The Gospel for the 1st Sunday in Lent is Luke 4:1-13
I opened my Ash Wednesday homily by noticing how, every now and again, we get a vague stirring of spring in the air, in the light, in the smell of the earth. Lent is our season, and that name comes from the same root as “length”, as in the lengthening of days. At this time in the calendar, smelling spring is very much a matter of hopeful anticipation, and the forecast of a snowstorm this week suggests how tentative that looking-forward may be.
I ended my Ash Wednesday homily by urging each of us to decide what kind of Lent we want, and then go for it. Don’t be satisfied with vague stirrings of the heart and tentative movements of the will. Be bold, as our artists have been, creating the Stations of the Cross that surround us here. Welcome a season of purposely growing your faith, your hope, and your love. At the foot of the aisle are daily guides through Lent. By far the best and boldest is Martin Smith’s book A Season for the Spirit. Henri Nouwen’s meditations are there, as well. As bold as these authors are, just reading isn’t what I have in mind when I recommend boldness; but what your reading may lead you into… now that’s where you may want to recall the adage, “Fortune favors the bold.”
And there’s nothing quite like temptation to discourage boldness, or to recklessly exaggerate it. So a good question for today is, “What’s tempting you?”
I notice from the temptations described by St. Luke that it may be the very thing you lack that defines your temptation. Jesus has fasted for forty days, a perilously long time to go without food, and he is famished. What’s the nature of his first temptation? Bread. “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
Martin Smith, in his book, says that in the early days and weeks of our Lord’s public ministry he was not focused on being Son of God. Rather, he was keen on fulfilling the role of Son of Man. “The True Human Being” might be another way to understand that role. Unless he was fully identified with every reality of being human, Jesus would do us no earthly good as Son of God. There would be no pathway for the grace of God to reach us through a Messiah who didn’t put his sandals on one at a time like the rest of us.
Martin Smith takes us back to our Lord’s baptism in the Jordan River, and says, “In the muddy river Jesus was taking on the role of representing Humanity, of being its suffering Heart and Self before God. As soon as Jesus had done that decisively, God flooded him with awareness of his unique relationship as Son and anointed him with the life-giving Breath for his mission.”
Now in the desert, temptation rears its ugly head again with the prospect of his becoming a political Messiah hungry for national (even international) influence and glory, and Jesus recognizes one more category of what he lacks. He doesn’t have that kind of power, nor, as Son of Man, does he want it. (For that reason, I think this temptation is actually weaker than the first… I believe he really could have welcomed that bread.)
If this second temptation sounds vague and tentative, so does the third. Jesus is invited to imagine himself as a snow-less Shaun White, the Flying Tomato, flying down the halfpipe of the Temple parapet, executing a Double McTwist 1260. “It is written, He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,” cooes the Great Promoter.
To which Jesus replies, “And it is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus is not called to gravity extreme sport. Rather, says Martin Smith, “To exploit miraculous powers would be to insulate himself from day-by-day dependence on God’s voice, and force him to part company with ordinary men and women struggling to be faithful to a hidden God…. To stand with them means he may never stand over them.”
These three temptations suggest that what we do not have may uniquely and insidiously tempt us. There is Jesus in a barren place, void of civilization, and he has no bread, has no political power, has no need for the limelight. He is hammering-out the balance between being Son of Man and Son of God, and in each temptation what he doesn’t have could cause him to reach in a way that breaks his balance, distorts his nature.
I wonder if we are likelier to face temptation rising from what we do have. Here we are in an abundant life, a well-off society by comparison to so much of the world, many in this room living prosperous lives, even in a recession, in a land still blessed with a flow of milk and honey.
Our daily temptation may be to live within our homes without being thankful for them, without (to echo our first reading) celebrating “with all the bounty that the Lord our God has given to us and to our house.”
Our temptation may be to more quickly undertake home improvements than address homelessness.
Our temptation may be to never see or meet a homeless family, our lives being as well insulated as our homes.
Well, fair warning. Today’s Gospel is neither vague nor tentative in its presentation of Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church, the author of our salvation, and the one into whose likeness and stature we are called to grow.
“His surrender to the Spirit of God allows him to break through to the truth that his specialness as the Beloved Son gives him the freedom to take human suffering upon himself and to be the Servant of all.”
His church, his people, have the same calling. You might say that our calling is to hammer-out the balance between loving obedience to the Son of God and loving obedience to the Son of Man.
Our Lenten mission focus on homelessness in North Berkshire is a step in responding to that call. It’s one that our children are hearing, and they’re leading us to be bold in answering.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Glory, Glory!
Scripture for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany includes Exodus 34:29-35; II Corinthians 3:12-4:2; and Luke 9:28-36
We hear about two kinds of glory today. One is fading glory. The other is transforming glory. I suppose you could say that it’s the first that brings us to church. And it’s the second we hope to find here.
Fading glory by its nature looks backward. Consider Moses. Every time he and God had a tete a tete conversation on Mount Sinai, Moses came down to the people with such radiance beaming from his face that he caught their attention and held it. But, says St. Paul in a rather catty way, the day came when that glory faded and, to keep the people from noticing, Moses took to wearing a veil over his face. Approval ratings hang on appearances, don’t they?
And consider Peter, John, and James. They’re present when transformation strikes on another holy mountain. “The Transfiguration of Jesus”, it’s called, and the moment makes you picture the aurora borealis in all its glory, and then some. Helpless (and who likes feeling helpless?) and clueless in the face of such evanescent glory, these three boys propose a small building project to capture the moment. Which, of course, cannot be done. Fading glory won’t be captured.
I’m wondering how many of us came through these doors today with a case of fading glory. The first cold of the new year (that was my week that was)… the demands of our workplace… frustrations and fears within the nuclear family (and let’s not even talk about the extended family)… disillusionment at how our federal legislators seem more helpless and clueless than Peter, John, and James (who at least offer to build something that isn’t located in their own congressional districts)…
And would it be about right to say that we, like Moses, know how to veil our fading glory? “How are you today?” “Fine, and you?” Our own little private version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”— self-protecting, subtly isolating, a veil we lift very selectively, when we believe we’re safe to do so (sometimes mistakenly).
If fading glory helps get us to church, it’s nothing we should have to hide. The first law of spiritual physics that we learn in the Foundations Course is the Renewal-Outreach model, the simple rule that human beings require a regular rhythm of cycling between (on the one hand) giving ourselves to the work of Christ in workplace, family, and community and (on the other) renewing ourselves in our baptismal identity and purpose, bathing ourselves in the mercy and healing of God.
In our second session of Foundations tomorrow evening, we’ll examine the Baptismal Covenant, that set of renunciations, affirmations, and vows which create the holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace.
If you will recall the last infant baptism you witnessed, you’ll find familiar a pair of questions asked of the Godparents and parents, “Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?” And the second question is yet more staggering and wondrous: “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”
The Christian faith never expects us to make vows trusting in our own ability to keep them. To get that wrong is the surest path to a fading glory. Always, the Christian answers, “I will, with God’s help.”
