Sermons: May 2010

The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year C, RCL)

May 2, 2010 

Acts 11:1-18    Psalm 148 
Revelation 21:1-6   John 13:31-35 

The Golden Age. Shangri-la. The Founding Fathers. The Garden of Eden. When I had hair.

The grass is not only greener in the past; it seeds, fertilizes, and mows itself. Some very deep and primal part of our being hankers after a time when things were perfect, or at least better—say, when college students actually knew grammar and spelling.

In his great poem The Works and Days, the ancient Greek poet Hesiod divides Earth’s history into four earlier ages: gold, silver, bronze, and “a god-like race of heroes.”

Poor Hesiod—he belongs to the fifth—and, of course, worst—generation:

Would that I were not among those of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. 1

By contrast, when Hesiod nostalgically gazes back, he sees how halcyon things were in the days of yore:

First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men . . . . And they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; . . . they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. . . . They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the gods who are blessed.

Why should we Christians think any differently? I call our nostalgia “the myth of first-century Christianity.” By God (literally), they had it right!

Our longing began as early as the Gospel writer Luke, who also wrote The Acts of the Apostles: 

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. . . . There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.2 

Those guys would certainly never be put on an Outreach Committee—they’d guilt the rest of us to death! 

Students ask me: “Did the first Christians really do that?” My first response is, “What do you think?” 

I don’t know. Fired with love and enthusiasm, they certainly might have shared everything. 

Then again, the story may be Luke’s idealization of the first Christians. Luke tends to do that—idealize. If we had only the Acts of the Apostles, we’d think that the first Christians marched, inexorably and triumphantly, on a yellow brick road paved by the Lord as they quickly evangelized the whole Roman Empire, with nary a disagreement or argument. 

Many Christians welcome this smiley-faced idealization.  

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway has star-crossed lovers, Brett and Jake. This is how the novel ends: 

    “Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.” 
    Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.  
    “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?” 

In the New Testament, St. Paul plays Jake to St. Luke’s Brett. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians shows that there were serious quarrels, conflicts, and divisions in Corinth.3 

First Corinthians is invaluable because to the Corinthians Paul “hands on” what he “received from the Lord,” the tradition we call the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist: 

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”4 

Rarely do we think about what Paul has said right before this: 

Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse . . . . When you come together, it’s not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?5 

We know that at least some of the first Christians combined a meal with the Eucharist, as we did on Maundy Thursday. What’s happening here at Corinth? Those who are better off are coming early and scarfing up everything. They’re even getting drunk! Worse still, they’re humiliating the poor. 

Makes us look pretty good, huh? 

In today’s reading from Acts, Peter has a vision: he learns that “there is no distinction” between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  

The hopeful and optimistic symbolism of this passage is powerful and moving. In Galatians Paul says it best:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.6 

In just a few sentences in Acts, Luke has air-brushed away the gut-wrenching conflict that occurred in the first hundred years between Rabbinic Judaism and those Jews who followed Jesus Messiah, those who later became Christians. The Gospel of John, written ten to twenty years after Luke and Acts, documents the bitterness of the divorce. 

Like a playwright, in Galatians Paul stages one scene of the break-up within Abraham’s family. Unlike Luke’s, Paul’s depiction doesn’t have a Hollywood happy ending:  

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.7 

Poor Peter. Ever the coward. A Jew, he—like Jesus—has been eating with non-Jews—a big no-no. But when some Jewish-Christians come up from Jerusalem, he chickens out.  

The faucet of Paul’s sarcasm still drips after 2,000 years; the sink has a hole in it from the acid. Paul derisively slams the Jewish-Christians as “the circumcision faction.” And he indirectly blames James, the head of the church in Jerusalem—and the brother of the Lord! 

Why is Paul so pissed? Because Peter’s actions, making distinctions between Jew and Gentile, mocks Paul’s whole ministry to the Gentiles. But Peter’s actions cause not only an evangelical crisis for Paul; Peter’s “hypocrisy,” as Paul castigates it, also creates an existential crisis for the apostle to the Gentiles: it calls his whole being into question.

