That We All May Be One

It has been common over the years, during Advent, to speak of three “comings” of Christ for which we are to prepare during the season — the first in a Bethlehem stable, the second into our hearts each day if we would but invite him, and the third on the last great Day when he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I must confess that, as priest and bishop, I spent much more homiletical time addressing the first two than I ever did the third.

But I have in recent years been reading a good bit of N. T. Wright, one time Bishop of Durham and currently research fellow at Wycliff Hall, Oxford. He is a well-respected and extremely popular New Testament scholar and incredibly prolific author. His early work was in the so-called “quest for the historical Jesus’ and his more recent in the writings and theology of St. Paul.

I am not as conservative a New Testament exegete as is Professor Wright. I fall somewhere in between him and Marcus Borg (which admittedly leaves a lot of territory!) in my approach to interpreting Scripture and the theology which flows from such interpretation.

But I have been very grateful to Wright for challenging us all to question the “modern” Christian notion that the purpose of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was for us to believe in those events so that, when we die, we can go to heaven. In fact, we can be forgiven for such a wrong-headed notion since so many of the prayers and hymns of our liturgy and worship seem to teach just that.

Yet, as Tom Wright reminds us, the resurrection of the dead as described in the New Testament is not about “life after death.” It is about “life after life after death.” And the kingdom of God, as understood by Jesus, Paul, and the rest of the New Testament writers, is not finally about us dying and going to heaven. It is about that last Day when God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven and things will be set right again once and for all. Justice will be done and, as Mary once sang, God will “scatter the proud in their conceit…cast down the mighty from their thrones…and lift up the lowly.”

In fact, there will be no final end of the world, but its renewal as the mystic St. John the Divine makes clear in that last, great book of the Christian Bible: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them, they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.'” (Revelation 21:1-4)

In fact, as I look back on it, this was exactly what I was taught in seminary all those years ago: that, when we die, we enter an “intermediate state” of some kind. Some believe this is something like a deep sleep (rest in peace?) from which we shall awake on the last great Day. Throughout our history most Christians have seemed to believe that this is a more conscious state, called by Roman Catholics “Purgatory” (in recent years, much redefined), by Anglicans “Paradise” (as in Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross “Today will be with me in paradise”), and by most Protestants as simply “Heaven.”

However, and this is the crucial point, this state is understood to be an “intermediate” one! Like those souls in the Sheol of the Hebrew Bible or those to whom Jesus is said to have descended into “hell” to rescue (I Peter 3:19), this is a place of waiting until Christ will come again and the dead will be raised to life again and given “resurrection bodies” (I Corinthians 15:35-57) fit for the new heaven and new earth over which God will preside forever.

Does this seem strange or impossible to believe? What then do we mean every Sunday as we conclude the Nicene Creed by saying, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” What does the section on The Christian Hope in “An Outline of the Faith, commonly called the Catechism” (Book of Common Prayer, pages 861-862) mean when it speaks of the coming of Christ in glory, the last judgment, the resurrection of the body, and everlasting life? Most importantly, what did Jesus, Paul, and the writers of the New Testament mean when they taught us to look for the day when God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven?

I offer this exciting, and thoroughly orthodox, vision of that third “coming of Christ” for your meditation during these four weeks of Advent. Prepare to celebrate the coming of Christ at Christmas. Prepare to celebrate him coming into your life today through word and prayer and sacrament. But do not forget to prepare for him to come in glory to judge the living and the dead and establish the kingdom that will have no end!

I just wanted to have a word with him. He’d really done some astounding things and that had made him a kind of threat not only for the government, but really to any of us who were in leadership positions. We liked things to be quiet and predictable. The worse thing for all of us was instability…change. We’d become pretty comfortable with the status quo, imperfect as it was.

It was too dangerous to seek him out in the daytime so I waited until it was night and found him walking along the outskirts of the city. I signaled that I wanted to speak with him and told him that I had been impressed with his teaching for a long time, but that the confrontation he had provoked the other day was quite beyond the pale and, unless he really was being protected, not only by his followers, but the the very power of God, I feared for his safety.

He had smiled and said that those we thought were “in charge” really weren’t, but that I probably wouldn’t be able to see that unless I started all over again. I didn’t really know what he meant by that and, in any case, I didn’t believe people got second chances in this life. I told him that one of my teachers used to say that what has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

Again, he smiled, shook his head, and agreed that is what most people think…conventional wisdom. But that there was another perspective, another reality, that he could only describe as coming “from the spirit”. And that reality, he suggested, could only be perceived by starting afresh, starting over again, looking with new eyes. It would feel like being born all over again — washed this time not by our mothers’ water breaking but by the spirit’s inbreaking. I must have exhibited astonishment on my face because he got suddenly serious and said it was the only way.

The evening breeze picked up about then and, as it tousled his hair, he said it was something like the wind that he was talking about. Something unexpected, unseen, and yet absolutely real and completely necessary. This “spiritual” reality was like that for any who chose to start afresh a new kind of perspective. When I expressed my doubts, or at least skepticism, about all that, he gently wondered how I could claim to be a teacher in our community at all if I did not understand such things.

And he went on to say that he and his followers and friends were all about bearing witness to this new (and yet old) way of seeing the world. The frustrating thing, according to him, was that so many were quite willing to acknowledge and even appreciate the help he’d been able to provide any number of people, particularly the poor and outcast in the community, but they seemed unwilling or unable to acknowledge the source of such power.

