A Rushing Wind and Tongues of Fire (Pentecost B)

A Rushing Wind and Tongues of Fire

Pentecost (Year B)
27th May 2012
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27,16:4b-15 

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:22-27) 

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

I once had a colleague at the Department of State who was a self-declared “Bible believing” Christian.  When she discovered that I was a regular Church-goer, choir member, and taught the weekly scripture adult Sunday class at my local Episcopal Church, she made it a point of regularly letting me know how her prayer life was going, and how proactive she and her church were in struggling against what she called the “wicked world we live in.”  One Monday, she seemed particularly beaming, and first thing she took me aside to update me on her spiritual life. 

“Tony, I was so blessed today.  I’m too low ranked to merit parking privileges downstairs and can’t afford the regular parking fees at Columbia Plaza across the street so I usually park over near the Lincoln memorial and walk the four blocks here.  But I didn’t have time today, and so I just relied on God.  I prayed for guidance, and Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to me and led me to a side street just a half block away where there are never any parking places.    But just as I turned the corner, a car pulled out and I found a place within 100 yards of the C Street entrance!  And it’s just the regular street meter fares!  I feel so blessed.  God guided me, and sent his Holy Spirit just as he promised!  Just shows what He’ll do when we try to follow his path!” 

I nodded, smiled, and said nothing, allowing her to express her happiness and thankfulness.   It was only on my drive home that evening that I realized what it was that so annoyed me in what she had said.  She was saying that Almighty God had been her personal parking valet, arriving at her beck and call in order to save her the inconvenience of walking a few blocks and possibly being late to a meeting.  I had been working on some particularly troublesome issues involving the Korean peninsula, and the contrast was all too great.  She said God was personally caring for her parking needs because she was so close to God, and this in a world where it seemed that the Almighty couldn’t be bothered to move the hearts of the world’s people to abolish war, eliminate poverty, or end hunger. 

Now I understood that making this contrast was unfair, both to her and to God.  Jesus taught us that if we prayed with faith, God would grant us what we rayed for.  Paul told us to make our desires known to God.  Many, many passages tell us to be thankful in God for all good things in our lives.  Jesus tells us that God is aware of and cares for even individual sparrows in flight or hairs on our head. And everything we read in the Bible about God and how God interacts with us, the created world, and evil tells us that God is love and works through our own human hearts and wills, leans into and becomes apparent through created things in order to make his will gently occur without robbing us of our ability of having a relationship of unconstrained love with him, and that means always having the ability of saying no to the relationship. 

Even knowing this, what she said annoyed me, mainly because it all seemed so self-serving.  Maybe it was God who helped her that day.  Maybe it was the Spirit that “guided” her.   And her thankfulness was right and just.  But making that thankfulness a servant to her own ego and sense of partisan advantage (“only we true Christians can experience such blessings!”) was a prostitution, at best, of what otherwise might have been wholly innocent open-heartedness.

Today’s scriptures tell us just how varied the workings of the Holy Spirit are:  The Acts passage tells us of the Spirit as God’s active and almost overwhelming presence in a shared communal event where the spirit facilitates communication, empowers ministry, and the allows sharing of the Gospel, the John passage tells us of the Spirit as God called to be at our side, a comforter or advocate, who enlivens the memory and vivifies the heart, and the Romans passage sees the spirit as a quiet whispering  intermediary between us personally and God, making God accessible to us and making our own inexpressible and perhaps unformed feelings accessible to God and ourselves. 

In practical terms, often what we experience as guidance by or intervention of the Holy Spirit seems very close to, if not indistinguishable from, conscience, insight, intuition, coming to a firmly held conclusion, or even, like my friend from State Department, dumb luck or synchronicity based on random odds.  But there is a difference. 

One of the keys in understanding the story of the outpouring of the spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and, indeed, understanding an appropriate distinction between insight, dumb luck, street smarts, and the presence of the Holy Spirit is knowing what occasion the day was:  the feast of Shavuot, or Weeks, fifty days after the Feast of Passover.  Shavuot was a festival of the first fruits, where the very earliest produce of the agricultural year was becoming available.  You have to remember the hardship of winter in a pre-industrial society without modern means of food preservation or transportation.  You stored food by drying it, salting it, perhaps smoking it, and saving roots in cool cellars.  By the early months of Spring, your larder was pretty low, and the memory of fresh fruits and vegetables very vague at best, but tantalizing.   So the earliest produce of the new year was an important sign that the hardship was over, that more and better was on its way.  On Shavuot, the first produce was given back to God in thanks as a sacrifice, and then you held a big party with fresh and not dried and stored food.  

It is this very image—first fruits—that Paul uses in today’s epistle reading to describe the Spirit.  Mixing metaphors, Paul describes the world in which we live both as an early spring on the verge of new produce, or a woman in labor, suffering great pain in hope of a new life being delivered.  The spirit is a sign that the baby will be born, and we will be over the current pain.  Likewise, the Spirit is like the first fruits, the earliest of agricultural produce in the spare and barren early spring, after our larders have run bare:  it is a sign of better things to come, and more and more life and abundance.
Paul says that because the spirit is present in our hearts, it makes God available to us, and makes us, despite our inability sometimes to even know or express what we desire or feel, available to God.  “The spirit intercedes for us,” he says.  But it also touches us where we are most vulnerable, in the place in our hearts where we hope against hope for better things to come. (Romans 8:22-27)


There is another great passage in  Second Corinthians where Paul also talks about doubt and the role of the Holy Spirit.  He talks about conflicting truth claims—he says these are questions of “yes” and “no”—and affirms that our Christian faith resolves such uncertainty: 

 “For in [Christ] every one of God's promises is a "Yes." For this reason it is through him that we say the "Amen," to the glory of God.  But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment” (2 Cor 1: 20-22). 

