Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Intention and Hope (Midweek Message)





Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
Intention and Hope
May 30, 2018

We recently worked with Peter McBennett to do a remodel of the bathroom attached to our master bedroom, to make it more accessible for Elena.  I delayed doing it for more than a year, fearing the disruption in our lives, and worried that accessibility would be even more reduced during the project.  I also took time to really find out exactly what would respond most easily to Elena’s specific needs.  But once we started, things went smoothly and quickly.  There were several surprises for me. 

One was that once the project started, both Elena and I got all excited, looking forward to the project’s completion and wondering how it would be.  Before we started, we were like school kids dragging their feet on an unwelcomed trip to the principal’s office.  But once we had moved into our guest bedroom and our original bedroom had turned into a construction site, we were like giddy children looking forward to a birthday or Christmas morning to unwrap presents. 

Another has been just how much joy and optimism Elena has regained after starting to use the new bathroom, including a slide-in spa tub with water and bubble jets, water warmer, and drain pump.  This recovered radiance far surpasses the seemingly minimal amount of regained autonomy and dignity provided by the remodel.   

What I take away from the experience is this:  while we usually dread change, sometimes it is necessary.  We must never let our dread and fear of the inconvenience and pain associated with change get in the way of a calm and rational assessment of our needs, and working out an intentional plan going forward to better meet them.  This applies whether to our personal relationships and family life, or our communal life in the church and larger community.  Repentance, or what the Prayer Book calls “Amendment of Life,” is one example:  putting aside harmful or destructive habits or ways of behaving, and seeking healthier ones.   A willingness to attempt innovation in liturgy, in vestry by-laws, or in public policy at the local, state, or national level is another example.  Intentionality helps overcome the inconvenience of change; and hope for new things to come always lovingly pushes aside our grief for the loss of the way things were. 

I think this is what Jesus was saying in his parable about wineskin and patches:  you don’t put new wine in old wineskins because they’ll burst.  You put patches of old cloth onto old tattered garments because new patches will tear them even worse.  Intentionality and hope:  it’s about looking forward and not backward, about a willingness to hold your nose for the duration of the change in expectation of fresher, cleaner air after the dust settles.  In any case, expect pleasant surprises. 

Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Living Theology (Trinity Sunday)


Lakota Trinity, Fr. John Giuliani

Living Theology
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Sunday after Pentecost, 27 May 2018
Homily preached at 8:00 a.m. said, 10:00 a.m. sung Eucharist 
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland
The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D., Rector

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

When I was a boy, I looked forward to the delivery each day of the local newspaper.  I always turned first to the comics page, and read Charles Shultz’ Peanuts.  My favorite Peanuts strip of all time had Lucy van Pelt and her younger brother Linus seated at a window looking out on a downpour of rain.  Lucy says to Linus,  “Boy, look at that rain. What is it floods the whole world?”  Linus replies, “It will never do that.  In the ninth chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow.”  Lucy smiles and replies, “You’ve taken a great load off my mind.”  Linus replies, “Sound theology has a way of doing that.” 



Today is Trinity Sunday, a celebration of a doctrine in theology.  For many of us here in Ashland, both those words—theology and doctrine—tend to be trigger words.  They have an intimidating, threatening ring to them.  For many of us, they are redolent of dry and dusty intellectualism that at best kills love and the spirit, and, at worst, hurls authoritarian anathemas and excommunications and burns witches and heretics. 

I wanted to talk a little today about how theology—and in particular the Church’s theology on the Most Holy Trinity—is actually connected to our life in all the ways that matter.  

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity mentions a friend who says he prefers the reality of experience, the spirituality of going out and experiencing the beauty of God’s creation, to the unreality of the dry and deadly musings of theologians any day.  Lewis writes:

“[A person who] look[s] at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, … also will be turning from something real to something less real… The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it. In the first place, it is based upon what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic. In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together. In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map” (p. 154).