He seemed perfectly willing to serve as a model for this way of being even if it meant standing out in the crowd as a beacon of hope like the mystical bronze serpent our ancestor had held aloft in the desert when all hope seemed to have vanished for our people all those centuries ago.

Our conversation concluded with his observation that the kind of reality, the kind of power he was talking about was none other than the power of love, the spirit’s own love, which he had dedicated his life to embody no matter what the consequences. And he didn’t really understand why people were so threatened, so fearful, and so defensive about this message because his point was that it was all about freedom and new life, not about the condemnation of anyone.

Maybe. But threat, fear, and defensiveness were exactly what his message seemed to evoke in the leadership, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise. And, many months later, my old teacher’s observation that there was nothing new under the sun seemed undeniably true.

As, on a day of preparation, I met my friend Joseph in the garden. To bury yet another prophet.

 Not that you would ever know it from our lectionary readings, but today (in addition to being Mother’s Day!) has also been known as Rogation Sunday. Rogation comes from the Latin word “rogare” which means “to ask.” Same root word from which we get “interrogation.” And on these days, the church has traditionally asked for God’s blessing on the planting of crops and the eventual harvest.

In modern times the concerns have been broadened so that, this Monday, we will pray “for a fruitful season,” on Tuesday “for commerce and industry” and on Wednesday “for stewardship of creation.” Those are all three vital concerns for us in these days as we welcome the Easter and spring season of new growth and planting at the same time as we face a challenging economy in the wake of the pandemic, and a worldwide attempt to combat global warming and the harmful effects of man-made climate change.

While the Judeo-Christian tradition has not always been known for an emphasis on the environment and the protection of Mother Earth (in fact, often, quite the opposite!) nonetheless we do well to remember that the biblical writers lived much closer to the land and to nature than we do. Jesus often uses agricultural imagery in his teaching and parables as in today’s Gospel, “…I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…” (John 15

The Psalmist often praises the gift of creation in words like we read this morning, “Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it, the lands and those who dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the LORD, when he comes to judge the earth.” (Psalm 98:8-10)

Even the First Lesson from Acts and the First Epistle of John remind us that the element which makes up 71 % of the earth’s surface – water – is the same element Christians use for our primary sacrament – holy baptism! Water is life – physically and, for us, spiritually!

I started thinking about all this again as we celebrated Earth Day a couple of weeks ago and as Susanne and I explored some relatively new territory for us in the Rocky Mountains on our first real trip in over a year! And, as I was challenged by these paragraphs from Sherri Mitchell, a Native American attorney and environmental activist:

[Our [indigenous] story begins with an understanding that we are related to all beings within creation. The two legged, the four legged, the winged, the beings that crawl and slide along the ground, the plants, the trees, and the living Earth are all our relatives. Everything is interconnected and interdependent; the well-being of the whole determines the well-being of any individual part…there is one life, one breath that we all breathe…

…this teaches us that it is not enough to know that we are part of one living system. We must also take steps to live in harmony with the rest of creation. This means that we cannot adopt attitudes or beliefs that place us above the natural world. We cannot see ourselves as having dominion over the land, the water, or the animals…We are only keepers of a way of life that is in harmony with the Earth. Every day, we must act in ways that acknowledge that we are part of one living system, a unified whole.

This understanding is very different from the belief that human beings are chosen above all others. That view creates countless distortions that not only elevate {humanity} inappropriately, but also diminishes the rest of creation. The world is one unified system. It cannot be separated into fragmented, salable parts.

 The Eurocentric view of property ownership requires us to see the land as being disconnected from us. This view separates us from the source of life. The indigenous view recognizes the land as kin, as part of the lineage of life that we are all connected to. Thus, we have an obligation to care for the land in the same way that we would care for human relatives.”] (Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, 2018)

We have an obligation to care for the land in the same way that we would care for human relatives! What a challenge! (Pause) Sometimes, we hear a dichotomy set up between how best to protect the environment and combat global warming. Does the emphasis need to be on large national and international efforts or on changing our personal habits and our ways of treading upon the earth? I think that’s a false dichotomy. It’s not an either/or but a both/ and.

Certainly, the Biden Administration has proposed some lofty goals on the environment in recent weeks. By taking steps to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, working with the international community, and setting a goal of cutting the United States’ carbon emissions to half their 2005 levels by 2030, President Biden has shown that he is not afraid to dream and plan big for what some have called “this generation’s moonshot!” Our church supports such efforts, but also encourages us to take personal steps to help combat climate change. Here’s one list of ten simple things you and I can do:

1. Reduce, re-use and recycle – cut down on what you throw away.
2. Volunteer for clean-ups in the community – New Song is doing this!
3. Educate yourself first about the problem and then try to educate others.
4. Conserve water – the less water you use, the less wastewater run-off.
5. Eat less meat, lower on the food chain.
6. Shop wisely – bring reusable shopping bags (when we can again) instead of plastic.
7. Use long-lasting light bulbs.
8. Plant a tree – either personally or join community efforts like in Cedar Rapids in the wake of the derecho.
9. Use non-toxic chemicals at home.
10. Drive (and certainly fly!) less and try to have a fuel-efficient car.

