1 Samuel 17.1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49
Psalm 9.9-20
2 Corinthians 6.1-13
Mark 4.35-41
Today’s lessons made me think about the final episodes of a couple of television series I’ve seen in the last year or two. One was the Sopranos and the other was the new Battlestar Galactica. Most of you know something about the former. For those of you who don’t know about Battlestar Galactica, it’s a tv show that explores, among other things, the question: what if the end of the world ended up being not all that different from everyday life.
We know from all of the commentary that followed upon it that the final episode of the Sopranos had a lot of people looking at the televisions asking “is that it?” The ending pointed two a couple of possibilities, but didn’t tell you which of them actually came about. And one of those possibilities was that life went on for the Soprano family (both immediate and extended) not terribly differently than it had before – dealing with emerging crises, finding new ways to generate income and getting together for dinner on Sunday afternoon. Violence and sorrow struck the family in shocking ways, but you could argue that such things were fairly commonplace for them. There was no great moral reckoning on screen.
The same was true of the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. Crisis was once again upon the crew of the ship and its leaders had to make an agonizing life and death decision, but they had been doing that on a weekly basis, if not more frequently, for several years by the end of the series. When Nelson and I came to the end of the final episode, I turned to him and said “is that it?”
We like a hollywood ending. We’re probably accustomed by now to it being something other than “they all lived happily ever after” but we like some closure at the end of a story. But the truth is, in real life, closure is elusive and the hunt for it is frequently futile if not tragic.
The story of David and Goliath does have that Hollywood ending. God vindicates the underdog Israelites. The boy David defeats goliath in an unconventional way, against all the odds and then goes on to become the greatest of all their kings. There are stories like that in the New Testament also – Jesus is preaching outside a town, the crowd becomes hungry and nobody has any food, but they are fed from a few loaves of bread and a few fish.
But much of the time, the Bible is a lot like real life. Look at today’s epistle and gospel lessons. The Corinthians are still squabbling, despite Paul’s best efforts, so he tries again – tells them how much trouble he has and is willing to endure to persuade them to live in peaceful community. He pleads with them to open their hearts.
In the gospel lesson, Jesus’ disciples are flying off the handle again. Their boat is caught in a storm and this crew of professional fishermen wake up the building tradesman turned itinerant preacher to ask him what they should do. He calms things down, literally, and urges them to put aside their fears and live in faith.
It would be possible to say that the overarching theme of these stories is that God is on our side. The description of David’s triumph over Goliath certainly seems to have been interpreted in that way, and Paul all but says as much to the Corinthians. I am reluctant to claim God’s partisanship for a whole variety of reasons. There are plenty of Christians who disagree with that position and plenty of them are far more famous and brilliant than I am. They may turn out to be right and you may agree with them. What I do believe is that God is love and our best expression of that love is life lived in relationship to others with a commitment to share the divine love that we have experienced.
The David and Goliath story does have that final sense of moral vindication – the segment from 2nd Corinthians leaves us hanging. And, even if the storm does subside, giving Jesus’ disciples a relative sense of security, they are all still out there on the water at night headed for their next challenge, moving, inexorably toward his death and the time when they will be on their own to continue his work.
In our lives, moral vindication is incremental. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work toward the realization of our ideals, but it’s good reason to be cautious about believing that some kind of ultimate moral vindication is an all or nothing proposition – a war to be won at any cost. George Tiller’s death did not end the occurrence of genetic abnormalities or horrific instances of abuse that motivate women and girls to consider whether or not it is best to terminate a pregnancy. The fracture of the Anglican Communion hasn’t put an end to the circumstances that motivated it. Life will go on, people will have differing opinions, sometimes they will behave badly, terrible things will happen, some of them completely beyond our control.
The lessons of the gospel teach us how to live with each other during those times in between those fleeting but satisfying moments of moral vindication and relative security. We are encouraged to speak the truth in love, with perseverance and courage. We are taught to respond to human need, to be honest about our limitations but to be generous in the face of them. We are encouraged to open our hearts, even when doing so poses a challenge to our principles. Our options will rarely offer us a clear-cut, morally perfect solution. In this life we will always face risk and struggle, compromise and the tendency to error with all of its consequences.
But we can still create communities that are characterized by faith and courage; we can still offer open our hearts to those who would enter into our community of believers; we can still step into that boat and go out on to the water at night, braving the storm and moving toward the next challenge. Once in a while, David will defeat Goliath; once in a while a great leader will bring about a change that makes us believe that we will never again have anything to fear. In the times between those moments of great inspiration, we continue to learn how to live faithfully and well.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Corpus Christi
Deuteronomy 8.2-3
1 Corinthians 10.1-4,16-17
John 6.47-58
The feast of Corpus Christi – the body and blood of Christ, has its origins in 13th century Belgium. It began as a local festival in the diocese of Liege, at the suggestion of a young woman named Juliana, who later became a saint. A few years later, the scope of the celebration was enlarged to encompass the entire western church. The original day selected was the Thursday following the conclusion of the great 50 days of Easter. Thursday was chosen because it harks back to the liturgy of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week and its story of the institution of the Eucharist. A wordsmith no less prominent than Thomas Aquinas himself was appointed to create the official prayers of the feast. They have been set to music and appear in our hymnal. We sing them on Maundy Thursday and at benediction of the Blessed Sacrament which will follow the conclusion of our Eucharistic celebration this morning.
