That We All May Be One

Even with the winter we have been having in Iowa this year, there are really only two things I miss about my growing-up-years in the State of Florida. One is easy access to beaches and the ocean. I grew up living close to the water – the ocean or lakes or rivers – and I have missed that, although it’s wonderful now to be able to see the great Mississippi River every day!

The second thing I miss about Florida is… Spring Training! I have to confess to being something of a baseball nut (and Susanne, fortunately, shares that flaw with me) and I spent many happy hours as a youngster and adult, watching the Twins work out in Orlando, the Red Sox in Lakeland, the Yankees in Ft. Lauderdale, and the Astros, for a while, in Cocoa where my last parish was.

I rarely missed catching at least a few games during Spring Training each season, even if it meant taking an afternoon off or, when my kids were small, even taking them out of school for the day so that we could enjoy those times together. One of the minor inconveniences that I experienced during some of those Spring Training seasons was to forego the cold beer I really wanted with my ball park hot dog because I would often give up alcohol for Lent which invariably coincided with Spring Training.

And that led me to the realization, one day, that Lent is really “spring training” for the Christian! During these “lengthening days” of late Winter and early Spring (which is where the word “Lent” comes from) you and I are given the opportunity to practice. To practice dying! And to practice living! All three of our Lessons from Holy Scripture this morning have to do with this kind of “practicing.”

Abraham and Sarah practicing obedience to God, even having their names changed to symbolize their new identities as the forebears of an entire nation. St. Paul, in Romans, recounting Abraham’s story but also beginning to “practice” what it meant for Abraham’s faith “to be reckoned to him as righteousness.” (This becomes the key text for Paul’s understanding of what it means to be justified by faith, not works). And, in the Gospel, Peter is learning the hard lesson of what it means to “deny himself, to take up his cross and follow Jesus” even when he had to bear the brunt of Jesus’ frustration with him!

I wonder how your practice is going. How your “spring training” is going so far. Have you begun to work out? Using the various exercises suggested to you on Ash Wednesday — self examination…repentance…prayer…fasting…self-denial…reading and meditating on God’s holy Word?  Those things aren’t nearly as tough as the practicing Abraham and Sarah, Paul and Peter were about in our Readings today. But I wonder if you know how to “do” those exercises.

Self examination simply means spending some time looking over your life and seeing how you’re doing.  You can use the Ten Commandments or the Baptismal Covenant found in the baptismal section of our Prayer Book against which to measure yourself. 

Do you believe and trust in God? Do you come to the Eucharist every week? Do you confess your sins to God when you mess up? Do you share your faith with others?  Do you love your neighbor as yourself? Do you work for justice and peace in this community and in the world? Do you respect the dignity of, not just some, but every human being? If your batting average is not too great in these areas, Lent is a time to work on it.

Repentance means more than simply saying you’re sorry.  It has to do with trying to live differently…with going in a new direction, like a recovering alcoholic does in the Twelve Step Program.  In what area or areas of your life do you need to take off in a new direction in response to God?  Lent is a time to do that. 

Prayer is simply talking to God…and learning to listen.  Spend some time each day talking with your Creator.  And then spend at least a few minutes in silence in case a Word comes back!

Fasting means doing without, or cutting back on the amount of, food we eat. Most of us need to do that, for our physical health if nothing else.  But there’s a spiritual benefit as well.  Going a little bit hungry reminds us that most of the world goes to bed hungry every night.  And the reason for that is that we eat – and waste – far too much. We can fast in order to give!

Self-denial is, of course, similar. But it may not have to do with food.  It’s important, spiritually, to be able to say “no” to yourself.  I am absolutely convinced that saying “no” to myself in simple things over many, many Lenten seasons helped me to say “no” to myself in some larger things, later in life, which could have resulted in great pain for me…and for other people.

Finally, we are bidden by the Church to read and meditate on God’s holy Word. That’s a fancy way of saying, “Read your Bible!” Buy yourself an inexpensive, paperback edition of the Bible in a good, modern translation that you can understand…and open it up!