The maturing Christian accepts responsibility for bringing up in faith, hope, and love that self who was once the responsibility of parents and Godparents. The maturing Christian staggers with wonder into that transformation of a limited human self into the full stature of Christ. The language of our vows teaches us that if we have the will to so grow, the will to be so transformed, God helps it happen. And we learn that God doesn’t sweep away our human limitations, but sweeps them into the mix, which is shown in our Collect today: “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of Jesus’s countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.” No cross-- no struggle with our own limitations and those of other people and those of this world—no cross, no transforming glory.
This is not a spectator’s sport, not the Olympic performance of a gifted few. This is the life of the Spirit opened by Jesus Christ for participation by all who have the will to seek the grace to walk the rhythmic walk that cycles between outreach and renewal, work and prayer, mission and repair, embracing in ministry and being embraced in mercy.
Here I am, nearing the home stretch in this sermon; we’d better turn our attention to transforming glory. If fading glory looks backward, transforming glory moves forward. If fading glory gets us in the door, within this house of prayer and time of worship aren’t we hoping for at least a trace of transforming glory? Better yet, a solid dose of it here in this holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace?
But wait… those were the same words I chose, moments ago, to describe the Baptismal Covenant that shapes our relationship with God. I referred to those several renunciations of evil, affirmation of faith, and vows of our baptism having created a holy space. So what we do here in this space is related to what you do in yours. Transforming glory may touch you from here. But you may touch what we do here with the transforming glory that meets you in the holy crucible of your life. And if you aren’t meeting it there, maybe you won’t recognize it here.
In our second lesson, Paul prepares us for the encounter wherever it will happen. And he tells us first to lift our veils. Take off your coats, take down your self-protection, lay down denial, be honest, be open. He might also invite us to slip off our self-absorption, and offer up our mirrors for a thorough cleaning, the mirrors we adjust ourselves in, the ones we check to make sure we’re still alive, still recognizable.
Then listen to what he says: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Catch this stunning message: Your mirror may show you a fading glory, and you must lay it down for a thorough cleaning. But the Lord Jesus is not scolding you for needing that mirror. Wondrous thing: when you lift your veil, you will see him meeting you there within the reflected image—“as though reflected in a mirror” you will meet transforming glory within your own experience, within your own limitations, walking your own walk, dealing with your own issues.
For he knows them all. It is written somewhere in the Gospels that he has no need to be instructed about human nature, for he knows what is in the heart. His way of the cross makes clear that he is no stranger to the forces that would fade all glory.
As we step into Lent this week, we will walk the way of the cross both here and there, in the sacred space of our own lives. Walking and praying the stations of the cross, as we shall do from Wednesday on, we will find him walking our way, as well. Looking into each of the fourteen stations of his passion, we will find mirrors along the way, where his likeness meets our own reflection. May the closeness of the two—of him with us and us with him—strengthen our will to be open to transforming glory.
.
We hear about two kinds of glory today. One is fading glory. The other is transforming glory. I suppose you could say that it’s the first that brings us to church. And it’s the second we hope to find here.
Fading glory by its nature looks backward. Consider Moses. Every time he and God had a tete a tete conversation on Mount Sinai, Moses came down to the people with such radiance beaming from his face that he caught their attention and held it. But, says St. Paul in a rather catty way, the day came when that glory faded and, to keep the people from noticing, Moses took to wearing a veil over his face. Approval ratings hang on appearances, don’t they?
And consider Peter, John, and James. They’re present when transformation strikes on another holy mountain. “The Transfiguration of Jesus”, it’s called, and the moment makes you picture the aurora borealis in all its glory, and then some. Helpless (and who likes feeling helpless?) and clueless in the face of such evanescent glory, these three boys propose a small building project to capture the moment. Which, of course, cannot be done. Fading glory won’t be captured.
I’m wondering how many of us came through these doors today with a case of fading glory. The first cold of the new year (that was my week that was)… the demands of our workplace… frustrations and fears within the nuclear family (and let’s not even talk about the extended family)… disillusionment at how our federal legislators seem more helpless and clueless than Peter, John, and James (who at least offer to build something that isn’t located in their own congressional districts)…
And would it be about right to say that we, like Moses, know how to veil our fading glory? “How are you today?” “Fine, and you?” Our own little private version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”— self-protecting, subtly isolating, a veil we lift very selectively, when we believe we’re safe to do so (sometimes mistakenly).
If fading glory helps get us to church, it’s nothing we should have to hide. The first law of spiritual physics that we learn in the Foundations Course is the Renewal-Outreach model, the simple rule that human beings require a regular rhythm of cycling between (on the one hand) giving ourselves to the work of Christ in workplace, family, and community and (on the other) renewing ourselves in our baptismal identity and purpose, bathing ourselves in the mercy and healing of God.
In our second session of Foundations tomorrow evening, we’ll examine the Baptismal Covenant, that set of renunciations, affirmations, and vows which create the holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace.
If you will recall the last infant baptism you witnessed, you’ll find familiar a pair of questions asked of the Godparents and parents, “Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?” And the second question is yet more staggering and wondrous: “Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?”
The Christian faith never expects us to make vows trusting in our own ability to keep them. To get that wrong is the surest path to a fading glory. Always, the Christian answers, “I will, with God’s help.”
The maturing Christian accepts responsibility for bringing up in faith, hope, and love that self who was once the responsibility of parents and Godparents. The maturing Christian staggers with wonder into that transformation of a limited human self into the full stature of Christ. The language of our vows teaches us that if we have the will to so grow, the will to be so transformed, God helps it happen. And we learn that God doesn’t sweep away our human limitations, but sweeps them into the mix, which is shown in our Collect today: “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of Jesus’s countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.” No cross-- no struggle with our own limitations and those of other people and those of this world—no cross, no transforming glory.
This is not a spectator’s sport, not the Olympic performance of a gifted few. This is the life of the Spirit opened by Jesus Christ for participation by all who have the will to seek the grace to walk the rhythmic walk that cycles between outreach and renewal, work and prayer, mission and repair, embracing in ministry and being embraced in mercy.
Here I am, nearing the home stretch in this sermon; we’d better turn our attention to transforming glory. If fading glory looks backward, transforming glory moves forward. If fading glory gets us in the door, within this house of prayer and time of worship aren’t we hoping for at least a trace of transforming glory? Better yet, a solid dose of it here in this holy space where we may re-immerse ourselves in renewal of vision, identity, and grace?
But wait… those were the same words I chose, moments ago, to describe the Baptismal Covenant that shapes our relationship with God. I referred to those several renunciations of evil, affirmation of faith, and vows of our baptism having created a holy space. So what we do here in this space is related to what you do in yours. Transforming glory may touch you from here. But you may touch what we do here with the transforming glory that meets you in the holy crucible of your life. And if you aren’t meeting it there, maybe you won’t recognize it here.
In our second lesson, Paul prepares us for the encounter wherever it will happen. And he tells us first to lift our veils. Take off your coats, take down your self-protection, lay down denial, be honest, be open. He might also invite us to slip off our self-absorption, and offer up our mirrors for a thorough cleaning, the mirrors we adjust ourselves in, the ones we check to make sure we’re still alive, still recognizable.