Paul says that God’s Spirit in us is a seal, that is, a symbol and authenticating sign of the genuineness of our faith and the reliability of God’s promises.   He uses other images to describe the Spirit here too:  it is an anointing and a first installment.  “Anointing” in its most basic sense simply means being smeared with oil.  A person was made a king or a priest in ancient Israel by a ritual of putting olive oil on the head or body.  The act set the person aside for a special role and work.  “First installment” is an image from finances and loans—it is the first payment of a much greater sum to come later. 

So Paul says that the Spirit is like first fruits, like the assurance given a woman in labor, like a seal authenticating a document or product, or a down payment in an installment plan.

Elsewhere in 2 Corinthians, Paul says that the presence of the Spirit in our lives is a guarantee of greater things to come.  Again reflecting on the uncertainty and confusion of claims that we meet in daily life, he writes, 

“For in this tent [our body] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling--if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked.   For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.  So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor 5:4-7)."

If God’s spirit is a seal, a sign of genuineness, then how do we know God’s Spirit is with us?  

In Galatians, we read this: 

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the you that resists God (lit., “flesh”).   For what your God-resisting self desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to your God-resisting self.  These are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of a self that resists God are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”  (Gal 5: 16-23) 

So “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” are fruits of the Spirit, and the spirit is a seal of the sureness of God’s promises.  The spirit is a down payment on the whole of God’s promises, as well as first fruits of an abundant and rich summer-long harvest. 

Sisters and brothers at Trinity:  Our hearts need hope for the future, and grounds for full and conditionless trust in God.  The Holy Spirit, poured out upon the Church on the Feast of First Fruits, is our greatest builder of hope and trust.  It is God active and working in our hearts, our lives, and our community the Church. 

May we learn to hear its whispers, and recognize its thunderings, be warmed at its gently burning hearth, and also be purified in its raging fire.   If we let our lives be marked by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, this fire will burn through all the world. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Waiting for the Spirit (Easter 7B)

Waiting for the Spirit
Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)
20th May 2012
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Eucharist; 10:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, "Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus-- for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us-- one of these must become a witness with us to his resurrection." So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed and said, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:15-17, 21-26)

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

I think all of us have memories of long car trips either as children or with children.  Questions abound.  “Are we there yet?”  “How much longer?”  “When are we stopping for a potty break?”  “Are we there yet?” “When do we cross over into the next state?”  “Where will we be eating dinner?  What will we eat?”  “Are we there yet?”  “Oh, Look--an amusement park!  Can we stop, can we?”  “ARE WE THERE YET?”  Sometimes, the tiresome questions can annoy, and nerves can fray.  “Mom, tell NN to stop it!”  “Kids, don’t make we have to come back there!” 

Waiting is something our modern American culture does not value or particularly equip us for.    We value action, measurable results—the quicker the better, and taking charge.  For many of us, the single image that most summarizes a failure of government is a long line in a state’s—any state’s—Department  of Motor Vehicles office where you have to wait to get to see the person at the service window.  One of the most frequently seen occasions for arguments between a married couple is where one of them through inattentiveness makes the other one wait. 

But not all cultures share this loathing of waiting.  No one likes to wait, and “waste one’s time.”  But in many cultures, especially Asian ones, the ability to gracefully manage oneself during wait times, patience, is highly valued, and time when you have to wait is seen as an opportunity to develop this virtue.    And when we Americans live in such cultures, we often react to such values by believing that the local people are only getting what they deserve when they have to put up with unreasonably long wastes of time on a daily basis.  “You get in a society what you are willing to tolerate,” they say.  

In today’s reading from the Book of Acts, the disciples are in an in-between time where they need to wait for something.  Jesus, after his death and bodily reappearance, has been visiting and appearing to them on a regular basis.  After forty days, he departs definitively by ascending into the skies, with the clouds and the brilliant light hiding him from the eyes of the disciples.  He leaves with a command and a promise: he orders them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there until they are “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49) in a promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and as he ascends angels declare that he will come again and descend in a like manner (Acts 1:1-11). 

So the disciples in today’s story are in waiting mode, or at least should be in waiting mode. 

But they are unhappy.  They know that Jesus called twelve of them to be special witnesses to the arrival of the Reign of God, that number being symbolic of a newly constituted and restored people of Israel, with its ancient twelve tribes.  The tribes haven’t been around for several hundred years; most of them were wiped out and lost at the time of the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 720-740 B.C.E.   During the Last Supper, Jesus had promised the Twelve that they would sit on twelve thrones and judge the tribes of Israel (Luke 22:29).   But now one of those twelve chosen special symbols of the newly restored Kingdom of God, Judas Iscariot, has defected and helped Jesus’ enemies capture him and put him to death. 

So Peter proposes that they fill the place left by Judas.  Now, the truth be told, if you asked me, it seems that the best person to take this place among the special twelve witnesses to Jesus would have been Mary Magdalene, since according to many of the stories, it was she who first saw the Risen Lord.  But the society at that time being what it was, and Peter being who he was, Peter restricts the opening to men.  In Luke’s story, Peter gives several criteria for the replacement—he must be a man, he must have been a companion of Jesus from the start, and he must have been a witness of the reappearance of the Risen Lord after his death. 

So far so good.  The eleven realize that two men, Matthias and Joseph Barsabbas, meet the criteria.  But they cannot decide who it should be.  So they use the ancient method of determining which animal would be the sacrificial offering from a group—they draw lots.  And so Matthias it is.

