Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 18.1-10a
Psalm 15
Colosians 1.15-28
Luke 10.38-42

Luke’s gospel has more than its share of memorable and beloved stories. Today’s lesson – the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Mary and Martha is among them. It is a story that has launched a thousand metaphors and admonitions to overstressed hostesses. During my years at seminary it was the initial inspiration for a short-lived plan to publish a Bible cookbook. This large format, full-color volume was to accompany each recipe with the Bible story that inspired it and a beautiful color photograph of somewhere near where the story takes place. The recipe for Mary and Martha’s Favorite Company Casserole (whose ingredients were never actually specified) was to have a place in the main course section this book. Along with it in the salad section would be the recipe for the Seven Wise Maidens’ Red Wine Vinaigrette. In the baking section, readers would find that culinary classic on a grand scale - Whole Grain Flatbread for five thousand. The group of friends who dreamed up this volume thought it might be a way to pay off our student loans.  Twenty years later I am resigned to the reality of sending that giant payment every month to American Education Services because the book never got off the ground.

          One of the commentators whose work I read for background on this text noted that it is a foundational narrative of Christian feminism. No doubt it is one of the texts that inspired the expression “Jesus was a feminist.”  It’s really unlikely that he was in any sense that we would recognize, but this story and that expression are good examples of why it’s important to know how and why we use biblical text the way we do.

          Interpretations traditionally contrast the roles of the two sisters: Martha is overwhelmed with the work of a householder offering her guest a proper welcome. She complains to Jesus that her sister isn’t helping. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet in a manner characteristic of one learning from a master or teacher.  Jesus’ willingness to teach a woman, to encourage her to assume the manner of a disciple rather than ordering her to join her sister in the kitchen has been interpreted as his having a sense of respect for women and allowing them a greater range of accepted behavior than other men of his time. Women, rightfully challenging the limitations placed for centuries upon their participation in the life of the church, found this interpretation to be inspiring and empowering. Arguably the Bible should inspire and empower believers to live out the lives and ministries to which God calls each of us. But the ability of this one text or any text to give us a definitive understanding of who and how Jesus was as a person and whether he was ahead of his time in the way he interacted with women is very limited.

          We are inclined to assume that Jesus was enlightened as we understand that word. We want to believe that he was perfectly kind and thoughtful. We imagine that he must have understood all sides of every question and drawn conclusions that were always beyond reproach. Church tradition that developed around the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection characterizes him as being without sin and thus the perfect offering to redeem the sins of all humanity. That is our tradition and we’re more or less sticking to it, but we should understand it. The tradition of Jesus’ sinlessness has led his followers, as we grow farther removed from the culture in which the gospels were created, to attribute to him personality characteristics and opinions that are judged favorably in our culture. Those attributions are frequently the result of interpreting a biblical story beyond the information that it actually provides about its characters.

          There’s nothing terribly wrong with that. Believers long before us have pulled and stretched sacred literature beyond its original boundaries. There’s plenty of evidence to indicate that biblical books were edited centuries after their original creation to take into account important events that occurred later in time. This kind of use demonstrates their importance over time and the respect they were accorded by later generations.  Generation after generation of believers have allowed their imaginations to move beyond the boundaries of biblical story in order to deepen and enrich their understanding of it or to apply it to new situations. The cultural gulf that lies between us and the creators of any biblical book is immense. I doubt that it was particularly less so for believers five hundred or a thousand years ago.  It is not surprising that we in the 21^st century who are not satisfied with interpreting the Bible literally have our work cut out for us when we attempt to weave it into the fabric of our daily lives.

          One of the most profound distinctions between Christians in the last five centuries is in how we understand the role of the Bible in our faith, particularly how we understand it in relation to the traditions of the church. Historically the Episcopal Church has understood scripture and tradition in balance with each other and human reason. But there are Episcopalians and Anglicans and other Christians who privilege scripture beyond those other two elements of our faith. Wherever any individual believer may fall on that continuum is the place to which God has led him or her at this point in a long journey of faith.

What I think is really important is that we don’t allow the complexity of the Bible and its cultural distance from the world we live in to cause us to hold it at arm’s length or to constrain it by oversimplification.  One of my hopes for St. Mary’s over the next few years is that our adult educational offerings will increase in depth and frequency. The geography and culture of this parish are such that bringing people in early on a Sunday morning or asking them to come to the church for a mid-week class over an extended period of time may not be right. But I really want to develop a greater range of learning opportunities for parishioners, among them, the opportunity to study the Bible in greater depth.