As frequently happens, the iconic representation of the feast of Corpus Christi becomes the ceremony surrounding it, rather than what it represents. It became the tradition to process with the consecrated bread of the Eucharist through the neighborhood surrounding the church. The trappings of the procession became increasingly elaborate and took on greater and greater emphasis and attention – canopies, gold and bejeweled monstrances, elaborate orders of march with dozens of persons. The means by which respect and honor were shown the consecrated elements of the Eucharist became the focus of attention and the representative image of the festival. You might argue, though, that the truth was ultimately told in these elaborate processions – the church, the body of Christ gathered together in celebration and mission, was present to the world outside the church’s walls in those elaborate processions.
The Eucharistic teaching of the Episcopal Church is that the real presence of Christ is in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. Unlike some of our sister traditions, such as the Roman Catholic and Lutheran, we don’t have an official teaching about how that takes place. As persons of the Anglican persuasion we are at liberty to believe in a doctrine of transubstantiation or consubstantiation if we choose to do so, but we are also free to regard the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a mystery that we need not nor cannot explain. What we all know it to be is the gift of the whole person of the risen Christ in whom we dwell and who indwells us when we receive communion. It is why we treat the consecrated bread and wine with particular respect and why we hold it in reverence regardless of the place in which it is received and consecrated – be it one of the altars of this church, a hospital room or a prison cell. It is why we do not make a required age, membership in our tradition or the ability to form an intellectual understanding of the Eucharist barriers to participation. We invite all the baptized to gather around Christ’s table.
The tradition of going forth from the church with the elements of the Eucharist is a reminder that Christ’s real presence among us is more than a focus for our gathering – it is a command to go forth into the world with mission and purpose. In doing so we take with us the whole person of the risen Christ who receives the work of our hands, minds and hearts, our triumps and failures, our joy and pain, our understanding, confusion and doubt into himself, making us one body and one spirit.
1 Corinthians 10.1-4,16-17
John 6.47-58
The feast of Corpus Christi – the body and blood of Christ, has its origins in 13th century Belgium. It began as a local festival in the diocese of Liege, at the suggestion of a young woman named Juliana, who later became a saint. A few years later, the scope of the celebration was enlarged to encompass the entire western church. The original day selected was the Thursday following the conclusion of the great 50 days of Easter. Thursday was chosen because it harks back to the liturgy of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week and its story of the institution of the Eucharist. A wordsmith no less prominent than Thomas Aquinas himself was appointed to create the official prayers of the feast. They have been set to music and appear in our hymnal. We sing them on Maundy Thursday and at benediction of the Blessed Sacrament which will follow the conclusion of our Eucharistic celebration this morning.
As frequently happens, the iconic representation of the feast of Corpus Christi becomes the ceremony surrounding it, rather than what it represents. It became the tradition to process with the consecrated bread of the Eucharist through the neighborhood surrounding the church. The trappings of the procession became increasingly elaborate and took on greater and greater emphasis and attention – canopies, gold and bejeweled monstrances, elaborate orders of march with dozens of persons. The means by which respect and honor were shown the consecrated elements of the Eucharist became the focus of attention and the representative image of the festival. You might argue, though, that the truth was ultimately told in these elaborate processions – the church, the body of Christ gathered together in celebration and mission, was present to the world outside the church’s walls in those elaborate processions.
The Eucharistic teaching of the Episcopal Church is that the real presence of Christ is in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. Unlike some of our sister traditions, such as the Roman Catholic and Lutheran, we don’t have an official teaching about how that takes place. As persons of the Anglican persuasion we are at liberty to believe in a doctrine of transubstantiation or consubstantiation if we choose to do so, but we are also free to regard the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a mystery that we need not nor cannot explain. What we all know it to be is the gift of the whole person of the risen Christ in whom we dwell and who indwells us when we receive communion. It is why we treat the consecrated bread and wine with particular respect and why we hold it in reverence regardless of the place in which it is received and consecrated – be it one of the altars of this church, a hospital room or a prison cell. It is why we do not make a required age, membership in our tradition or the ability to form an intellectual understanding of the Eucharist barriers to participation. We invite all the baptized to gather around Christ’s table.