No smiley-face emoticons in Paul’s emails. 

So, what do we take away from these first-century fisticuffs? 

For us, one of the few welcoming and inclusive churches in Bakersfield, we have to ask ourselves—always—if we in any way are excluding others. 

But we need to go further. How can we be more inclusive? We’re all pretty much white and middle class here. How do we broaden—and thereby enrich—our community? 

The past is prologue, not Photoshop. Early Christianity was not like the scrubbed and sanitized America that Walt Disney preached when I was a kid. It was neither the best of times, nor the worst of times. 

The first Christians, then, were pretty much like us. No, that’s not a cause for despair! Rather, it’s a cause for celebration.  

The first Christians were not superheroes beyond compare, biblical saints whose halos we are not worthy so much as to polish. Their successes and failures, tragedies and triumphs, nobility and pettiness, are our own. 

Their story is our story. We at Grace are part of the greatest story ever told. Think about that. That story is daunting and exciting; it’s a little scary, yet it empowers us; it’s both comforting and unsettling. That story is both vision and reality-check; it’s both go-and-do-likewise and go-and-definitely-don’t do-likewise. 

I also think it’s way cool.  

Amen.

Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year C/RCL)

May 9, 2010 

Acts 16:9-15    Psalm 67 
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5   John 5:1-9 

“And in the Holy Spirit.” 

That’s it. That’s all the Nicene Creed of 325 says about the Holy Spirit. 

Those early Christians didn’t know much about the Holy Spirit, did they? Or, maybe the Holy Spirit got gypped at Nicaea because the Creed was written by 318 bishops. 

Actually, the Spirit got such little attention in the fourth century because the bishops and theologians were too busy working out who the heck God the Father and God the Son are. The Spirit just kinda got lost in the theological shuffle. 

By 381, however, the Nicene Creed looked pretty much like what we say now: 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

    who proceeds from the Father (and the Son).1

    With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

    He has spoken through the Prophets.

   

Still doesn’t tell us much, though, does it? 

This past Wednesday I asked the Bible study group--Wednesdays, at 7, in Room 6—I asked the Bible study group to pray for me because I was going to preach on the Holy Spirit. Mary Donev asked, in her usual forthright manner, “Why are you nervous about preaching on the Holy Spirit?” 

Therein lies a story. 

Back in the early ‘80s, not long after I returned to the Church after a twelve-year vacation, I went on Cursillo, sponsored by the parents of a high

school buddy.  

That Cursillo was life-changing for me—but it didn’t have a happy ending. On the way home I got into a theological tussle with my sponsors. (I know—hard to imagine.) They said—or I heard them say—that unless you were born or slain in the Spirit you weren’t a real Christian, an authentic Christian, a Spirit-filled Christian. 

I had got some of the same feeling at the retreat from the leader, who wasn’t Episcopalian. But these were Episcopalians! We weren’t supposed to talk like that about the Holy Spirit! 

I was put off by the “Keep Out” sign I saw being posted at the Holy Spirit’s gate. So I didn’t continue with any of the Cursillo activities. And . . . I’ve been a little nervous around the Holy Spirit ever since—or at least nervous around those who they think they know her intimately. 

John’s take on the Spirit is different from the understanding(s) in the other Gospels. This different take, however, I find reassuring: it tells me that you can’t package the Holy Spirit like Twinkies, every Twinkie the same, with a shelf life of 200 hundred years—and flavor to match. Call it “the Twinkie Offense.” 

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples, "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of everything I’ve said to you.” 

But to understand fully what’s going on here, we have to backtrack a bit in the Gospel. 

Before today’s chapter in John, the Spirit is named a number of times. But the Spirit is called “Holy” only once: John the Baptist declares that he baptizes with water, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.2 

In John 14, today’s reading, John borrows a theme from Mark’s Gospel: he portrays the disciples as dolts who just don’t get it.

Jesus: When I leave you guys, I’ll go and prepare a place for you so you can be with me. 

Thomas: Lord, we don’t know where the heck you’re going. How can we know the way? 

