Begotten by Water, Borne on Wind (Lent 2A)

Begotten by Water, Borne on Wind

20 March 2011

Homily Delivered the Second Sunday in Lent Year A

9:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist; 11:45 a.m. Said Eucharist

Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist

Hong Kong 
[Note: at the 8:00 a.m. Said Eucharist, Fr. Hutchinson preached an abbreviated form of "Not in the Earthquake," the homily he gave in Beijing a week ago, also posted on "an Elliptical Glory."] 

Genesis 12.1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4.1-5,13-17; John 3.1-17

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Amen, Amen, I tell you:  unless a person is begotten from above, he or she cannot see the Kingship of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How is anyone able to be begotten once they’ve grown old? Are you able to enter a second time into your mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Amen, Amen, I tell you: no one is able to enter the kingdom of God unless he or she is begotten of water and breath (wind). What is begotten of the flesh is flesh, and what is begotten of the breath is breath. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be begotten from above.' The wind breathes where it chooses, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is begotten by the Breath." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

"Amen, amen, I tell you:  we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you people do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." John 3: 1-17

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 

When I was very small, our family went on vacation to a warm spring in the Rocky Mountains, and spent an afternoon at a swimming pool there.  I remember very clearly, because I almost died there.  I loved the water.  My family sat on the edge, talking and watching me as I played on the steps going into the shallow end.  On the middle step I could splash and play, and put my face under. But I stepped too far back, off the steps. I took a breath, and sunk down.  Standing as tall as I could, I was about 4 inches short of the surface.  I bounced up and took a breath, and sank again.  But I had not gotten enough air.  I could see my father through the surface, but he was looking at my mother and not at me.  I bounced up again.  Again, not enough air.  I started to panic.  I couldn’t breathe.  I bounced again, gulped, but to no avail.  I looked up just as things started to go dark, when my sister started pointing to me.  My father’s strong hands were at once around my arm, pulling me into the air, sputtering and gasping.  

I went on later to become a competitive swimmer, lifeguard, and swimming instructor.   But that early experience left a mark.  I had a very hard time learning how to float on my back, perfecting it only when I was 14 years old.  All my teachers said, “Oh, but it’s so easy! All you have to do is put your head back and relax!  Let the water hold you up!”  But try as hard as I could, every time I put my head back, it felt like I was falling.  I tensed up and sank, the water rushing up my nose.  I had learned from that earlier experience fear, and the need to be in control.  And to float, I had to learn to relax, and give up control. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus meets a man who wants to stay in control.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, in private, away from the crowds that surrounded Jesus during the day.  This “Pharisee” this “teacher in Israel” says, “I know who you are, Jesus.  I have seen the signs that you perform. I know you are from God.”  He calls Jesus “Rabbi,” wanting to ask him questions about scripture,  the commandments, and how to enter God’s kingdom.

But as we read in the verse just before this story begins, Jesus knows “what is in each person” (John 2:25).  He sees Nicodemus’ heart, and tells him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to know. 
 

“Unless you are begotten from on high, you cannot see God’s kingdom.”   Spiritual rebirth is required, not discussions about religious rules.  

Nicodemus misunderstands: he thinks that Jesus is speaking of biological rebirth, tripping over the fact that the word used for “from above” can also mean “over again.”  Jesus corrects him by contrasting the physical body and the breath that animates it (or the “wind” or “spirit” that gives it life--it’s the same word in Greek and Aramaic). “Truly, I tell you: no one is able to enter the kingdom of God unless they are begotten of water and wind. Flesh begets flesh, but wind begets wind.”  Spiritual life is unpredictable and as invisible as the wind:  You can hear the sound it makes, and see its results, but cannot see it directly. “So it is with everyone who is begotten by the wind.”  

Nicodemus still misunderstands.

Jesus tells him that it won’t make sense unless Nicodemus accepts Jesus’ own explanation of who he is rather the conclusions he has already drawn.  “How can you understand my teaching on heaven when you can’t even understand a simple example drawn from day-to-day life?” 