The important thing to remember when you talk about theology and doctrine is this:  the heart of Christianity is not in theology or doctrine.  It is in the experience of the living God in our lives and our loving service to and compassion with others.  “The first commandment is love God.  The second is on par with this: love your neighbor.”   This is the life-giving heart of the Church.  The early Church leaders got into the business of theologizing and defining doctrine only when they realized that some ways of thinking about God and ourselves were not life-giving, and in fact got in the way. 

How you think impacts on how you experience life and the world.  How you believe colors how you live.  If you believe that God is a violent, bloodthirsty deity, you probably will not have much difficulty in warlike behavior of your own.  If you believe that God is a complete mystery, unrevealed and unrevealing, that kind of takes away any ability for God to actually touch you or change your life.   If you believe you are at heart a exactly depraved wretch, you may from time to time actually act like one.  If you believe that the face of God was revealed in the face of Jesus of Nazareth, you will probably take very seriously who he was and what he taught.    What you believe colors how you live and experience the world. 

 “Heresy” in Greek simply means a choice, or alternative.  The Church over the centuries has identified many such “choices” as something to be avoided.  A history of these theological controversies and exclusions make a very sorry story, one where Christians have not been their best at following Jesus.  But the Church first began to be concerned about such things only when it saw the harm that some “choices” of belief wrought on a comprehensive and healthy Christian life.  

Even judging by today’s broad inclusive standards, many of these condemned ideas are problematic.  Believing that the Son was created or begotten in time, and that Jesus thus became the Son, technically called Arianism or subordinationism, suggests that the only relationship possible with God is simple submission to higher authority.  This works all sorts of mischief in the life of the Church. 

Believing that the father, son, and holy spirit are simply three separate masks of, three separate ways we experience, or three different functions of, the one person God, technically called modalism, also robs us of community at the heart of all things and leads to submission to domination as the sole way of relating to God and to each other. 

I know how beloved some of the newer more gender inclusive three-fold ways of talking about God are for many of us here.  “Earth maker, Pain bearer, Life Giver” touches us because it is grounded in things we touch and feel.  But I fear it obscures the inter-relationships at the heart of God.  “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” may seem too androcentric.  But when Jesus taught us to call God our father, our abba, he was not emphasizing gender, but parental intimacy.  Perhaps “Parent, Child, and Sacred Breath” might work.    It at least preserves the relationships in the Trinity rather than giving us different functions and reducing each of the persons to one of these.   It is important to be inclusive, especially in our theology of God.  It is also important to keep a clear mind on the social nature of God. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is hard to grasp. Believing that God the Father was the God of the Old Testament, with Jesus being begotten as his Son in the New Testament, is a common way Christians have of trying to make sense of it.   But this too is subordinationism, and it tends to bifurcate the Bible into a bad “Old Testament” and a good “New” one.  Judaism is seen as primitive, good only insofar as it points to Christianity.  This form of Arian belief leads often to what is called “supercessionism,” the idea that Christianity has replaced Judaism as God’s true people.  This belief is the source of most historical anti-Semitism, even secular anti-Semitisms that reject Christianity.

Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff writes the following: 

“We believe that God is communion rather than solitude.  Believing in the Trinity means that at the root of everything that exists and subsists there is movement; there is an eternal process of life, of outward movement, of love.  Believing in the Trinity means that truth is on the side of communion rather than exclusion; consensus translates truth better than imposition;  the participation of many is better than the dictate of a single one” (Leonardo Boff, Holy Trinity, Perfect Community).    

Here is the core of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  It expresses why it was so right to name this Church here in Ashland “Trinity.”  Community, consensus, free give and take and mutual service—this is what makes us who we are. 

Henri Nouwen says that at the end of each day there are basic questions that we must ask ourselves to see whether we are following Jesus.  They for me also tell us whether we are living the theology of Trinity: 

“Did I offer peace today?  Did I bring a smile to someone’s face?  Did I say words of healing?  Did I let go of my anger and resentment?  Did I forgive?  Did I love?  These are the real questions.” 