For some things that are very old and very precious, we demonstrate our understanding of their value by observing them from afar, not touching them, not using them. Happily, the Bible is not fragile in the way that art works and artifacts are. We can touch it, use it, dig deeply into it and understand it and in doing so show our love and respect for it.

Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Isaiah 66.10-14
Psalm 66.1-8
Galatians 6.1-16
Luke 10.1-11, 16-20

This week the secular and religious media are reporting an interesting statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Archbishop Welby addressed the General Synod of the Church of England – the counterpart to our General Convention, describing his recent experience as a commentator on the same sex marriage initiative before the House of Lords. This official statement by the Church of England was not supportive of the measure, the vote on which failed to affirm marriage equality. Welby’s comments to the gathered representatives of the church are cautionary rather than triumphant. He warned them that the world is passing the church by on this issue and that the church’s position is a source of growing hostility. Although he is not advising the General Synod to take action on the issue immediately, he has called them to consider seriously how the church will be perceived and what the implications of that perception will be. No doubt there will be Christians who believe criticism or ill feeling by the world outside it are a badge of honor – suffering for the sake of the cross. But is it really?

Today’s gospel lesson is interesting for how it describes Jesus equipping his disciples for ministry through lack of equipment.  He instructs them to take nothing with them – no extra clothing, no money, no food. They are forced to interact with those to whom they bring their message in order to survive.  They will not have the means to set themselves apart and avoid making connections with those outside their own circle. Jesus warns them that not everyone will be friendly toward them – they are lambs among wolves -  but he calls on them to enter into unfamiliar territory with determination not fear. If they are accepted they are to stay there, teach and heal and form relationships. If they are not accepted, they try again elsewhere.

Luke portrays the church in a very positive light. He writes an encouraging word for gentile Christians who come to the faith in the face of hostility  from Jewish Christians and those who practice the civic and nature religions common in the gentile world. Luke seeks to demonstrate and teach knowledge of  Jewish tradition to gentiles. And he hopes to portray the church in a positive light to those in secular authority who have the power to persecute it or leave it in peace. As with the story of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts, today’s gospel lesson portrays the disciples as having a miraculous success rate with their mission to spread the gospel. He depicts Jesus as drawing a stark line between those who accept his teachings and those who do not. Those who reject him are rejecting God. In the gospels it’s frequently difficult to tell the author’s agenda apart from the tradition handed on by those who knew and interacted with Jesus first hand. The gospels are not eyewitness accounts.  Paul’s letters are the oldest documents in the New Testament. The oldest of them is commonly dated at about two decades after Jesus death.  Mark’s gospel was created in written form a decade or so after the letters.   The oldest actual copies of the gospel books come from the second century and the majority of them are fragments not complete documents. To further complicate the issue, the gospels don’t agree on their depiction of events, timelines or personalities. At best we get glimpses or shadows of who and how Jesus was as a person.

Christians themselves began to shape perceptions of Jesus’ teachings early on. That is what we know as tradition – the aggregate thought and practice of Christians through the ages.  There are elements within the church who would argue that tradition is meant to be timeless, that it never changes. But the most casual observation would tell you that is not true.  Through the last 2000 plus years, the church has adapted skillfully to newcomers and incorporated them and the traditions and practices of their previous religions into its own. Whatever resistance there may have been to it, incorporating newcomers and their cultural baggage, has been a time- honored method of growing the church.

Paul gets at that in today’s epistle lesson from Galatians. Paul traveled through Greece and the area that is modern Turkey, preaching the gospel to gentiles. That, in and of itself, was not especially unusual. There were synagogue communities that had made room for gentiles. If you recall reading or hearing the term “God fearers” in the New Testament,  that was the name for gentiles who participated in the worship of the synagogue but stopped short of conversion. These people admired the ethics of the Jewish faith and found its worship and community compelling, but they were reluctant for a variety of reasons to enter fully into it. Such a transition would have had a profound impact on social position and professional standing.