Well, there are many such lists. And I think of them sort of like a rule of life or spiritual discipline. We do them not because they will change things overnight but to remind ourselves of the problem and to hold places where we work and shop accountable and always to vote for politicians who are willing to do something about this problem – both nationally and locally.

So, if you will, join me on Monday in praying, not only for a fruitful growing season, but that farmers and ranchers may become leaders in developing sustainable agricultural practices for the future. On Tuesday, pray not only for commerce and industry, but that corporations may find a social conscience to guide them in business decisions which will be responsible to the earth and which will treat laborers and workers fairly.

And, on Wednesday, pray that we will not only be good stewards of creation but, as Sherri Mitchell wrote: that we will be “keepers of a way of life that will be in harmony with the Earth!”

And in this, as in all things, may we be faithful to Jesus’ charge “to bear fruit…fruit that will last!”

                                           Can You Say “Rogationtide?”

Not that you would ever know it from our lectionary readings, but today (in addition to being Mother’s Day!) has also been known as Rogation Sunday. Rogation comes from the Latin word “rogare” which means “to ask.” Same root word from which we get “interrogation.” And on these days, the church has traditionally asked for God’s blessing on the planting of crops and the eventual harvest.

In modern times the concerns have been broadened so that, this Monday, we will pray “for a fruitful season,” on Tuesday “for commerce and industry” and on Wednesday “for stewardship of creation.” Those are all three vital concerns for us in these days as we welcome the Easter and spring season of new growth and planting at the same time as we face a challenging economy in the wake of the pandemic, and a worldwide attempt to combat global warming and the harmful effects of man-made climate change.

While the Judeo-Christian tradition has not always been known for an emphasis on the environment and the protection of Mother Earth (in fact, often, quite the opposite!) nonetheless we do well to remember that the biblical writers lived much closer to the land and to nature than we do. Jesus often uses agricultural imagery in his teaching and parables as in today’s Gospel, “…I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…” (John 15

The Psalmist often praises the gift of creation in words like we read this morning, “Let the sea make a noise and all that is in it, the lands and those who dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the LORD, when he comes to judge the earth.” (Psalm 98:8-10)

Even the First Lesson from Acts and the First Epistle of John remind us that the element which makes up 71 % of the earth’s surface – water – is the same element Christians use for our primary sacrament – holy baptism! Water is life – physically and, for us, spiritually!

I started thinking about all this again as we celebrated Earth Day a couple of weeks ago and as Susanne and I explored some relatively new territory for us in the Rocky Mountains on our first real trip in over a year! And, as I was challenged by these paragraphs from Sherri Mitchell, a Native American attorney and environmental activist:

[Our [indigenous] story begins with an understanding that we are related to all beings within creation. The two legged, the four legged, the winged, the beings that crawl and slide along the ground, the plants, the trees, and the living Earth are all our relatives. Everything is interconnected and interdependent; the well-being of the whole determines the well-being of any individual part…there is one life, one breath that we all breathe…

…this teaches us that it is not enough to know that we are part of one living system. We must also take steps to live in harmony with the rest of creation. This means that we cannot adopt attitudes or beliefs that place us above the natural world. We cannot see ourselves as having dominion over the land, the water, or the animals…We are only keepers of a way of life that is in harmony with the Earth. Every day, we must act in ways that acknowledge that we are part of one living system, a unified whole.

This understanding is very different from the belief that human beings are chosen above all others. That view creates countless distortions that not only elevate {humanity} inappropriately, but also diminishes the rest of creation. The world is one unified system. It cannot be separated into fragmented, salable parts.

 The Eurocentric view of property ownership requires us to see the land as being disconnected from us. This view separates us from the source of life. The indigenous view recognizes the land as kin, as part of the lineage of life that we are all connected to. Thus, we have an obligation to care for the land in the same way that we would care for human relatives.”] (Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, 2018)

We have an obligation to care for the land in the same way that we would care for human relatives! What a challenge! (Pause) Sometimes, we hear a dichotomy set up between how best to protect the environment and combat global warming. Does the emphasis need to be on large national and international efforts or on changing our personal habits and our ways of treading upon the earth? I think that’s a false dichotomy. It’s not an either/or but a both/ and.

Certainly, the Biden Administration has proposed some lofty goals on the environment in recent weeks. By taking steps to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, working with the international community, and setting a goal of cutting the United States’ carbon emissions to half their 2005 levels by 2030, President Biden has shown that he is not afraid to dream and plan big for what some have called “this generation’s moonshot!” Our church supports such efforts, but also encourages us to take personal steps to help combat climate change. Here’s one list of ten simple things you and I can do:

1. Reduce, re-use and recycle – cut down on what you throw away.
2. Volunteer for clean-ups in the community – New Song is doing this!
3. Educate yourself first about the problem and then try to educate others.
4. Conserve water – the less water you use, the less wastewater run-off.
5. Eat less meat, lower on the food chain.
6. Shop wisely – bring reusable shopping bags (when we can again) instead of plastic.
7. Use long-lasting light bulbs.
8. Plant a tree – either personally or join community efforts like in Cedar Rapids in the wake of the derecho.
9. Use non-toxic chemicals at home.
10. Drive (and certainly fly!) less and try to have a fuel-efficient car.

Well, there are many such lists. And I think of them sort of like a rule of life or spiritual discipline. We do them not because they will change things overnight but to remind ourselves of the problem and to hold places where we work and shop accountable and always to vote for politicians who are willing to do something about this problem – both nationally and locally.