Then listen to what he says: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit…and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Catch this stunning message: Your mirror may show you a fading glory, and you must lay it down for a thorough cleaning. But the Lord Jesus is not scolding you for needing that mirror. Wondrous thing: when you lift your veil, you will see him meeting you there within the reflected image—“as though reflected in a mirror” you will meet transforming glory within your own experience, within your own limitations, walking your own walk, dealing with your own issues.
For he knows them all. It is written somewhere in the Gospels that he has no need to be instructed about human nature, for he knows what is in the heart. His way of the cross makes clear that he is no stranger to the forces that would fade all glory.
As we step into Lent this week, we will walk the way of the cross both here and there, in the sacred space of our own lives. Walking and praying the stations of the cross, as we shall do from Wednesday on, we will find him walking our way, as well. Looking into each of the fourteen stations of his passion, we will find mirrors along the way, where his likeness meets our own reflection. May the closeness of the two—of him with us and us with him—strengthen our will to be open to transforming glory.
.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Gold Standard
Scripture for the 4th Sunday in Epiphany includes Jeremiah 1:4-10, I Corinthians 13:1-13, and Luke 4:21-30
St. Paul’s great hymn to love, his exaltation of “agape”, self-yielding love, all-accepting love, entirely-committed love, over-the-top love which we know in Jesus Christ, the gold standard for the Church.
How irritating a standard this is! How unreasonably demanding.
Just when we imagine we’ve found a hot new step to clang and gong our way into the limited attention span of our culture, with plugged-in worship and express-lane religion, we keep getting held to the standard of “as I have loved you, so you must love…”
And while editors sharpen the edges of intriguing faith formation programs, encouraging fresh interpretations and dynamic understandings, St. Paul is still singing in the background about how we’re measured not by our having faith, or by our having understanding, but by our having love.
For heaven’s sake, the apostle even dismisses extreme stewardship—giving away all my possessions—as being no gain, without love.
How very irritating this is. At this rate, even fitness and health could get knocked off their pedestal, if they’re the be-all and end-all, and not love.
How annoyingly counter-cultural, this standard of love. It’s against our ways as a church, not to clang our cymbals and flex our powers. And it’s against our culture to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. We don’t know how to rejoice in the truth—we spin the truth, we distract ourselves from the truth.
You would think St. Paul might have learned from what happened to Jesus, who came telling truth, and look at the results. Instantly, his hometown crowd turned cynical on him. He heard them warming up to give him a ribbing: “Doctor, cure yourself! You aren’t looking very successful. Same scuffed sandals we wear… and from the look of that tunic your wardrobe hasn’t gotten updated in years… Where’s the good news, brother? You sure aren’t wearing it!”
“Always seeking a new improved model, are you?” Jesus asks. “Small wonder that no prophet is accepted in that prophet’s hometown. You want a few healings, the kind we saw in Capernaum?
“What if I told you that a clean bill of health isn’t everything? That freedom from pain and escaping illness are not essential signs of God’s favor? That what matters is your being open to the presence and love of God in whatever circumstance or condition you’re in? That all that matters is that you not reject grace when it meets you?”
Grace, he says. Love unmerited, unearned, undeserved, pure gift. No clanging bells, gongs, or whistles.
And there we go again, that annoying measure requiring us to welcome, treasure, and imitate the unmeasurable.
That irritating standard, the grain of sand that agitates, stimulates the forming of pearls, pearls of great value, like the one Jesus holds in his hands as the crowd rushes at him to hurl him off a cliff.
And what has he done to deserve this? He has told them truth. He tells them of a time when catastrophe racked the middle east, a severe famine, and the great prophet Elijah was sent, not to a widow in Israel, but to help a widow in Syria.
Grace: love unmerited, undeserved, generous, gift.
And on the heels of that story, another: when God showed unmeasurable love to someone simply because he needed it—and, annoying, irritating, this recipient was also a foreigner, not one of the hometown crowd, a fellow not covered by insurance, not one of the favored chosen, yet met by grace.
It didn’t take a third story to get the hometown crowd ripping mad at Jesus. Some of them rushed at him, but somehow he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. I picture just enough of them believing with him, hoping with him, forming to his right and to his left a gauntlet of grace to bear him, to endure all this rage.
And there is a homely image of the Church. As he moves about the world holding out the pearl of truth, the pearl of grace that people need, all who believe with him, who hope with him, who love with him make way for him to reach all who need him.
And that way is known to be formed of faith, and hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
St. Paul’s great hymn to love, his exaltation of “agape”, self-yielding love, all-accepting love, entirely-committed love, over-the-top love which we know in Jesus Christ, the gold standard for the Church.
How irritating a standard this is! How unreasonably demanding.
Just when we imagine we’ve found a hot new step to clang and gong our way into the limited attention span of our culture, with plugged-in worship and express-lane religion, we keep getting held to the standard of “as I have loved you, so you must love…”
And while editors sharpen the edges of intriguing faith formation programs, encouraging fresh interpretations and dynamic understandings, St. Paul is still singing in the background about how we’re measured not by our having faith, or by our having understanding, but by our having love.
For heaven’s sake, the apostle even dismisses extreme stewardship—giving away all my possessions—as being no gain, without love.
How very irritating this is. At this rate, even fitness and health could get knocked off their pedestal, if they’re the be-all and end-all, and not love.
How annoyingly counter-cultural, this standard of love. It’s against our ways as a church, not to clang our cymbals and flex our powers. And it’s against our culture to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. We don’t know how to rejoice in the truth—we spin the truth, we distract ourselves from the truth.
You would think St. Paul might have learned from what happened to Jesus, who came telling truth, and look at the results. Instantly, his hometown crowd turned cynical on him. He heard them warming up to give him a ribbing: “Doctor, cure yourself! You aren’t looking very successful. Same scuffed sandals we wear… and from the look of that tunic your wardrobe hasn’t gotten updated in years… Where’s the good news, brother? You sure aren’t wearing it!”
“Always seeking a new improved model, are you?” Jesus asks. “Small wonder that no prophet is accepted in that prophet’s hometown. You want a few healings, the kind we saw in Capernaum?
“What if I told you that a clean bill of health isn’t everything? That freedom from pain and escaping illness are not essential signs of God’s favor? That what matters is your being open to the presence and love of God in whatever circumstance or condition you’re in? That all that matters is that you not reject grace when it meets you?”
Grace, he says. Love unmerited, unearned, undeserved, pure gift. No clanging bells, gongs, or whistles.
And there we go again, that annoying measure requiring us to welcome, treasure, and imitate the unmeasurable.
That irritating standard, the grain of sand that agitates, stimulates the forming of pearls, pearls of great value, like the one Jesus holds in his hands as the crowd rushes at him to hurl him off a cliff.
And what has he done to deserve this? He has told them truth. He tells them of a time when catastrophe racked the middle east, a severe famine, and the great prophet Elijah was sent, not to a widow in Israel, but to help a widow in Syria.
Grace: love unmerited, undeserved, generous, gift.
And on the heels of that story, another: when God showed unmeasurable love to someone simply because he needed it—and, annoying, irritating, this recipient was also a foreigner, not one of the hometown crowd, a fellow not covered by insurance, not one of the favored chosen, yet met by grace.
It didn’t take a third story to get the hometown crowd ripping mad at Jesus. Some of them rushed at him, but somehow he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. I picture just enough of them believing with him, hoping with him, forming to his right and to his left a gauntlet of grace to bear him, to endure all this rage.