Jesus’ earliest followers were Jews. They modified synagogue worship gradually to incorporate the teachings and practices associated with Jesus.  Among them was a strong sense that one had to be a Jew first in order to be a Christian, either by birth or by conversion. Paul thought differently and in the letter to the Galatians, he urges members of that church to ignore the demand that they convert. Paul argued that gentiles need not be Jews first to be Christians. Living as we do in a time when the church IS a gentile institution, this argument seems strange, but in the fifth and sixth decades of the first century, it was a hot topic.

It’s said often enough now to be a cliché, and yet in many ways we still haven’t heard it: the church ministers now in an environment that has more in common with that of the first century than the twentieth. What does that mean? For one thing, the institutional aspect of the church’s identity does not get the respect that it did fifty or one hundred years ago. The slow, careful and deliberate apparatus of synods, councils and general conventions meeting face to face every three years is at odds with a culture in which information flows at lightning speed – one which favors experimentation and innovation. In many instances the church has seen fit to stonewall cultural change. You’ve seen it in the fight over marriage equality, the secrecy surrounding the sexual abuse of children by clergy and the absurd charge of obstruction of religious freedom by employers who refuse to provide health insurance for contraceptives. In an arena in which all positions – not just that of the church – are heard there is as Archbishop Welby put it “noticeable hostility” to the view of the church.  Among people who engage regularly in spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation, but who claim no religious affiliation, one of the most prominent reasons for non-involvement with the church is its emphasis on rules that are at odds with life as it really is.

Diana Butler Bass, a sociologist and historian of religion, suggests that in the 21^st century discernment will be among the church’s most important tasks. That word is a part of the traditional language of the church and we use it frequently but it can be one of those churchy code words that no one really understands. If you look it up in the thesaurus you get words like judgment, acumen, discrimination, perspicacity, and shrewdness. The dictionary defines it as the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure. Within the church discernment is a deliberate and prayerful approach to effective decision-making on important issues.  We use it, for example, to describe the process by which members of the church are identified and prepared to become ordained leaders. Discernment may proceed at a more deliberate pace than popular culture allows for, but that is because it seeks to include a variety of voices and opinions in the decision-making process, particularly the voice of God. The best discernment processes incorporate the results of trial and experiment rather than expecting that life will grind to a halt until the decision is made. They observe the environment in which the church does its work, questioning whether the needs of the world have moved beyond the church’s traditional position. It understands the authority of the faith community but also its role as servant.

Discernment requires interaction and engagement as Jesus requires it of his disciples in today’s gospel lesson. It requires openness and fearlessness in unfamiliar territory as Paul describes in today’s epistle lesson. Both of these texts depict first-century situations. New leaders emerge from an ancient faith community with ideas that challenge some of it’s most basic assumptions. They identify opportunities to move that community beyond its time-honored boundaries in a way that redefines its identity and what it means to be a member of it. The process of deciding where to go and how to get there is exhausting and frustrating for those who are inclined to get it over with. It requires far more listening than talking. It is messy because it must take into account experiments and challenges to established authority like Paul’s mission to the gentiles or the ordination of eleven women to the priesthood without permission or precedent nearly 30 years ago. It must also take into account the fear and anger generated by such experiments. Discernment has to try to do all these things and avoid becoming obstructionism.

Some of the church’s greatest opportunities in the 21^st century will be found in serving persons who, right now, may perceive it as strange and foreign territory – a place where they do not belong - not unlike Paul’s gentile converts. In those situations, it will be important for us to keep our boundaries open and fluid – to feel confident enough in God’s love that we are able to reach out fearlessly in generosity and hope. In his speech to the general synod, Archbishop Welby challenged the church to find a way to move forward saying “there is here assembled, in weakness or confidence, in all sorts of fear and lack of trust, people with the faith and wisdom who in grace will seek the way to the greater glory of God.”