At this point, it is clear that Jesus is no longer talking to Nicodemus. The Evangelist is talking to us.  In a phrase Martin Luther called “the Gospel in miniature,” he concludes “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who puts their trust in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” 

OK—the story is complicated, relying on many puns and plays on words not apparent in English. But basically, the drama of the story is pretty straightforward:  Nicodemus says, “I know who you are.  The signs that you perform show you are from God. Tell me what you know.”  Jesus replies, “You don’t have a clue about who I am. You heard about me supplying wine for a wedding feast, and driving out money-changers from the Temple; so you think I am worth listening to, and come here. But you do this in secret.  If you think you’ve just professed faith in me, you don’t know what faith is.  Faith is not about opinions privately held, conclusions safely stated.  It’s about commitment, about risk.  It requires a totally new orientation, a new life.  In fact, it’s like a new birth.”  

Nicodemus misses the point, and asks, “How? How can this happen? How can these things be?” Nicodemus has questions, but not the right questions.  He wants Jesus to give him a formula, a check-list on how to be born of God.  Jesus sees that Nicodemus will not get closer to God without relaxing, without giving up control.  So he tells Nicodemus about water and wind.

Scripture uses many different images to describe what Jesus is talking about here: turning back, surrendering to God, being washed clean, becoming a child, getting married to God, finding a treasure buried in a field and selling everything to buy the field,  being sprinkled with purifying water, new creation, new life, waking up from a deep sleep, coming to one’s senses, regaining eyesight.  Some passages describe it from how it feels on the inside and call it forgiveness; others look at its results and call it a healing.  Though Jesus here calls it a new birth, some passages call it a death, or dying to one’s old way of life. 

Early Christians, who borrowed from John the Baptist a rite of full immersion into water as a way of marking and helping this process of death and new life along, called it a burial in the water.  That is why Jesus here says we must be begotten both of water and of wind. Though the Gospel of John never directly refers to sacraments like baptism and the Eucharist, it does make passing meditative allusion to them, as it does here. 

Jesus has in mind being pushed backwards into water, once and for all, with that feeling of falling, with that feeling of drowning.  The contrast could not be sharper—this is not Nicodemus’ view of tidy purity ritual washings, done regularly and on schedule according to the rule book he wants from Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t give Nicodemus the rule book he wants. Though Jesus is no slouch when it comes to the demands of justice and faith, he knows that without God breathing in us, rules only bring frustration and arrogance:  flesh begets flesh.  Nicodemus wants a list of things he must do; Jesus talks about being begotten.  Nicodemus wants rules; Jesus talks about the wind blowing here and there.  Nicodemus wants to play it safe; Jesus wants us to take risks. 

The wind blows where it will, the breath breathes where it wants—giving up control to God, living in the Spirit, cannot be mapped out, counted up, or predicted. This confuses Nicodemus, who knows how to trust the security of the rules, rituals, and moral aphorisms of conventional religion.  He asks Jesus “how can I make this new birth happen?”

Jesus replies, “This is not about what you need to do. You cannot give birth to yourself. This is about God, who breathes life and makes the wind blow.  Take the risk.  Relax and let go.  Let God do whatever God wants to do with you. He may surprise you.”

Some people misread this story just as badly as Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus’ words. They think that “being born again” is an action they must take.  Like Nicodemus, they think their salvation lies in taking an action, even if it just confessing Jesus with their lips and believing in him with their hearts.  But Nicodemus confesses Jesus in the opening line of the story.  And Jesus says that is not enough.  We have to open ourselves to God, trust him fully.  It is that simple. It is that risky.  It may feel like drowning until God reaches down and pulls us into the breath of  new life. 

Nicodemus bringing myrrh to anoint Jesus' dead body. 

Nicodemus later in the Gospel learns to allow himself to be carried away by the wind.  He speaks up for Jesus in the Council, and after Jesus’ death, with a friend asks to help bury Jesus’ body.   Risks, indeed, but exactly where the wind blew. 

What happens when we learn to let go and let God wash over us?  What happens when we let ourselves be borne up on the wind of God? 

We are more sure of the love of God, but less sure of our own formulations about God. 