And there is a homely image of the Church. As he moves about the world holding out the pearl of truth, the pearl of grace that people need, all who believe with him, who hope with him, who love with him make way for him to reach all who need him.
And that way is known to be formed of faith, and hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Indelible Grace
Scripture for the 1st Sunday after the Epiphany includes Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Can there be a finer way to celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord than to baptize in his name today? On your behalf, I thank Jennifer and Jarrett, Eleanor and Will, for choosing this day for their child’s baptism.
I find names fascinating. Maisie and Wilson are the two we will hear today at the font.
You can bet I googled Maisie, and learned that it’s a Scottish form of the name Margaret. I learned that Sir Walter Scott wrote a poem about Proud Maisie. Henry James wrote a novel, “What Maisie Knew”. More recently, Maisie Dobbs is the London psychologist-investigator featured in Jacqueline Winspear’s mystery series. And there is a London wedding cake baker named Maisie Fantaisie. I don’t know if that’s how she pronounces her last name, but could there be a better way? What’s so to be liked about this name Maisie is how it sounds.
We might say the same about Wilson. I don’t suppose it’s an accident that the son of Will should be Wilson. Another fellow named Wilson once stood at the baptismal font here, though that wasn’t his first name—his well-meaning parents had saddled him with the first name Woodrow. That must have set him up for challenging times on the playground when he was a child, but perhaps those were more polite times than these—and it evidently didn’t get in the way of a career in politics.
Having started that story, I’d better finish it. President Wilson came here in April of 1915 to serve as Godfather to Francis Woodrow Sayre, his grandson, the son of his daughter Jessie and her husband, Francis. Why here? Francis was a Williams alum, and during his student years (when he and Jessie were courting), Jessie would stay at what was then the rectory, the private home of The Rev. and Mrs. J. Franklin Carter. There’s a story about student ministry and hospitality… And by the time of the baptism, Francis was Secretary to the President of Williams College, and he and Jessie and Baby Francis were living in a house on West Main Street.
Explaining things further, the Carters and the first family were old friends. In a recent article in the Eagle, Bernard Drew says that from time to time, on their way to or from the summer White House in New Hampshire, the Wilsons would come to visit the Carters in their home, what is now Vogt House here on Park Street, a house not quite as big as the White House.
If you read Bernard Drew’s story, you know he ended without resolving a mystery. When that once-upon-a-time baby Francis Sayre died in 2008 (after an illustrious career as Dean of the National Cathedral), his name was given not as Francis Woodrow Sayre, but Francis Bowes Sayre, Jr.
Now, the Episcopal Church considers Holy Baptism to be indelible. What is given in Baptism cannot be taken away. One is made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church, a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.
But evidently one’s name is not indelible. When Francis gained a little brother, the name Woodrow, Francis’s middle name, was given to his kid brother as a first name. Is that why Francis’s name was changed, his middle name replaced by his father’s middle name, to free the name Woodrow in that generation? Or did Francis’s parents decide that they wanted a junior?
Who knows? Who cares? I presume that the change was made while Francis was still young enough that he was none the wiser. But isn’t it a story of how ephemeral some things are that get set down on paper, how whimsical we humans can be.
By contrast, hear again the firm opening words of the 43rd chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah: “Now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Indelible is the name God gives to us each, the very same name God gives to his Son Jesus in his baptism: beloved. “You are my Son, the Beloved.” Becoming a Christian—and I don’t mean just at the moment of baptism, but becoming a Christian over a lifetime—is much about daring to hear those words addressed to each of us: “You are my son, my daughter, beloved.” And daring to let that voice commission us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus so that all will come to know this relentless love.
Isaiah’s words express the promise Christians find in baptism: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” By these terms, see Christian baptism not promising the magic of being protected-from life, but promising the companioning presence of God who supports and carries us through life, into life. Through deep waters in life, through whitewatered rivers, through crashing breakers… you get the idea.
No mistaking it that using water as the outward and visible sign for this sacrament skirts the razor-thin border between security and vulnerability, between life and death. A mother’s water breaks for a child to be born, a baby’s bathwater replicates the wet warmth of the womb. Water sustains and comforts us.
But Jesus standing in the muddy waters of the Jordan River does so with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other pilgrims seeking to be washed in newness of life, and it’s not the picture of hygiene. He’s there on our behalf, achieving solidarity with the human race—and see this scene declaring his immersing himself in the total care and ecology of God’s creation. He’s opening himself to his full mission, the birthing of God’s new creation. And it’s risky, mucky business, this taking-upon oneself full humanity. Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, but also calls us to our responsibilities.
And in the early generations of believers, to be baptized was to be physically lowered, covered, immersed, in the live water of a stream, river, or natural pool, as if brushing against the very threat of drowning, death. On Easter Day, when baptisms were conducted by dawn’s light, believers went with Jesus right to the gates of death to find him already there, his the lift of strong arms belonging to deacons lowering and lifting each candidate in baptism, once in the name of God the Father, again in the name of Jesus the Son, once more in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, calls us to responsibility. We’re made of it, and it can unmake us, threaten us, endanger us. And it is along this razor’s edge that the water of baptism is poured, the promise of the sacrament being not a magical protection from life, deep sweeping tidal life, but the promise of bearing us, carrying us through, indelibly pledging to us God’s presence, God’s passionate naming of us beloved, God’s Spirit engaging and embracing and dwelling within us in Jesus Christ our Lord. All the powers of God that will make us ready and able to open ourselves to life, to the birthing of new life.
Can there be a finer way to celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord than to baptize in his name today? On your behalf, I thank Jennifer and Jarrett, Eleanor and Will, for choosing this day for their child’s baptism.
I find names fascinating. Maisie and Wilson are the two we will hear today at the font.
You can bet I googled Maisie, and learned that it’s a Scottish form of the name Margaret. I learned that Sir Walter Scott wrote a poem about Proud Maisie. Henry James wrote a novel, “What Maisie Knew”. More recently, Maisie Dobbs is the London psychologist-investigator featured in Jacqueline Winspear’s mystery series. And there is a London wedding cake baker named Maisie Fantaisie. I don’t know if that’s how she pronounces her last name, but could there be a better way? What’s so to be liked about this name Maisie is how it sounds.
We might say the same about Wilson. I don’t suppose it’s an accident that the son of Will should be Wilson. Another fellow named Wilson once stood at the baptismal font here, though that wasn’t his first name—his well-meaning parents had saddled him with the first name Woodrow. That must have set him up for challenging times on the playground when he was a child, but perhaps those were more polite times than these—and it evidently didn’t get in the way of a career in politics.
Having started that story, I’d better finish it. President Wilson came here in April of 1915 to serve as Godfather to Francis Woodrow Sayre, his grandson, the son of his daughter Jessie and her husband, Francis. Why here? Francis was a Williams alum, and during his student years (when he and Jessie were courting), Jessie would stay at what was then the rectory, the private home of The Rev. and Mrs. J. Franklin Carter. There’s a story about student ministry and hospitality… And by the time of the baptism, Francis was Secretary to the President of Williams College, and he and Jessie and Baby Francis were living in a house on West Main Street.