Despite the fact the pre-Christian Dead Seas Scrolls community had a governing body of Twelve elders, there is absolutely nothing in the Acts text that suggests that Peter’s intention was that the Twelve would become a permanent fixture in a permanent Church governance.  He and the disciples at this time fully expected that Jesus would come again quite soon, and the need to find a replacement for Judas was with the express goal of having the Twelve as a group ready for that moment, so they could sit on those twelve thrones as judges, presumably when Jesus returned in glory.

Other than the fact that he clearly wants to restrict the use of the word “apostle” to just the Twelve, it is not clear what Luke’s attitude to all this is.  He simply recounts the story in Acts without commentary.  But interestingly, this is the last we ever hear of Matthias.  Later on, it is another person, Paul, who ends up being, along with Peter, as the great witness to Jesus. 

I think that the lesson to be learned is this.  Jesus in ascending had told them to return to Jerusalem and wait there to receive power from on high.  Ten days later, on the great Feast of Shavuot, or Pentecost, the promised outpouring of the Spirit would occur.   But in the meantime, the disciples have neither the direct guidance of the Risen Lord, who has now gone up out of their sight, nor the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which has not yet been poured out upon them. 

But they are impatient and must act.  And this is a good thing, and they are trying to do God’s will.  But instead of just waiting, as Jesus commanded, they reconstitute the Twelve.  But they are reduced to throwing dice to actually make the pick.  And their action seems not to have had much effect of the course of the Church thereafter. 

It is normal and natural to be impatient, and to want to take action, especially when it seems that things are coming to a critical moment.  That was clearly the position of Peter and the Eleven here.  And it is not necessarily a bad thing to actually take the steps that we think are placed before us even when we appear to be in a place where we need to wait. 

But we must not let fear or discouragement make us impatient and act out of turn, or intemperately.  God’s time is not our own, as much as we would like that to be so. 
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a key idea—the need we have to be patient and let God do his work in his own good time.  Sometimes this means simply trying to get out of the way of God.  The Psalmist says, “Wait for the Lord: be brave and strong-hearted, but wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).  

Second Isaiah, speaking to the exiles of Judah after they had lost their nation, their temple, and many had lost their trust in Yahweh, said this:  “But those who wait upon the Lord will take new strength; they shall soar as on eagles’ wings; when they run, they will not be weary; and when they walk, they will not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). 

Sometimes we find ourselves in over our heads. And like the eleven in this story, direction from God might not come right away.  Our path may not be clearly set before us.  Our natural inclination is to try to dig ourselves out.  Sometimes, that may be simply taking the one or two simple actions that appear to be within our reach and tend toward what God intends.  Like eating chicken soup for a cold, it may not necessarily help, “but it couldn’t hoit.”  

When we find ourselves alone and without direction or comfort, we must not be like those guys in Waiting for Godot, simply repeating nonsense lines and distracting ourselves from the fact that the anticipated one does not appear to ever be coming.  God has promised to help, and to guide and direct us.  And he will.  But, like people in a DMV line, we mustn’t give up because we don’t like the discomfort of waiting. 

Sometimes we find that there’s no right way to proceed. We can keep trying to dig ourselves out... or we can wait patiently for God to help us.

Next week, we will be celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Church on the Feast of Pentecost.  That’s because God does act and send his direction and comfort.  He did it then, and he does it now. 

This week in our prayers, let’s take more time to listen.  In our daily life, let’s take more time to be patient.  Because patience is a virtue, and a gift from God, one of the signs of Love’s presence in our lives.   

In the name of Christ, Amen. 

At the Beach

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
May 15, 2012

Elena and I just got back from a short vacation at the Oregon beaches.
While there, I was reminded of a great quotation by American writer
Madeline L’Engle (the life-long Episcopalian who wrote A Wrinkle in Time).
She describes an experience she had as a child at the beach from which
her faith began to grow:

“I sense a wish among some professional religion-mongers to make God
possible, to make him comprehensible to the naked intellect, domesticate
him so he’s easy to believe in. Every century the Church makes a fresh
attempt to make Christianity acceptable. But acceptable Christianity is
not Christian; a comprehensible God is no more than an idol. I don’t want
that kind of God. What kind of God, then? One time, when I was little more
than a baby, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was living in a
cottage on a nearly uninhabited stretch of beach in northern Florida. All
I remember of this visit is being picked up from my crib in what seemed
the middle of the night and carried from my bedroom and out of doors,
where I had my first look at the stars.

“It must have been an unusually clear and beautiful night for someone to
have said, “Let’s wake the baby and show her the stars.” The night sky,
the constant rolling of the breakers against the shore, the stupendous
light of the stars, all made an indelible impression on me. I was
intuitively aware not only of a beauty I had never seen before but also
that the world was far greater than the protected limits of the small
child’s world which was all I had known thus far. I had a total, if not
very conscious, moment of revelation: I saw creation bursting the bounds
of daily restriction, and stretching out from dimension to dimension,
beyond any human comprehension. I had been taught to say my prayers at
night: Our Father, and a long string of God-blesses, and it was that first
showing of the galaxies which gave me an awareness that the God I spoke to
at bedtime was extraordinary and not just a bigger and better combination
of the grownup powers of my father and mother.