In the name of Christ,  Amen.




Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Reclaiming Jesus (Midweek Message)




Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
May 23, 2018
Reclaiming Jesus

The Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Michael Curry, is having a busy week “telling the love of Jesus.”  His homily at the royal wedding on Saturday reached a viewership of 29 million people in the U.S. alone, according to Forbes magazine.  Saturday evening, he was satirized in good spirits by Saturday Night Live, to which he replied, in equally good spirits, how happy it made him.  Then on Tuesday, he was interviewed on NBC’s Today show, with a viewership also in the millions.   The message?  There is power in love, and God is love.  

Tomorrow evening, the Presiding Bishop will be assisting in leading an ecumenical church service at National City Christian Church on Thomas Circle in Washington D.C., and then participating in a candlelight vigil in front of the White House.  Here, the message is what love means and how it must find expression in our shared life.  The events will help promote the “Reclaiming Jesus” declaration that Curry and 22 other progressive and gospel-oriented religious leaders signed in early Lent. 

“We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches.  We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith is now at stake” they said.  

The statement makes six affirmations of faith and six concomitant renunciations of error and sin in our common life:

“I. We believe each human being in made in the God’s image and likeness. Racial bigotry is a brutal denial of the image of God in some of the children of God.  Therefore, we reject the resurgence of white nationalism and racism in our nation on many fronts, including the highest levels of political leadership.  We reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white privilege and advantage.  Any doctrines or political strategies that use racist sentiments, fears, or language must be names as public sin. 

“II. We believe we are one body.  In Christ, there is to be no oppression based on race, gender, identity, or class.  Therefore, we reject misogyny, the mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women being further revealed in our culture and politics, including in our churches, and the oppression of any other child of God. 

“III. We believe how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself.  Therefore, we reject the language and policies of political leaders who would debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God.  We strongly deplore the growing attacks on immigrants and refugees; we won’t accept the neglect of the well-being of low-income families and children. 

“IV. We believe that truth is morally central to our personal and public lives.  Jesus promises, ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32).  Therefore, we reject the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life.  The normalization of lying presents a profound moral danger to the fabric of society.

“V. We believe that Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination.  We support democracy, not because we believe in human perfection, but because we do not.  Therefore, we reject any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule.  We believe authoritarian political leadership is a theological danger threatening democracy and the common good—and we will resist it.
 
“VI. We believe Jesus when he tells us to go into all nations making disciples.  Our churches and our nations are part of an international community whose interests always surpass national boundaries.  We in turn should love and serve the world and all its inhabitants rather than to seek first nationalistic prerogatives.  Therefore, we reject “America first” as a theological heresy for followers of Christ.  While we share a patriotic love of our country, we reject xenophobic or ethnic nationalism that places one nation over others as a political goal.”  http://www.reclaimingjesus.org/

This is political, to be sure, for it deals with our life in common and what policies, values, and behaviors are best.  But it is not partisan.  This is about how we can best show forth the love of Jesus today, here and now.  It is all about the Gospel and what Jesus calls us to.  As the statement declares, “If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar was not, nor any political leaders since…  Our faith is personal, but never private, meant only for heaven and not for earth. Applying what ‘Jesus is Lord’ means today … [helps us] find the depth of faith to match the danger of our political crisis.”   

During June and July at the 9:00 a.m. hour on Sunday, I hope to have a series of Bible studies and conversations about the principles outlined in the declaration so that we all may see more clearly the way before us.  

Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+ 


Sunday, May 20, 2018

A Rushing Wind and Tongues of Fire (Pentecost)


A Rushing Wind and Tongues of Fire
Whitsunday (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; Ps 104:25-35, 37; Rom 8:22-27; John 15:26-27,16:4b-15 


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 life and death issues involving the Korean peninsula, and the contrast was all too great.  Really? 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, end racism, eliminate poverty, abolish handguns, or end hunger. 