Jesus: Thomas, I’m the way . . . and the truth . . . and the life. If you know me, you’ll know my Father, too.  

Philip: Lord, show us the Father, and we’ll be satisfied. 

Jesus (with a big sigh): Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still don’t get it? (Patiently) Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Got it? 

A little later Jesus assures the disciples he won’t orphan them. Then he tells them who their spiritual step-father will be: 

I’ve said these things to you while I’m still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 

A little later, Jesus reminds the disciples: 

When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.3 

So, for John, who is this Holy Spirit, this Advocate? 

The Greek word for “Advocate”  is Paráklētos, Paraclete. You really can’t translate “Paraclete” with one English word. The verb in Greek means “to call or summon to one’s side.” In ancient Athens it could mean someone you call as a witness to help you during a trial.  

For Paraclete in the New Testament, various English translations have “Advocate,” “Helper,” “Comforter,” “Mediator,” or “Intercessor.”

At Bible study last Wednesday we shared stories about how the Holy Spirit has worked in our lives. My sense is that we understood—and felt—the Spirit as Helper, Comforter, and Intercessor. 

For John, though, I think our translators have got it right: Advocate. 

I’ve mentioned before that John’s community feels besieged. It’s the end of the first century. For at least fifty years tension has been increasing: between what would become Rabbinic Judaism and those Jews who followed Jesus Messiah, who later became Christians.  

John’s community has either recently left the synagogue, or they’ve been tossed out. Because of the conflict and anger in John’s Gospel, I think they’ve been literally excommunicated. 

These followers of Jesus need an advocate, someone they can call to their side, to their defense. They’re on trial. When Jesus leaves, he assures them, he won’t leave them orphaned, defenseless. He’ll send his Advocate, who will intercede for them. By interceding on their behalf, the Advocate will also comfort and encourage them. 

In a way, the Council of Nicaea got it right when its Creed said “And in the Holy Spirit”: the New Testament only dimly defines the Spirit. John, in fact, may give the clearest understanding—and it’s not the one we usually think of.  

I think this lack of definition is good: it gives us room to operate. 

In ancient Athens, someone who came to your aid during a trial would have been a male; we probably still think of an advocate as a male. I think the Spirit today, though, is mostly Comforter and Care-giver 

Comforters and care-givers, we most probably think are female: life-bearers, nurturers, comforters. This is partly why I think we should also use “she” and “her” for the Holy Spirit. 

But there’s still one more possibility: teacher. In John, Jesus says to his disciples that the Spirit “will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.”

Teacher. Remind-er. 

Advocate. Helper. Comforter. Mediator. Intercessor. Teacher. Remind-er. Giver of life. All of these. And many, many more. 

If you’re now thinking, “Well, he’s been a big help. That’s it?  A list of names?”  

Yep. The Holy Spirit is both possibility and possibilities. Many more possibilities than a mere definition in the Creed. 

The Holy Spirit is like the 100 names for God in Islam. Ninety-nine names come from the Qur’ān. The 100th is unknowable. 

Just as the Divine Name is Judaism is unpronounceable. 

But an important part of our job description as religious pilgrims is “effing the ineffable,” naming Mystery, even though we’ll never understand her completely. 

Since, as Jesus says, the Spirit is a teacher, she’s given us some homework: she told me that she wants us at Grace this week to reflect on who the Holy Spirit has been in our life. Who is the Holy Spirit in your life? 

Let us know in Grace at Midweek. 

Amen.

SERMON FOR GRACE EPISCOPAL, 5/16/2010

Carolyn Woodall 

How may Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? 

None! Change?!? Are you kidding? We don’t call ourselves God’s Frozen Chosen for nothing you know. The Episcopal Church has, in its history, been quite resistant to change. You can see that by taking a quick look at the history of the Book of Common Prayer. Our first Book of Common prayer was ratified in 1789 and that was somewhat of a matter of necessity. We had used the English Prayer Book, but we had this revolution, you see, and some changes were necessary. There were some changes as time went on. We were on our first book and it was a work in progress. Finally, things settled down in 1892, and then some bunch of upstarts came out with a whole new book – the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Many of us here remember that one quite well. And obviously, when it was introduced, it was widely and immediately accepted and loved, right? I wasn’t around for that transition, but I doubt it.  