“This early experience was freeing, rather than daunting, and since it was
the first, it has been the foundation for all other such glimpses of
glory." (The Irrational Season, pp. 19-20)

As L’Engle suggests, “hearing God’s voice” can only be experienced, as it
were, from the inside, and does not make itself available merely for
rational, objective understanding.  Our God is not a tame god, and not an
object about which we can make pronouncements or talk about wholly in the
third person.  There is always an “I and Thou” involved when we encounter
God.  That is why adoration, standing in awe at wake left by God is key to
prayer life.  It is why finding a daily rule of life and spiritual
practices that allow for the silence where we can stand in awe of God and
bask in God’s love is so important.

Peace and Grace,
Fr. Tony+

A God of Surprises (Easter 6B)

A God of Surprises

Easter 6B
13 May 2012; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

[They] were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  Acts 10:45

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

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of the Anglican Church in South Africa describes the final process of his nation moving from its Calvinism-inspired policy of Racial Separation, Apartheid, to the multi-ethnic democracy that followed in this way, it was “a kind of roller coaster ride, reaching the heights of euphoria that a new dispensation was virtually here, and then touching the depths of despair because of the mindless violence and carnage that seemed to place the whole negotiation process in considerable jeopardy. And just as we were recovering our breath, the God of Surprises played his most extraordinary and incredible card.”  “God's sense of humor is quite something, you know… Beyers Naudé … was an Afrikaner who at one point said, ‘No, apartheid can't be justified scripturally,’ and for this he was turfed out of his church.  [T]hey expelled him because they said he was a traitor.   And so he joined up with blacks and others who [opposed Apartheid].  When freedom came, there was a road in Johannesburg that had been named after … the first nationalist prime minister, the … D.F. Malan driveway.  In 1994–95, the name was changed to the Beyers Naudé Highway. I mean, you would almost imagine them in heaven sort of rolling in the aisles.”

God is a God of Surprises.  There is no way that a year ago I would have thought that Elena and I would now be living in Ashland Oregon and I would be priest at Trinity.    Three years before I was ordained, there is no way I would have thought it possible.  

Our oldest son and his wife, after many years of disappointed efforts at having children, gave up and got ready to adopt.  The week they were put on the receive roster, his wife turned up pregnant.  And then, when their daughter was only two, they unexpectedly got pregnant again, but it turned out to be twins, now four years old.  God is a god of surprises. 

The stories we have been reading these last few Sundays from the Book of Acts tell of one of the great tricks played by this God of surprises, the great turning point when the early Christian Church, despite itself, reached out and brought in the gentiles as equal partners to what previously been a Jews-only affair.  

The story is told in Acts chapters 8-15, where gradually, bit by bit, the gentiles—not members of the people of Israel—come to be included in God’s plan.  Rather, God’s people gradually come to recognize that God has already included these outsiders.  

A couple of weeks ago, we read where Philip privately preaches to the Ethiopian Eunuch and baptizes him (Acts 8:26ff).   This guy is not only a gentile, but also had a physical impairment that the Scriptures specifically taught should prevent full participation in the worship of God’s people (Lev. 20:20).  The culmination of the story is the Ethiopian Eunuch’s simple question, “Here is water.  What is there that possibly keeps me from being baptized?”  With this God of surprises, what once was an impediment is no longer one.   

Today’s reading is part of a larger story about Cornelius and Peter. Cornelius is a centurion of the Italian Cohort, a famous military unit known for its harsh suppression of anti-Roman nationalism.  He is a believer in the one God, but one who has not converted to Judaism by being circumcised, or observing Jewish the dietary laws.   The technical term used to describe such people as he at the time was a “God fearer,” someone on the fringes of Judaism but still squarely on the outside.  Cornelius prays, reads scripture, and gives alms.  He has not yet heard of Jesus. Because of his faith, he is told by an Angel to go and find Peter, who will tell him what God wants him to know. He sends messengers to set up a meeting. 

Meanwhile, Peter takes a noon-day nap and has a dream where he sees a giant picnic cloth.  On it is every kind of animal, most of them forbidden as food by the Hebrew Scriptures.  A voice tells Peter to butcher some of the animals and eat their flesh.  Peter is understandably reluctant, saying that he has always tried to keep the commandments of God and he doesn’t want to start disregarding them now.  “I try to keep kosher, like God commands. Those creatures are unclean.  I can’t eat them.  You’re testing me, right?” 

Place yourself in Peter’s position.  Think of something you have always been taught is wrong, something that you have a visceral reaction against.  The dream is telling you to go ahead and pursue this.  You say, no thank you.  

Relentless, the voice replies, “Don’t call unclean what God has declared clean.”  This happens three times, and Peter wakes up, deeply troubled.  Just at this time, the messengers from Cornelius arrive.    The synchronicity is too great for him to ignore.  He agrees to accompany them to see Cornelius.  

Now as I said, Cornelius is a gentile.  Eating with Gentiles or even having extended dealings with them is a contaminating act under the careful and strict interpretation of the Law.   His ‘kind’ has been seen for centuries as unclean by most Jewish religious leaders of any stripe.  It’s the written Word of God that makes the distinctions, and for many, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.  No more questions allowed.”   

Yet God, that trickster with surprises up his sleeves, has other plans.  Peter has seen the vision of the unclean foods turned clean, and has heard the chastising voice when he is reluctant to follow the voice’s instructions.  And now he meets Cornelius, a gentile, someone his faith tells him is unclean, and he wants to hear the Gospel.  

Peter preaches the Gospel to Cornelius and his companions, and begins with “I understand that God shows no partiality.”  He declares that "no matter what nationality, anyone who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God."   As Peter preaches, the Holy Spirit falls on those gathered, even on the gentiles.  Peter declares, "can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" 

Note this: “The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.  (Acts 10:45)  The point is this—Peter and the other leaders of the early church did not want to welcome these marginal people, these people without God’s Law.  And they were surprised and shocked when they began to see in the lives of these unclean strangers the very signs they saw in themselves of God’s action and engagement.   