Start with the Gospel of Mark…the shortest one! And then go to the Acts of the Apostles…browse through the Psalms. And then go wherever the Spirit leads, but learn the stories of your faith.

The Bible is not just a rule book. It’s a library of books which works more like the family album. Just browsing through it teaches you something about your family history! 

Well, I hope you’ll do some work during this “spring training season.” Because you’re practicing for something a whole lot more important than a season of baseball.

You’re practicing for dying.  And you’re practicing for living. Dying as a Christian… living as a Christian. And the stakes are pretty high! 

We conclude the Epiphany season this weekend and so, believe it or not, this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten season!   So, I thought I may say a few things this afternoon which may help us prepare for a holy Lent – and I think our Lessons from Scripture provide a nice framework for that to happen.

I don’t normally title my sermons, but if I had to choose for this one, it would be “Silence, Scripture, and Sacrament.” Three ways for us to deepen our union with Jesus and spend these next forty days in the desert with him during the upcoming season.

The First Lesson is the wonderful story of the prophet Elijah being taken up into heaven “in a whirlwind” and the transfer of his authority to his successor, Elisha. Elijah himself had had his own encounter with the living God in “silence”, as you remember. Back in the First Book of the Kings Elijah had encountered God on Mount Horeb, not in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire, but “in a still, small voice” (or, as the better translations render it, “in the sound of sheer silence” – I Kings 19:12)

Now, Elisha is preparing to lose his master and the “lesser prophets” of the day keep asking him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take your master from you?” And Elisha keeps replying “Yes, I know; keep silent!” There’s something about “holy silence” in the face of the mystery of God which speaks more loudly than many words!

We need times of silence in our lives if we expect to be attentive to God and God’s direction.  Silence is a rare commodity in our frenetic and fast-paced and noisy world. I expect it’s even difficult to come by here in your Community!  So you have to seek it out.

Some people do it by sitting on their back porch on a spring day and sipping a cup of coffee; others by taking a walk; or simply turning off the radio or CD in their car on a long trip; some learn techniques of contemplative prayer and meditation which can help still the mind and deal with all the distractions which beset us.

I’m not sure it matters much how one finds times and occasions of silence. The important thing is not how it happens, but that it happens. And you need, at the very least, 20 minutes or so of uninterrupted silence each day. That’s so you can get beyond all those distractions, and really begin to listen for that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit within.  As the first stray thoughts and wanderings of mind and temptations begin to assault you, during your quiet time, just offer them to God. Don’t fight them, but let them evaporate into the atmosphere as you settle deeper into the silence. Know that, in the deepest place within yourself, dwells the Spirit of the Living God. And it is with that Spirit that you seek to commune. This Lent, find some more time for Silence!

Secondly, spend some more time with Scripture. I know you hear it read here in Chapel twice a day, but you also need time alone with the Bible. The Bible is not a handbook with ready references and spelled-out solutions to all your problems or the problems of the world. But the Bible is an ancient and God-given library of wonderful stories and songs and biographies and letters and ethical precepts which document the history of Jews and Christians as they have lived out their lives over 4,000 years in relationship to the one, true God!  Reading the Bible is like browsing through the family album – it keeps you rooted and grounded in your history…and gives context and meaning for the way we live our lives today.

Our Lessons for today are so rich! The preparation for the literal “passing of the mantle” from Elijah to Elisha in Second Kings. The great prophetic liturgy of Psalm 50 with the Lord coming forth to greet…and challenge…his people.

The powerful Transfiguration experience as recounted in the Gospel of Mark and then Paul’s great Epiphany message to the Corinthians, referring to that event, about the God “who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!” Of course not everyone appreciates the power of these stories! Some of us have found reading the Bible pretty hard going, and not a little boring at times!

But that’s because we’ve perhaps never taken the time, or no one has ever taught us, how the Bible came to be written, how it developed, and the basic timeline of the historical events around which it revolves. That’s why it’s so important to use tools like commentaries or other Bible study guides, or get to a class or a conference where you can become more educated in your use of Scripture and in its understanding. That didn’t really happen to me until seminary. And it was only then that the Bible came alive for me.  You don’t need seminary for that experience! This Lent, spend some time learning about…and from… the Scriptures!

