St Mary the Virgin (8/15/10)

Since the feast falls on a Sunday this year, we chose to avail ourselves of the Prayer Book rubrics that allow use of its collect and readings, without technically supplanting the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost. The principal liturgy was observed according to the customary of this parish for major feasts.

When the Virgin Mary made a journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth while both women were pregnant—Elizabeth with John the Baptist, and Mary, of course, with Our Lord—Mary is reported by St Luke’s gospel as having broken out into an extended canticle of praise, during which she exclaims,  “All generations will call me blessed.”

All generations will call me blessed.

Those who pray the Daily Office, Evening Prayer in particular, repeat these words from Mary’s Song daily.

All generations will call me blessed.

These words have at times been controversial. For about the last four and a half centuries, Protestant Christians have tended to think that Catholic Christians take them a little too seriously, and pay too much attention to the mother of Jesus. Catholics have tended to think that Protestants don’t take these words from scripture seriously at all, and pretty much ignore Mary altogether.  Among others, the notion of every generation calling Mary blessed has been given lip service, but without any concrete follow-up behavior. I have to say, this is kind of an Anglican thing. We say or sing the Magnificat—the Song of Mary—every time we offer Evening Prayer. But in most Anglican communities, that’s pretty much it.  

All generations will call me blessed.

What does it look like for any given generation to call Mary blessed? Devotion to the mother of Jesus arose fairly early in the history of Christianity. There’s a legend—not reported in scripture and not particularly supported by any outside historical sources, but an enduring tradition nonetheless—that Mary never experienced physical death, but was assumed bodily into heaven, after living for some time in the city of Ephesus, surrounded by all the apostles. In western Catholicism, this event is known as the Assumption of Our Lady. In the Eastern tradition, it is referred to as the Dormition—literally, the “falling asleep”—of the “God-bearer.”  The Greek word for “God bearer”—theotokos—is extremely important in Christian history. It’s an affirmation of the Nicene Creed, which teaches that Jesus is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God, of one being with the Father.” As incredible as it may sound, the child to whom Mary gave birth is … God; hence, it is appropriate to speak of Mary as the Theotokos, the God-bearer. It may be somewhat unfortunate that theotokos got translated into Latin as mater dei, which means, literally, “mother of God.” This expression has caused confusion and conflict because it seems to say that Mary pre-existed God, which is obviously ridiculous. In actuality, however, it’s an affirmation about Jesus more than it is about Mary.

In the Middle Ages in Europe, life was harsh and difficult for most people.  In that atmosphere of constant danger and despair, people began to develop a style of  Christian devotion that saw Mary as “Mom,” and as we all remember from our experience of being children, and perhaps raising children, Mom is more likely to respond to our concerns with understanding and gentleness than “Dad” typically is. So they started to frequently voice their petitions to Mary. To most of the Protestant reformers, this sounded like idolatry, like it was putting Mary on the same level as God, a sort of “fourth person of the Trinity.” So they overreacted, and expunged Mary from any place in either public worship or private devotion. Of course, all along, we see the Blessed Mother appear in great works of art—paintings, statues, poems, songs—both before and after the Reformation.

But is any of this “cal[ling Mary] blessed?”

All generations will call me blessed.

Devotion to Mary can certainly be overblown. There’s story about Jesus walking into St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. In one of the side chapels there was the proverbial “little old lady” on her knees in the front pew praying the rosary. Jesus tried several times to get her attention, but without any success. Nonetheless, he persisted.  Finally, the lady turns around and looks at him in irritation and says, “Can’t you see I’m talking to your mother?”  Yet, I would say, the tradition of Marian devotion and piety is overwhelmingly good. And Anglicans, by and large, are certainly not in any danger of overdoing it.

All generations will call me blessed.

If we look at the context of where the phrase comes from—that is, from the Magnificat—we are left with a much different notion of what calling Mary “blessed” might look like. The Song of Mary is an intensely political text, and it’s all about reversal—reversal of fortunes, reversal of expectations.

If you’re familiar with the major stories of the Old Testament—and we might presume that Mary was herself—you can’t help but notice a striking resemblance between the Magnificat and another song offered by a woman who became a mother under strange circumstances—Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel. Both her song and Mary’s talk about the expected winners turning out to be losers, and the expected losers turning out to be winners. The proud are scattered and the mighty are cast down, but the lowly are lifted up. The rich are sent away empty, but the hungry are filled.

You and I tend to interpret reversals like these through a particular cultural lens. About a hundred years ago, when silent movies were packing people into theaters, there was a sort of melodramatic formula that told the same story a hundred different ways: A poor widow is being hounded by evil villains wearing black hats. They tie her to a railroad track in the hope of causing her certain death. The train approaches and poor widow struggles to get free. Finally, the good guys, wearing white hats, ride their white horses into the scene. They free her from the tracks at the very last moment before the train comes barreling through, and then chase down the bad guys and give them what they so richly deserve while the movie audience cheers. Come to think of it, a number of contemporary movies and TV shows follow that same formula, don’t they?  