Peter, against his native sense of religious duty to God, openly baptizes gentile Cornelius.  It took a dream vision and huge amounts of “coincidence” to bring him to do it, but he does it nonetheless because he recognizes in the lives of these strangers things he knows from his personal experience come from God. In coming chapters, the onetime Saul, now Paul, preaches widely and succeeds beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.  Large congregations of Gentiles become the mainstay of the Church.  Paul is early Christianity’s Beyers Naudé, once an opponent who became a proponent of what he had stood against.  And so in chapter 15 of Acts, the Church must meet and figure out in Council how to manage the new reality, Gentiles as Christians.   

In all of this, the members of the Church were engaged in a great effort at discernment of vocation, or trying to hear and identify exactly what it was that God was calling them to.   They knew they needed to share the Gospel, but did not know exactly with whom. 

Presbyterian theologian Frederick Beuchner defined vocation as where our deepest joy meets the world’s deepest need.  Finding out where we are energized, “in the flow,” and in sober deep pleasure and matching this to the hunger of those about us is the principal task of discernment. 

Attentiveness is key, paying close attention to where our joy lies. 

In the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a key practice in discernment is the examination of our feelings.  Where our actions and aspirations, our dreams and our hopes lead us to greater joy and appreciation, greater connection with God and others, they are seen as congruent with God.  Where they lead elsewhere, they are seen as working against the God who made our hearts. 

The early Church realized that its greatest joy was in sharing the stories of Jesus broadly and serving and welcoming broadly.  And this deep joy met the deep hunger of the people around them in the diverse and messy world that was Greco-Roman antiquity.   

We here at Trinity clearly value welcome, hospitality, openness, and inclusiveness.  It is essential that we continue to seek to discern what God is calling us to, both as individuals and as a parish.    In spiritual life, as in organizations and business, there is no standing still.  You are either moving forward or falling backward.  And to move forward, to grow further, we need to discern more carefully what God is calling us to.

Prayer is a key part of this.  Just like the three legged-stool of Anglican belief—scripture, tradition, and reason—there is a three legged stool of Anglican prayer life:  the Eucharist, the Daily Office (Evening and Morning Prayer), and then private devotions, the meditation and prayer practices that we individually find suit us well and that we use daily.   Private devotion is where we individually find the thin places between this world and the unseen world of Spirit. 

Let us this week continue in our practice of private and family devotions, and common worship as possible on a daily basis.  If you are not praying regularly, then start.  A good place to begin is found on page 136 of the Prayer Book, with the shortened and simplified Morning and Evening Prayer form called “Devotions for Individuals and Families.”   A small group of us sings Morning Prayer here in the Church every day at 7:15, and all are welcome.  

Each day, take a few minutes to examine your feelings.  What is bringing you deep joy?  What is distracting?  Don’t beat yourself up about it.  Just examine and look.  And then let the knowledge gained by the examination settle in you for further reflection over time.  A time will come when it will become clear where this joy meets the world’s hunger.  And then be ready for more surprises.  

Thanks be to God. 

Gregory of Nazianzus (May 9 Mid-week Message)

Today is the feast day of Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop and theologian, who died on May 9, A.D. 389.

Gregory is rightly seen as one of the fathers of the developed doctrine of the Holy Trinity, a point that should be of interest to those of us who attend Trinity Ashland. 
Traditionally, there are eight great Doctors (Teachers) of the ancient Church, four who wrote in Latin (St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine of Hippo, St, Jerome the translator of the Vulgate Bible, and Pope Gregory the Great) and four who wrote in Greek (St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom of Syrian Antioch and Constantinople, St. Basil the Great, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus in Asia Minor).  Gregory of Nazianzus, his friend Basil the Great, and Basil's brother Gregory of Nyssa, are jointly known as the Cappadocian Fathers.  Cappadocia is a mountainous region in what is now Central Turkey.

The arguments in the early Church about the nature of Christ make our modern Anglican arguments about acceptance of Gay and lesbian Christians seem like a calm amiable afternoon tea. Arius and his supporters, pointing to plenty of Old and New Testament passages, argued that Christ was subordinate to God the Father, a created being who had been “begotten” son of God and raised to the role of second person in the Godhead.  Athanasius and his followers argued that Christ has always been Son of God, was co-equal with the Father, and was “eternally begotten” of the Father, that is, outside of time and space, because “there had never been a time when he was not Son of God.”  The argument had broken into riots, mutual excommunications, murders, and petty wars.  The newly Christian Roman Emperor wanted peace and unity in his realm, and so convened the Church bishops in Council at Nicea in A.D. 325.  They upheld the position of Athanasius, putting it into a Creed that sought to be acceptable also to Arians.  The fight continued, with the Arians now quoting the Creed with their own Arian interpretation.  For several decades, the Arians were in the majority, and controlled the Imperial Army.  In addition, the division seemed to split the Church along national and ethnic lines.  

In 379, after the death of the Arian Emperor Valens, Gregory was asked to go to Constantinople to preach there. For thirty years, the city had been controlled by Arians or pagans, and the orthodox did not even have a church there. Gregory went. He converted his own house there into a church and held services in it. There he preached the Five Theological Orations for which he is best known, a series of five sermons on the Trinity and in defense of the deity of Christ. People flocked to hear him preach, and the city was largely won over to the Athanasian (Trinitarian, catholic, orthodox) position by his powers of persuasion.