Explaining things further, the Carters and the first family were old friends. In a recent article in the Eagle, Bernard Drew says that from time to time, on their way to or from the summer White House in New Hampshire, the Wilsons would come to visit the Carters in their home, what is now Vogt House here on Park Street, a house not quite as big as the White House.
If you read Bernard Drew’s story, you know he ended without resolving a mystery. When that once-upon-a-time baby Francis Sayre died in 2008 (after an illustrious career as Dean of the National Cathedral), his name was given not as Francis Woodrow Sayre, but Francis Bowes Sayre, Jr.
Now, the Episcopal Church considers Holy Baptism to be indelible. What is given in Baptism cannot be taken away. One is made a member of Christ’s Body, the Church, a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of God.
But evidently one’s name is not indelible. When Francis gained a little brother, the name Woodrow, Francis’s middle name, was given to his kid brother as a first name. Is that why Francis’s name was changed, his middle name replaced by his father’s middle name, to free the name Woodrow in that generation? Or did Francis’s parents decide that they wanted a junior?
Who knows? Who cares? I presume that the change was made while Francis was still young enough that he was none the wiser. But isn’t it a story of how ephemeral some things are that get set down on paper, how whimsical we humans can be.
By contrast, hear again the firm opening words of the 43rd chapter of the Book of the prophet Isaiah: “Now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Indelible is the name God gives to us each, the very same name God gives to his Son Jesus in his baptism: beloved. “You are my Son, the Beloved.” Becoming a Christian—and I don’t mean just at the moment of baptism, but becoming a Christian over a lifetime—is much about daring to hear those words addressed to each of us: “You are my son, my daughter, beloved.” And daring to let that voice commission us to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus so that all will come to know this relentless love.
Isaiah’s words express the promise Christians find in baptism: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…” By these terms, see Christian baptism not promising the magic of being protected-from life, but promising the companioning presence of God who supports and carries us through life, into life. Through deep waters in life, through whitewatered rivers, through crashing breakers… you get the idea.
No mistaking it that using water as the outward and visible sign for this sacrament skirts the razor-thin border between security and vulnerability, between life and death. A mother’s water breaks for a child to be born, a baby’s bathwater replicates the wet warmth of the womb. Water sustains and comforts us.
But Jesus standing in the muddy waters of the Jordan River does so with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other pilgrims seeking to be washed in newness of life, and it’s not the picture of hygiene. He’s there on our behalf, achieving solidarity with the human race—and see this scene declaring his immersing himself in the total care and ecology of God’s creation. He’s opening himself to his full mission, the birthing of God’s new creation. And it’s risky, mucky business, this taking-upon oneself full humanity. Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, but also calls us to our responsibilities.
And in the early generations of believers, to be baptized was to be physically lowered, covered, immersed, in the live water of a stream, river, or natural pool, as if brushing against the very threat of drowning, death. On Easter Day, when baptisms were conducted by dawn’s light, believers went with Jesus right to the gates of death to find him already there, his the lift of strong arms belonging to deacons lowering and lifting each candidate in baptism, once in the name of God the Father, again in the name of Jesus the Son, once more in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Water sustains and comforts us, washes us, calls us to responsibility. We’re made of it, and it can unmake us, threaten us, endanger us. And it is along this razor’s edge that the water of baptism is poured, the promise of the sacrament being not a magical protection from life, deep sweeping tidal life, but the promise of bearing us, carrying us through, indelibly pledging to us God’s presence, God’s passionate naming of us beloved, God’s Spirit engaging and embracing and dwelling within us in Jesus Christ our Lord. All the powers of God that will make us ready and able to open ourselves to life, to the birthing of new life.
The Gift We Need
I had a wicked thought, the other day.
What if, the Sunday after Christmas Day, we each brought to church the one gift we’d received this Christmas, the one gift that we had the least idea what to do with. The kind of gift that you just hold in your hands and stare at a while, shaking your head, wondering how has this come to be?
You know, it might work. For one thing, we could turn it all into a silent auction, for who knows? Someone else might want that thing. Or, failing that, we could have a team of judges and give them a small supply of colored ribbons for various categories, like Most Astonishing, Most Puzzling, and Most Useless.
So what am I doing, but poking fun at how, at this time when the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ most honors matter, like flesh and blood, we do fill our days trying valiantly to repackage matter in such a way that the things we give one another succeed in, well, mattering.
The British poet John Betjeman wrote about this plight in his poem “Advent 1955”, a portion of which I’d like to read to you:
“…For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound—
Journey to what? To whom? To where?
The Advent bells call out, ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how in fact do we prepare
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know—
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising.
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’,
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.”
Between my wicked thought, and the poet’s clever lines, I conclude that we’ll not get inspired much by the caliber of our own gift-giving. So let’s fix our attention on the nature of God’s giving.
And about that, the Christian claim is astonishing. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” No, let me read it in paraphrase from The Message, further paraphrased by me: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need offer himself up on an altar of sacrifice; but by believing in him, by letting his love shape our own, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is put right with God.”
That (more or less) is how our patron, Saint John the Evangelist, expresses the Christian claim. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the Book of Common Prayer puts it another way. In the collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, we pray: “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ…”
God, who invested the human race with dignity, does not hold it against us that we lost that dignity. Rather, God restores it to us as we share the divine life of Jesus, who humbled himself to share our humanity.
Listen to how this matters. God does not go 50% of the way to reach us, across the vast gulf of all that lost dignity. The story of God’s giving at Bethlehem shows God going 100% of the way to reach us. We must learn to reach out like that, go that far out of our way in love, in generosity, in forgiveness, to make the difference the world, someone in our world, needs of us.
We can give whole-heartedly like that, when our hearts are set free by receiving the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
Holy One, this Christmas, tonight, right now, help us open ourselves to the free and freeing gift of your love in the person and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
What if, the Sunday after Christmas Day, we each brought to church the one gift we’d received this Christmas, the one gift that we had the least idea what to do with. The kind of gift that you just hold in your hands and stare at a while, shaking your head, wondering how has this come to be?
You know, it might work. For one thing, we could turn it all into a silent auction, for who knows? Someone else might want that thing. Or, failing that, we could have a team of judges and give them a small supply of colored ribbons for various categories, like Most Astonishing, Most Puzzling, and Most Useless.
So what am I doing, but poking fun at how, at this time when the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ most honors matter, like flesh and blood, we do fill our days trying valiantly to repackage matter in such a way that the things we give one another succeed in, well, mattering.
The British poet John Betjeman wrote about this plight in his poem “Advent 1955”, a portion of which I’d like to read to you:
“…For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound—
Journey to what? To whom? To where?
The Advent bells call out, ‘Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.’
And how in fact do we prepare
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know—
They’d sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising.
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell’d go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
‘The time draws near the birth of Christ’,
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.”
Between my wicked thought, and the poet’s clever lines, I conclude that we’ll not get inspired much by the caliber of our own gift-giving. So let’s fix our attention on the nature of God’s giving.
And about that, the Christian claim is astonishing. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” No, let me read it in paraphrase from The Message, further paraphrased by me: “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need offer himself up on an altar of sacrifice; but by believing in him, by letting his love shape our own, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is put right with God.”