Finally, this Lent, re-ground yourself in the mystery of Holy Communion, the Eucharist.

We don’t know precisely what happened on the mountaintop in today’s Gospel reading, that event we know of as “The Transfiguration.”  But what we do know is that it was a very powerful experience for Jesus and his friends of “Communion with God.” Jesus, like Elijah before him, had gone up on the mountain to pray and the experience he had there was so intense that he seemed to his friends positively to “glow.”

I don’t need to tell this Community what that looks like! You’ve seen people glow with excitement or joy or enthusiasm for God.  You’ve seen people so spiritually moved, by worship or prayer or some ministry opportunity that they seemed actually to be “radiant.”

That’s what happened to Jesus. And it’s probably happened to you as well! Or something very nearly like it.

Peter, James and John were moved by the same experience. They caught a vision of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, standing alongside Moses and Elijah and they heard what seemed to be the very Voice of God saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him.” And then suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, “but only Jesus.” Only Jesus! Well, I guess that would be enough!

You and I have the opportunity to receive “only Jesus” every time we come to this Supper, this holy Meal. The experience of Christians like us for over 2,000 years has been that, when we break the Bread and bless the Cup like Jesus told us to, and receive it in remembrance of him, that he is Really Present with us!

Not symbolically, or only in memory, or metaphorically present, but really Present! How could anyone who actually believes that ever miss Holy Communion (except in cases of  emergency or illness)? It’s quite beyond me!  So, this Lent, re-ground yourself in the mystery and the practice of the Eucharist.

Silence, Scripture, and Sacrament. Three ways to observe the great season of Lent. But, more importantly, three ways to maintain and deepen your living relationship with the God who alone can give you eternal life! Let us pray:

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Sun revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through (the same) Jesus Christ, our Lord…Amen.      

Epiphany 5B – Trinity Cathedral – Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-12, 21c; I Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

“That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons…”

One of the things I have noticed about Trinity Cathedral, over the years, and now as I am able to worship with you more regularly and supply occasionally, is that you really are a “healing community” in many ways. Your clergy and lay visitors take their ministration to the sick seriously and prayers for healing are offered regularly – not only as intercessions but actually praying for one another right here in church.

I think that’s wonderful because I have been interested in the healing ministry for many years. First, as a hospital visitor and intercessor myself, then as a member of various prayer groups over the years in which prayer for the sick was an integral part, and finally as a chaplain in the Order of St. Luke the Physician, a healing Order in the Episcopal Church, while rector of my last parish. I was glad to see something of a revitalization of that Order in several places around this diocese when I was Bishop here.

Yet, I find that lot of folks today, even Christian people, have difficulty on one level or another with the concept of healing. And, by that, I mean what we might call “spiritual healing,” healing which is related to prayer and to the spiritual life. The kind of healing we find suggested in our First Lesson today, really all the way through the Bible, and certainly in our Gospel reading from Mark.

A good bit of the difficulty, I think, comes from the characterizations of it many people see on television. So-called “faith healers” who use excessive amounts of emotionalism and manipulation, and sometimes downright fakery to put on a good show, and rake in significant amounts of cash in the process!

Well, those are often mockeries and travesties of the healing ministry. But healing is a ministry in which the Church has always been involved. It has ebbed and flowed over the centuries, but it’s always been a part of the Church’s life. If there’s anything clear about Jesus’ own ministry it is that he was a healer. The Apostles and the early Church continued in his pattern.  And the sacrament of anointing with the laying on of hands for healing is a deeply scriptural notion.

Many parishes across the country have chapters of the Order of St. Luke, the purpose of which is to restore healing to its central place in the life of the Church.

So, it’s far from a new idea in the Episcopal Church, but I do think we can learn something new about it by taking a closer look at today’s Gospel. First of all, Jesus healed Peter’s mother in law and apparently the word got out because, before the evening was over, he was besieged with requests to heal people.  The text says that, of those people, he healed “many who were sick with various diseases…” “Many,” you notice, not “all.” Even Jesus did not heal everyone.  