We can look at true horror in the face, even horror like the natural and man-made disaster now overtaking Japan, and not be afraid, still trusting the love of God. 

We stop trying to use rules to limit God or control others.

We begin to listen to  God’s Word without prejudgment, without fear.  

We begin to notice God where we least expect Him.  

Our heart is more and more open, and our mind less and less closed.

We love others as we know God loves us.

We do good out of this love, not because it is required.

Sisters and Brothers, we are damaged goods, all of us.  We are like Nicodemus in the night.  But God made us for a home we have never yet seen, and that we can barely even imagine now. Jesus tells us of that home, because he came down from there. He loves us dearly, each and every one.

Jesus not only showed us the way, he is the way.  He accepted and opened himself to the will of his Father, risked all, and let himself be borne away on the wind, even to the point of being lifted high upon the cross.  Through this and his glorious coming forth from the grave, he is reaching down to pull us from the deep water.  

Let us all learn to relax as we let ourselves fall back into the mysterious love of God.  Let us lose our lives so that we may find them.   Let’s not struggle as he buries us in the waves and pulls us up again, sputtering, into new breath and life.  Let us allow ourselves to be borne away on his wind.   

In the name of Christ, Amen.   

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Lorica (Breastplate)

Kuno Meyer, trans.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of
Christ's birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of
His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of
His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of
His descent for the judgement of Doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of
the love of the Cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of the resurrection
to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In prediction of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak to me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me,
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From every one who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in a multitude.
I summon today all these powers
between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless
power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and
smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge
that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ to shield me today
Against poising, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So there come to me
abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of
every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of
every one who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye of
every one who sees me,
Christ in every ear
that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength,
the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

Patrick, former slave and mythological driver of snakes, writes a prayer that underscores our dependence, our total reliance, on the Three-in-One. --Fr. T.

Not In the Earthquake (Lent 1A)

 “Not in the Earthquake”

13 March 2011

Homily Delivered the First Sunday in Lent Year A

10:00 a.m. Liturgy of the Word

Congregation of the Good Shepherd

Beijing, China

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11; Psalm 32

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.  (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7)

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

 At the Ash Wednesday Service earlier this week, Mother Jemma read in her prayers part of a poem she had written.  It expressed the sense of mortality she was acutely feeling as we began Lent in the wake of the terrible earthquake in her homeland: dust of the rubble, ashes of ruins, “remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”  Then we heard on Friday afternoon of yet another, more terrible earthquake in Japan—as Christchurch still buries its dead.  Then we began to learn of the horrors of the fires and the tsunami.  Yesterday afternoon, just after large aftershocks hit the Fukushima Daiichi Power Station, a major mechanical explosion ripped apart the building housing the number one reactor, seriously injuring four workers who had been feverishly working to get the reactor under control.  In what may be the most serious nuclear power crisis since the Chernobyl disaster, authorities are telling people in the locality to stay indoors and wear face masks.  As of 10 o’clock last night, Kyodo news service was reporting that in the Minamisanriku, a town of 17,000 in Miyagi prefecture, 9,500 people remain missing or unaccounted for.

I was reminded of a line from the Book of Common Prayer’s Great Litany, which people in my tradition often chant at the beginning of this penitential season:  “From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and  flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine, Good Lord, deliver us.”   (TEC BCP, p.  149) The videos of bridges with traffic being washed away in the raging waters, and the photos of large areas ravished and flooded, with a passenger train strewn across it like some naughty child’s toy, and the realization that the first devastations took place during the work day and rush hour, recalled another line from the litany, “…from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us.” 

Such horror is enough to make you wonder, if you have faith, or if you are naturally optimistic.  It certainly doesn’t weaken the native pessimism that some of us seem to have, or the belief of some that the world is totally random and meaningless.  It was after the All Saint’s Day earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 that the Enlightenment lost confidence in a world guided by any kind of friendly providence.  Voltaire and Rousseau both reacted by suggesting that in light of the disaster if God were good, he could not be almighty, and if he were almighty, he could not be good.  This is the classic problem of theodicy, how we explain the justice and goodness of God in the face of irrational and random horror.