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

2 Samuel 11.26-12.10, 13-15

Psalm 32

Galatians 2.15-21

Luke 7:36-8.3

            If you read your way through the Old Testament you’ll see the evolution of the motif of prophet and king that we find in today’s lesson from the book of Second Samuel. What eventually becomes the nation of Israel begins with a covenant between God and an elderly, childless man and his wife, Abraham and Sarah.  God’s part of the promise is that their children and their heirs will become as numerous as grains of sand on the earth. Eventually it all comes about as God promises. This people of God work their way through a few nomadic generations, acquiring the name Israel along the way. Their leaders are appointed by God, often through odd turns of events and their organization is tribal. Eventually famine drives them into Egypt, where Joseph, having been sold by his brothers as a slave, has risen to power as an advisor to Pharaoh. He brings his own family to settle in Egypt where they survive the famine. A generation later, they and all the Israelites become enslaved. Another great prophetic leader emerges, also through a remarkable turn of events. Through his mother’s effort to save his life, Moses becomes the ward of Pharaoh’s daughter.  God calls him to lead his people out of slavery. They escape from Egypt and wander in the desert for another generation or two until God’s promise to Moses is realized. It is of the order of the promise made to Abraham. Israel is finally to have a land of its own, no longer to wander, but to be identified with a particular place. Moses sees the land from a distance, but he dies before the people enter into it. That is another early hint of a central divergence of roles that is more fully expressed in the encounter between David and Nathan.

          Israel lives on and rubs elbows with its neighbors. A difference of opinion emerges. Some of the people begin to think that Israel needs a king. Other nations have kings. They are powerful, purposeful and clearly directed. Others disagree. God is meant to be Israel’s king. Only if that is true, will its people maintain the faith that has brought them this far. It might seem that the conflict has been resolved when God calls Saul to be Israel’s first king and he is ceremonially inducted into that office by the prophet Samuel.  But Saul’s reign comes to a disastrous end in a battle against the Philistines. He and his three sons are killed. His son in law David eventually inherits his throne. David’s genius for the role of king is legendary. If anyone might have set aside Israel’s ambivalence about the idea of monarchy, surely he is the one who could do it. But it persists throughout the Old Testament in repeated encounters in which the prophet calls the king to account. Today we hear one of the most famous of those interactions.

          You know the story of David and Bathsheba. He sees her from a distance, admires her beauty and wants her as his wife. Her husband, Uriah, is an officer in the army. David arranges for him to be killed in battle and takes Bathsheba, now a widow, as his own wife, apparently having no sense of the harm that he has done. This is the literature of the ancient world, so Bathsheba is portrayed as property, albeit, highly valued property, of both of the two men who have claimed her.  And the harm done is described entirely in terms of its impact on Uriah. What Bathsheba might want or care about is not relevant. Nathan tells David the story of the wrong he has done in allegorical form. David readily understands the injustice and immediately passes harsh judgment on the one who has done wrong. Nathan springs the trap on him and David realizes with great remorse what a terrible thing he has done. Nathan assures David that God has forgiven him, but his punishment will be harsh. His own child, the son of Bathsheba will die, and he will never be free of the threat and reality of warfare.

          The tension between prophet and king lives on, well past the lifetime of David. It is a constant in the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. We see it throughout history, at least in the west. Among its clearest manifestations in the modern era are the movement to abolish enslavement and slave trafficking in the British Empire and the United States and in the civil rights movement a century later. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King Jr.and many others are its prophets.

          The tradition of prophetic witness has never been entirely absent from the church. Its full expression ebbs and flows with history. The relationship between church and government in various times and places has had an impact on the tension between those two roles as well. In the United States, where clear and specific legal lines are drawn between them, the relationship still exists in the political and social realm. In the 19^th century, some Christians justified the enslavement of human beings with reference to Paul’s letters and other biblical texts as passionately as their brothers and sisters in Christ opposed slavery. Throughout the 20^th century religion had a part in justifying warfare and religious affiliation was a factor in the election of candidates for office. The alignment of religion and politics has grown over the last three decades, so much so, that religion’s political overtones are one of the primary reasons given by persons who claim no religious affiliation for having made that choice.

          Episcopal Churches are note likely to invite candidates for office in to preach on Sunday mornings. As a group we tend to value and respect a distinct line drawn between religion and government. Our church does see a clear role for religion in the formation of public policy and its inspiration is the same tension between king and prophet that underlies this encounter between David and Nathan. Sometimes the prophet must stand in opposition to the desires of the one who holds authority. Traditionally that authority resides in government, but in the 21^st century, increasingly government is in the hands of those who hold economic power. Regardless of the circumstances, at different times, in different ways, we are all called upon to stand in that prophetic role.