But then the text goes on to say, “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and there he prayed.  And Simon and his companions hunted for him.  When they found him they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ He answered, ‘Let us go to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

“I have to proclaim my message…for that is what I came out to do”!  Jesus was always reluctant to get put into the class of “miracle worker” because he was convinced that his main mission was to proclaim his message…to announce the kingdom, or the Reign, of God!  Jesus’ primary message, like John the Baptist before him, was the Reign, or the Sovereignty, of God.

That GOD IS…that GOD IS IN CHARGE…and that GOD CARES! Everything else was subordinate to that message.    

So, when Jesus healed somebody, he didn’t do it to prove that he was the Son of God, or the Messiah.  He did it to bring them closer to the reign and sovereignty of God. He did it to show them that God is…that God is in charge…and that God cares.  The healings that Jesus was involved in, the miracles he performed were not ends in themselves. They were “signs.” Signs of the kingdom. Signs that the reign and the sovereignty of God had already begun!

Well, I think healing works the same way today. More than anything else, God wants us to begin living under the reign, in the kingdom, of God.  To be close to God, to live in God’s love. And to the extent that sickness and disease get in the way of our whole relationship with God, to the extent that sickness gets in the way of our “wholeness” as human beings, then God is against it. And works against it! That’s why we pray for the sick.

But the overall intent of God, and the overall intent of the Church, is the proclamation of the reign and sovereignty and the realm of God. Not simply the removal of physical symptoms or even physical suffering. Now, it may be that the way for you to attain genuine wholeness and a deep relationship with God is for you to be healed, by the power of God, from some dread disease. And physical healings like that do occur!

It may be that, for you, the experience of illness may help you learn your utter dependence on God, to learn a new patience and a new fortitude.  If that’s so, and it takes place, that’s still healing – whether or not it’s just what you had in mind.

And finally, you know, death itself can be a healing.  After all, death is the only thing that, finally, ushers us into the nearer presence and realm of God in its fullness. Death can be a healing. I’ve been asked many times to pray for someone (someone who may have been in terrible suffering) to die.  And I don’t think that’s necessarily wrong.

I’ve rarely been able to bring myself to do it. Usually I pray that God will heal, will bring that person to wholeness. If that means physical healing, fine. If that means strength and peace to live another day and the easing of pain, OK.  If that means death and the ultimate, final, healing in paradise, that’s fine too.

I know one thing: I’m not the healer. It’s not up to me. I am simply to pray for healing. God is the healer, and God’s diagnosis of the problem and treatment of the situation is the only important one ultimately.  I do believe it is God’s will for us all to be brought to wholeness ultimately, to be healed in that complete sense. That sense we prayed for in this morning’s Collect:

“Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ…” That’s the kind of healing we want. The healing which brings liberty… and abundant life. And we see it in Jesus!

How God chooses to do that is not up to me. It is up to God. We are simply to pray in the full assurance and confidence that God is a healer and that God desires us to be whole.  We are also to remember that any healing we may experience is not an end in itself. It’s a sign. A sign of the Reign of God. A sign that God is…that God is in charge…and that God cares.

Healing is meant, above all else, to bring us into a deeper relationship with God. Which, after all, is the only healing that really matters.  I think all this is summed up rather nicely in one of the prayers from our Prayer Book, one for use BY a sick person, especially one in pain:

“This is another day, Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.  If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently.  And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.  Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus.” Amen. 

That’s the kind of prayer that reminds us that God is…that God is in charge…and that God cares!     

As a fitting conclusion to this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (did you observe it in any way?!) I head off tomorrow to participate in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific’s “Epiphany West Conference — Baptismal Water: Thicker Than Blood.”

I’ll be teaching a class on the World Council of Church’s nascent text “Nature and Mission of the Church” (touted to be a successor to “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry”) and my Associate Tom Ferguson will join with a member of our Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee, Jon Perez, to explore “Common Mission: what does it really mean?”

Led by Louis Weil, this conference aims to bring together a number of areas which have been central to my life and ministry over the years — liturgy, the ministry of the baptized, and ecumenism. Often these areas appear to be separate and people engaged in one are not necessarily involved in the other two.