But, by interpreting the reversals of the Magnificat through the lens of a silent film melodrama, we deprive ourselves of its true impact.  In the time of Mary, wealth and power were seen as presumptive signs of God’s blessing on righteous living. If somebody was rich, it was because God had rewarded them for living right. Poverty and weakness were seen as presumptive signs of moral inferiority. If someone was poor, it was because they deserved to be poor. They were nasty people. So, for God to favor the poor and weak at the expense of the rich and powerful is an astonishing reversal of expectations. It was like saying Democrats favor giant corporations over labor unions, or Republicans favor government programs over private enterprise.

But the point is not a merely moralistic—“God loves the poor and we should too”—as true as that may be. It’s more radical than that. The point is this: God’s modus operandi, God’s default way of doing business, in any given situation, probably runs counter to our expectations.  We may as well assume that whatever God does, it’s going to surprise us in a way that we can’t anticipate, and that will seem illogical or foolish, something we would never have advised Him to do!

In the second part of C.S. Lewis’s adult science fiction trilogy, a novel called Perelandra, most of the action takes place on floating islands. There was dry land on the planet, and the island dwellers could visit dry land during the day, but they could never spend the night there. Life on the islands was challenging, because they were floating, The action of waves in the water was transferred to the surface of the island. The ground was always sifting under their feed. So the island dwellers of Perelandra had to learn to let go of any need to control their environment. They had to learn to literally “go with the flow.”  This is a wonderful image for our relationship with the Son of Mary, the one who was born of her as God. It describes, in fact, the way in which we continue to call her blessed in our own generation. It is by learning to go with the “flow” of God’s wild and untamed grace—grace that turns up in unexpected ways and unexpected places. We call Mary “blessed” when we understand that the gospel of her Son is likely to upend some of our conventional expectations.

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Amen.

C: Proper 14

  Luke 12:32-40                            

Genesis 15:1-6

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

Whenever the summer Olympic Games roll around every four years, one of the events that I always find a joy to watch is diving—both men’s and women’s, both springboard and platform. Sometimes, though, I have to say, I’d rather watch the diving competition with the sound turned down. I find that my enjoyment of the event is diminished by the non-stop commentary of the announcers, who are usually retired divers themselves.

Before each dive, they describe in detail what it’s going to consist of, and how difficult it’s considered, etc, etc. And immediately after each dive, before the diver is even out of the water, they analyze and critique it, telling us precisely what was done well and what was done poorly, what worked and what failed. 

I have a confession to make.

Unless they belly-flop, or hit the platform on the way down they all look the same to me!  They’re all beautiful to me.  They all leave me breathless with awe at what a human body can be made to do.  But it is next to impossible for me to distinguish the stupendous 9.9s from the not-so-stupendous 6.9s.  I simply don’t have the eyes to see the difference. 

Eyes to see. 

A hard-driving business executive suffers chest pains, and wonders whether this is indeed “the big one”.  He rushes off to the doctor, but tests reveal that it’s not a heart attack, but a pre-ulcerous condition that can be best treated by altering his stress-filled work-addicted lifestyle.  The man takes this as a warning that could spare him a more serious problem in the future.  Is it happy coincidence, or something more? 

Eyes to see. 

The security of a marriage is threatened by the “seven-year itch”, and the wandering eyes and wandering fantasies that go along with it. But one of the partners is offered an attractive job in another part of the country, and they decide to accept it and relocate. 

Once they’re removed from the immediate sources of temptation, they realize how close they came to disaster, and they resolve to devote renewed enthusiasm to their relationship.  Is it a happy co-incidence, or something more? 

Eyes to see.

A depressed teenager swallows a dose of sleeping pills that should have been more than enough to complete her suicidal intentions, but through some inexplicable fluke of body chemistry, it isn’t, and she’s found, and revived, and gets the help she needs.  Is it a happy coincidence, or something more? 

Eyes to see. 

I’m sure that if you and I were to sit down and share the memories of our lives and the lives of those we have loved, we could come up with countless other examples of just being at the right place at the right time, or with the right person, situations where the same question could be asked: Is it a happy coincidence, or something more? 

Eyes to see. 

In the time just before everything began to happen on a computer, there was a training technique that tested the learner on the content of the text even in the course of reading it.  This was done through the strategic placement of blanks in the narrative, blanks which the reader should be able to mentally fill-in if he or she has been paying attention.  On one margin of the page was a column that, to the naked eye, looked like a jumble of nonsense characters printed in red ink.  But if the reader comes across a blank in the text for which the missing word doesn’t come readily to mind, he or she could take a piece of red-tinted transparent plastic and place it over the column of nonsense characters.  In the margin, next to the mysterious blank, the correct answer shows through.  The red plastic filtered out the nonsense, providing the “eyes” necessary to see the hidden answer. They provided a way of seeing that which would otherwise be invisible. 