Today’s Reading from Genesis is a story that seeks to answer the question “Why do we have to die,” a question we tend to ask when disaster strikes.  The story puts this into larger questions as well, “Why, if God made the world, is there evil and misdoing here? Does the bad we see in the world mean that God made it bad, and that God is part bad?”   The story is often misread. It is about ha’adam, Hebrew for “the Human Being,” or Every Man and Every Woman, and the details are rich with meaning for each and every one of us. 

The story introduces evil into the world through a talking snake, the most clever of all animals.  That detail alone should tell us that we are dealing with a folk story here.  The snake convinces Every Man and Every Woman to eat the one fruit—of all the wonderful fruit available to them—the one fruit forbidden them by God,  It thus gives us the answer to these hard questions:  “We don’t know why, and perhaps cannot know why, there is evil and death in the world.  It’s a mystery!  But one thing is sure—the evil we do and the evil we see do not come from God.”

The Book of Job makes the same point.  It tells the story of a man who is “perfect in all his ways,” yet who suffers horror.  His friends, ever willing to defend the justice of God, urge Job to confess and repent of whatever hidden sin he has committed that God is so obviously punishing him for.  Most of the book’s 40 some chapters outline the argument.  But Job just can’t agree that what has happened has any semblance of fairness.  He won’t lie to get God off the hook.  Yet he does not “curse God and die,” as suggested by his wife.  He continues the argument, drags out the discussion.  Finally, when God at long last engages him directly, and speaks to him from “out of the whirlwind,” the revelation of the difference of their perspectives is so overwhelming that all Job can do is put on dust and ashes, repent himself, and bless the name of the Lord.  In so doing, he is not granting his friends’ arguments.  He is simply mourning the hard, hard, facts of our human condition, and expressing his hope and trust for its ultimate resolution by a reliable but mysterious God.   

Many stories in the Gospels make the same point.  Stories of Jesus healing the sick tell us that the ultimate purpose of God does not include disease, suffering, and death. Jesus’ ministry of announcing the in-breaking of the reign of God focused in large part in healing physical and mental suffering. This tells us that God doesn’t intend horror and disappointment for his creatures.   One of the key difficulties in theodicy is finding the appropriate connection between God’s ultimate good purposes and intention and what we experience in our actual lives. 

Jesus was asked about people who suffer horrible things.  Once, a man born blind was pointed out to him:  “Was it his parents sin or his that caused this?”  “Neither,” he said.  

Another time people came to him and said,  “Did you hear that the Romans massacred those countrymen of yours who were worshipping in the Temple?  Their own blood was mixed with that of the animals they were sacrificing!  What did they do that was so bad that God punished them this way?”  “They did nothing any worse than anyone else,” he replies, and continues,  “What about those people who died in the Tower of Siloam when it collapsed?  They were no worse than anyone else.”  “The lesson we should take here,” says Jesus, “is not that they were particularly bad, but that we all need to be better” (Luke 13:1-5).  

Jesus knew well that sometimes bad things happen to good people and that in this world the evil often prosper.  His death of the cross is the ultimate example of the righteous suffering unjustly.   But he trusted in God and the goodness of God nonetheless.   That’s why in Gethsemane, he asks if it is possible to have the cup pass from him.  But immediately he adds, “Your will, not mine, be done.”  It is this very openness to God that gets us out of the way, and helps bring the kingdom closer.  

That is the point of today’s Gospel reading.  Where we, Every Man and Every Woman, defect from God's purpose and sin, Jesus Christ in the desert, though completely one of us, overthrows the tempter’s power.  And this through complete openness to his Father. 

We often lose sight of this basic point in the story of the Fall of Humankind because of the historicized way many of us have come to read these stories, a process helped along by the rhetorical flourishes you can see in today’s reading in Paul.  But even there, note that Paul says Adam passed sin to his descendants “because all have sinned” not “so that they all sin.”  In his classic phrasing of the doctrine of original sin, St. Augustine pushed it further by suggesting that this sin in our origins was a moral contamination transmitted through the very act that generates children, sex, which he associated with the symbol of eating the forbidden fruit in the Genesis story. 

