Tuesday, May 7, 2013

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.