          In the last year or two at St. Mary’s the Vestry has made an intentional choice to keep Sunday worship as a time of prayer. I don’t believe that has had a negative impact on our ability as a community to act prophetically. On some issues, prophetic witness is so deeply engrained in the fabric of this congregation that we almost don’t need to talk about it. But that is not true of everything. On more than one occasion we have offered opportunities to learn about ballot issues with moral and social justice implications or to sign a petition during coffee hour. What is important to understand is that in offering that opportunity, or in taking a public stand on an issue, the church is not simply entering into the political realm because a particular priest or parishioner has an opinion on an issue. Rather, the church is taking on the role of prophet – offering moral commentary on the world we live in based on the Christian principles of love and justice. To act in that role is a call from God as old as our ancestors in the faith.

          Today we will be sending forth one of our own members who has heard a prophetic call. Lydia Nebel has been involved for some time in the movement to end human trafficking. She will be leaving us after this week for a three-month residence in Amsterdam to do that very important work. We will offer prayers for her later this morning. Our admiration for Lydia’s effort and commitment  should not overshadow the reality that God will call us all, in some way, to embody the same wisdom and courage that she and all the others who have gone before her, show to us.

Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8 
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15

This morning we will welcome Jack Antonios Chamberlain into the community of Jesus’ followers.  Jack’s mother, Juliaette, has worshiped at St. Mary’s for nine or ten years.  When I first came here, nearly eight years ago, she was Juliaette Lamond, and we would see here occasionally at the 8:00 Eucharist.  Her job had taken her to England, but she returned to Kansas City occasionally to check in with her company and when she was here, she came to St. Mary’s.  A year or two later, Juliaette returned from England and made her home in Kansas City.  She brought three people to church with her on Easter Sunday:  her aunt Angie Stanland, who is now our Sr. Warden, her uncle Cy Stanland and her beau Jerry Chamberlain.  Not long after that, Jerry and Juliaette were engaged.  They married a little over five years ago.  I traveled to Virginia to help officiate at their wedding.  Juliaette’s grandmother, whose name was Juliaette Kerhulas, was living in Kansas City by then and worshiping at St. Mary’s.  Her health prevented her from traveling to the wedding.  A month or two after the ceremony in Virginia, Jerry and Juliaette renewed their vows at St. Mary’s with family members, so that Mrs. Kerhulas could have a part in the celebration of their marriage.  By then, Cy and Angie were parishioners.   The following spring, Cy and Angie, Jerry and Juliaette and their family and Kansas City friends gathered here for a memorial service for Mrs. Kerhulas.    

Later that year St. Mary’s had two couples within the parish who were expecting babies.   One of those children was William, Jack’s older brother.  The parish organized a baby shower after the Sunday Eucharist.  Around that same time, Jerry and Juliaette were notified of a job opportunity for him that they could not pass up.  We said goodbye to them in mid-August as they headed for Wisconsin, where William was born only a few weeks after their arrival.  Two years ago Easter, they came back to Kansas City for a visit with six month old William, and we celebrated his baptism.  His brother Jack, whose baptism we celebrate today, was born a little over a year ago.  Last fall Jerry and Juliaette and their boys moved back to Missouri.   Another job opportunity has brought them to Springfield.  Distance keeps us from seeing them as often as we would like, but they are with us today, to celebrate another important moment in their family’s life.

In a few minutes Jack will become the world’s newest Christian with the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  It is fitting that we celebrate this central rite of Christian initiation on the feast of Trinity Sunday.

The church’s teaching on the Trinity and its three persons was intended to resolve conflict and unify belief.  It grew out of two of the great councils of the church – meetings that gathered together bishops from all over the world.  One was the council of Nicaea in the year 325 and the other the Council of Constantinople 56 years thereafter.  The two councils affirmed three things: 

§  the essential unity of God

§  the complete humanity and essential divinity of Jesus

§  the essential divinity of the Spirit

          The Trinity – as three distinct and equal persons who cannot be divided from one another – is not mentioned in the Bible, but scripture had an important part in formulating this Christian expression of God.   It comes to us from a time and place where the language and conceptual framework are far removed from anything that ordinary people have been familiar with for hundreds of years.  As a result, there are centuries’ worth of everyday analogies and illustrations of the Trinity.  Among those are an orange – the peel, the fruit and the seeds; an egg – the white, the yolk and the shell; and the famous one attributed to St. Patrick – the shamrock – three leaves growing together in the same plant.  Should you be inclined, google search can find you a hundred more. 