I think that is a great mistake. Liturgical renewal, ministry development, and the search for church unity are all streams leading into one great river. It is no accident that the renewal of our church’s worship (best seen in our still-yet-to-be-rivaled 1979 Prayer Book with its centrality in the Baptismal Covenant) led pretty directly to the renewal of the diaconate and what we used to call “lay” ministry.

And we are not engaged in this journey alone — sisters and brothers in other Christian communions are making the same discoveries. And they are bringing us together!   

Not sure how much time I’ll have for blogging over this next week. I don’t want to miss anything! But I will try to post any insights I receive as soon as I can.

We concluded our Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations here in Kyoto, Japan last evening with a Eucharist presided over by our Japanese member, Fr. Renta, at St. Agnes’ Cathedral of the Nippon Sei Ko Kei (the Anglican Church in Japan).

He told us if was the first time he had celebrated the Eucharist in English, but one would never have known that by the lovely way he presided. He also preached a moving homily on the parable of the Good Samaritan. He reflected on just how differently the “man who fell among thieves” might have lived his own life after being rescued by the Samaritan…and how perhaps he too became a minster of compassion, having been the recipient of such grace from a stranger.

To illustrate this dynamic, he told the story of a young Japanese man who had dropped out of middle school and generally made all the wrong choices as a young man. He was so depressed and ashamed of himself that he attempted to commit suicide by drenching himself with gasoline and preparing to strike a match.

However, his estranged father intervened, threw his arms around him, and also became covered with the flammable gasoline. “Go ahead and light the fire, my son,” the father shouted, “but I will never let you go!”

Unable to take his father with him into death, the young man dissolved into tears and, subsequently, began to lead a new life, eventually becoming a person of real notoriety and respect in the community. Renta said that it was because, for the first time, he knew he was loved by his father!

What a modern day parable of the Good Samaritan! What an anticipation of the Christmas miracle as God embraces us, even in the midst of our sin, and to the point of death, to show us how much we are loved.

May our lives too be transformed by an awareness of and appreciation of this amazing grace!

We are privileged at this Eucharist today to welcome some sisters and brothers from other member churches of the National Council of Churches. They are here to participate in what we are calling “church to church” visits and we’ve had a good morning together already.

The point of these visits is to underscore the fact that the National Council of Churches is not some external “organization” which we are supporting. The National Council is “us!” The NCC is the relationship we have, as Episcopalians with some 45 million US Christians in 100,000 local congregations – Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, the historic African American churches, and the Living Peace churches. These are our sisters and brothers in service to the Gospel right here in this land…and beyond.

And I thought how appropriate particularly our first reading was today from Ephesians (5:1-8). The second verse is one easily remembered by Episcopalians because it is often used as the offertory sentence at the Sunday Eucharist: “Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” And that verse is preceded by the reason we are to “walk in love” – “therefore be imitators of God as beloved children!”

Because God is love, we who are created in God’s image are to be people of love. That’s why our lives are to manifest holiness (as outlined in the next verses – avoiding sexual sin, greed, coarse speech and all the rest of it). Because these are not really loving things to do! Rather, as in verse 8, now that we have seen the light of the Lord, we ourselves are to be children of light.

We don’t often think of ecumenism as being rooted and grounded in love, but of course that is precisely the point. We seek unity with our brother and sister Christians because we love the same God, are commanded by our common Savior and Lord to love one another, and to work together to share that love with the whole world! The National Council of Churches does that by fostering dialogue and theological reflection as well as by common action for justice and peace, classically called Faith and Order…Life and Work.

There’s one more reason today’s Epistle is so appropriate. When the author writes:  “Be imitators of God as beloved children,” that’s right in line with what is sometimes called  “Christo-centric” or “Christological” ecumenism. That is, the closer we draw to Christ, the closer we will draw to one another. That’s why “spiritual ecumenism”…praying together…is so important.

So, I can’t think of anything more appropriate than worshipping together in this Holy Eucharist today. Not all the NCC member denominations are in full communion yet. But we are on the way. And our special intention at this Eucharist should be that we will never tire on that journey, but together “Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”