Within a year, Gregory was consecrated bishop of Constantinople.  And when the Emperor called a new Council in 381 to try to resolve the split in the Church, Gregory presided.  The Council of Constantinople confirmed in 381 the Athanasian position of the earlier Council of Nicea in 325 and edited the creed so that it was less patient of an Arian reading.  The “Nicene Creed” we recite in Church to this day is a translation of the Council of Constantinople’s updated version of the Creed from Nicea.

Further work by the Cappadocian fathers, mainly philosophical and mystical treatises and sermons reflecting on the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, gradually made the Arian argument about the role of Christ increasingly irrelevant and unattractive.    Trinitarianism had won the day, though much remained to be resolved about the relationship of Christ's two natures, divine and human. 

Almighty God, you have revealed to your Church your eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like your bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; for you live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.
--Fr. Tony+

In Love there is no Judgment (Easter 5B)

In Love there is No Judgment
Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)
6th May 2012
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Acts 8:26 – 40; Psalm 22:25 - 31 ; 1 John 4:7 - 21 ; John 15:1 - 8

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

“God is love.” People often quote this striking line from today’s epistle (1 John 4:16). But they rarely quote the great insight about human nature that immediately follows:

God is Love
and the person who lives in love
lives in God and God lives in that person.
It is in this way that our love has reached perfection.
As a result we are open and confident on Judgment Day
because already in this world we are like Christ.
Love has no room for fear;
Rather, perfect love drives out fear,
for fear involves punishment.
Love has not reached perfection in one who is still afraid.
But as for us, we love because He loved us first. (1 John 4:16-19)

The logic of the passage depends on this insight: “In love, there is no judgment.”

As people who love and are loved, most love we experience is flawed. It is distorted by our demands and by the conditions we place on it. And so it is often rejected, or turns toxic.

When our daughter was at college, she went through a rough time. She stopped communicating with us. Through a lot of hard work, she got back on track. She came home for a holiday and we reconnected. At a joyful moment in private, we reassured her of our love, and said how proud we were of her.

Her body suddenly stiffened; her face went taut. Then she said caustically, “Mom and Dad, I’m glad I meet your approval.”

We were only trying to express love, but all she felt was our appraising her progress, measuring her performance. We loved her, and couldn’t help but want “the best” for her. So our love was mixed necessarily with our judgment of what was best for her, and this judgment of ours provoked fear in her. Things are much better now. But the experience is common, and tells us about love.

Think of times when you have loved or been loved. Think of any kind of love you have experienced—that of a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, a romantic lover, or even just that of a fellow human being.

When was that love at its best? Wasn’t it always when the love was there simply because of love itself, not because of some need met, some desire realized, or some standard fulfilled?

Think of when love went horribly wrong. Maybe it turned to hatred or loathing, or became abusive in some way. Wasn’t the problem always at root some kind of judgment, condemnation, or criticism?

How many of us have heard the following words where once there had been only words of joyful love? “Stop judging me.” “She is always trying to change me.” “I wish you would take me just as I am.” “Why do you always have to be so critical?” “I love you, but I can’t be with you. It’s just too painful.”

When Saint Paul said, “Love never fails” (1 Cor. 12:8), he was describing love as it ought to be, not as it appears in these harsh words.

We seem to be made in such a way that so far as our emotional selves are concerned, love is incompatible with judgment and fear. If mixed, love is rejected or corrupted. Even a whiff of evaluation will turn an expression of love and approval sour through fear of not measuring up.

That’s why one of the basic principles of counseling is to listen without judging. You cannot build trust as a counselor if you judge.

It’s why most conscious efforts at “tough love” generally only alienate their object.

It’s why Jesus taught us to love, and not to judge.

But wait a minute: Isn’t Jesus going to be our judge? He loves us. How can there be no judgment in love?

Even when we talk about God and Christ, there is no room in love for judgment. At least, that’s how it feels.

When I was a student at the Catholic University of America, I prayed regularly in the nearby National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The main nave is cavernous. On the ceiling above the high altar is an immense mosaic of Christ on the Day of Judgment. As you look up, he peers down at you accusingly, eyes ablaze in anger.

Looking up at that mosaic, I always felt condemned, and bound for hell. I always retreated to the crypt church in the basement for prayer. That mosaic was just too threatening. I just couldn’t pray to Jesus for mercy in the nave.

The Day of Judgment is an important part of the Church’s teaching about justice and moral responsibility. But these doctrines do not require us to take the image of God’s wrath more literally than we take the image of God’s love.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If anyone hears me and doesn't obey me, I don’t judge and condemn him. For I have come to save the world and not to judge it.” On the last day, it will not be me doing the judging, he says, “it will be the truth I have spoken that will judge all who reject me and my message” (John 12: 47-48).

C.S. Lewis describes this by saying that in the end, there will be only two kinds of people, those who have said to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God must finally say, “Alright, have it your own way.”

The Day of Judgment does not mean that God’s love, like human love, is corrupted by judgment and bound to produce fear. When we say “Christ will come again to be our judge” in the creed, we affirm God’s love and mercy, not God’s harsh judgment.

But wait—in this life we have to judge. What if the person we love is doing really bad things? Aren’t we obliged to help? And doesn’t this include recognition of standards?

There are non-judgmental ways of responding to real problems. We don’t accuse or say “you are wrong here.” We talk about how the person’s behavior affects us. We are honest about our feelings, but we don’t try to apply labels. Couples and family counselors regularly teach people how to address real problems fairly. Usually it involves use of the formula: “I feel [fill in the emotion] when you [fill in the behavior] because [fill in how the person’s behavior causes your feeling.]