Eyes to see. 

For Christians, they eyes with which we are invited to see are the eyes of faith. 

Faith. 

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us this morning that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  The difference between providence and coincidence is faith.  Faith is a way of seeing, a quality of vision that looks at a happy co-incidence of circumstances, but sees—do you understand the difference between looking and seeing?—sees God actively present in our lives. 

Throughout human history, women and men and children have had such faith, such a way of seeing.  Abraham and Sarah looked at their advancing age—heck, they weren’t advancing in age, they were old—Abraham and Sarah looked at the fact that they were old, but, through the eyes of faith, what they saw was God’s ability to fulfill his promise and bless them with a child, an heir born of their own flesh. 

Abraham and Sarah’s grandson, Jacob, looked at a youth of quarreling with his twin brother, an adulthood of being continually cheated by his uncle, and an old age of being victimized by famine, but through the eyes of faith, what Jacob saw was God beginning to fulfill his promise to make him the father of a great nation, a nation that would bear his own name, the name God had given him: Israel. 

Jacob’s son Joseph looked at his being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, but through the eyes of faith, what he saw was God present with him, even while he languished in a dungeon, preparing the way for him to assume such power in Egypt that he answered only to Pharaoh himself. 

Generations later, the people of Israel looked at themselves wandering in circles through the desert wilderness, but through the eyes of faith (the faith of some of them, at any rate) what they saw was the land flowing with milk and honey which God had promised to lead them to. 

The disciples of Jesus looked at their abandonment of their trades and professions, their only known means of livelihood, in order to follow him, but, through the eyes of faith, they saw the inestimable riches of participating in God’s plan for the salvation of the human race and restoration of the created order. 

Christians today look at the changes and chances of this life.  Seeing through the eyes of faith is what enables us to see the hand of God equally present in both the happy “coincidences” and the painfully tragic moments of our lives.  And we, who live after the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and with two thousand years of collective Christian experience behind us, have a tremendous advantage that our ancestors in faith did not have. We have seen the tangible first fruits of God’s work of redemption.  In the hearing of the word, in the celebration of the sacraments, and in the fellowship of the Christian community, we see this redemption in progress. 

The patriarchs and prophets of the old covenant, as the author of Hebrews tells us, “died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”  You and I, at least, have a clearer and closer vision of our common destination and home than they did. Our eyes of faith enable us to look at personal wealth, and see spiritual danger.  Our eyes of faith enable us to look at human need and suffering, and see an opportunity to serve our Lord Jesus by cultivating the virtues of charity and generosity. 

Our eyes of faith can look at the delay in our Lord’s return and see an opportunity to become more fully prepared to give an accounting, as stewards, for that which has been entrusted to us. And our eyes of faith, a few moments from now, will be able to look at bread and wine, made from wheat and grapes and fashioned by human skill—we’ll be able to look at these ordinary elements and see the broken body and poured out blood of Jesus, through which you and I become once again the Body of Christ—taken, blessed, broken and given for the life of the world. In every Eucharist, we have an opportunity to not merely look, but to really see. Amen.

C: Proper 9

NOTE: Today I preached from a rather sparse outline, never completely fleshed out except orally on the spot. So I can't share an actual text, but here are the notes from which I worked.

Luke 10:1-12, 16-20

A line-by-line look at the gospel reading:

After this [a “mission trip” for the 12]

the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come.

[mission trips, mission statements, mission-driven goals, etc. > the Church is first a worshiping community, but that cannot be divorced from her concurrent identity as a missionary society—this gospel story gives us seven concrete clues about more effective mission work]

And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;

 [Clue #1: Realize the immensity of the harvest. Image: orchard full of ripe fruit (imagine your favorite)—shortage of labor and equipment (ladders)—what to do? Work like mad to gather as much of the low-hanging fruit as you can!  Our environment is full of low-hanging fruit: people who are hungry & curious, people in pain, people in transition, etc.—Some are called to evangelize among Muslims in the Middle East or atheists in university faculties, but most of us are called to pick low-hanging fruit]

pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

[Clue #2: Bathe all missionary activity in prayer. We do pray for the mission of the church, but we can do more (our parish programs, the missionary vision of our diocese [“passion for the gospel…heart for the lost…willingness to do whatever it takes” , international mission)]

Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.  Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house!' And if a son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon him; but if not, it shall return to you.