The tradition of going forth from the church with the elements of the Eucharist is a reminder that Christ’s real presence among us is more than a focus for our gathering – it is a command to go forth into the world with mission and purpose. In doing so we take with us the whole person of the risen Christ who receives the work of our hands, minds and hearts, our triumps and failures, our joy and pain, our understanding, confusion and doubt into himself, making us one body and one spirit.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29 or Canticle 2 or 13
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
If you go looking for the word “trinity” in the Bible, you’ll never find it. You’ll find the names of the three persons of the trinity, but the way they fit together took some centuries to work out. And even after it became official, people still argued about it. Many would say that it is what makes Christianity distinct from the world’s other major religions. Judaism and Islam interpret monotheism in a manner that excludes the possibility of a triune God. The polytheistic religions understand their various deities as distinct and separate from one another. Still other religions do not personify the divine. We know God as three persons, father, son and spirit, of the same substance undivided. it has been argued that this description make much more sense in the third and fourth centuries when the categories and definitions of greek philosophy were more familiar to Christians. Regardless of how well any of us can articulate it, early in the 14th century, John XXII, who was the bishop of Rome at that time, declared that a feast of the holy trinity would take place on the Sunday after Pentecost in the western church.
The idea is that Trinity Sunday is the punctuating mark, or the line drawn under all that we have learned and experienced about the persons of the trinity from the first Sunday of Advent through Pentecost. Consider the advent prophesies of the coming of the messiah; the stories of Jesus’ birth and the prologue of John’s gospel during Christmas; they are followed by the gospel lessons describing Jesus’ ministry, his arrest, trial, and death and the celebration of the resurrection at Easter. Those stories continue through Easter season, which culminates with the story of the ascension, followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The feast of the trinity weaves all of those stories together and presents us with a doctrine that presents three essential aspects of our faith: that which is ultimate – the father, a material manifestation of the ultimate, the son and that which makes them known to the faithful and the seeker, the spirit.
The trinity is a source of dynamism for our beliefs. It is the engine and the fuel that allows our faith to be a journey rather than a stopping place. We know God the father as our beginning and ending, where we live and move and have our being. Our experience of our own humanity is both shared and perfected in the person of Jesus. Our faith is made new in the work of the spirit who unites us with all those who in every age have been and will be the community of Jesus’ followers. Whether or not we can readily articulate or understand a doctrine of the trinity in the categories of fourth century greek philosophy or the language of the Nicene Creed, we know it is there shaping and teaching us from one day to the next. It is a reminder that what we believe is not trapped within the realm of imagination, but can be made real with God’s help. Today as we celebrate this feast of the Holy Trinity let us give thanks for a faith that is rooted in the divine, before us in daily living and made real and alive in the relationships and communities in which we share it.
Psalm 29 or Canticle 2 or 13
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
If you go looking for the word “trinity” in the Bible, you’ll never find it. You’ll find the names of the three persons of the trinity, but the way they fit together took some centuries to work out. And even after it became official, people still argued about it. Many would say that it is what makes Christianity distinct from the world’s other major religions. Judaism and Islam interpret monotheism in a manner that excludes the possibility of a triune God. The polytheistic religions understand their various deities as distinct and separate from one another. Still other religions do not personify the divine. We know God as three persons, father, son and spirit, of the same substance undivided. it has been argued that this description make much more sense in the third and fourth centuries when the categories and definitions of greek philosophy were more familiar to Christians. Regardless of how well any of us can articulate it, early in the 14th century, John XXII, who was the bishop of Rome at that time, declared that a feast of the holy trinity would take place on the Sunday after Pentecost in the western church.
The idea is that Trinity Sunday is the punctuating mark, or the line drawn under all that we have learned and experienced about the persons of the trinity from the first Sunday of Advent through Pentecost. Consider the advent prophesies of the coming of the messiah; the stories of Jesus’ birth and the prologue of John’s gospel during Christmas; they are followed by the gospel lessons describing Jesus’ ministry, his arrest, trial, and death and the celebration of the resurrection at Easter. Those stories continue through Easter season, which culminates with the story of the ascension, followed by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The feast of the trinity weaves all of those stories together and presents us with a doctrine that presents three essential aspects of our faith: that which is ultimate – the father, a material manifestation of the ultimate, the son and that which makes them known to the faithful and the seeker, the spirit.
The trinity is a source of dynamism for our beliefs. It is the engine and the fuel that allows our faith to be a journey rather than a stopping place. We know God the father as our beginning and ending, where we live and move and have our being. Our experience of our own humanity is both shared and perfected in the person of Jesus. Our faith is made new in the work of the spirit who unites us with all those who in every age have been and will be the community of Jesus’ followers. Whether or not we can readily articulate or understand a doctrine of the trinity in the categories of fourth century greek philosophy or the language of the Nicene Creed, we know it is there shaping and teaching us from one day to the next. It is a reminder that what we believe is not trapped within the realm of imagination, but can be made real with God’s help. Today as we celebrate this feast of the Holy Trinity let us give thanks for a faith that is rooted in the divine, before us in daily living and made real and alive in the relationships and communities in which we share it.
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