So, if you will, join me on Monday in praying, not only for a fruitful growing season, but that farmers and ranchers may become leaders in developing sustainable agricultural practices for the future. On Tuesday, pray not only for commerce and industry, but that corporations may find a social conscience to guide them in business decisions which will be responsible to the earth and which will treat laborers and workers fairly.

And, on Wednesday, pray that we will not only be good stewards of creation but, as Sherri Mitchell wrote: that we will be “keepers of a way of life that will be in harmony with the Earth!”

And in this, as in all things, may we be faithful to Jesus’ charge “to bear fruit…fruit that will last!”

I shall never forget the first time, as a young priest, I climbed into a pulpit as a visiting preacher and saw a 3 by 5 card taped to the note tray – “Sir, we wish to see Jesus,” it stated.  There was a time when it was not that uncommon to have that fragment of today’s Gospel displayed in pulpits to remind preachers that that is really our task – to help people see Jesus!

On that first encounter with it I was so shocked that I couldn’t even remember what I was supposed to preach on! But the advice is sound. And it is what preachers of the Gospel are called to do…each and every Sunday. And why it is such an awesome responsibility.

I think the best way I might be able to approach doing that on this particular Fifth Sunday in Lent is to reflect with you a bit on the concept of a “new covenant,” which we first hear about in this morning’s first Lesson from Jeremiah:

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts…” (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

What might it mean to have God’s law “within us,” to have it written “on our hearts?” Well let’s start by thinking a bit about the law itself. The people of Israel had always felt special because they understood themselves to be the ones to whom God had given the law.

During their journey to freedom, through their time sojourning in the desert, and from the hand of Moses, they believed that God had shown them how they were expected to live in order to sustain their fragile community and become a light to the world.

First of all by observing the 10 Commandments (or the 10 “Teachings,” as Mel reminded us in his sermon on Lent 3) – four duties toward God (to serve only One God, not to worship idols, not to take God’s name lightly, and to keep the Sabbath day). And six duties toward one another (to honor one’s ancestors, and not to murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet another’s possessions). If they would just live like this, their community would hang together even in the midst of adversity and people would notice!

The problem is, they couldn’t keep those Commandments (or the over 600 other laws, derivative from the Commandments that the priests and scribes had come up with over the course of the centuries) and so they always felt guilty. And even that God was angry with them! That God had forsaken them because of their sins. That God might even send poisonous serpents among them, like we heard in last Sunday’s reading!

Jeremiah knew that dilemma. And he also knew that people would never be able to keep the commandments and laws if they remained some external set of rules and regulations which had to be obeyed in order to please God. So, it was his prayer that God would somehow make the law an inward thing, written not on tablets of stone, but on their hearts!

But how was that to happen? Well, in today’s Lesson Jeremiah hears God say, “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they SHALL ALL know me, from the least of them to the greatest…for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34).

The Psalmist has the same insight this morning, “Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities/ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10-11)

In other words, the new covenant, the law written in our hearts, has something to do with our awareness of God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness. Let me state it plainly: AS LONG AS YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO OBEY THE LAW FOR GOD TO LOVE YOU, YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO KEEP IT. It’s like an athlete “choking up” when she has to make that final free throw to win the game. And it falls short.

BUT WHEN YOU REALIZE THAT YOU ARE ALREADY FORGIVEN, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO, YOU WILL BE FREE TO TRY TO LIVE LIKE GOD WANTS YOU TO, OUT OF THANKSGIVING, NOT OUT OF FEAR. Like that same athlete, knowing that her team is ahead, relaxing, and letting her natural abilities guide that basketball through the hoop – nothing but net!

We don’t try to obey God’s laws in order to be saved. We try to obey those laws in thanksgiving for the fact that we’ve already been saved!

And that’s what Jeremiah and the Psalmist and finally Jesus were trying to teach us! The same Jesus who the book of Hebrews tells us, “…offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him…” (Hebrews 5:7) The same Jesus who told his disciples in today’s Gospel, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)

This Jesus, in his full humanity, came to teach us that we are saved by God’s love, not by our own efforts. Just look at his life! Jesus healed first, and asked questions later! Never did he make his healing grace or God’s love dependent on how perfect we are or try to become.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus heals the centurion’s son first, without even seeing him…and then the centurion believed. He healed the blind man by the pool at Bethsaida first…and then told him to take up his mat. He fed the 5,000 first…and only then did they proclaim him as their king. He walks on the water first…and then tells them not to fear.

He forgives the woman caught in adultery first…and only then tells her to go and sin no more. (He doesn’t tell her to clean up her act first and then forgive her!). Jesus heals the man born blind first…without any concern about who had sinned, the man or his parents! He raises Lazarus from the dead first…and then tells them to unbind him and let him go free.

All these are signs, for those with eyes to see, of what our God is really like! God is not a stern taskmaster, holding out his love and approval until we have met some impossible standard. God is a loving parent who does not wait for the Prodigal child to return but runs to meet us – before we have even reached the gate! That is the gospel! That is the good news!

For, “the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…it will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors…But this is the covenant that I will make…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31 passim)

[1. What kind of God did you grow up believing in?

