That We All May Be One

Our Lessons from Scripture today form part of an interesting trajectory we can trace through the entire Bible. A trajectory one might identify as moving from punishment to justice to mercy. One of the more disturbing parts of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, is this threat attached to the Second Commandment about worshipping idols:

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of the parents, to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:5-6)

This idea of the “sins of the fathers being visited upon the sons” sat somewhat uneasily with Israel’s idea of a just God. You can see that hinted at in our Psalm today, “If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand? For there is forgiveness with you; therefore you shall be feared…O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy; with him there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.” (Psalm 130:2-3, 6-7)

Indeed, by the time of the Prophet Ezekiel, we get teaching like this one which leads into our First Lesson today: “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.  The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.  But if the wicked turns away from all their sins that they have committed and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live; they shall not die.” (Ezekiel 18:19-21)

So, here we have a kind of “fair is fair” justice with the sinner suffering the consequences of his or her own sin and not punishing the children for it. And we even see mercy beginning to show itself in the possibility of forgiveness after repentance being offered.

Jesus, of course, takes it even further in the Gospels by saying things like, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer…You have heard it said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:38 ff).

So, we have a kind of compassion and mercy shown here, so that sinners do not even get what they deserve but are recipients of God’s grace and God’s mercy. In the words of Frederick Faber’s great hymn, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea/ there’s a kindness in his justice which is more than liberty/. There is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good/ there is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood.”

However, lest we get too comfortable with all this, we also need to recognize that Jesus holds us to an even greater standard, in some respects: “You have heard it said…You shall not murder…But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment…If you insult a brother or sister you will be liable to the council; and if you say, You fool, you will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:21 ff)  

Jesus looks on the heart and into our intentions, not only to our actions and behaviors.

That means we need to look into those same hearts and intentions before too quickly absolving ourselves of any sin.

We’re all sinners. And we will all stand before God for judgment. It’s just good to know that the sin we will be confronted with is our own sin – not those of our ancestors.

And that the judgment God will render…is always tempered…by mercy! 

Whenever I read the story of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, I am transported back to the days of my sabbatical in the Holy Land in 1994 which I think I’ve spoken of from this pulpit before. I spent part of that time in the very Judean wilderness we heard about in the Gospel reading this morning.

The desert in which Jesus spent some forty days, fasting and in prayer, begins just outside the city of Jerusalem.  In fact, it is positively startling to drive, or walk, a total of a few miles from Jerusalem’s city center…to crest the top of a little hill…and find yourself gazing out into some of the bleakest and most dangerous countryside in the world. 

This particular desert is not miles and miles of snow white sand drifts like you sometimes visualize it.  It is bleak, barren, rocky ground, so hot and dry that you must wear a hat at all times and drink water constantly in order not to dehydrate and suffer heat stroke in a hurry. I can remember the Dean of St. George’s College in Jerusalem telling us all to “drink water, drink water” whenever he saw any of us yawning, fearing that we were beginning to dehydrate before his very eyes.

A person can die in a couple of days in the desert unless you can find shade and drink plenty of water.  My assumption is that Jesus fasted from solid food for forty days (which others have done, before and since) but not from water. 

During those days of fasting and prayer, Jesus – as a relatively young man, by our standards, but in those days it may have seemed more like mid-life – struggled with just what his life and ministry were going to look like.  He had inaugurated his public ministry by being baptized in the Jordan by John, and immediately felt led by the Holy Spirit to make an extended retreat, to take a mini sabbatical, to get some perspective on his life and to seek fresh energy for what lay ahead. As we all know, he had to wrestle with several primary temptations, according to the Gospel writers.  Anglican New Testament scholar, Tom Wright, summarizes it this way:

“The struggle is precisely about the nature of Jesus’ vocation and ministry. The pull of hunger, the lure of cheap and quick ‘success’, the desire to change the vocation to be a light to the world into the vocation to bring all nations under his powerful rule by other means – all these would easily combine into the temptation to doubt the nature of the vocation of which he had been sure at the time of John’s baptism. If you are the Son of God…” the tempter says.