[Clue #3: Travel light and stay focused. “Onward, Christian soldiers” not often sung these days, but once ubiquitous: a deployed army in combat mode is mobile and responsive and not distracted by secondary concerns. If we see ourselves as a “weekend warrior” reserve unit, we will never be the “mighty army” that the song talks about (and the low-hanging fruit will rot on the ground)]

And remain in the same house, what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages; do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you;

[Clue #4: Create community. In virtually every human culture, the sharing of a meal is more than just eating, more than merely utilitarian; it is an act of hospitality and welcoming, a sign of willingness (even if tentative and with reservations) to make a personal human connection > “com-pan-ion” – There are two ways that the formation of “community” and “companionship” assists with the harvest: 1. the quality of the community and companionship within the Church is a powerful beacon and magnet to others, and 2. our willingness to be “companions” to the “low-hanging fruit” is a big factor in their willingness to part from the tree]

heal the sick in it

[Clue #5: Meet people’s felt needs.  Illus: “Christ is the answer? So what’s the question?” We have to scratch people where they itch, begin with the needs they feel and work from there to the proclamation of the good news of Christ – Soup Kitchen, Mission Trips, Thanksgiving Baskets, Stephen Ministry, Project Refuge, use of Tent Sale proceeds, etc. are good examples of this, but there can be more (Life Groups based on felt needs]

and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'

[Clue #6: Announce the Good News.  Wait for/look for “teachable moments”—usually times of loss and/or life transition (grief, job loss, financial setback, kid problems, graduation, promotion, empty nest, retirement)]

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town. He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." 

[Clue #7: Realize that success will be mixed—persevere.  Jesus encountered lots of apathy and antipathy in response to his ministry. So did the disciples on the mission trip. So did the apostolic church. Why should we be any different? Mission and ministry are heartbreaking; expect it.]

The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" And he said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." 

Great power is available to us. The fruit is hanging low. The Lord of the Harvest calls us. Let’s get to work.

C: Proper 8

   Luke 9:51-62

            I Kings 19:15-16, 19-21

           

We are well into summertime now, and for most middle-class North Americans, one of the rituals of summertime is taking a trip.  Our primeval ancestors were wanderers, nomads, and so there’s something that just appeals to us at a gut level about packing bags and boarding an airplane or a train, or, hitting the open road in the family car. In fact, travelling is so much one our basic instincts, that the notion of a journey has become one of the most powerful and oft-used metaphors in human language. It serves as a symbol for life itself—we speak of the journey from the cradle to the grave. We also use the journey-metaphor for experiences within life: the “journey” from sickness to health, or one’s “trip” through the educational system. St Luke’s gospel makes a special point of drawing our attention to the beginning of the final climactic journey of Jesus’ life, the trip from Galilee, in the north, down to Jerusalem, where he was crucified, buried, and resurrected.  “When the days drew near for Jesus to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

 

And as Jesus travels, on foot, toward Jerusalem, he is not by any means alone. There are those, both his “regular” disciples, and others along the way, who follow him.  “Following Jesus.” This is an expression that we’ve simply adopted into our religious vocabulary, almost to the point of no longer taking notice of what it means. When he walked bodily on earth, those who followed Jesus did so physically, and, in many cases, spiritually as well. And in terms of following Jesus spiritually, our calling and our opportunity is no different than theirs. And following Jesus is not only for the chosen few, the spiritually elite, the really religious.  It is for each and every one of us who has been adopted into the family of God through faith and baptism. 

When Jesus begins his journey to Jerusalem, he sets out through the territory of Samaria.  The Samaritans, you know, were ethnically and religiously related to the Jews, and precisely because of that close relation,  there were sharp differences and hostility between the two groups.  So it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Jesus when the advance scouts that he sent into the next town to make arrangements for food and lodging report that the natives were less than friendly. In fact, it’s safe to say that these disciples are a tad peeved at the reception they’d gotten, because their recommendation to Jesus is that fire be called down from heaven and the town destroyed!  As you might imagine, Jesus not only doesn’t take their advice, but he reprimands them rather sharply.  We don’t have the exact words he used, but, as far as we’re concerned, the point is clear:  Following Jesus cannot be equated with arrogantly thumbing one’s nose at those who don’t.  Christians are not the storm troopers of the kingdom of God! 

So after sparing one Samaritan village a baptism by fire, Jesus and his followers head on down the road to the next village.  Along the way a man comes up to Jesus and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Now this sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?  I mean, to get a volunteer without having to go begging ... that idea warms the heart of anybody involved in church work! But does Jesus say, “Great! Glad to have you aboard —here’s a pledge card”?  No.  He responds rather cryptically: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Jesus had just been refused lodging in a Samaritan town, so his point is well taken!  He wants his would-be follower to realize that there’s a cost involved in following him. Common conceptions of material security—of knowing where our food and shelter is going to come from—need to be surrendered, let go of. 

Now this means different things to different people. We are not all called to take vows of poverty. But we are all called to stewardship—to the realization that we don’t own anything.  We’re caretakers, trustees.  Every breath that we draw is on loan to us from God.  As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we travel light. We’re like military families who realize that, wherever they live, they’re going to yet get moved, and possibly with very little notice. 