Many of us do, however, remember the 1970’s - that wild time when the whole world was upended. The world changed and so did the church. In 1974, eleven women were ordained as priests. It was unauthorized and was, basically, an act of rebellion. In 1976 the ordination of women was officially sanctioned at General Convention. That same year we got a new prayer book. Remember the zebra book? For those who don’t, it was a trial edition of our current Book of Common Prayer – it was called the zebra book because it had a striped cover.

I do remember that transition and I know it wasn’t easy. I remember many a Yellow Pages ad where one Episcopal Church or another proudly advertised that they still used the 1928 prayer book. In fact, I remember looking at the zebra book and complaining about it myself – I was used to the old one, you see, and I saw no reason to change it. Sure the language was archaic and fewer people understood it, but still, people can learn. I did. I remember my first theological quandary. I was six or seven years old. We were reciting the creed and I remember pondering the phrase, “And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead." Well, what happened, I wondered, if you were just slow? But I learned, somewhere along the line, that “quick” also meant “living.” Problem solved, quandary settled. I learned, and so could others, so why did we have to go through all of this? 

But, change was upon us, and there was nothing I could do about it. So as we entered the 1980’s we then asked the question: How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? The answer this time is . . . three. One to call the electrician, one to stir the martinis, and one to reminisce about how much better the old light bulb was.  

But the old light bulb was not completely burned out here in the Diocese of San Joaquin. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer came into use, but women were still not to be ordained priests in this diocese, not until 2009. And during those intervening years our diocese drew further into itself, and farther away from The Episcopal Church.  

The Episcopal Church had some extraordinary things happen in that intervening time as well. In 2003, Gene Robinson was elected to be the Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. He was consecrated in March 2004. He is gay, openly so, and has a partner named Mark. He wore a bullet proof vest to his consecration. In 2006, Katharine Jefferts Schori, a woman, as you all know, was elected as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. And of course, all of that was just too much, and on December 8, 2007, the schism formally occurred. The majority of the diocese voted to disaffiliate with The Episcopal Church.  

So, on March 29, 2008, the Presiding Bishop came to San Joaquin and we have some new congregations, a new bishop, and a radically different diocese – not just in structure, but in attitude. For folks who belong to a church which tends to resist change, we’ve certainly seen more than our share. Of course, although I’m picking on us, we are not alone in resisting change. Any well established group of human beings resists change.  

For the Christian churches this tendency is actually a bit ironic. Jesus, himself, was an agent of great change. He criticized the Pharisees and Scribes, he performed miracles on the Sabbath., that is to say he worked on the Sabbath. He shamed an outraged mob into not stoning a woman when the law clearly said she should be stoned to death. He treated women with respect. He healed lepers and ate with tax collectors and other outcasts. He disrupted the Temple. He even told a story wherein kindness by a Samaritan who helped a stranger was praiseworthy. This was in a time when the Samaritans were so despised that a Jew traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee would, instead of taking the direct route by going North, through Samaria, go miles out of his way to go around. 

Jesus did things which challenged the way things were. He challenged the people of his time to re-examine who they were. He challenged those whose spirit was stifled by their traditions to look beyond them, to open their minds and hearts and see that God loved all people – even tax collectors, Samaritans, Gentiles, and other various and sundry sinners.  

Were the lessons Jesus had to teach, lessons of a love that was unconditional and of radical inclusiveness, immediately embraced by everyone? Of course not! There was tremendous resistance to the changing of the status quo. So much that Jesus was killed for his challenging of the status quo.  

Normally, when a troublemaker like Jesus was crucified by the Romans, that was the end of them. But here in the Easter season we celebrate the greatest change of all - Jesus didn't stay dead. He returned and spent 40 days with his disciples. And at the time of His ascension, Jesus told his disciples that even more would change. Jesus would leave them but would send the Holy Spirit. And they were to go and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.  

To all nations or, as we read in the lesson from Acts, to be Christ's witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, even Samaria - that detestable place - and to the ends of the earth. 