“There are many different styles of career, ministry, and agenda that Jesus might have adopted.  Messiahs came in many shapes and sizes.  It was by no means clear from anything in the culture of the time exactly how someone who believed himself to be the eschatological prophet, let alone YHWH’s anointed, ought to behave, what his programme should be, or how he should set about implementing it.  Finding the way forward was bound to be a battle, involving all the uncertainty and doubt inherent in going out into unknown territory assumed to be under enemy occupation.” (Wright’s Jesus page 458) 

  The enemy, in this case, was not the Roman Empire or Jewish religion gone wrong, but Satan himself!  It was likely this decisive battle in the wilderness to which Jesus was referring when he said, later in Matthew, in the context of the Beelzebul controversy “…how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man.  Then indeed the house can be plundered!” (Matthew 12:29) In the wilderness, Jesus tied up “the strong man” – his Adversary.

I don’t know what temptations you are facing in your life. But, if you’re anything like me, they may not be so different from the ones Jesus faced – in degree perhaps, but not in kind. The pull of hunger, the lure of cheap and quick “success,” the desire to control others. Most of us eat too much and drink too much. We are tempted to take short cuts to whatever “success” story appears to be out there for us. And we certainly fall into patterns of domination and control – often of those closest to us.

And the tools we have to confront those temptations are pretty much the same ones Jesus had as well. Being attentive to God’s word…refusing to put God to the test…worshipping and serving God and God alone.  You may not be able to take a mini sabbatical or even make a Lenten retreat this year. But you are entering more fully today into the holy season of Lent.

Like Jesus’ experience, it is a forty day period of fasting and of prayer. A time to listen for God’s word…a time to stop testing and challenging God…a time for worship and for service.  I hope you’ve taken on some spiritual disciplines which can help you do some of those things.  The Ash Wednesday Liturgy told us what some of those disciplines are, and it’s not too late to begin today if you haven’t already!  Self-examination – looking inside oneself.  Repentance – turning away from destructive behavior and thoughts. Prayer – for strength and direction. Fasting – in order to give. Self-denial – so that others may have enough. Reading and meditating on the Scriptures – to teach you how to do all this.

I invite you then, once again, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent this year by embracing those disciplines. May our prayer this Lent be the prayer of the Psalmist. A prayer which, no doubt, Jesus himself prayed during his Lent, his forty days in the wilderness, during some scorching days and freezing, lonely nights:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God…

And renew a right spirit within me…

Cast me not away from your presence…

And take not your Holy Spirit from me…

Give me the joy of your saving help again…

And sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.”

(Psalm 51:11-13) 

One of the hallmarks of the Episcopal Church – and Anglicanism in general – is the emphasis we place on the public reading of Scripture in the context of corporate and liturgical prayer. Some traditions have put more emphasis on the personal reading of Scripture. Others stress Bible study done in small groups. And we’re certainly not opposed to such use of the Bible! In fact, we could probably use a lot more of those things. And in fact one of things we’re invited to do in Lent is to engage in “reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”

But our strong suit has been on the daily public reading of Scripture in community. So in this chapel and in many other congregations and cathedrals and seminaries and monastic communities we schedule the Daily Office of  Morning Prayer to be prayed in church, in community, day in and day out. By our observance of the church seasons and the major and minor feast days, we read yet more Scripture in the context of the Holy Eucharist. And it’s in this rich interplay between prayer and the Bible that we believe we most effectively can “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.”

The Liturgy for Ash Wednesday gives us an excellent example of this interplay between prayer and the Bible, between the liturgy and the Scriptures. The Lenten Invitation tells us “what to do” to observe this Holy Season. Today’s Gospel tells us “how to do it.”

After a brief summary of the history of Lent, the invitation is extended: “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.

So, our first Lenten discipline is “self examination and repentance.” This is a season to spend some time looking into our own hearts and souls and minds. And, when we discover things there which may wound the heart of God, to repent – to turn around and go in a new direction, to start over again. But Jesus, in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, cautions us, “Beware of practicing your piety before others, in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

In other words, our self examination and repentance is to be done privately, in the silence of our own hearts – not publicly, to impress others. The Church encourages us – especially in Lent — to take advantage of the sacrament of reconciliation or confession, but even there we unburden our souls to God in the presence of a priest…but quietly and anonymously, not in order to impress someone else.

Secondly, we’re to observe the season of Lent by giving renewed attention to prayer. But Jesus says, “…whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

That doesn’t mean we should never come to church or engage in liturgical prayer, but it does mean that our deepest and most intense periods of communion with God in prayer may well come in the silence and solitude of our own “monastic cells” wherever they may be… our own prayer corners or places of solitude. And again the caution is never to make a show of our worship or our prayers to impress others.

