn't have gotten to see my son accepted to Georgia Tech (yay!), and I wouldn't have seen our absolutely darling little rat terrier, Hayley. The line between outcomes can be very thin. I don't want to test them again.
And, while I've been back to Red Lobster, I haven't had the fried seafood platter again. The broiled platter tastes just fine, thank you!
Why do I want to remember having a heart attack? Because I know I was lucky to go in to get help as quickly as I did (thanks to a wise and wonderful wife!), even more, I was lucky to come home at all, lucky to have a job with a large sick leave balance so I could recuperate at home without fearing for my paycheck, lucky to have excellent health insurance, and lucky to have caring friends.
I've made diet changes, some exercise changes (somewhat hindered by arthritis) and lots of medication changes. I'm 35 pounds lighter than a year ago and I'm told I look several years younger.
I want to remember my heart attack to remind myself not to do anything to increase my chances of going back there. There are no guarantees of getting to go back home.
I like stories about alternate histories--where the Civil War turned out differently, for example. As Data said in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "For any event there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. According to a theory, everything that can happen does happen in some other quantum reality." (In the picture, the infinite number of versions of a character get together.)An unhappy alternate history: somewhere maybe I didn't listen to my wife or just things turned out a little differently. And I didn't come home. My wife would have been a widow for the last year, I wouldn't have gotten to see my son accepted to Georgia Tech (yay!), and I wouldn't have seen our absolutely darling little rat terrier, Hayley. The line between outcomes can be very thin. I don't want to test them again.
And, while I've been back to Red Lobster, I haven't had the fried seafood platter again. The broiled platter tastes just fine, thank you!
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