Think of what Jesus was telling them to do. Remember that they were Jews, and they had been raised under the law which served, among other things, to keep them, God's chosen people, separate and distinct from all other people in the world, no matter where they might find themselves. Talk about God's frozen chosen . . . 

But that is what Jesus did in life, and what they were commanded to do after the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they did it. 

That was a radical acceptance of change. Yet still, we human beings resist change. We have spent most of human history limited by distance. We knew the people around us and we became comfortable with them. We developed a common culture with them. We were familiar with the immediate surroundings and developed routines that made survival easier. Anything which was different represented potential danger. Strangers represented potential danger. It was impossible to talk to anyone at a distance, and travel was on foot or by horse or, if you were lucky, by boat. Travel was slow, arduous and dangerous,  and was not undertaken without a good reason.  

That was the basic situation up to the last few hundred years. Then we developed ships which could sail the world, railroads, and the telephone, and the pace has accelerated ever since. Now we can travel anywhere in the world in less than a day. Communication has become incredible. We carry our phones with us, and many of us carry smart phones that can do any number of amazing things. And online? Most of our congregations have websites. If you want to find out about a church, look them up on the web. We can send emails anywhere in the world. We use Facebook to see what our friends are up to. And with a cheap webcam and a high speed internet connection you can talk to other people who are similarly equipped, anywhere on the planet, by video. Our news isn’t several months old because it was brought to us by merchants traveling from town to town. We get it on television or online – in real time, and from anywhere in the world.  

Our world is no longer small, and our cultures no longer insular. What do we, as Christians, do about it? How do we deal with change? We do as Christ commanded and love one another as he loved us.  

The Apostles, following the example of Jesus, took a message of change into the world. They took the message into the world that God loves every human being. They took the light of Christ into the world so that we could all see clearly, and see that our differences are superficial. So we could see that we are all equal for we are all loved, equally, by God. The Holy Spirit which was promised to the Apostles is with us still, and it is our duty and our joy to listen and take the message of Christ to the world - all the world. 

How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb? It takes every single one of us, because there are still a lot of people who don't know that unqualified love that Jesus taught. It takes every single one of us because there is still a lot of darkness in need of the light of Christ. 

Amen.

Day of Pentecost

Whitsunday Year C RCL

May 23, 2010

Genesis 11:1-9    Psalm 104:25-35, 37

Acts 2:1-21    John 14:8-17, 25-27 

At Pentecost, the crowd was amazed and perplexed, and people were saying to one another, “What the heck’s going on?” Others sneered, "Oh, they’re just a bunch of drunks.” 

OK. I get this. I’m as skeptical and cynical as the next guy—or at least the next academic. 

But why in response to our skepticism does Peter quote the prophet Joel? Couldn’t Peter have at least picked a prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah, someone we’ve actually heard of? 

This Pentecost Sunday, I want to take the sermon in an unusual direction; that is, I’m not going to focus on the giving of the Spirit in Acts.  

Let me explain the method to my madness here. In preparing this sermon, I followed my curiosity about Joel and wandered where it took me. I’ll let you decide whether this were method or madness.  

But back to Joel. 

Luke says “there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.” So, let’s give Luke and his audience some credit: they, if not we, know who Joel is and know something about his prophecies. 

In the passage today, Joel is quoting God: 

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

      and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

      and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

      in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

      and they shall prophesy.

This is a beautiful prophetic poem. Yes, we cringe to hear that slavery is taken for granted, but the point is that even slaves, the lowliest of the low, will receive the Spirit and prophesy. The Spirit knows no outsiders, excludes no one—even Episcopalians. We are members of God’s inclusive world, as Paul summarizes: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”1 

We are all made to drink of one Spirit. So the crowd was right after all: the disciples were drunk—in the Spirit. 

Joel and Paul refute the ancient and modern falsehood that decapitates God, leaving an Old Testament body and a New Testament head. And, thus, leaves a corpse. God’s Spirit is alive and well in both Testaments, among both Jews and Christians. 