One thing that the Trinity says to us is that God is about relationship.  Within God there are three persons who exist in a perfectly balanced relationship that will never end.  Our relationships are not so perfect, but the Trinity is our ideal.  We Christians who understand God as Trinity exist in community.  No matter where we are, no matter what our manner of life, we are united by our baptism in the name of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  With great joy, we come together today to bring a new member into that community.

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 16:16-34
Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

         

The location of my home often gives me reason to drive through the Plaza at least once a day.  On Saturday evenings in the spring and summer, it’s not uncommon to see a street corner preacher at one of the busier intersections.  There was one last night who I saw down at the west end near the Unity and Christian Science churches when I left to do the grocery shopping.  By the time I got home, he had moved a couple of blocks down the street where the crowd was larger.

          His message was predictable for a street corner preacher – that Christianity is the only way to a relationship with God.  While I was stopped at a red light he worked his way through all of the other religions one might choose and why they were inferior.  Then he started in on the part about what was going to happen if you didn’t have a relationship with God.  I have no personal experience with that variety of Christianity, but I’ve been told the people who offer that message to others – be Christian or suffer eternal torment – truly believe that they are doing the world.  They believe that they are rescuing their friends, neighbors and complete strangers on the Plaza from what could be terrible harm.  I’m willing to acknowledge the depth of their commitment and the sincerity of their belief.  But their message is off the mark.

          On this last Sunday before Pentecost we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension.  The actual feast day was last Thursday.  Churches with weekday services observe it on the actual day and a handful with large congregations may have special services, but for the most part we celebrate what has come to be known as Ascension Sunday.  The gospel stories about Jesus’ ascension are in Luke and Mark.  They are rather vague descriptions of Jesus gathering with his disciples, giving them a charge and a blessing, and withdrawing away from them until he is out of their sight.  Through the years artists have worked with this verbal imagery to bring it into the tangible realm.  We have an ascension window at St. Mary’s – one of the oldest in the building on the lower west wall of the nave.  Its point of view doesn’t include a lot of context.  Other depictions of Jesus’ ascension –paintings or stained glass windows - show the disciples looking upward in fascination at a pair of feet that appear just inside the upper border of the images.   The idea is strange to us.  Whatever we may gain from enjoying its literal interpretation through art, forcing our minds to believe it actually happened that way is superfluous.

          What we can do is try to understand what this story could mean for us as Jesus’ followers, many centuries after the events described in the gospels.  I think we’re on the mark if we understand it as a way in which Jesus entrusts his mission and ministry to his followers.  He remains with us in spirit and by example, but we are now his eyes and ears, his hands and feet, his compassion and advocacy in the world.  That suggests that our role and our mission are something very different than threatening people with eternal torment if they don’t believe the same things we do.

          In the gospels Jesus appears to his disciples on a number of occasions after his resurrection.  In those stories he interacts differently with them from the way he does before his crucifixion.  The post-resurrection appearances are brief and intermittent.  The gospels describe his followers as having difficulty recognizing him.  He is different.  Jesus continues to teach his disciples in these appearances but the teachings are directed more toward what they will need to understand for their own future ministries in his name.  He is no longer among them from moment to moment, showing them how to do the work.  He has left them to pick it up and continue on without him.  The story of that ongoing work continues in Acts of the Apostles – the sequel to Luke’s gospel.

          With these stories, Jesus shows the apostles what resurrection is.  As Jews, they would have understood resurrection as an event that encompasses all of the people of God.  It did not occur precisely as they imagined it would, but they are, indeed a part of it.  In some sense, they and we are to be resurrection.  We are to do all that we can to overcome injustice, draw life from death, and forgive and transform the lives of those who do harm, all with God’s help.  Could that be what Jesus’ Ascension is about?  It wouldn’t be about threats of punishment for believing the wrong thing or fantastic story that we gloss over because we have trouble making sense of it.   It would be Jesus entrusting to us his work and telling us to BE resurrection with the sense of his spirit among us.  Who would we be as community and as individuals if we really believed that to be true?