A little later, it was Jesus who was doing the asking.  “To another, he said, ‘Follow me’.”  That man wanted to follow Jesus, but there was something he thought he needed to take care of first.  “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” It sounds like Jesus kind of caught him at a bad time.  Pious Jews, you know, always try to bury their dead before sundown on the day they die, and it’s considered a solemn social obligation of surviving family members to see that this is done. So the man was not asking for a great deal of time!  And this makes Jesus’ answer seem all the more ... well, cold, at least, if not actually cruel.  “Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” In high school English, most of us learn about a literary device called hyperbole, intentional exaggeration for the purpose of driving home a point. I think that’s what Jesus is doing here, and the point he’s trying to drive home is this:  No other obligation can be allowed to interfere with following Jesus. As followers of Jesus, we get our identity, our sense of who we are, from following Jesus. Our status in human society—whether it’s educational, financial, cultural, marital, or whatever—is irrelevant in comparison.

The final would-be follower of Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem that Luke tells us about is another volunteer.  “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus’ reply is similar to his previous one:  “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Even as we realize that Jesus is again employing literary hyperbole here, it’s still a hard saying. It seems to strike at the heart of the natural bonds of human affection that are so precious to us. But, again, Jesus wants us to realize the serious nature of what it means to be his disciple, to be his follower on the journey. When you or I go to borrow money to buy a house, the bank will demand a first mortgage on that property. If we default on our payments, the bank with the first mortgage gets to sell the house and pay itself off before any other creditors with liens on it. They have to line up behind the bank. Following Jesus works the same way. If we want to be his follower, we have to give Jesus first claim on our lives. Any other commitments or involvements have to line up behind and be consistent with his prior claim. 

It’s always a great temptation for us to filter out aspects of Jesus’ message and teaching that are difficult or uncomfortable.  After all, there are plenty of alternatives, within what he said and did, that are comforting and uplifting.  But the risk we run, if we yield to that temptation, is that we’ll end up with a tame, bland, gutless religion that goes down smoothly and has no aftertaste, free of any edge or bite, and therefore also free of any truth, reality, or power. Real Christianity, full-bodied Christianity, is bracing and attention-getting.  It’s radical—not radical in the sense of eccentric or crazy—although the world will think of us that way at times—but radical in the literal sense of the word, which means “having to do with the root.” The faith we profess has to do with the core, the center, the root of what it means to exist as a human being. A tree, as we know, is no healthier than its root system. If following Jesus is not at the root of who we are, then we will not be able to stick with him for the whole journey. We won’t make it to Jerusalem. We’ll turn aside to feel superior to those who have chosen not to make the journey with us, or to worry about our status in human society, or to take care of competing, but secondary, obligations, and we’ll find that we’ve lost sight of him as he’s rounded the bend, leaving us in the dust. Make no mistake: Just as there was a cross in Jesus’ future when he set his face to go to Jerusalem, so there is a cross in the future of those who would follow him on his journey. But Jesus himself is with us every step of the way, there’s also a crown on the other side of the cross, and what an adventure it is! I have decided to follow Jesus ... no turning back, no turning back. Amen.

C: Proper 6

Luke 7:36-50

Psalm 32:1-8

In the middle of the gospel account we just read, Jesus tells a brief story. Two guys each owe serious money to a third guy. One of them owes the equivalent of about $4,000 in today’s money. The other one owes ten times that amount—roughly $40,000. Both of the debts were due and payable in full—like a balloon payment. No mention is made of refinancing or lowering the interest rate or anything like that. And neither of the debtors has the available cash to take care of their obligation. Now, in that society, the creditor would have been completely within his rights to have both of the debtors thrown into jail for nonpayment. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he writes off both debts, completely forgiving the entire amount. Remember—one owes $4,000 and the other $40,000. So which one, Jesus asks—which one is going to be more grateful; which debtor is going to feel more warm fuzzies toward the forgiving creditor?

This little parable is, of course, intended to illustrate that God’s forgiveness is abundant and extensive. The more we sin, the more God is able to forgive. There’s no amount of sinning that can outstrip God’s capacity for wiping the slate clean when we own up to our sins and turn away from them and ask him to forgive us. Some of us have a deep and penetrating sense of our own sinfulness, a sense of having let God down in a big way. We can pray with the Psalmist, “My sin is ever before me,” and “my wounds stink and fester by reason of my foolishness”—we can pray those words from the Psalms, and really mean them from the bottom of our hearts. Such persons identify readily with the debtor who was forgiven a debt that equaled more than a year’s wages. Others among us—let’s face it—have consciences that are less tender. We acknowledge the fact of our own sinfulness, but it’s more of an intellectual conviction than something we feel intensely in the gut. We don’t naturally feel guilty; we have to work at it! Such persons may find it easier to identify with the debtor who was forgiven the lesser amount—about six weeks worth of work at ten dollars an hour.