2. Has your image of God changed over the years? What happened to make it change?]

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

For many, many years I have spent time in prayer in the early morning, before (or as) the sun rises. It’s a good time for me because I am a morning person anyway, the house is quiet, and it is easier to focus my attention on God and God alone before all the cares and occupations of daily life begin to intrude.

The way I pray has evolved over the years. The Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer from the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer has remained the bedrock core of my prayer life since seminary. I like the balance of scripture and prayer. I like following the rhythm of the church year, from Advent to Advent, and being reminded of the communion of saints of which I am a part by baptism as their various feast days pop up.

Years ago, I would follow the Office with a time of “conversational” prayer, simply talking to God as I would a friend or a companion, often following a general outline of Praise, Thanksgiving, Confession, Intercession, and Petition. When that seemed to be getting too repetitive, and too self-centered, I began following the Office with a time of meditation.

For me, that meant journaling. I would sometimes focus on one of the scriptural readings for the day and “re-write” the passage in my own words, as though I were actually present in the action. This is a kind of Ignatian meditation and it served me well for many years. It even formed the core of a little book I wrote entitled John Mark as I worked my way through that earliest Gospel ever written.

At other times, the journal became a kind of “spiritual therapy” in which I would pour out my feelings of sadness or joy, anger or gratitude; sometimes in dialogue with God and other times just getting those feelings out of my head and heart and onto the page. The very act of naming whatever was going on inside was healing, of course, and doing that in the context of prayer seemed especially so in those years.

Later on, I learned that, at least for many of the mystics and saints of various traditions, spiritual maturity is marked by a movement from prayers of many words to prayers of few words…or none. It really isn’t necessary to tell God what God already knows! So, I began exploring the prayer of quiet listening. First, I learned that slowly repeating the words of the ancient, scriptural “Jesus Prayer” could help quiet my busy mind: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

My only problem with that prayer is that it seems repeatedly begging for mercy is not what God really wants of us. God is mercy…and love…and forgiveness. Those things are constantly being poured out upon us by our Creator before we ever ask. All we have to do is receive those those things — fold our pious umbrellas and let ourselves be fairly drenched in the grace of the Holy One!

Then I began using the so-called “Breath Prayer” to which I was introduced many years ago by my friend Ron DelBene. In this method, one opens oneself to an awareness of God’s presence, chooses a familiar name by which one likes to address God, and then follows that by a simple, four or five syllable statement summarizing what one would say to God if you were in that holy presence (which you are!).

So, the Breath Prayer (offered in sync with one’s breathing) could be something like: Lord, give me your peace. Or, Jesus, use me as you will. Or, Spirit, fill me anew. Or, anything else God puts in your mind and heart. My current one is: “Holy God, we are one.” This, being interpreted is: we are one with God, one with each other…if only we would recognize that oneness!

These days, however, I am mostly struggling with the call to move ever deeper into silence, so I follow both Morning and Evening Prayer with 20 minutes of contemplative prayer. The method I am currently using in preparing for contemplative silence is “Centering Prayer” as taught by Thomas Keating. Sit comfortably and breathe slowly “from the diaphragm;” allow a “sacred word” to emerge from your consciousness. It could be almost anything — God, Jesus, Spirit, Creator, Love, Joy, Peace — anything the Spirit gives you. Then, simply sit in silence for 20 minutes or so, returning to the sacred word only when you notice your mind wandering.

The adverb “simply” in the last sentence needs to be in quotes! For, at least for me, sitting in silence even for 20 seconds is not simple, let alone 20 minutes! Yet, it is what we are invited to do. And here, I am comforted by the counsel of a great saint who practiced this method for many years and said, “Contemplative prayer is nothing more, or less, than the battle against distractions.”

And yet “battle” is not quite the word. We should be gentle with ourselves as we find our stray thoughts intruding and have to return, again and again, to the sacred word. Richard Rohr observes that even a “nanosecond” of pure contemplation and awareness of the presence of God is worth it! And I have often thought that, whenever I return to my sacred word — which is often simply “God” — I am living in the Kingdom anew because, at least for that moment, God is supreme and reigns in my heart and mind.

Having said all this about my own journey into the life of prayer, I have come to believe that it really doesn’t matter very much “how” we pray. What matters is “that” we pray. Prayer is not for God, prayer is for us. Again, prayer is not telling God what God already knows. Prayer does not change God. Prayer changes us. And times of prayer are nothing more, or less, than returning our attention to God on a regular basis and opening ourselves to God’s grace.

One more thing: prayer is not an escape from this world, but a discipline strengthening us to engage in this world. I began this reflection by citing Mark 1:35, “In the morning, while it was still dark, (Jesus) got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” That one verse is preceded by five verses describing Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law. And, immediately following the line about Jesus’ morning prayers, Peter and his friends find Jesus, informing him that everyone is wondering where the heck he is!

Jesus answers them (I imagine, with a smile!), “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” (Mark 1:38) In other words, his prayer was pre-paring him for action! It is no accident that Jesuits like to describe themselves as “contemplatives in action” and that the Franciscan writer Richard Rohr founded something called “The Center for Action and Contemplation” near Albuquerque.

Prayer and action are two sides of the same coin. Christians follow one who was always reaching out to heal, to teach, and to strengthen others. Just read the Gospels! But, before he moved out in mission, Jesus often sought out lonely and deserted places…while it was still dark.

And there he prayed.

So must we.