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 16.9-15

Psalm 67

Revelation 21.10,22 – 22.5

John 14.23-29   

I read something the other day written by a man named Doug Sewell in a book called A Way in the Desert.  “Hope and expectation are different.  Expectation wants something to happen in a particular way – usually my way.  It demands and seeks to possess.  It is narrow in its field of vision, like looking down the wrong end of a telescope.  Expectations can end up consuming and possessing us.  Hope, on the other hands, is open-ended and broad in its vision.  It is like looking to the whole horizon – not just to one particular point.  It is flexible and willing to change direction. And finally, hope learns to accept obstacles and move around them.”  I wasn’t able to find much information about the book or the man, but the statement is interesting.  If what is to happen is losing 20 pounds or getting the house clean, we’re not probably not talking about things which fall within the realm of hope.  But there are many times when hope rather than expectation is the real way forward. 

          As we come to the end of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, the gospel lessons turn from stories of Jesus’ presence among his disciples toward the stories of his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  The four gospels are different in the manner that they describe Jesus’ disciples experience of the loss of his presence among them.  None of the gospels gives us much sense of the inner life of the characters they portray – but we are told that the disciples scatter in fear after Jesus’ arrest and that they are amazed and overjoyed to see him in the stories of his post-resurrection appearances.  In today’s gospel text Jesus tries to prepare the disciples for his approaching death and the time that he will no longer be present with them in life, but will be there in spirit.  In this text we hear a very familiar passage “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  It follows shortly after the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet, which we read on Maundy Thursday.

          Sometimes all you can do is wait in hope.  When a change over which you have no control, takes someone or something important from your life, it is tempting to envision precisely what would make things better.  Sometimes that vision is the restoration of what has been lost – the relationship that ended being restored without its old flaws, or the person who is dying being miraculously healed.  That is expectation. If that’s all you have to work with it will end up consuming and possessing you.  Life will continue to disappoint you.  Jesus’ disciples might have heard him speak of the Holy Spirit and complained that it sounded like a pale shadow of the real thing.  Their vision might have been Jesus’ ongoing presence among them – that he would not die.  Eventually all of Jesus’ followers came to understand the spirit as a true presence of him that teaches us that God in Christ is first and foremost about relationship.

          It is not easy to say goodbye or to let go of what we love, but that is what life requires of us.  If we lose nothing else, we all die eventually.  More often, those we love precede us in death, relationships end, work that we have been called to do is completed.  In all of these instances, life poses the question: what comes next?  In these situations, the broad and flexible vision of hope is what God offers – to see all of the possibilities and to remain open to inspiration rather than longing after what has been lost or setting impossible standards for what must be.  Hope allows us to be prepared for what God offers.  It allows us to encounter life free of fear that we will only be disappointed.  It is a certainty that we will sometimes be disappointed.  Things that look promising initially turn out not to be; options that we thought might be open to us turn out to be dead ends; people we depend on turn out not to be dependable.  If hope rather than expectation is the realm in which we live, disappointment is an occasional reality, but not a way of life.

          Hope can sanctify the in-between moments of life – the times when we are waiting for or preparing for what comes next, but haven’t got there yet.  It allows us to experience the presence of the divine in the parts of life that are dull and difficult.  It makes the work of preparation holy – whether that work is study, the creation of a resume or clearing clutter from a home in anticipation of its sale.  Hope offers comfort in times when we are unable to envision what might be the object of expectation.  The loss of a loved one to death is a change sufficiently profound to leave anyone wondering how life can even continue without the one who is gone.  The loss of a stable job in a difficult economy when new jobs are not easily available is something we have all learned to fear over the last five years.  Hope rather than expectation allows us to move in the direction of what is next even when we can’t imagine what it could be.

          Jesus’ followers in our time are most familiar with his presence as spirit in the times when we deliberately open ourselves to it – as we do here – or at times and places when it comes upon us suddenly.  Today’s lesson encourages us to set aside our expectations and be open to that spirit in all times and places.  It encourages us to live in the broad and open-ended vision that hope offers; to see the the whole horizon – not just to one particular point.  

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 11.1-18

Psalm 148

Revelation 21.1-6

John 13.31-35

            Throughout the great 50 days of Easter, the lectionary appoints passages from Acts of the Apostles in place of the usual lessons from the Old Testament.  The intention is to follow the chronology begun during Lent and Holy Week. Gospel stories of Jesus’ journey with the twelve toward Jerusalem and his arrest and death are followed by an account of his resurrection on Easter Sunday.  After that, Acts takes over the continuing narrative and we begin hearing the stories of the work of Jesus’ disciples as they build the church.  In a couple more weeks, as the 50 days of Easter come to an end, we’ll hear accounts of Jesus’ ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit on the feast of Pentecost.  After that we move into what the church calls ordinary time through the summer, but what one of my favorite Christian educators (Jerome Berryman) has named “the great green growing season” because vestments and decorative elements in the church are green.

