That We All May Be One

When I was growing up, we were treated in church every Trinity Sunday to our parish priest “explaining” the unexplainable! How can the one God be Three Persons? Simple, right? And then we would hear about how the water molecule H20 is found in three states –liquid, solid and gas – and yet remains one substance. Or, how one can be a mother, a daughter and a sister – and yet be one individual. Or even worse, God help us, a shamrock!  I never quite got that one!

Apparently having endured the same kind of thing over the years, my homiletics professor in the 1960s said we should NEVER, EVER preach on the Doctrine of the Trinity on Trinity Sunday. “Just preach on the Lessons,” he’d roar, “just preach the Gospel! Leave your Trinitarian theology for Confirmation Class!”

But then, in the 1970s and 80s along came Jurgen Moltmann, the brilliant professor of systematic theology at the University of Tubingen, who not only developed a form of liberation theology in a book called “The Crucified God” but also a “social trinitarianism” in a book called “The Trinity and the Kingdom.” And, preaching on the Trinity became respectable once again. Even contemporary commentators like Richard Rohr are fond of speaking about the “communal nature of God,” that God IS “relationship,” and of the “perichoresis,” a dance of mutual indwelling by what Christians call the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

These are all interesting speculations about the internal nature of God, but I must confess to being more of an “economic Trinitarian” myself. In other words, I’m more interested in how we have experienced God over the years than in God’s inmost being…which, in any case, is largely unknowable.  

And so, this morning rather than speculating on what the authors of Genesis might have meant by having God say, “Let us make humankind in our image” or what Matthew’s Jesus might have meant by commissioning the apostles to baptize “in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” I’d like to focus on one of the earliest New Testament blessings which were later understood as having Trinitarian implications.

Written perhaps only 25 years after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the Second Letter of Paul to the church in Corinth ends like this: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” (2 Corinthians 13:13) And, since the last words one writes in a letter are usually pretty important, I’d like to unpack those for us on this Trinity Sunday.

First of all, the “grace” of Jesus Christ! I love that phrase! Of course, grace has all kinds of theological meanings and interpretations. But it’s also a word we use in common parlance. “See how graceful that jump shot was!” Or, “She responded with uncommon grace in that situation.”

I actually like to think of the grace of Jesus being something like that; like the grace of a fine athlete or an accomplished dancer. These are people who have gifts and abilities and who perform best when they simply relax, don’t “overthink” things, and let those natural gifts and abilities take over.

I think Jesus was like that. Clearly gifted in so many ways, Jesus seems to have moved through life with a kind of centeredness and ease which not only drew people to him, but also allowed him to accomplish some pretty amazing things that people remembered, wrote about, and are still writing about today! Paul is praying for that same grace to be manifested in our lives!

 I’ve seen that grace in so many of you over these last weeks and months as we’ve lived through this national and worldwide pandemic and as you have responded in simple and in some extraordinary ways, being aware of your many gifts and abilities and simply using them by doing “what comes naturally.” You have been occasions of grace! 

Next, “the love of God:” Christianity is not the only religion which teaches that the very nature of God is love, but it is absolutely essential to our faith tradition.  God IS love, St. John writes in his first Epistle. And that just about says it all. At its core, love is not just a feeling or even an emotion. To love someone is to want the very best for that person and to be willing to put that person’s needs above your own to that that happens.

And again, how many times have we seen – in these days – in our own community, across the country, and around the world people doing just that! Caring about others, wanting the very best outcome for another person, and going the second mile, at great cost, to put another person’s needs ahead of their own. We’ve seen countless examples of love in action, God’s love in action, as we have wrestled with the murder of George Floyd and the outpouring of anguish and action in our own community and around the world.

And, finally, “the communion of the Holy Spirit:” We used to translate this as the “fellowship” of the Holy Spirit, but “communion” is so much better. Not only because it’s less sexist, but because the Greek word is the “koinonia” of the Holy Spirit. And “konoinia” not only means fellowship and communion, but “joint participation,” “the share we have in something,” “a gift jointly contributed one to the other!” It also refers to communion with God…as well as communion with one another.

You and I have had to re-define what koinonia looks like in these days. No longer able to gather on Sunday mornings, to sign one another with the water of baptism, to exchange the Peace, to share Blessed Bread and the Common Cup, we have been in touch by telephone calls and Zoom meetings. We’ve prayed and even sung hymns separately, and yet together! We’ve continued Ted Talks and even a modified form of Bible study.

We’ve had fellowship and communion…just in different ways. We’ve participated in one another’s lives and we’ve shared gifts in a variety of ways. We have remained “in the communion of the Holy Spirit!”

I suppose there have been some out there in the world, and perhaps even at New Song who have asked the question, “Where is God while all this is happening?” But I haven’t really heard much of that. Perhaps we’ve just grown up enough to realize that God doesn’t send sickness or disease to chastise or punish as primitive people believed. And God certainly didn’t cause the violence in Minneapolis!

But it may also be that people have intuitively perceived where God is in all this! God is in the grace of health care workers putting themselves at risk or teachers finding new ways to reach and teach their students.

God is in the love of all those people, from every race and language and tongue in the streets in these days calling for justice and for peace. And God is in the communion we find ways to share even when denied the Broken Bread and the Poured Out Wine.

You can think of many more examples. And perhaps we can share them as we speak together this week, as we are able. Until then,

May “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the koinoia of the Holy Spirit” continue to be with each one of you, my beloved!

Amen.