I don’t think that any of us would have believed that we would live to see the day when our nation’s Capitol building would be breached and invaded by an angry mob, that those hallowed halls would be desecrated, and that people would actually be killed — all because an American president refused to accept the results of a free and fair national election.

Oh, the seeds of discontent long predated the election. They predated the four year term of this president. And the seeds are ones of white supremacy and racism which have been in the DNA of this beloved, but deeply flawed, nation since its inception. The almost-unbelievable narcissism and questionable mental stability of Donald J. Trump has simply, as so many have observed, lit the match to an inferno just waiting to be kindled.

I don’t think I have had the feeling of such chaos in the land since the awful events of 9/11, 2001 when I lived in New York City. Both were attacks on our country — the one an attack on our military/industrial complex from without, the other an attack on the very democracy itself from within. We have been living in a time of political and social chaos. And I do not believe we are out of that particular woods yet!

So it is time to remind ourselves that we have a God, we serve and worship a God who has been bringing order out of chaos long before these United States were a gleam in anyone’s eye or mind or heart. In the timeless words of Genesis, we are told that:

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good…” (Genesis 1)

Quite apart from the earth-centered view of the universe which would have been the only possible understanding for the biblical writers, this author names a truth which is beyond dispute — at some point, billions of years ago in our time, order began to emerge out of the chaos which must have been the initial result of the so-called “Big Bang.”

At some point, after the expanding universe burst forth from a singularity in which time and space have no meaning, our planet (which had been molten because of constant collisions with other bodies) began to cool, eventually forming a solid crust and liquid water on the surface.

Surely at first it must have been a “formless void” suspended in the darkness, until the solar wind (“a wind from God?”) began its work of forming what we know as Planet Earth. In the final analysis, is one set of words and concepts more fantastical and wondrous than the other? The point is, order came out of the chaos. And it always will.

The Psalmist lends even more poetry to the process, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters.” (Psalm 29) It’s almost like the Psalmist is giving us a mental picture of the wind or spirit of God moving over the face of the primal waters — to bring order out of chaos.

Moving from cosmic to societal chaos, the Gospel reading for the 1st Sunday After Epiphany (Mark 1:4-11) tells us the story of Jesus’ baptism. It occurred at a time of chaos for the Jewish people. They were oppressed members of a subjected society.

Their own religious tradition seemed to be of little help, divided as it was between those who had sold out to the Romans (Herodians), those who wanted to escape their problems with religious rituals and pietism (the Essenes and, to a lesser extent, the Sadducees), and those who wanted to blow the whole thing up (the Zealots).

So they flocked to the Judean countryside to hear a fiery preacher named John who told them they had to start fixing society by fixing their own lives and counseling a “baptism of repentance” as a way to start over again. Perhaps to bring some order into the chaos of their situation. But they also heard the surprising message that this was not going to be enough, that John’s baptism was only a beginning. He told them to get ready for one even more powerful than he who was on the horizon. “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And then one Jesus of Nazareth stepped into those muddy waters and submitted to this new ritual cleansing at least in part to show his solidarity with John and his message. But the important thing happened right after the washing: “…just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.'” (Mark 1:11)

Jesus experienced that same spirit which swept over the face of the primal waters, the spirit which brought order out of chaos, come to rest upon him! He too was destined to bring order out of the chaos of the world. It was to be an order, not of violence and force so well represented by the Romans and hoped for by the Zealots. The order he came to proclaim was an order based on love, on self-giving love, on what Dante called “the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

Jesus did a lot to birth that kind of order during his life and even his death in the first century. The love that he exemplified even allowed him to forgive those who were driving the nails into his hands. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” But he knew that even his amazing life was only the beginning. So he left behind a rag tag, but spirit-inspired band of women and men who were to carry that message “to the ends of the earth.”

Those followers had to remember that they were always to be guided by the same spirit, the same order-out-of-chaos” spirit that had animated him. So much so that when St. Paul discovered that some new disciples of Jesus in Corinth (Acts 19:1-7) had only been baptized with the water-washing of John the Baptist, he made sure that they were to be motivated by the same spirit as Jesus. So “…they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus (and) when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them…”

Christians today have been anointed with that same spirit, dear friends. However much we may fall short in our mission, make no mistake about it: our task is to be same as theirs — to bring an order of self-giving love into the chaos of this self-serving society.

Donald Trump will not deter us from that task. Thugs and brigands will not deter us from that task.

Because…we have been baptized in the name of Jesus.

And love always wins!

Keep politics out of the pulpit…we have separation of church and state in this country! Why don’t you spend your time preaching the gospel and growing the church, not talking about current events! My guess is that, if you are a member of the clergy…or even a member of the church, you have heard things like this said more than once.

And I would not dismiss such statements out of hand. There are preachers out there who abuse the “power of the pulpit” to advance partisan concerns either on the right or on the left. And people don’t come to church to hear their minister opine about his or her particular views on the latest news headlines. But such abuses must not cause those of us entrusted with the responsibility of proclaiming God’s word from week to week from applying that word to real the concerns of real people in the real world.

After all, most Christians would agree that the central affirmation of Christmas is that “the Word became flesh.” The most important thing about that first Christmas was not the cuteness of a baby in a manger or the appearance of the Christmas star or shepherds hearing angelic voices singing God’s glory.