Either way, however—whether we see and feel ourselves as the $4,000 debtor or the $40,000 debtor—either way, the important thing is that we take seriously the magnitude of God’s love for us. This is more difficult than it sounds, because we have no model, no analogy, in our experience of human love that can help us understand God’s love. Human love is imperfect. More often than not, it lets us down. More often than not, it is conditional and limited. We may tell those whom we love otherwise, and we may really mean it when we do so. But we’re fallible, and we can’t always live up to our intentions. In a sort of cruel irony, the more we love somebody, the more likely we are to disappoint them, the more our love is subject to malfunction and failure.

So, it’s easy to imagine that God’s forgiveness is flawed in the same way, that it’s restricted and difficult to attain. After all, the human forgiveness with which we are most familiar is very often whimsical—here today and gone tomorrow and back again the next day. The human forgiveness with which we are most familiar is usually good for a limited number of refills. If we keep on committing the same offense against the same person, even if they forgive us once or twice or three times, eventually they’re going to wise up, or their patience is going to run out, or both. The human forgiveness with which we are most familiar almost always has an exclusion clause —certain offenses are not covered. If you don’t believe me, just watch a few TV interviews with crime victims and their families.

Consequently, since our understanding of love and forgiveness is determined by our experience of human love and forgiveness, and since our vision of God’s love and forgiveness is thereby clouded, our own capacity for love is constricted. Our own ability to both give and receive love is constricted by fear. Our own ability to both give and receive forgiveness is constricted by shame. Of course, fear and shame rarely show up as themselves; they usually appear in the form of selfishness or arrogance, or disguise themselves as prudence and good business sense. But whether we see it as shame and fear, or selfishness and “common sense,” it is a restricted experience of human love that gives us a restricted view of God’s love which causes us to be unable to love and forgive ourselves and others.

So today’s Good News is good news indeed. It’s the clear message that God’s forgiveness is abundant and God’s forgiveness is extensive. God’s forgiveness is not dependent on his mood; it’s grounded in his very nature. God’s forgiveness never runs dry; however much we sin, as long as we repent and return to the Lord, his forgiveness is sufficient to cover our need. And there’s no exclusion clause as far as God’s forgiveness is concerned; whatever we’ve done, it’s forgivable. Whatever we’ve done, it can be expunged from our record. This has got to come as welcome news whether we are among those who feel the full weight of our guilt 24/7, or are among those who have to accept our guilt as a matter of fact, not something we feel deeply.

But there’s more: God’s forgiveness covers not only your sins and my sins, but, as we pray in the liturgy, “the sins of the world.” Jesus is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins the world. God’s forgiveness extends not just to the personal sins of individuals, but to the world’s own cosmic woundedness—the social structures that no one person is responsible for, but which “corrupt and destroy to creatures of God.”

And what does this all mean? To be forgiven is to be liberated. To be forgiven is to be set free. God’s love and forgiveness sets us free to love without condition and to forgive with abandon. The model for this is the unnamed woman in today’s gospel. Jesus goes into the house of Simon the Pharisee in response to a dinner invitation. As was the custom then, he’s reclining while he eats, supporting himself on one elbow. So his feet were accessible to the woman who slipped through the virtually non-existent security at small-town social events and started kissing his feet and pouring ointment on them. The text merely tells us that she was a known “sinner,” but the clear implication is that she was a prostitute, an occupation that was no more reputable then than it is today. She knew that she had been forgiven a great deal. She was acutely aware of her own sinfulness, that her sins were plentiful and substantial. And she also knew herself to have been set free, liberated, to love Jesus without shame, without fear, without regard to propriety or common sense, but with absolute abandon. She is our model. She is an icon of today’s Good News. The more deeply we apprehend the depth and length and breadth of God’s forgiving love, the more we are set free to love God, to love ourselves, to love others, to love the entire created order. What a marvelous opportunity this is! Praised be Jesus Christ. Amen.

Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s something of an anniversary for me, because it was on Trinity Sunday 1979, 31 years ago, that I delivered my first official, public, Sunday sermon. Those of you who are familiar with my biography will realize that 1979 was some years before I put on a black shirt and a white collar and was legitimately authorized to preach. Indeed, my first Sunday sermon was as a layperson. It all started one weekday afternoon in early May or late April of that year. At that time, I wore the hat of music director at St Timothy’s Church in Salem, Oregon. I was meeting with the rector in his office, as was our custom every few weeks, to pick hymns and otherwise plan the upcoming Sunday liturgies. Father Rick just casually mentioned—half in jest, perhaps; I really don’t know to this day whether he was serious—Father Rick mentioned that he didn’t think he would give a sermon on Trinity Sunday. After all, what can one say in the face of so great and wondrous a mystery as the Holy Trinity?

Well, as an amateur theologian and a strict constructionist of Prayer Book rubrics, I objected. After all, how can one simply say nothing at all in the face of so great and wondrous a mystery as the Holy Trinity? “If you’re not going to preach, I will!”, I said—half in jest, perhaps; I really don’t know to this day whether I was serious.