Joel is something of a prophetic entomologist, or an entomological prophet. I can’t decide. He’s been studying bugs, up close and personal—and he doesn’t like what he sees. Israel has been attacked by a fearsome army: 

What the cutting locust left, 
    the swarming locust has eaten. 
What the swarming locust left, 
    the hopping locust has eaten, 
and what the hopping locust left, 
    the destroying locust has eaten. 

Earlier prophets had spoken, in words of thundering oration, about the invasion of mighty armies and malignant empires like the Babylonians and Assyrians. Joel, in a world of diminished expectations, gets, well, locusts. Charlton Heston played Isaiah; Joel gets Woody Allen. 

Although Joel’s pitched his tent in the mighty shadow of the great prophets of the Exile who lived 200 years earlier, he is, nevertheless, a prophet: he sees the invasion of insects as God’s judgement on Israel for her sins. 

The only problem is that Joel doesn’t say what Israel’s sins are. Idolatry? Fornication? Abusing the poor? Making jalapeño bagels? Joel doesn’t say. He says only that a mighty judgement is coming. 

But we here today are faced with a far bigger question than figuring out Israel’s sins: With all due respect to Joel, does God really behave like this? It’s what my priest buddy Gary calls “zap theology”: be good or God will make sure you’re toast. In this theology, we humans are insects on a summer’s evening and God is one big gigantic outdoor bug-zapper. 

Unfortunately, such theology, such thinking, is not ancient history. After Katrina, Pastor John Hagee said “when you violate God's will long enough, the judgment of God comes to you. Katrina is an act of God for a society that is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah reborn."2  

We here know what “Sodom and Gomorrah” is duplicitous code for. 

It’s easy enough to dismiss people like Hagee as idiots. Perhaps “charlatans” is more accurate. 

But that still leaves us with some very tough questions:
  • Evil we can understand. But why is there so much evil and suffering?
  • Why do bad things happen to good people?3
  • If God is omnipotent, why doesn’t God prevent such things as hurricanes and Hitlers?
With all humility, here are eight thoughts: 

1) First, Katrina. I completely disagree with the phrase “natural evil” that tries to explain “murderous” hurricanes and tsunamis. Nature is neither evil, nor a murderer. 

2) Whatever else the story of Adam and Eve tells us, it’s that we have free will. Made in God’s image, we have reason, will, and conscience. It’s up to us

to use them. As all of us know, sometimes we choose well and sometimes we choose badly. Choose badly enough, actions become evil; choose badly enough and often enough, a person becomes evil. 

3) I don’t think we’re any better or worse than people in Joel’s day; it’s just that now we have greater technology to do both greater good and greater evil. 

4) Like my beloved monks, I understand the moral and spiritual life as training, as in athletic training.4 God’s grace and our hard work.5 We need both. Christians spiritually live what is a paradox in sports: for us, it’s always the regular season, but it’s also always spring training. 

5) We train by going to church, by participating in her liturgy, word, and sacraments; by attentively and responsibly reading the Bible and other works of theology and spirituality—including sermons; we train through prayer, silence, and contemplation; we train by learning and absorbing the Church’s teachings and tradition. Christ does not teach the loneliness of the long-distance runner; we train in community, in a community like this one.  

6) Through all of these we learn: we learn compassion, empathy, love, generosity, self-sacrifice, and humility. Seeing Christ in each and every person. Perhaps hardest of all for some of us: seeing Christ in ourselves. 

7) While we learn, we put what we learn into practice. On the field. Training and learning in Christ makes us who we are. With the grace of the free will that God gives us, we do our best to make decisions out of this new creation.

Decisions come not from the Bible as a rule book but from our whole being in God.

8) With Paul we say, “it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”6

As Paul would say, this is a paradox, and probably a stumbling block for anyone outside of faith: How do I both not live and live at the same time?  

When Paul says “it is no longer I who live,” I understand him to mean both the ego and the superego. The ego, as we all know, is “Me. Me. Me.” The superego here is “a life of bondage to the dominant culture,” a life of “anxious striving.”7 

With Paul we try to live in such a way that ego and superego no longer rule our lives. When they do, they become false gods—like the false gods of stone and avarice and oppression that Israel’s prophets, including Jesus, admonish us for. 