Next, fasting. That means simplifying our lives by giving up something in solidarity perhaps with the poor of this world who have so very much less than we do. But “…whenever you fast,” Jesus reminds us, “do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

This has little or nothing to do with our custom of marking our foreheads with a cross of ashes on this day, but the self-serving, prideful posture of the pharisees among us who want everyone to know just how strict they are…and how hard they are trying to please God! I’ve often said that, if you think you will wear the cross of ashes with a sense of pride, you should wash your face before you ever leave the church. If you are just a bit embarrassed to be marked with the sign of Christ’s cross in this way, you should most certainly wear them all day long – and maybe even to bed, as a spiritual discipline!

Finally, the Church invites us to self-denial. This is not some masochistic, self flagellation but a discipline of knowing how to say “No” to yourself in some little things so that you will have the strength to say “No” to yourself when it really matters! A way to link fasting and self-denial is to estimate the amount of money you save by your fast and give the money to the poor.

And again, Jesus says, “…whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do…so that they maybe praised by others. Truly I tell you they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

So, these are our marching orders for Lent, dear friends – “what we are to do.”   Let’s just be sure that we pay equal attention to “how” we carry them out. In the final analysis…that’s all Jesus really cares about anyway! 

Today, we begin the 2008 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Observed each year from the Confession of St. Peter (January 18) through the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25) the Week of Prayer celebrates its centennial this year. In 1908 the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement held the first “Church Unity Octave” and have prayed “without ceasing” for Christian unity ever since!

Today, Christians around the world celebrate this week with the encouragement of the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order Commission and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Why the Week of PRAYER (rather than, say, the week of “dialogue” or “documents”)? Because, in the words of Cardinal Walter Kasper:

“Ecumenical work is a spiritual task and can be nothing other than participation in the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. This means prayer, especially common ecumenical prayer, for the unity of Christians. Prayer will always gather people, in the same way as Mary and the apostles gathered, to pray for the coming of the Spirit which will unite the peoples in one language, and to pray for a renewed Pentecost (Acts 1:13f)” [from “That They All Be One: The Call to Unity Today”]  

“…the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region of death light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:16) Yesterday, we concluded our celebration of the Christmas season with the Feast of the Epiphany.  Actually, Matthew is the only Gospel writer who tells the story of the Magi, making their long journey, following the light of a star, to find the new-born king.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has gotten himself into a bit of trouble recently by using the word ‘legend’ to refer to this story! (Although I think he was actually referring to the non-biblical details – such as the number of wise men, their ethnic origins, and the precise details of their visit).

We celebrate the feast 12 days after that of the birth of Christ to underscore the fact that the Bible does not say that they arrived on the night of his birth, but some time later. Even the text says, “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage.” (Matthew 2:11) House, not stable. Perhaps they finally caught up with the Holy Family when they had returned to Nazareth before the flight to Egypt. Who knows?

The point of the story is clear and today’s Gospel text proclaims it: “…the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region of death light has dawned.” Gentiles, represented by these Persian astrologers, seekers after truth in a very different context than the Jewish people, found that light and that truth in One who was born to be king – but a very different kind of king than those known to Gentiles or Jews!

Today, one day after the Feast of Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Baptism of Christ and, of course, we will observe that festival next Sunday. And there is a real continuity with Epiphany.  Jesus was apparently made known to shepherds and wise men and a number of others from his earliest days. But the beginning, the “epiphany” of his public ministry was his baptism.

At the Jordan River, he was anointed by the Spirit of God. And there he heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17). Immediately after that he was led by that same Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted and only after surviving that ordeal did he begin to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (Matthew 4:17)

I was writing about all this on this web log last week when a priest from Sweden named Anna wrote to ask if we believed that these events were only significant in Jesus’ life and ministry or if they were a “frame of reference for each and every person baptized in the Church today.” I said I thought they were both – but she makes an extremely important point.

When you and I were baptized, we too were given the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. We pray very specifically for that in the baptismal liturgy and Jesus says that God would never deny the Holy Spirit to those who ask! In our baptism, God says to us also that we are  “Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We too will face temptation, if not immediately after our baptisms as Jesus did, surely in the days and years that follow.

And we too are sent into the world to preach repentance precisely because the reign of God has come near in the Christ event.

That which has happened to Christ must also happen to us. To those who are baptized in his Name.

“…the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” That is the message of Epiphany.  But it will only come true if we, like our Lord, live into the implications of our baptismal covenant and hold high in our lives the Light of his Coming.