I’m kind of fuzzy on just what happened next. But I do know that, come Trinity Sunday, as a 27-year old lay person with no degree in theology, I found myself in the pulpit of St Timothy’s Episcopal Church! And, I have to say, I did a masterful job. I examined the theological implications of the doctrine of the Trinity with subtlety and refinement. I read from my own journal, and shared my own inner struggle in my relationship with the God who is one-in-three and three-in-one. I quoted from well-known hymns and from the writings of the saints and doctors of the church. When I stepped down from the pulpit, and made my way back to the choir to lead the singing of the Nicene Creed, there was a holy hush over the congregation. “That went pretty well”, I thought to myself. “Maybe I should consider doing it professionally.”

My sense of accomplishment was short-lived, however, for as I was directing the choir during creed, I glanced at my watch, and did a double-take. To my horror, I saw that it was 10:55, in a service that began at 10, about the time that we should be in the middle of communion, and we were only at the creed! Most Episcopalians are only too happy to have theological mysteries explained to them, but never if it means listening to a forty-five minute sermon at a Sunday Eucharist! You can only imagine ribbing I took after the service; it went on for years!

I assure you that today I do not intend to be either as lengthy, or, probably, as profound, as I was on this day 31 years ago. So let me just cut right to the heart of the matter. It has often been said that Trinity Sunday is the only festival of the church year that celebrates a doctrine, rather than an event or a person. Don’t you believe it! Trinity Sunday is not about celebrating a doctrine. In a way, I wish it were. I’m personally quite fond of doctrine in general and the doctrine of the Trinity in particular. I enjoy trying to wrap my mind around it, and I believe it is absolutely essential to the well-being of the Church and a right relationship with God. To my dying breath, I will struggle to confess and uphold the doctrine of the holy and undivided Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as it is proclaimed in the scriptures, creeds, and liturgies of the historic church. So passionately do I feel, and so resolutely am I convinced of the correctness of the traditional doctrine. But I do not for one instant fool myself that either my passion or the correctness of my belief will deliver me from the power of sin and death and make me worthy to stand in the presence of the triune God! Only the triune God himself can do that. And it is this God, not the doctrine of him, whom we celebrate on Trinity Sunday.

The Old and New Testaments contain any number of commands pertaining to our relationship with God. We are told, among other things, to love him, obey him, serve and follow him, trust and put our faith in him, worship and adore him. But nowhere, as far as I can tell, are we commanded to understand God.

Does that come as a relief to any of you? It certainly does to me! Most of the time, I enjoy trying to understand God, but I’m awfully glad my salvation doesn’t depend on how well I do so, because I’m often not very successful! Among the varied gifts of the Holy Spirit is the inclination and ability to penetrate, to a point, the mystery of God’s identity, and to articulate that mystery in fresh and compelling ways. Those who have this gift should indeed exercise it for the benefit of the rest of us. We can all enjoy God more as a result.

But we will never solve the mystery, and, in the end, our job is to simply rest in the joy of his love for us and in what he has done to reconcile us to him. Trinity Sunday is not about a doctrine. Trinity Sunday is about the triune God. Doctrines are for understanding. The holy and undivided Trinity is for worshiping and adoring and loving.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him, all creatures here below,

Praise him above, ye heavenly hosts,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

C: Easter VII

John 17:20-26

Imagine, if you will, a United States Army as it might exist in the wishful fantasy of an infantry soldier. In this army, enlistees would be permitted to “shop” for a convenient basic training location, and for a compatible drill sergeant. They would then be allowed to pick which unit they wanted to serve in. If things don’t work out the way they expect, if there is bad personal chemistry with their commanding officer, they can look around for more suitable arrangements, and approve their own transfer. There is a broad consensus that this is the Army, and it’s supposed to be about defending our national interests, but beyond such generalities, there is little concrete agreement about what the mission and objective of the army is. Orders are given—sometimes they’re obeyed and sometimes not, depending on the disposition of the one receiving them.

While this might be a wonderful daydream in the mind of Beetle Bailey peeling a mountain of potatoes, subject to the whimsical wrath of his sergeant, it’s not any kind of army you or I would want defending us. As a fighting force, it would be completely undisciplined, lacking integrity, and totally ineffective. It would not be one army, but a collection of essentially self-absorbed individuals and informal coalitions … with guns! Potential attackers would hold it in contempt, and rather than being deterred from attacking our country, they would be encouraged to do so.

Throughout scripture, the people of God are many times portrayed as an army. In the Old Testament, this was often true in a literal sense. In the New Testament, it’s only a metaphor, but a very significant metaphor. Just like an army, the Church’s credibility in the eyes of the world depends on internal discipline, a coherent sense of mission, and an effectiveness that comes only from unity of purpose.