Now I understood that making this contrast was unfair, both to her and to God.  Jesus taught us that if we pray with faith, God will grant us what we pray 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. 

Even knowing this, she still had annoyed me, mainly because she seemed so self-serving.  Maybe God did help her that day.  Maybe the Spirit “guided” her.   Her thankfulness was thus right.  But making this into a servant to her own ego and sense of partisan advantage (“only we true Christians can experience such blessings!”) cheapened what otherwise might have been innocent open-heartedness.

Today’s scriptures tell us just how varied the workings of the Holy Spirit are:  In Acts, the Spirit is God’s active and almost overwhelming presence in a shared communal event facilitating communication and empowering ministry.  In John, Jesus calls the Spirit to be at our side, a comforter or advocate, enlivening memory and strengthening the heart.  In Romans, the spirit is a quiet whispering intermediary between us personally and God, giving us access to God and to our own inexpressible unformed feelings.

In practical terms, what we experience as guidance by the Holy Spirit often seems very close to conscience, insight, intuition, arriving at a firmly held conclusion, or even, like my State Department colleague’s parking, dumb luck. But there is a difference. 

It is important in understanding the story of the outpouring of the spirit on the Day of Pentecost to know 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.  Remember the hardship of winter in a pre-industrial society.  You stored food by drying it, salting it, perhaps smoking it, or saving roots in cool cellars.  By early Spring, your larder was pretty low, and fresh fruits and vegetables only a vague memory.  So the earliest produce of spring signaled that hardship was over, and prodigal summer was arriving soon. On Shavuot, the first produce was given back to God in thanks, and then you held a big party with fresh produce, not dried and stored food.  

Paul uses this very image—first fruits—in today’s epistle to describe the Spirit.  Paul sees the world in which we live both as an early spring on the verge of a rich summer, 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, that produce will come.  The Spirit is like the first fruits in the spring, after our larders have run bare:  it is a sign of better things to come, of more and more life and abundance.

Elsewhere, Paul says this, “God 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).  A seal: a symbol and authenticating sign of the genuineness and reliability of our faith and hope.   An anointing: this means being smeared with sweet 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.  A first installment: the first payment of a much greater sum to come later. 

He also says, “God has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cor 5:4-7).

How do we know God’s Spirit is with us?  

In Galatians, we read this: 

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  (Gal 5: 22-23) 

Thus “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” are signs of the Spirit, that seal of the sureness of God’s promises, that down payment on the whole of God’s promises, those first fruits of an abundant and rich harvest. 

Sisters and brothers at Trinity:  I made a realization a couple of years after coming here:  it is somewhat providential that Trinity Ashland’s Patronal Feast, Trinity Sunday, comes one week after the Feast of Pentecost.  Because I see the Spirit of God at work in the good people of this Parish.  Susan Stitham likes to joke that our parish and community are full of white haired people who used to be very important people.  We have many, many accomplished people here, to be sure.  But more importantly, we are focused on things that matter, and are overflowing in good works, acts of mercy, and skillful advancement of God’s reign in our own lives and the lives of those about us.  We do not talk a lot about the spirit, but our lives are rich in peace, love, joy, patience, generosity, self-control, and generosity.   What a blessing to be with you, and learn from you, to see God at work in your lives and of the community at large.

May we continue learn to hear the Spirit’s whispers, and recognize her thunderings, be warmed at her gently burning hearth, and also be purified in her raging fire.   If we continue to follow the way of Jesus open to the Spirit all the while, this fire will burn through all the world. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Love's Cost


 
Love’s Cost
19 May 2018
Wedding of Ariana Nicole Millias and Jacob Frederick Giffin
Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Eph. 4:25-5:2; Psalm 67; 1 Cor 13:1-13; John 15:9-12

I once asked my father how it was that you could tell if you had found your one true love, your “one and only.” He looked pained at the question, and said, “it doesn’t really matter if you think you have found your one and only. Many people think they have their one true love, only to discover as they age and change that it was a short-lived emotion. And their marriages don’t last. Don’t ask whether you have found your one and only. You should ask what you need to do today to make the one you love your one and only. Because you don’t find a true soul-mate—you make one through actions each day.”