These things point to what is the most important thing — that, on “this day,” in the city of David, the wisdom of God, the principle of rationality and order at the core of the entire universe, the self-expression, the “word” of God, what theologians later came to name the “second person of the Trinity,” was made known, came to dwell/tabernacle in a new-born infant who was to be called Jesus.

Christians believe this. We also believe that this in-carnation, this enfleshment, of God, was “simply” the prime example of a principle as old as the creation itself. Namely, that the creator of the world, indeed the mind behind creation itself, makes itself known to us in the very “stuff” of that creation. It is the incarnational principle. The popular Franciscan writer, Richard Rohr, puts it this way:

“… the spirit nature of reality (the spiritual, the immaterial, the formless) and the material nature of reality (the physical, that which we can see and touch) are one. They always have been one, ever since the Big Bang took place 13.7 billion years ago. The incarnation did not just happen when Jesus was born, although that is when we became aware of the human incarnation of God in Jesus. It seemingly took until 2,000 years ago for humanity to be ready for what Martin Buber (1878-1965) called an I/Thou relationship with God. But matter and spirit have been one since “the beginning,” ever since God decided to manifest himself/herself in creation.”

And this incarnational principle itself, in time, is also seen in the sacramental principle. That is, that behind and beneath very earthy signs such as water, bread, wine, oil, and human touch the very power and love of God can be conveyed and received. The two primary Christian sacraments — baptism and the eucharist — show this most clearly. But other sacramental realities such as confirmation, marriage, ordination, healing and reconciliation also celebrate that truth.

Most Christians believe this. So why is it so difficult to accept the fact that God is also involved in the very stuff of life — the everyday events, large and small, which effect to one degree or another our common life? And, since the simplest definition I know of “politics” is “the way people living in groups make decisions,” Christians cannot avoid politics any more than they can avoid religion. The two, in many cases, are one.

I know that, in today’s parlance the word politics most often refers to the way that countries are governed and to the ways that governments makes rules and laws. And, particularly in the last decades, politics most often means partisan politics. It is this latter that Christian preachers must avoid! I used to say that I was often “political” from the pulpit, but never (I hope!) “partisan.” I never encouraged people on how to vote, only that they must vote!

It takes a certain fierce honesty, coupled with hours of prayer and meditation “with the Bible in one hand and the New York Times (or the Wall Street Journal!) in the other to craft a sermon which faithfully applies the “word of God” as discerned in Scripture to the needs, hopes and concerns of the world, and which challenges the assembly to make an equally faithful response in the way they live their lives in the everyday, workaday, world.

But it is in that very process, in that very encounter, that “the Word becomes flesh” (yet again) and “dwells among us.”

Merry Christmas!

The full title of this fine book is Jesus and the Church: The Foundation of the Church in the New Testament and Modern Theology which fairly summarizes the author’s interest and intent — to investigate the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and the church which he founded. Or did he? That is the question. Did Jesus intend to “found” a church. If so, how? If not, is the church anything more than a human creation?

To seek answers to those questions, Paul Avis embarks upon a two part project: in the first part he surveys the New Testament evidence as modern critical scholarship has presented it. The conclusion here, as Avis himself states, is that he has “established beyond any serious doubt, on the basis of modern biblical study, that Jesus of Nazareth neither founded by any explicit act, nor intended as part of his purpose, the church that soon emerged in history bearing his name and claiming his authority.” (page 199)

The first of the twin pillars holding up this contention is the fact that Jesus’ self described mission was to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He came to restore Israel, not to found a church. And the second pillar is the overwhelming New Testament evidence that Jesus and his original hearers and followers expected the parousia and God’s establishment of the kingdom to happen immanently. There was no need, no time to establish a church. With these findings I am in total agreement.

That does not, however, preclude the possibility that Jesus intended to leave behind a remnant, a community awaiting the rapidly approaching eschaton out of which the church, as the unfolding of the New Testament reveals, developed. Just how this occurred is the burden of the second half of Avis’ book in which he traces various approaches by representatives of modern theology in the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions.

Neither Paul Avis nor I are fans of Karl Barth, preferring Tillich or even Pannenberg as pinnacles of the Protestant approaches. But, while Avis leans toward Karl Rahner or even Walter Kasper on the Roman Catholic side, I would be hard pressed to abandon my life-long theological ‘”mentor” Hans Kung in this regard. I would have been helped by a little more on this prophetic giant.

We would perhaps both need to acknowledge certain historical and theological realities which might keep us from embracing Michael Ramsey’s conclusions completely, but his The Gospel and the Catholic Church is still hard to beat in articulating an Anglican approach to the questions at hand.

In the final chapter, Avis seeks to draw the threads together, concluding that Jesus Christ is not the founder, but the “one foundation” of the church which arose with him in his Resurrection and was filled with his Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Hallmarks of this reality include the restoration of Israel and the Temple, the harvest of the nations (gentiles), good news for the oppressed and, above all, the Paschal Mystery.

I will need more time to meditate on this final section, finding it somehow less satisfying than the preceding chapters on first reading. Happily, there are more volumes to come from this prolific author in the series “Theological Foundations of the Christian Church.” I look forward with great anticipation to this series. For, whether or not I have found Paul Avis’ conclusions entirely satisfying, I have no doubt that for this book (as Avis says himself for Karl Rahner) “it is the theological journey, not the arrival that is most rewarding.” (page 165)

I’ve always loved the various encounters between King David and the prophet Nathan recorded in the Hebrew Bible. And I’m especially fond of the one we had as our First Lesson on this Fourth Sunday of Advent. David is feeling guilty that, as king, he is living in a fine house made of beautiful, fragrant cedar while he still hasn’t gotten around to building a Temple for the Ark of the Covenant to be housed in, but rather has left it outside in a simple tent.