In the creeds, we profess our belief in ONE holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. In our present circumstances, however, it takes a tremendous amount of imagination to make that statement. In the New Testament itself, we read of division in the church, of jealousy and rivalry and competing ministries. In the fourth century, more than a few cities had two bishops, neither one recognizing the other. In the eleventh century, there was the Great Schism that divided east from west. Even today, the Pope can’t visit Greece without arousing all kinds of hurt feelings from that schism of nearly a thousand years ago. In the sixteenth century, the western half of the church was dashed on the rocks of the Protestant Reformation, starting a chain reaction of division that is still growing in size and intensity. Today, the number of distinct Christian denominations numbers in—are you ready for this?—distinct Christian denominations number in the hundreds of thousands.

It is in such an environment, such a context, that we encounter the long and poignant prayer offered by Jesus on the eve of his death, and recorded for us in St John’s gospel. It is known as the “High Priestly” prayer, because, in it, Jesus intercedes with his Father as a priest on behalf of us, his people. And the one thing he prays for, above all else, is the unity of the church. But he has a very specific purpose in this request: “I do not pray for these only...” —in other words. it’s not just for the sake of the church’s members that he prays for the church— “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Jesus is quite clear here—is he not?—that the Church exists primarily for the sake of those who are not yet part of the Church. Outreach in evangelism and service are not ancillary to the church’s mission; they are the church’s mission. Most of us know this intellectually, but it’s a challenge to put into practice. When considering a change in parish program, clergy and vestry members and program leaders are more apt to ask, “What will the members think?”, rather than “What will most effectively advance our mission?” For clergy in particular, it takes some degree of courage to begin to treat parishioners as co-laborers, members of the same team, with a common objective, and a disciplined attitude in pursuit of that objective. Too often, it is an irresistible temptation to revert to a mental model in which parishioners are clients in need of professional services, as passengers on a cruise ship, rather than as crew members. Even more damaging is the model which we so easily import from our secular experience, in which the Church is seen as a voluntary association which we can join and unjoin—or go “inactive”— as we see fit, much like a fraternity or sorority or service club or lodge or sports program. Only the church generally makes fewer demands than such organizations!

What Jesus is telling us, however, through his high-priestly prayer, is that God’s loving disposition toward mankind is clearly revealed to the precise extent that the Church is One—united as a highly-disciplined and well-trained army in the pursuit of an unambiguous objective. To the extent—and we have to admit, for the time being, it’s only a partial extent—to the extent that the Church manifests concrete, visible unity, our witness to the world has integrity and power. In Eucharistic Prayer ‘D’, we ask God, on behalf of His holy catholic Church, to “reveal its unity.”

Reveal its unity.

When the late Pope John Paul did visit Greece about ten years ago, his purpose was not to stir up resentment and competitiveness between churches, but because he hoped that, as an eastern European himself, he might be instrumental in the healing of the thousand year breach between east and west, that the Church may yet, in his words, “breathe with both her lungs.” What a wonderful image that is, not only for the east-west division, but for all our divisions—between churches, within churches, even within dioceses and parishes. The unity we seek has many levels—it must begin with simple charity and goodwill and mutual respect. But we must not be content with that level of unity. We want it to proceed to unity around the essentials of the gospel, the fundamental beliefs revealed in scripture and expressed in the creeds.

But we must not be content with even that level of unity. We want it to proceed to the level of sacramental fellowship, in which we fully recognize one another’s members and ministers and gather around the same table to share fully in the liturgy of the Eucharist, which is itself the very sign of unity. That would indeed be a level of unity which surpasses any of our presently realistic hopes for our own lifetime.

But even if that level were to be achieved, we would not want to rest on our laurels. We would want to press on to full visible, institutional, and organizational unity, so that there is but one Church of Jesus Christ in the world, speaking with one voice, that the world may know God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

Such unity will require humility and courage of the sort that can only be a gift of divine grace. It will require the attitude expressed so eloquently by the Anglican bishops gathered in the Lambeth Conference of 1888, where they said that, once unity in matters of substance has been achieved, matters of style must not be allowed to keep us apart, and that toward such an end, “this church stands ready to forego all preferences of her own.” For our Roman Catholic and Orthodox friends, this will require a hard look at their claims of exclusivity, each believing itself to be “the one true church.” For Lutherans, it will mean accepting the ministry of bishops in the historic apostolic succession. For evangelical Protestants, it will mean a lot more structure and accountability than they might presently be comfortable with. And for us, as Anglicans, the challenge is to make peace once again with the idea of a universal earthly leader of the Church, and it makes as much sense as any other idea for this leader to be the Bishop of Rome, in whatever way the role of the Pope might need to be reconfigured. We all have room to give, room to grow.

When, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we are able to indeed lay aside “all preferences of [our] own,” the effectiveness of the Church’s ministry and mission will explode. We will see the continuing evangelization of Africa and Asia. We will see the re-evangelization of Europe and North America. Jesus’s high-priestly prayer will be answered, and God will be glorified. Pray, brothers and sisters, pray. Alleluia and Amen.