That (more or less) is how our patron, Saint John the Evangelist, expresses the Christian claim. If that wasn’t astonishing enough, the Book of Common Prayer puts it another way. In the collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, we pray: “O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ…”
God, who invested the human race with dignity, does not hold it against us that we lost that dignity. Rather, God restores it to us as we share the divine life of Jesus, who humbled himself to share our humanity.
Listen to how this matters. God does not go 50% of the way to reach us, across the vast gulf of all that lost dignity. The story of God’s giving at Bethlehem shows God going 100% of the way to reach us. We must learn to reach out like that, go that far out of our way in love, in generosity, in forgiveness, to make the difference the world, someone in our world, needs of us.
We can give whole-heartedly like that, when our hearts are set free by receiving the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Let us pray:
Holy One, this Christmas, tonight, right now, help us open ourselves to the free and freeing gift of your love in the person and saving grace of Jesus Christ. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Heart Has Eyes
Scripture portions for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas include one referenced below, Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a)
Did you know that your heart has eyes?
Those words come from the apostle who wrote to the Church at Ephesus—some would say that was St. Paul, others insist that this author wrote a generation or two later than Paul. What he wrote, however, we know: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.”
That is one glorious mouthful. The hope, the riches, the power of Christian faith are all apprehended by hearts with eyes, eyes that welcome and admit enlightenment, the revelation of who God is in the person and passion of Jesus Christ.
A reliable source tells me there is no precedent in the Bible for this notion that a heart has eyes. In all the biblical literature from all those centuries before the first in the common era, no one had made that claim. An earlier first-century voice, St. Matthew, comes close to it in his Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter six. There, right on the heels of a famous and familiar verse—“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”—comes a famously puzzling and likely unfamiliar verse: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Enlightenment appears to be our subject in these verses. Enlightenment is a valuable interfaith concept. It’s a bridge between Christianity and Buddhism, for instance, a value at the pinnacle of each. As we see today, eastern religions don’t have a monopoly on the value of enlightenment. While western religions might seem more interested in moral and doctrinal obedience, and eastern religions likelier to advocate enlightenment, here’s evidence today of common ground. Perhaps evidence, also, that our so-called western religions of Christianity and Judaism actually had eastern origins.
And in the east there shines that star that guides the wise men to Bethlehem. Let’s not forget the star and the magi—today is as close to the Epiphany as we’re likely to get, this year, so make room for them at the manger. And notice that they push the envelope of enlightenment further east yet: they are thought to be Zoroastrians from Persia, and I’m guessing that in the 2000 years since their arrival at Bethlehem, the word “interfaith” hasn’t gotten as vigorous a workout as that moment when astrologers invested their hope in the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy and got front row seats at the birth of Jesus. This must be a case of what our patron St. John had in mind when he wrote those expansive words, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
Here’s an interesting thing: by early in the 2nd century in the common era, Christian baptism was being called “enlightenment”. At that time, baptism was primarily something adults experienced as a culmination to their becoming Christians. As Christianity moved out into the world from its earlier shelter within Judaism, as Christianity engaged Greeks and Romans as well as Jews, as Christianity welcomed women and men, masters and slaves, the common pathway into the hope, the riches, the power of Christian faith was enlightenment, a process of formation that took at least a year or two, drawing candidates into prayer to learn the opening of the heart, teaching candidates the ways in which Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, telling the story of his life and death and resurrection, teaching his vision through his remembered words, challenging the values of a world that found its treasure more in the pocket than in the heart, and uniquely demonstrating the power of his love by the nature of how that Christian community opened itself to those candidates.
Where the early Church really hitched its wagon to the star of Bethlehem was in showing converts what ethical differences it made to say, “The Star of my life is Jesus.”
“See how these Christians love” was not said about 1st- and 2nd- century coffee hours. The good reputation rose from former thieves becoming honest workers, the multiplying of soup kitchens for widows and orphans, the emergence of women as virtual apostles to eastern and Roman cultures that gave little authority to women, the utter honesty and commitment of ordinary believers who showed extraordinary courage when faced with the choice of denying their faith and saving their lives, or owning their faith and often losing their lives, and in making that choice redefining the nature of authority and modeling the power of personal integrity.
Later in his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle warns them (and us) that Christians cannot assume that once enlightened, always enlightened. The heart can get darkened, alienated from the life of God by ignoring the evidence of grace at work around us, resisting risks required by the Spirit, preferring familiar routines that indulge the old self and declining the invitation to clothe ourselves in the new self. Alienation creeps in as we don’t notice when the heart stops opening and starts hardening.
Listen to his language in chapter four: “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds… So then, putting away all falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil… Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear… Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…”
In other words, keep open the eyes of your heart. Keep looking to learn how to love. Don’t assume you’ve seen it all: you’ve seen only part of the grace that is in play. Keep looking for evidence, traces, fingerprints of that grace, that love of God that has about it the light of resurrection. Keep looking to see what people around you are actually trying to do, not just what you think they’re doing. Keep looking for what God may be trying to do, and in that light act, or refrain from acting.
The Epiphany season is all about revelation and enlightenment. While we might think that the mind is the human receptor of all that, today the apostle tells us that the heart has eyes, and he urges us to keep them open.
Did you know that your heart has eyes?
Those words come from the apostle who wrote to the Church at Ephesus—some would say that was St. Paul, others insist that this author wrote a generation or two later than Paul. What he wrote, however, we know: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.”
That is one glorious mouthful. The hope, the riches, the power of Christian faith are all apprehended by hearts with eyes, eyes that welcome and admit enlightenment, the revelation of who God is in the person and passion of Jesus Christ.
A reliable source tells me there is no precedent in the Bible for this notion that a heart has eyes. In all the biblical literature from all those centuries before the first in the common era, no one had made that claim. An earlier first-century voice, St. Matthew, comes close to it in his Gospel in the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter six. There, right on the heels of a famous and familiar verse—“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”—comes a famously puzzling and likely unfamiliar verse: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Enlightenment appears to be our subject in these verses. Enlightenment is a valuable interfaith concept. It’s a bridge between Christianity and Buddhism, for instance, a value at the pinnacle of each. As we see today, eastern religions don’t have a monopoly on the value of enlightenment. While western religions might seem more interested in moral and doctrinal obedience, and eastern religions likelier to advocate enlightenment, here’s evidence today of common ground. Perhaps evidence, also, that our so-called western religions of Christianity and Judaism actually had eastern origins.
And in the east there shines that star that guides the wise men to Bethlehem. Let’s not forget the star and the magi—today is as close to the Epiphany as we’re likely to get, this year, so make room for them at the manger. And notice that they push the envelope of enlightenment further east yet: they are thought to be Zoroastrians from Persia, and I’m guessing that in the 2000 years since their arrival at Bethlehem, the word “interfaith” hasn’t gotten as vigorous a workout as that moment when astrologers invested their hope in the fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy and got front row seats at the birth of Jesus. This must be a case of what our patron St. John had in mind when he wrote those expansive words, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
Here’s an interesting thing: by early in the 2nd century in the common era, Christian baptism was being called “enlightenment”. At that time, baptism was primarily something adults experienced as a culmination to their becoming Christians. As Christianity moved out into the world from its earlier shelter within Judaism, as Christianity engaged Greeks and Romans as well as Jews, as Christianity welcomed women and men, masters and slaves, the common pathway into the hope, the riches, the power of Christian faith was enlightenment, a process of formation that took at least a year or two, drawing candidates into prayer to learn the opening of the heart, teaching candidates the ways in which Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, telling the story of his life and death and resurrection, teaching his vision through his remembered words, challenging the values of a world that found its treasure more in the pocket than in the heart, and uniquely demonstrating the power of his love by the nature of how that Christian community opened itself to those candidates.