I thought my father was being terribly un-romantic. But I knew he was deeply and hopelessly in love with my mother.  And that, after fifty years.

I have come to realize that he was describing the only kind of romance that lasts—one that is strengthened and renewed each day, through thick and thin, by the actions that show and build mutual respect, love, and passion.

The reading from Corinthians that we just heard is often misunderstood.  Because it is often read at weddings, people think that Paul is talking about romantic love.  But Paul is talking about love itself of any kind.  He says that love is not just an emotion that is felt and experienced, but a condition of the will.  He knows that love as emotion, like any passion, can be fleeting or unpredictable.

“When you love someone, you are patient and kind with that person.  … are not jealous of them… you don’t try to show them up.  You don’t talk down to them, or act rudely toward them.  You don’t try to have your own way at their expense, nor do you get annoyed or resentful at them.  … When you love someone, you put up with whatever they do, you trust whatever they say, you hold every hope for them, and you are willing to endure anything for them.  When you love, you never stop loving.” 

Love here is not just a feeling we experience or suffer.  It is an active way we behave, the way we treat the beloved. 

Love in this sense is a type of sacrifice, a limitation on our freedom and our will. 

For Paul, love by definition places constraints on our freedom.  That’s why he says at one point, “In love, be like slaves to one another” (Gal. 5:13).  Paul knows that love is costly.  It involves constraints, not reducible to mere rules.  

Francoise Sagan, near the end of her life said she was satisfied and had no regrets.  The interviewer said, “Then you have had the freedom you wanted.”  Sagan replied: “Yes… I was obviously less free when I was in love with someone . . . Apart from that, … I’m free.” 
Love is always a risk.  We often are afraid of trusting our fragile hearts to someone else, especially if our heart has been bruised or broken.  But love is a gift from God, and refusing love, not loving, is an option that we take only at the peril of our souls.

C. S. Lewis writes: “Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation.”

Today Ariana and Jake you are making each other important promises in the presence of God, the saints and angels, family, and friends.   You will promise to love, comfort, honor, and protect each other, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to each other as long as you both live. 

May God bless you to keep and honor these promises.   Be sure to take time each day to listen to each other.  Be sure to allow each other space.  Be honest with each other.  Be kind to each other.  Help each other go easier on yourselves. 

Like love, this vow is not reducible to a mere set of rules.  Like Love, this vow demands all, demands perfection.  And no one of us is perfect.  So I also pray, that when your imperfections hurt the other, as they are bound to, may God bless you to seek forgiveness from each other, and to forgive each other.  That, after all, is what love is. 

May your love be a source for you to share God’s gifts with others.   Be hospitable, and continue enjoying your friendships.  I hope that God blesses you with children, because I know that both of you desire this, and believe that the two of you will be fabulous parents.  That is part of love as well. 

May the vows you take today make your love firmer, and more alive.  May your love and marriage last as long as you both live, be a crown upon your foreheads, and grow into the great eternal dance of light that surrounds the throne of God.  

In the name of God, Amen.    

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Waiting for God (Easter 7B)


Ascension of Christ, Salvador Dali, 1958


Waiting for God
Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year B)
13 May 2018
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
The Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

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 most states’ Department of Motor Vehicles office.  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 and African 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.   

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, 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.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Gregory of Nazianzus (Midweek Message)


Gregory of Nazianzus

 I am currently at the Oregon Garden in Silverton for our Diocesan Clergy Conference.  This message is a repeat from 2012. 

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.

Grace and Peace,
--Fr. Tony+