Just trying not to judge or not to get angry because Jesus taught us this simply won’t do. We end up doing both anyway, and usually alienate ourselves from our own emotional lives to the degree that we disengage from others. That is not love. That is emotional death.

In today’s epistle reading, John doesn’t say simply that love is incompatible with fear and judgment. He says that perfect love drives out fear. It heals the hurt caused by judgment and in its stead gives openness, frankness, and confidence.

In today’s epistle, it is only as we seek to love, and remain in love, that we live in God and God lives in us. He gives us his spirit. As a result, our love is made more and more complete. In the end, our love ends up being like God’s, even here and now.

Paul calls this process “sanctification.”

Today’s gospel describes it in the image of Christ as the true vine and believers as his branches.

The reading today from Acts describes one of the historical effects of this—greater and greater inclusion of others.  Although the Law said the Ethiopian Eunuch was unclean and beyond the pale, and though he probably made Philip uneasy, Philip does not judge. In light of gratitude and grace, in the presence of Love that does not judge, there is no impediment.  “Here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” indeed….    

Such practice in love must start in love. If it starts through a sense of obligation because of fear of condemnation, it won’t last. That is just going through the motions of love. This is better than not going through the motions. But unless it finds it can root itself in love, even this effort at imitating Christ is bound to corrupt itself and end in contempt and cynicism.

Gratitude for perfect love freely given is the only sure beginning point. Just as the human heart cannot feel love and judgment at the same time, it cannot be full of gratitude at the same time as judgment and resentment. 

In this week’s mid-week message, I talked about transformative Love, and how important it is to know that God is crazy about us, and to bask in the love of God.    I got a great response to the message; clearly I had touched a nerve.  Many of us feel God is disappointed in us, or is angry with us, that God is judging us.  

But Jesus teaches us that God is our loving Father, better than any parent we have ever known.  Knowledge of this produces gratitude in our hearts, not a sense of not measuring up.

Trying to build love on anything other than gratitude is like my mother telling me and my brother as little boys to hug, forgive each other, and make up after a particularly nasty fight. We would sullenly go through the motions, and spit out the words. She would say “Now do it again and MEAN it.” Love cannot come from being commanded. It can only come from the gratitude from being loved first.

John describes this: “In this, then, does love consist: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his son as a means to drive away our failings.” (1 John 4:10).

Friends, God is Love. Our love is imperfect, corrupted by fear and judgment, and often fails. But God’s love is perfect. He has loved us, pathetic creatures that we are, through coming to us in the person of Jesus. And Jesus did not come to judge us. He came to save us. May we be grateful for this, and be transformed by our gratitude. May we let him perfect our love and drive away our fear.

In the name of God, Amen.

Crazy About You (Mid-week Message)

Crazy About You

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message May 2, 2012

As we continue our path through the great Fifty Days of Easter, we are reading many passages in the Eucharistic Lectionary as well as the Daily Office Lectionary about our new identities in Christ. 

You may have noticed that instead of “Glory to God in the Highest” as our Gathering Song of Praise, each Sunday in Easter we have been singing the Canticle Pascha Nostrum, a stringing together of several of Paul’s poetic descriptions of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Romans 6:9-11; and 1 Corinthians 15:20-22): 

Alleluia.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us;
therefore let us keep the feast,

Not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Alleluia.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him.

The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all;
but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin,
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Alleluia.

Christ has been raised from the dead,
the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since by a man came death,
by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Alleluia.

The idea is that we have died to our old selves and now are alive, and have new identities in the Resurrected Lord. 

When it comes to identities, whether old or new, it is important to ask ourselves who exactly we think we are and what we think others think of us.  Note in this regard the comments by Psychologist David Benner in his book Surrender to Love about what God thinks of us: 

“Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you come to mind? When I ask people to do this, a surprising number of people say that the first thing they assume God feels is disappointment. Others assume that God feels anger. In both cases, these people are convinced that it is their sin that first catches God's attention. I think they are wrong- and I think the consequences of such a view of God are enormous.  … 

“Regardless of what you have come to believe about God based on your life experience, the truth is that when God thinks of you, love swells in his heart and a smile comes to his face. God bursts with love for humans. He is far from being emotionally uninvolved with his creation. God’s bias toward us is strong, persistent and positive. The Christian God chooses to be known as Love, and that love pervades every aspect of God’s relationship with us.  …

“If you assume God looks at you with disgust, disappointment, frustration or anger, the central feature of any spiritual response to such a God will be an effort to earn his approval. … How could anyone expect to feel safe enough to relax in the presence of a God who is preoccupied with their shortcomings and failures?  …

“Genuinely encountering Love is not the same as inviting Jesus into your heart, joining or attending a church, or doing what Jesus commands. It is the experience of love that is transformational. You simply cannot bask in divine love and not be affected.”

Jesus' victory over evil and death on Easter changes the game for all of us.  That is why Paul says “even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 

Do you believe in a God that loves you, that is crazy about you?  Is the God you imagine in your heart as overwhelmingly bursting with kind feelings, loving concern, and affection for you as the one suggested by Jesus in the parable of the Loving Father (the one with the Prodigal Son)?  If this idea is difficult for you to feel and accept in your heart, whether because of some theological habit or personal burden, that means something is amiss.  I stand ready to talk with you in private about it, share experience and listen to yours, and pray with you. 

With the spring now here, and warmer weather, many of us are wearing shorter clothes and taking time to bask in the sunshine.  As part of your spiritual discipline this week, take time this week to simply bask in God’s love for a few minutes as well. 

--Fr. Tony+ 

[Thanks to the Rev. Jemma Allen and the Rev. Andrew Coyle for bringing this passage from Benner to my attention.]