Where the early Church really hitched its wagon to the star of Bethlehem was in showing converts what ethical differences it made to say, “The Star of my life is Jesus.”
“See how these Christians love” was not said about 1st- and 2nd- century coffee hours. The good reputation rose from former thieves becoming honest workers, the multiplying of soup kitchens for widows and orphans, the emergence of women as virtual apostles to eastern and Roman cultures that gave little authority to women, the utter honesty and commitment of ordinary believers who showed extraordinary courage when faced with the choice of denying their faith and saving their lives, or owning their faith and often losing their lives, and in making that choice redefining the nature of authority and modeling the power of personal integrity.
Later in his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle warns them (and us) that Christians cannot assume that once enlightened, always enlightened. The heart can get darkened, alienated from the life of God by ignoring the evidence of grace at work around us, resisting risks required by the Spirit, preferring familiar routines that indulge the old self and declining the invitation to clothe ourselves in the new self. Alienation creeps in as we don’t notice when the heart stops opening and starts hardening.
Listen to his language in chapter four: “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds… So then, putting away all falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil… Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear… Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…”
In other words, keep open the eyes of your heart. Keep looking to learn how to love. Don’t assume you’ve seen it all: you’ve seen only part of the grace that is in play. Keep looking for evidence, traces, fingerprints of that grace, that love of God that has about it the light of resurrection. Keep looking to see what people around you are actually trying to do, not just what you think they’re doing. Keep looking for what God may be trying to do, and in that light act, or refrain from acting.
The Epiphany season is all about revelation and enlightenment. While we might think that the mind is the human receptor of all that, today the apostle tells us that the heart has eyes, and he urges us to keep them open.
Our Patron, Saint John the Evangelist
I’m aware that people with birthdays within a day or two of Christmas may feel either blessed by that timing or, just as likely, a bit short-changed and trumped by coming so close to the great Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. I can only imagine our patron, St. John the Evangelist, being delighted by the proximity of his feast day, December 27th to Christmas Day. Still, we have to ensure that we not lose him in the shuffle.
We’ve heard him this morning at his mystical best, those gorgeous verses of his Prologue, the opening words of the Fourth Gospel. How different they are from the opening gambit made by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, whose basic similarities with one another cause them to be known as the Synoptic Gospels, meaning that they come at the Good News of Jesus from a similar point of view.
But not so, John. He has a different angle. The other three anchor their Gospels in history. Chapter one in Matthew is a long genealogy of Jesus. Mark opens his book with John the Baptist emerging from the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance. Luke sets his context by telling the story of the birth of John the Baptist, then his renowned (and unique) story of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, without which we would have no Christmas pageants.
But John, ah, John… It’s almost enough to make you wonder what was in the incense burning near him as he wrote. History, shmistory! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” John takes a bird’s-eye view, and that bird is the dove, the Spirit brooding over creation and hovering over Jesus at his baptism.
The synoptic writers set out to tell what happened in Jesus’s ministry, and what he said (though Luke, especially with his Christmas story, steps into interpreting how our Lord’s ministry and teachings matter to the world). But John dives into deeper waters and proclaims who Jesus is, what his ministry and teachings mean. John gives us theology. Known to be the latest of the four evangelists (his Gospel is fourth not just in printed order, but also in likely date of composition), it is as if Jesus’s followers, after years of meditating on his impact on them, and after many years of living-out the mission he entrusted to them, heard the call to set down on parchment what they knew to be true and worthy of urgent proclamation.
And so it is in John that we meet the Jesus who knows without doubt who and whose he is. It is John who gives us the great “I am” sayings. I am the light of the world… I am the bread of heaven… I am the Good Shepherd… I am the living water… I am the gate of the sheepfold. These claims present Jesus fully confident that he is Son of God, Savior, and Lord. And his best known “I am” saying sums it up: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”
And so the Gospel of John has kept theologians and preachers busy for 1900 years and counting, as this Johannine Jesus eclipses the teacher, healer, preacher of the synoptics. Perhaps it’s fairer to say that John’s Jesus absolutely puts on the mantle of universal Messiah, leaving no doubt that all who believe in him have eternal life. And in so doing, John’s Jesus completes the Gospel presentation of the Christ.
Among the theologians John keeps busy are those New Testament scholars, most of them here in the United States, known as the Jesus Seminar. Recognizing that even the synoptics show that each of the four Gospels comes from different sources and traditions within the early Christian community, these scholars have devised a system for voting among themselves as to whether a particular saying of Jesus is authentic or not. By authentic they mean that they think that Jesus actually said it.
So they gather and they consider a text. The scholars have a small supply of beads. A red bead indicates the scholar’s belief that Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it. A pink bead means that Jesus probably said something like this. A grey bead says that Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in the saying are close to his own. A black bead records the scholar’s vote that Jesus did not say this; the saying represents the perspective or content of a later or different tradition. A saying is considered. A box is passed. Into the box each scholars drops one of his or her four beads.
Let me quote Richard Holloway in his little book,”How to Read the Bible”: “If you comb through the translation these scholars made of the first three gospels you see a pattern of red, pink and grey on every page, against a predominant background of black; but when you turn to their translation of the fourth gospel, the one attributed to John, the text is an unrelieved black. This verdict on the inauthenticity of John reflects a significant consensus among many, though far from all, scholars that the fourth gospel is a creation of the early church and represents a significant theological development in the Christian understanding of the status of Jesus.”
Hmmm. For me, that actually enhances the value of John’s Gospel, and guides me how to read it. Its voice is not in harmony with the other three, and that’s what makes it what it is, an evolving witness to what the early Church found essential to its faith and practice and mission in the world.
And evidence that John had to wrestle with issues that seem less pressing in some of the other gospels. The example I think of is briefly but unmistakably there in the Prologue we heard today: “and his own people did not accept him.”
A simple fact, historically: there is antagonism between the Jewish preacher Jesus and the Jewish religious establishment, and of the four Gospel writers, John makes the most of this friction. Why? Because this last of the Gospels comes from a time of sharp division between Christians and Jews. Earlier on, followers of Jesus who were Jewish remained within their synagogues; the Jesus movement was at first within Judaism. But by the time of John’s Gospel, the last vestiges of cohabitation had ended. In their theology and in their missionary activity, Christians had come to define themselves more sharply (John’s Gospel both shows that and helped that happen) so they no longer felt a belonging to the synagogues, and they were no longer welcome there.
But the more important message of the fourth Gospel is that any religious establishment, indeed every religious establishment, is likely to find its applecart upset by Jesus Christ. And that message is equally clear in all four Gospels. For example, in all four, Jesus sends packing the moneychangers in the temple, and those who sold the sacrificial animals at markups that exploited the poor.