It’s in our efforts to live in the Spirit that prophets such as Joel still speak to us: 

O children of Zion, be glad 
    and rejoice in the Lord your God;

for he has given the early rain for your vindication, 
    he has poured down for you abundant rain, 
    the early and the later rain, as before.  
The threshing-floors shall be full of grain, 
    the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 

I will repay you for the years 
    that the swarming locust has eaten, 
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, 
    my great army, which I sent against you. 

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, 
    and praise the name of the Lord your God, 
    who has dealt wondrously with you.8 

Amen.

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010

Grace Episcopal Church

The Rev. Vern Hill 

I usually put together the first page of Midweek for Melinda – the section where the next week’s worship is highlighted with scripture readings and participants listed.  Last Tuesday I was working on the front page and since it was to be Trinity Sunday I wanted to write something about it.  Overcome by a wave of laziness and distracted by pending knee surgery I decided to Google “Trinity Sunday” just to see what might pop up and whether there might be something that could save me a bit of creative effort.  Sure enough there were 1,610,000 hits.   Surprise!  The first was Wikipedia.  The article carried a warning that it was completely unsupported by references and it didn’t really explain much more than the obvious – it’s Trinity Sunday.  A second was “All about Trinity Sunday” which was encouraging and the third, an article from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Interestingly the second article and the one from the Catholic Encyclopedia were nearly identical, as were its next 12 clones, reformatted and colorized in different stylings.  I gave up, fell in line, and borrowed from the encyclopedia with some “Episcopal” rewriting, but keeping the essential information -  “Trinity Sunday is one of the only feasts of the church year that celebrates a doctrine rather than an event or person.”  And it is fascinating, confusing,  controversial and a mystery.  I decided to include the note from the encyclopedia article that a “mystery” in this sense “is not a wall to run up against, but an ocean in which to swim” – whatever on earth that might mean?

Good grief – I need to get over these moments of squishey thinking  (BTW if you read Midweek and thought this was a profound statement about mystery, I take it all back).

Actually today is more than Trinity Sunday.  It marks the odd intersection between the celebration of a religious conundrum and a day of national significance – Memorial Day.  I could easily avoid the intersection by raising the separation of church and state flag, and choose to only render to God what is God’s, leaving Caesar, what is his.  Hmmmmmmmm.  If I remember that parable as well as I think I do, it was a sarcastic yet subtle joke told by Jesus.  Everything belongs to God.  So I am back at the intersection. 

Is there anything about Trinity Sunday that has any kind of connection to what we recall at Memorial Day?  Is there anything from within the interior of this doctrinal confession and what gave rise to Memorial Day that might speak in unison in some significant way for us today?  Obviously I would not be leading you down this twisting corridor unless I had stumbled across some gem of an idea as this past week’s ponderings unfolded in my pointed head.

Memorial Day which we mark tomorrow was first officially proclaimed in 1868 by General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic.  The purpose was to provide a day for – in his words - “decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.”  The late rebellion was of course, the Civil War.  More Americans died between 1861 and 1865 than in any war our country has been engaged.    A total of 620,000 soldiers - ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years of age died, as did 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40.  A whole generation of men in many villages from New England to Georgia disappeared, forever lost. 

It was a Civil War, a country at war with itself, a national disaster.  It makes no difference where you look in those years of disunion and hatred, first Bull Run,  Antietam, second Bull Run, Vicksburg, Gettysburg – the awful brutality of war; the great overwhelming failure to find a way outside of the violence is everywhere and seemingly without end.   By 1865 those who had welcomed with shouts of celebration this second war of rebellion, the throwing of tea overboard again – this time in Charleston Harbor- , they were silenced by the unrelenting and unforgiving destruction everywhere.