He confesses this state of affairs to Nathan who assures him that the Lord is perfectly capable of making his will known on this matter and then, Nathan himself, becomes the conduit of that will when he hears God say, “Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the LORD: ‘Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel…saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ (Second Samuel 7:5-7)

The LORD then goes on to instruct Nathan to remind David that he had been called from “following the sheep” to be a prince over the people and to become a great military leader. It soon becomes clear that God is more concerned about the people of Israel than he is about some kind of earthly edifice. And makes his point vivid by basically saying, “You’re not going to make ME a house. I am going to make YOU a house,” meaning a heritage, a lineage which would secure the blessings of peace and security on Israel for ever.

That lineage and heritage became a mixed blessing for Israel down through the centuries, but they never gave up hoping for “one like David” who would arise one day to restore their former glory and in fact to secure those same blessings of peace and security. We Christians, of course, believe that the ultimate descendant of David’s “house” was one Jesus of Nazareth whose conception in Mary’s womb we read about in the Gospel and whose birth we prepare to celebrate next week.

There is a good bit of hand-wringing out there these days about the decline in membership, shared to a greater or lesser degree, by all Christian communions in our day. That anxiety has been heightened by the novel coronavirus we are facing around the nation and world and the restrictions on our ability to gather in any kind of large groups in order to keep everyone as safe as possible from infection.

Many wonder whether this long absence will indeed “make the heart grow fonder” and attendance will rebound after we get this pandemic somewhat under control. Or, whether having gotten out of the habit of attending public worship, folks will just continue to stay home on Sunday mornings, reading the paper, or perhaps contenting themselves with some kind of “online” experience, rather than rolling out and actually getting to “church” on those Sundays.

It’s probably too soon to know, although I think it will more likely be the former rather than the latter at least for committed Christians. The question is, will we have learned anything during this bleak year of 2020 which can help us move into the future in perhaps an even stronger way than we have in the past. I, for one, hope we will have learned something from our spiritual ancestors and even from our First Reading today. I hope we will have learned, for example, that God is not contained in “temples made by hands” but is always on the move and always finding new ways to come to us.

When the first and second Jerusalem Temples were destroyed, the Jews had to learn to worship and live out their faith in new ways. With the sacrificial system no longer possible, smaller gatherings in synagogues and even an emphasis on worship as families, in homes, became paramount and served to preserve this “house of David,” this “chosen people” through centuries of persecution and exile. Jesus and his disciples attended synagogue and even the Temple when they were in Jerusalem, but we hear comparatively little about that in the Gospels. Like their God, Jesus and his friends were “on the move,” teaching and preaching and healing and loving up and down the Galilee and down into Judea itself. They met people where they were…not where they might wish them to be.

So, what do you hope we will have learned during our period of “exile” from public worship these many months? Here are some of my hopes and dreams to get you started:

1. That God is more interested in creating a “people for himself” than he is in Average Sunday Attendance (ASA).
2. That the online expertise we have learned about can be part of our ongoing communication and life into the future. When we resume in-person worship, that we can find a way to “live stream” as a matter of course, reaching those who cannot — or will not — be in “church” on a given Sunday to be “part of the church” anyway.
3. That we will be freed to spend as much time worrying about how to be the church in the world as we have worrying about how to receive Communion “virtually” or bend the rules so that we can get back to in-person worship no matter how much danger we may be putting others in.

In other words…after the pandemic…will we just return to God’s house? Or will we become God’s house?

In this Advent season, Christians are preparing to celebrate God’s word becoming flesh (human) in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. But, as Richard Rohr and others have reminded us, this “incarnational principle” of the mind, heart, and Essence of the universe being made known in the “stuff” of everyday life is an eternal reality, not only a one-time event. It happens in every moment and every second of every day.

One of the things I miss most in retirement is the preparation and delivery of a weekly sermon. It had been part of my “preaching life” for over forty years before retirement. And I say “preparation and delivery” of a sermon because I have always enjoyed wrestling with the text and applying the truths there discerned to real life situations in the real world almost as much as I have enjoyed proclaiming that reality in the assembly.

My homiletics professor in seminary suggested this brief approach to preparing sermons — Need, Truth, and Response. That is, the preacher should try and identify a specific need or challenge facing the community. Then, apply the truths discerned from week’s lessons from scripture much as a physician might apply a balm or salve to a wound. And then, call for a specific response from the gathered community to this situation. It is this last step which, I find, is so often missing from sermons.

So, this year, I hope to resume this homiletic discipline in these pages, praying with and reflecting upon the scriptural lessons in the Revised Common Lectionary each week and seeking to apply them to particular needs in our community, nation, and world. Then I shall attempt to discern a response called for in this encounter between God’s word and the life situations we face. These reflections may often be only an exercise in my own spiritual discipline. If, from time to time, I consider them worth sharing, I shall do so by means of social media.

I must say, I am looking forward to this “new” adventure. And, as always, I invite you to use this Advent season to anticipate the many ways God’s word continues to become flesh. And the one we Christians hold most dear — Jesus the Christ.