So we learn to read the Fourth Gospel not in a way that perpetuates hostility between Christians and Jews, but in a way that is willing and ready to substitute ourselves—the Episcopal Church, St. John’s Church, and me myself—whenever we read about those who resist him when he comes.
I suspect I’ve said enough to show that our patron saint excels at stirring the pot, igniting reactions and questions, stimulating theology and preaching, devotion and mission. He causes us to reach-out in our believing. His are the words heard at many a funeral (“In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places…”). He is the one who tells the fuller story of Mary Magdalene, casting her as virtual apostle.
John does not know Luke’s Christmas story, but he tells his own. It is rich with the language of the philosophers, and lays the groundwork for a Christian view of man that unites mind and soul and body. Theology and physics wrap around each other in John’s use of light, his language of transformation, his fascination with energy and matter as he tells of the miracles that draw us to understand who this is, this Jesus.
A poem that a member brought to Vestry last month ends with lines that e. e. cummings wrote about the Nativity of Jesus—and I can’t help thinking that John the evangelist would find them familiar, so I’ll end with them:
“mind without soul may blast some universe
to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars
but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall
even prevail a million questionings
against the silence of his mother’s smile
--whose only secret all creation sings”
We’ve heard him this morning at his mystical best, those gorgeous verses of his Prologue, the opening words of the Fourth Gospel. How different they are from the opening gambit made by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, whose basic similarities with one another cause them to be known as the Synoptic Gospels, meaning that they come at the Good News of Jesus from a similar point of view.
But not so, John. He has a different angle. The other three anchor their Gospels in history. Chapter one in Matthew is a long genealogy of Jesus. Mark opens his book with John the Baptist emerging from the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance. Luke sets his context by telling the story of the birth of John the Baptist, then his renowned (and unique) story of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, without which we would have no Christmas pageants.
But John, ah, John… It’s almost enough to make you wonder what was in the incense burning near him as he wrote. History, shmistory! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” John takes a bird’s-eye view, and that bird is the dove, the Spirit brooding over creation and hovering over Jesus at his baptism.
The synoptic writers set out to tell what happened in Jesus’s ministry, and what he said (though Luke, especially with his Christmas story, steps into interpreting how our Lord’s ministry and teachings matter to the world). But John dives into deeper waters and proclaims who Jesus is, what his ministry and teachings mean. John gives us theology. Known to be the latest of the four evangelists (his Gospel is fourth not just in printed order, but also in likely date of composition), it is as if Jesus’s followers, after years of meditating on his impact on them, and after many years of living-out the mission he entrusted to them, heard the call to set down on parchment what they knew to be true and worthy of urgent proclamation.
And so it is in John that we meet the Jesus who knows without doubt who and whose he is. It is John who gives us the great “I am” sayings. I am the light of the world… I am the bread of heaven… I am the Good Shepherd… I am the living water… I am the gate of the sheepfold. These claims present Jesus fully confident that he is Son of God, Savior, and Lord. And his best known “I am” saying sums it up: “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.”
And so the Gospel of John has kept theologians and preachers busy for 1900 years and counting, as this Johannine Jesus eclipses the teacher, healer, preacher of the synoptics. Perhaps it’s fairer to say that John’s Jesus absolutely puts on the mantle of universal Messiah, leaving no doubt that all who believe in him have eternal life. And in so doing, John’s Jesus completes the Gospel presentation of the Christ.
Among the theologians John keeps busy are those New Testament scholars, most of them here in the United States, known as the Jesus Seminar. Recognizing that even the synoptics show that each of the four Gospels comes from different sources and traditions within the early Christian community, these scholars have devised a system for voting among themselves as to whether a particular saying of Jesus is authentic or not. By authentic they mean that they think that Jesus actually said it.
So they gather and they consider a text. The scholars have a small supply of beads. A red bead indicates the scholar’s belief that Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it. A pink bead means that Jesus probably said something like this. A grey bead says that Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in the saying are close to his own. A black bead records the scholar’s vote that Jesus did not say this; the saying represents the perspective or content of a later or different tradition. A saying is considered. A box is passed. Into the box each scholars drops one of his or her four beads.
Let me quote Richard Holloway in his little book,”How to Read the Bible”: “If you comb through the translation these scholars made of the first three gospels you see a pattern of red, pink and grey on every page, against a predominant background of black; but when you turn to their translation of the fourth gospel, the one attributed to John, the text is an unrelieved black. This verdict on the inauthenticity of John reflects a significant consensus among many, though far from all, scholars that the fourth gospel is a creation of the early church and represents a significant theological development in the Christian understanding of the status of Jesus.”
Hmmm. For me, that actually enhances the value of John’s Gospel, and guides me how to read it. Its voice is not in harmony with the other three, and that’s what makes it what it is, an evolving witness to what the early Church found essential to its faith and practice and mission in the world.
And evidence that John had to wrestle with issues that seem less pressing in some of the other gospels. The example I think of is briefly but unmistakably there in the Prologue we heard today: “and his own people did not accept him.”
A simple fact, historically: there is antagonism between the Jewish preacher Jesus and the Jewish religious establishment, and of the four Gospel writers, John makes the most of this friction. Why? Because this last of the Gospels comes from a time of sharp division between Christians and Jews. Earlier on, followers of Jesus who were Jewish remained within their synagogues; the Jesus movement was at first within Judaism. But by the time of John’s Gospel, the last vestiges of cohabitation had ended. In their theology and in their missionary activity, Christians had come to define themselves more sharply (John’s Gospel both shows that and helped that happen) so they no longer felt a belonging to the synagogues, and they were no longer welcome there.
But the more important message of the fourth Gospel is that any religious establishment, indeed every religious establishment, is likely to find its applecart upset by Jesus Christ. And that message is equally clear in all four Gospels. For example, in all four, Jesus sends packing the moneychangers in the temple, and those who sold the sacrificial animals at markups that exploited the poor.
So we learn to read the Fourth Gospel not in a way that perpetuates hostility between Christians and Jews, but in a way that is willing and ready to substitute ourselves—the Episcopal Church, St. John’s Church, and me myself—whenever we read about those who resist him when he comes.
I suspect I’ve said enough to show that our patron saint excels at stirring the pot, igniting reactions and questions, stimulating theology and preaching, devotion and mission. He causes us to reach-out in our believing. His are the words heard at many a funeral (“In my Father’s house are many dwelling-places…”). He is the one who tells the fuller story of Mary Magdalene, casting her as virtual apostle.
John does not know Luke’s Christmas story, but he tells his own. It is rich with the language of the philosophers, and lays the groundwork for a Christian view of man that unites mind and soul and body. Theology and physics wrap around each other in John’s use of light, his language of transformation, his fascination with energy and matter as he tells of the miracles that draw us to understand who this is, this Jesus.
A poem that a member brought to Vestry last month ends with lines that e. e. cummings wrote about the Nativity of Jesus—and I can’t help thinking that John the evangelist would find them familiar, so I’ll end with them:
“mind without soul may blast some universe
to might have been, and stop ten thousand stars
but not one heartbeat of this child; nor shall
even prevail a million questionings
against the silence of his mother’s smile
--whose only secret all creation sings”
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