            As with several of the lessons since Easter, today’s text from Acts deals with the controversy over the position of gentiles in the early church.  The question of whether or not a person was required to be a Jewish convert as a prerequisite for church membership was a hot topic in the church’s early years.  Paul, working in gentile territory to establish new churches says no.  In today’s lesson we see how Peter is moved to change his mind on that issue, as the debate continues on.  In some sense, it was a question of numbers.  If circumcision and adoption of the Jewish dietary laws were to be a requirement for membership in this new community of Jesus’ followers, that community was going to be much smaller than it otherwise would be.  In his letters to the gentile churches he established, we see Paul taking on that question theologically, saying that in Christ we have moved into different spiritual territory where the law no longer is our judge or our guide.  His more traditional colleagues are not so sure, and in today’s lesson they criticize Peter for eating unclean food with unclean people.

            We all know that ultimately, after an extended transition during which the church and synagogue developed into separate and distinct communities,   Paul’s side of the argument prevailed on that question.  That is not to say that divine favor rests upon the church at the expense of the synagogue or to say that Christianity is spiritually or theologically superior to Judaism, but only to say that is how things worked out in the end.

            For the past six months, as marriage equality has gained acceptance among growing numbers of Americans, and another group of states have adopted it as a legal norm, a new buzz phrase has entered the discussion.  Politicians who have been opposed are changing their minds publicly in order to be “on the right side of history” with regard to the issue.  As the Episcopal Church’s teachings about who can be ordained and whose relationships may have the church’s blessing began to change, St. Mary’s did not struggle as much with the transition as some of our sister congregations in the diocese have done.  The situation was more like us waiting “on the right side of history”  for them to catch up so St. Mary’s could offer appropriate pastoral care for our members who had waited long and patiently to receive it.  But these lessons we've heard the last few weeks about the entry of gentiles into the church are useful.  The day may well come when the church is asked to extend the boundaries of fellowship and sacrament beyond the point which even our very welcoming, diverse and culturally flexible congregation is able to stretch easily. 

            Diana Butler Bass writes about the church from an analytical point of view with the perspective of an active church member.  She looks at trends within society and within the church as a sociologist and historian as well as an Episcopalian.  If you have not read her books I encourage you to try one.  Along with other writers within and outside the Episcopal Church her recent work addresses the growing number of Americans – nearly 20 percent now – who do not participate in organized religion.  Many of them engage in regular spiritual practice such as prayer or meditation and many of them admire the charitable work of the church and the sense of community among their members that churches are able to build.  But for whatever reason, they have not found a home within organized religion.  One of the most commonly stated reasons is that religion is overly occupied with rules.

            With that group of people outside our doors, the church stands in a similar position to that of Paul and the other disciples in the church’s earliest years.  During the last century, the institutional character of the church has been ascendant.  We expected people to come to the church, for church membership to be the norm, and for much of that century it was.  But it is not any more.  If the church is to begin growing again, we will be reaching out to people who no longer have any sense of the church’s tradition or teachings beyond the very limited and distorted portrayal they receive from the media or popular culture.  For a congregation that is well grounded in tradition and the sacraments, like St. Mary’s, the day may come when the larger church reaches out in a way that stretches our boundaries beyond what is comfortable.  I don’t have a guess about what the particular issue will be.  What I hope is that these lessons of the great 50 days and the past experience of our parish and its members will move us to approach those challenges with patience, prayer and the desire to maintain community even as we deal with controversy.  The church’s experience is filled with situations in which commitment to doctrine has been allowed to trump community.  People convince themselves that defending the faith – whatever that may mean – is worth the price of spiritual harm and alienation of the faithful from the church, but it is not.  If the last forty years in the Episcopal Church have taught us anything, it should be that.

            Peter is won over to the argument of the gentiles and the rest is history.  Hopefully it continues as the history of a community growing through welcome and inclusion of those who are outside its boundaries.