350th Anniversary of 1662 Book of Common Prayer

May 19--  350^th Birthday of the 1662 Prayer Book

(Fr. Tony's May Trinitarian Article) 

Last year, 2011, marked the 400^th anniversary of the 1611 publication of the King James Version (KJV) of the Holy Bible.  This so-called “Authorized Version” was prepared by committees under the leadership of Anglican Bishop Lancelot Andrewes and promulgated by James I as an antidote to the more radical “reformation” versions of the English Bible then circulating, mainly the Geneva Bible of 1560, translated by Protestant exiles of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary.  A literary and cultural hallmark, the King James Bible has now become dated as a translation, overtaken by changes in the English language, advances in Biblical scholarship and textual discoveries.  Apart from lovers of its literary majesty and role in the shaping of the language and culture, the KJV is now preferred only by reactionary Protestants and fundamentalists. 

Puritans at the time, however, tended to question the “King’s Bible” as part of a plot to establish popery and the “idolatrous” forms of worship of English bishops such as Archbishop William Laud, who supported the use of cassock and surplice as “decent and orderly” clerical attire rather than “plain and simple” street clothes or academic robes and Genevan preaching tabs.  These were presenting issues for much deeper conflicts about political freedom and the class-based society based in nobility and monarchy that broke into outright bloodshed in the English Civil war and its aftermath.

The puritans, who ruled in a series of governmental schemes from 1649 to 1660, tried and executed both Archbishop Laud and his King, Charles I.   They disestablished the Church and ended the monarchy, and banned bishops, the Prayer Book, fine clothes, and even the celebration of Christmas.  By the time the monarchy was restored in 1660, people had learnt that republicans could be just as tyrannical as kings. Most were ready for a modified, constrained monarchy and a return to earlier ways.    

Thus when Parliament begged Charles II to come back from exile in France and succeed his father, he and the clergy who had fled with him insisted that the restoration of the monarchy required also the restoration of the Church of England together with its Bishops and Book of Common Prayer.  But which Prayer Book? 

The first Book of Common Prayer was written in 1549 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer under Edward VI, a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome.  The 1549 BCP was the first to contain the forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English and to do so within a single volume.  It included Morning and Evening Prayer, the Litany, and Holy Communion as well as occasional services like Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Prayers for the Sick, and a Funeral Service. It gave an Epistle and Gospel Lectionary for Sunday Communion Services as well as one for Old and New Testament readings for Daily Prayer as well as one for Psalms and Canticles, mostly biblical, to be sung between the readings.

The 1549 book was rapidly succeeded by a reformed revision in 1552 also under Cranmer’s editorial direction.  It never came into use because on the death of Edward VI, his half-sister Mary I restored Roman Catholic worship. On her death, a compromise version, largely the reformation 1552 versions supplemented with a few amendments from the 1549 book (mainly in rubrics and tending toward a more catholic sensibility of the rites), was published in 1559.   

Prior BCPs thus had lurched between essentially an English language version of Roman liturgies (1549) to radically protestant rites (1552), and a major point of conflict between Laud and Charles on the one side and the Puritans on the other had been the royalists’ opinion that the 1552 Book had gone too far in the direction of Geneva.  The major point of difference is how the Eucharist was seen--  the “catholic” editions saw it as a sacrament where Christ was truly and literally present in the consecrated Eucharistic elements, where the “protestant” ones saw it more as a mere commemorative meal, and “ordinance.”  Parliament proposed a compromise that would accommodate all parties, and that hopefully would reduce conflict by reducing many of the rubrics (the red-ink instructions on how to conduct the ceremonies) to the lowest common denominator between the “catholic” and “Protestant” parties.  They thus sought to heal the rifts in society still reeling from disestablishment and regicide.  But not much was left of either system of rites. 

Charles II, his nobles, and his clergy would have nothing to do with this, feeling that such a resolution would only intensify the rifts, and reduce common worship to the least attractive and the weakest elements of both camps.   They would have nothing less than the via media or middle path  for English Christianity established by Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.  The dictum  “Catholic in worship and Evangelical in doctrine” summarizes their approach and their desire to draw on the strongest of each camp’s traditions and not their weakest points. 

   

It is thus that on May 19, 1662, a new edition of the Book of Common Prayer was promulgated by the new King, having been approved by parliament. It was put into use in churches that fall, on August 24, 1662 (St. Bartholomew’s Day).  Thus 2012 marks the 350^th anniversary of the 1662 Prayer Book, the definitive Book of Common Prayer, which remains the official prayer book of the Church of England and the literary and beauty-in-worship standard by which all subsequent Prayer Books are judged.     

The Prayer Book is deeply rooted in the Bible: not only does it make full provision for the reading of Scripture, but its services are in substance and language scriptural throughout.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer appears in many variants in churches inside and outside of the Anglican Communion in over 50 different countries and in over 150 different languages. Again in many parts of the world, including the U.S., more contemporary books have replaced it in regular weekly worship.

Traditional Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian prayer books have borrowed from the Book of Common Prayer, and the marriage and burial rites have found their way into those of other denominations and into the English language. Like the King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare, many words and phrases from the Book of Common Prayer have entered popular culture. Such phrases as “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” and “until death you do part” come from Cranmer’s richly cadenced language, still presence in many of our rites.

Gracious God, we thank you for giving us the heritage of the Book of Common Prayer and in teaching us thereby to worship you in the beauty of your holiness, pray to you in conversation with believers of many lands and ages, study you Holy Word, and share our faith with all your children.  In Jesus’ name we pray,  Amen. 

--Fr. Tony+