In the Book of Genesis, however, there is no hint of such a demonization of human sexuality.  Genesis sees sexuality as part of God’s good creation, and seeks to counter its divinization in the fertility cults so abundant in the ancient near East. 

This story in Genesis does not teach that sexual sin corrupted our first parents and transmitted this to us all.  Instead, it tells a story where figures representing each one of us go astray.  And go astray we do.  Elsewhere Genesis teaches that the human heart, for whatever reasons, has a mysterious tendency to go astray and desire evil.  In the story of the Flood, we hear, “Yahweh saw that the wickedness of humankind was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5)   Later Judaism develops the idea in this verse into the doctrine of the Yetser hara‘ “the inclination to evil,” the rabbis’ doctrine similar to Augustine’s Original Sin, but without blaming some human ancestor for one’s failings or disparaging sex and the body.

The greatest proof of the truth of the teaching of a “Fall of Humankind,” therefore, is not to be found in the archaeological or fossil record.  It is to be found by looking in the mirror. 

So much for how Genesis explains moral evil that comes from human choice.   What about natural horror, “nature red in tooth and claw,” or the great economies of waste and suffering seen in natural selection in the evolution of species?

Genesis hints that there is a lack of perfect conformity to God’s intention even in the natural world as God created it (without benefit, as it were, of a historical “Fall of Man”). In the Priestly account of creation in Genesis 1, for instance, not all the commands of God in creation are perfectly reflected in what immediately happens as a result, especially if you read this in the original Hebrew. Charles Foster writes:   

“‘Let light be,’ commands God; ‘Light be,” comes back the report.  This is not ham-fisted editing: whoever put this story together knew exactly what they were doing.  ‘Grass grass,’ God tells the earth.  But the earth does not.  It ‘puts forth’ grass.  The created order is slightly disobedient from the start.” Of the eight “let there be” orders in creation, only “Let there be light” is implemented exactly  (The Selfless Gene: Living with God and Darwin [Hodder & Stoughton, 2009] pp. 132-33). 

The Priestly author only hints at this lack of conformity of the created world with God’s intentions.  He knows that God’s declaration that creation is good, when in the face of recalcitrant nature, presents us with mystery.  But the idea ties in with Augustine’s doctrine of what evil is.  For Augustine, evil is not a positive thing, but rather the absence of good.  And if God is all good, then the very act of creating something that is not-God implies that there will be gaps in the goodness of the created world.  That is how he accounts for the natural evil in the world.

Yesterday while we were walking in Chaoyang Park and talking about Japan, Elena told me another  folk story, this one from Japan,  that she had learned as a children’s librarian:   

Ojiisan was a simple man living long, long ago on a mountaintop near the sea.  His name means "grandfather." One day when his family was preparing to go to a festival celebrating the rice harvest, he refused to go. He sensed something was very wrong so he and his grandson stayed behind. As he watched from a distance all the villagers celebrating the festival below near the ocean, he felt the earth rumble beneath the soles of his feet.  Ojiisan, who had felt hundreds of earthquakes in his time, knew this one was different than most.   He had learned from his grandfather that after some earthquakes, terrible surges of the ocean could draw up the water near the beach and then crash back again, destroying everything and everyone not one high ground.  As he watched, he saw the ocean begin to recede quickly and leave the bottom exposed.  To his horror, he saw the villagers at the celebration rushing toward the beach to watch instead of running away from it to save themselves.   He called, but no one could hear.  So he ran to his own precious fields, full of ripe rice, and set them on fire.   The villagers, seeing the fire and smoke, left the amazingly bare ocean bottom and began to rush up the mountain to try to put out the fire.   The grandson tried to get them to put out the fire before it destroyed the entire wealth of the family, but the grandfather stopped him because there were still villagers below who had not seen the smoke and come.  They too soon noticed and ran up the mountain, just as the tsunami hit the lower ground and carried away everything there.  By sacrificing his own farm and livelihood, Ojiisan had saved all the villagers.   To this day, a temple built by the villagers stands on that mountainside overlooking the dangerous sea, honoring Ojiisan and his sacrifice.  [adapted from Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa]