As I reread this week an account of the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s visit later to dedicate the battlefield cemetery,  I found what I was looking for in the President’s speech, the common thread at today’s intersecting observances.  Lincoln had been invited to speak at Gettysburg as an after thought, a polite gesture on the part of the organizers.  The primary speaker was a famous preacher who spoke for over an hour.  Lincoln’s remarks took about 3 minutes.  In fact he sat down before a camera could be focused on him. 

His words began by reminding his listeners that it was only 87 years earlier – four score and seven – that the United States had been created,  created around the fundamental belief drafted by Thomas Jefferson that “all men are created equal” and endowed with certain rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness being among them. This was the core of national existence – it’s heart and identity.  Lincoln went on to say that this war was a tragic test as to whether a nation built on that belief could survive – that those who died here had given themselves so that the nation might live out this creed. 

Lincoln then concluded by talking about the “unfinished work.”  His words -  

“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. . . that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom . . .”

From the catastrophe of that war Lincoln continues to reach out over 155 years, broken at times by more violence and death and sorrow, and offers an invitation, an invitation to redemption –
  • To complete the unfinished work of America advancing toward an even more perfect union of justice and fairness and respect for all. 
  • To extend equality and opportunity without restriction or prejudice.
  • To protect the least and the weakest with the equal protection of the Law.
  • To keep the people safe. 
  • To advance education and promote the common welfare.
Finish this work - this is the resounding challenge that Lincoln still lays before us as a national community at this time of remembrance. 

Unfinished work is at the heart of our worship today. To celebrate the Trinity is to enter into the cosmology of God,  to begin to understand that we live among and within that which is of God.  We do not often visit Proverbs in our lectionary.  The theology of Proverbs is subtle.  Sophia, the divine Wisdom, the Logos, what some writers of literature call the primortal Cry, brings forth at a macro level galaxy upon galaxy, and at the micro level the movements of our cells, the complexity of atomic structure and the summer mosquitoes.  Sophia reflects the union of salvation and creation in God’s relationship to the world.  Salvation (on-going redemption) and Creation are One. Some speak of Sophia as the holy Spirit - as flowing from the love between the Father and the Son, spilling over all Creation as the Spirit hovered over the waters before Creation had form, uniting Creation in the binding love of the Trinity. For this reason, the theologian Jürgen Moltmann calls the Spirit the "unifying God," God poured out over all flesh, inviting all people to join in the Trinity's internal and eternal love dance.1

We humans exist to share in the on-going love dance, the salvation/creation of the Triune God, in beauty-making and justice-seeking.2  That which creates the universe, which seeks after goodness, which becomes flesh in Jesus that we might see our own meaning, that continues among us calling us onward, disturbing us out of settledness and comfort and fearfulness, out of those moments when we have chosen not just badly but horrificly bad, That CRY of Love and Grace urges us toward wholeness and perfection as made in God’s image.  Psalm 8 is as plain speaking to this as anywhere in scripture - 

5    What are humans that you should be mindful of / them? * 
the children of Adam that you should care for / them?

6    Yet you have made them little less than  / gods; *  
you have crowned them with glory and / beauty;

7    You give them mastery over the works of your / hands; * 
you put all things under their / feet:

The yearly cycle of Pentecost Sunday reminds us that the gifting of the Spirit marks the close of one epoch in the story of revelation and salvation and opens another;  it closes the time of the Word made flesh, the Jesus of Nazareth, and opens the age of the Spirit.  And it marks the beginning of a new community, a community set apart to continue the life of Jesus’ BODY in the communion of the Church.  This is a community born from the violence of the Cross and the gifting of the Spirit; a community called to gather up those who find in Jesus the truth about themselves and to witness to this truth.  Here what has gone on before does not exist in vain but in transformed redemption. 

Faithfulness to the CRY, to Sophia, to the Triune Dance is to love, to show mercy, to seek after justice and fairness and to resist all that is evil, all which denies creation’s true destiny.  This is the task of those who gather at this Table for all time. 

On this day which brings us to the intersection of core elements to our national history and religious faith, to unfinished work and redemption, let us first as citizens make covenant to strive after a perfecting of our national life and in that given to us as the Church by Jesus himself – to offer ourselves, our resolve and our passion to God for the sake of all whom God loves, Amen.