In this story, Ojiisan does not get distracted by the horror he is seeing.  He is not dissuaded by the cost of what he must do.  He sees what he needs to do, and does it, even when his grandson thinks he is crazy and pleads with him to stop.  By not getting distracted, and simply doing the next thing put in front of him that he needs to do, the next right thing, Ojiisan saves his village and becomes worthy of a shrine in his honor.    In his sacrifice of his rice fields, he is like Christ, who sacrificed himself to become for us beacon to lead us from our misdoings, our struggling against God's ultimate purposes, from again and again doing what we know is wrong. 

William Pike, writing on the Haiti earthquake two years ago, said that he had been reminded of the story of Elijah’s flight to Mount Horeb in 1 Kings 19, where God spoke to Elijah not out of an earthquake, whirlwind, or fire, but out of the whispering of the still breeze.  Pike remembers the words used in the passage—“The Lord was not in the earthquake.” 

God indeed is not in the earthquake, is not in the horror, not in the fire, nor the flood.  God is not in our misdoings and our failure to do the right thing.  All these show us how far the world is from God's ultimate intention, not God in action.   Rather, God is in the efforts of people trying to do the right thing.  God is in those who help the victims of such things. 

May we all this week continue in our prayers and searching to find repentant hearts.  But let us also pray for,  and help by contributing fiscal resources, the recovery and rescue efforts in Japan and New Zealand. 

In the name of Christ, Amen.  

Intercessions for Victims of the Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami

and Christchurch Earthquake

O merciful Father, you taught us in your holy Word that you  do not willingly afflict or grieve the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve:  Look with pity upon the sorrows of their children in Japan and New Zealand afflicted by natural disasters, for whom our prayers are offered.  Remember them, O Lord, in mercy, nourish their souls with patience,  comfort them with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance  upon them, and give them peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Receive in mercy the souls of those who have died.  Bring them forth, we pray, in your good time fully alive and themselves, but like the stars shining in the heavens. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Give comfort and peace to the dying, Lord.  Save and preserve, Lord, those whose lives and health are still in danger.
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Ease the pain of the injured. Heal and strengthen the hurt and the ill. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Give courage and skill to those seeking to manage the damaged nuclear reactors that their efforts may be successful and worse harm avoided.

O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.
 

Give strong resolve to and strengthen government and military officials, community leaders, aid workers, care givers, neighbors, and donors that assistance will come quickly, efficiently, and in adequate amounts, and that recovery efforts proceed successfully. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Bless and comfort those who have lost loved ones and colleagues.  Help them to not lose hope or a sense of purpose. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Bless especially children who have been orphaned, the elderly who have lost their grown children, and families that have lost their breadwinners.  Give them adequate replacement caregivers and support. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Help those who have lost their homes or their means of livelihood.   

O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Help communities rebuild, especially schools, hospitals, and enterprises that provide livelihoods. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Bless all who look on at horror to simply trust in you and not ask why such disasters happen but rather ask what human need they can fulfill when facing one.   
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us.

Father, your Son Jesus died for us in shame and pain, but was not deflected from his mission.  Help us to follow him bravely in the Way of the Cross.  Help us to be your hands of mercy and
love to those who suffer.   Give us faith, merciful Lord, that glorious resurrection can follow deadly suffering,  and that in your good intention for creation, all shall be well,
and all manner of thing can be turned to good. 
O God, make speed to save us.
R.     O Lord, make haste to help us

Knowing our weakness, and reminded by these frightening signs that we are but grass and the flower thereof, that we are mere dust and unto dust shall return, all this we ask for your tender mercies’ sake. 
Amen  

Ash Wednesday Collect (Comment)

Comment on the Collect for Ash Wednesday

 

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Church has traditionally prepared for Great Feast of Easter by observing a period of fasting and penance lasting for 40 days, not counting Sundays, which are themselves festivals of the Resurrection.  It recalls Jesus's time of fasting in the wilderness preparing for his public ministry.  During the period, Christians reflect on where they fall short of what God intended for them when He created them.  Through an enhanced program of spritiual discipline--usually including self-denial, more prayer, and confession and spiritual direction--we seek closer communion with God and amendment of life.   


Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent.   On this day, many of us recite more complete forms of confession and litanies, and have priests impose ashes on our foreheads in the sign of the cross as a sign of penance.  The Book of Common Prayer's Collect, or Prayer for the Day, for Ash Wednesday is cited above.  


The Collect provides succinctly the theology and belief that must lie behind any authentic practice of the Lenten Fast.  


Most of us, like T.S. Eliot in his poem "Ash Wednesday," find that we dare not hope to reform or change, dare not hope to be the unusual old dog who can learn a new trick: 

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope


Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope


I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)

But as the Collect says clearly, our hope for amendment, our hope for closer communion with God, our hope for hope itself lies here:  God does not hate anything that He has made.  No matter how far we are from what God intends, no matter how much we have distorted the image of God that God placed in us in creating us, no matter how twisted we have become and what bad use we have put to God's gifts, God forgives and heals. 


But this grace can be accepted by us only if we are sorry for our misdoings, and the start of such sorrow lies sometimes merely in only being desirous of being sorry for our misdoings.   This provides God something He can grab onto as he struggles with us, works with us, forgives us, and heals us. 


The journey we set out on in Lent is a path on which we let that desire work in our hearts and become sorrow for our misdoings.   We let the silly disciplines we impose on ourselves ("no meat," "no alcohol," "no sweets,") make us uncomfotable enough that  we pay more attention to things we usually like to avert our attention from.

As the Collect reminds us, it is God who does the real work in Lent-- He creates in us new hearts able to feel sadness at our failings (that's what contrition means).  It is God who makes us able to have the right feelings about our failings ("worthily lamenting our sins"). 


As we begin this journey, let us remember the words spoken to Everyman and Everywoman in the story of the defection of humanity in Genesis 2-3, spoken as we were expelled--through our fault, not God's--from the Garden of Delight where we are what God intended:  "From dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 


In the name of Christ, Amen. 

PENITENTIAL PRAYERS FOR LENT

Lord Jesus, Son of God, you struggled in the desert for forty days and nights yet overthrew the tempter’s power.  So incline my heart that I may desire to walk in your ways,  and form my will that I may seek to serve others and avoid the occasions for sin.    Grant me grace to bring forth in deed fruits worthy of one who trusts in you.  Have mercy on me, a sinner.
(-AAH)


Almighty and eternal God, who drew out a fountain of living water in the desert for your people, as they well knew, draw from the hardness of our hearts tears of compunction, that we may be able to lament our sins, and may merit to receive you in your mercy.
Latin, late 14th century; The Oxford Book of Prayers (OBOP) no. 344


O God our Father, help us to nail to the cross of thy dear Son the whole body of our death, the wrong desires of the heart, the sinful devisings of the mind, the corrupt apprehensions of the eyes, the cruel words of the tongue, the ill employment of hands and feet; that the old man being crucified and done away, the new man may live and grow into the glorious likeness of the same thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
Eric Milner-White, 1884-1964; OBOP no.  346


God in Heaven, you have helped my life to grow like a tree. Now  something has happened. Satan, like a bird, has carried in one twig of his own choosing after another. Before I knew it he had built a dwelling place and was living in it. Tonight, my Father, I am throwing out both the bird and the nest.
Prayer of a Nigerian Christian;  OBOP  no.  347


O thou great Chief, light a candle in my heart, that I may see what is therein, and sweep the rubbish from thy dwelling place.
An African Schoolgirl’s Prayer; OBOP no.  351


Lord, for thy tender mercy’s sake,
Lay not our sins to our charge,
But forgive what is past,
And give us grace to amend our sinful lives,
To decline from sin, and incline to virtue
That we may walk with a perfect heart
Before Thee now and evermore.  Amen
--William Farrant or John Bull