 It is hard for us to conceive of just how important and sacred the Temple in Jerusalem was to the Jewish people. According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple was built by King Solomon and it was the only legitimate place for Israelite sacrifices to be offered. It replaced the rustic, moveable “tent in the wilderness,” the Tabernacle, constructed at the time of Moses and carried with the Hebrews on their journeys and even into battle.

There was a sense in which the Jews actually thought of their God as “living” in the Temple. Of course, as good monotheists, they knew that God couldn’t “really” live in a temple made by hands, but they experienced God’s presence there in a special way. It’s what the Psalmist was singing about in today’s Psalm 84: “How lovely is your dwelling, O God of hosts to me! Within the grandeur of your courts, my soul desires to be.” (Psalm 84:1)   The Temple was the court of the Lord, the very dwelling place of God!

The best analogy I can come up with is the sense that catholic Christians have (whether of the Roman, Orthodox, or Anglican variety) when we enter a beautiful church, veiled in semi- darkness, with a small candle twinkling in the sanctuary, signifying the Presence of the Reserved Sacrament, the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist, kept in the Tabernacle for the Communion of the Sick and for prayer and adoration.  Many of us experience the divine presence there in a special way…just as the Israelites experienced their God in the Temple.

So, when the First Temple was destroyed by the Assyrians in 700 BCE, it was devastating for the Jews! The God who had promised to protect them and always be with them (not least in the Temple) seemed to have deserted them. It would be over 200 years before the Second Temple was constructed with the permission of Cyrus the Persian, and under the guidance of Ezra and Nehemiah.

The “new Temple” was great and yet it never quite seemed to live up to the grandeur and holiness of the First one. For one thing, the Jews continued to be harassed by the Greeks under Alexander the Great and later the Romans and they just never had a sense that God was with them quite in the same way. Even after Herod the Great renovated and expanded the Temple some twenty years before Jesus was born, something seemed to be missing – namely, the presence and the protection of God! And so they began to long for, and look forward to the day when, God would return to the Temple…at the time of the Messiah, the Anointed One.

It’s what the prophet Malachi was talking about in our First Lesson today: “Thus says the Lord, See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight – indeed he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 3:1)

It was that “coming,” according to Luke, that the old man Simeon and the prophet Anna were waiting for in today’s Gospel. “Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel…It had been revealed to him that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah…”

“…There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” (Luke 2:22 passim)

These two elders personified, for Luke, the hopes and aspirations of Israel for the Lord to return to the Temple. And so when he told the story of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the Temple forty days after his birth, which they surely did according to Jewish law, he has Simeon sing the Nunc Dimittis and Anna begin to “praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem”.

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word,” Simeon says/ “for my eyes have seen your salvation/which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples/ a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)  For Simeon, for Anna, and for Luke, God had finally returned to the Temple in the presence of the Christ Child…the Messiah. The promise had been kept!

And so, we gather here at New Song Episcopal Church, forty days after our commemoration of Christ’s birth day on Christmas to celebrate one of the few Holy Days permitted in our Church Calendar to take precedence over a normal Sunday’s Readings. “The Presentation of Christ in the Temple” is that important to us. Why?

1. First of all, it connects us to our Jewish roots. Jesus of Nazareth did not spring on to the scene from a vacuum. He was a descendant of Abraham, Moses, and David and deeply enmeshed in the history of the Hebrew people. Christians always have been, are now, and will be forever connected in this unique way to the Jews, and that’s why we have a unique responsibility to speak out against and fight anti-Semitism whenever it rears its ugly head. This despite our own complicity in anti-Semitism historically which redounds to our everlasting shame.
2. Secondly, it reminds us of the importance of sacred times and spaces in which we can experience the presence of God in a unique way. Yes, you can worship God on the golf course. But do you? From the ancient Israelites gathering at their desert Tabernacle… to Jews offering sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple… to Christians gathering around Font and Table on the Lord’s Day, we need to present OURSELVES to God in intentional ways and on a regular basis.
3. And finally, perhaps our observing of this day can teach us something about the importance of patience. Old Anna and Simeon went to the Temple each day looking forward, the text says, “…to the consolation of Israel.” In that, they were continuing the vocation of the people of Israel who had been waiting patiently for their Messiah for thousands of years…and who wait for him still!

You and I are still waiting for the reign of God to come in its fullness too. We think we’ve found our Messiah. And yet, the world is still broken. People still suffer. And the planet is dying. Yet, in the face of it all, we are called to be people of hope.

Because, like Simeon and Anna, somehow, in the face of a small child, we too have seen “the Savior, whom God has prepared for all the world to see…to be the light to the nations…and to be the glory of God’s people, Israel…

 As I have shared with you before from this pulpit, one of the great privileges I have had in my ministry has been the opportunity to visit several Anglican dioceses in Africa. During my time as Bishop of Iowa, of course, I visited our companion Diocese of Swaziland a number of times. When I was the ecumenical officer for the Episcopal Church, I was able to travel to the Diocese of Cape Town, South Africa, and once accompanied the Presiding Bishop to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania for a meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

I had, of course, heard of the rapid growth of Christianity in Africa and of the vibrancy of these new Christians’ faith, even in the face of war and persecution. Now that the Diocese of Iowa also has a companion link in South Sudan, we are even more aware of the terrible events in that new nation and share their sadness and deep concern – for our friend, Archbishop Samuel Peni and for so many others there.

Of course, one of the reasons for the vibrancy of the Christian faith in parts of Africa is that it is so new to so many. While European missionary work has been going on in Africa since the 19^th century and, of course, northern Africa has an indigenous Christianity which stretches back to the earliest days of the church’s life, nonetheless millions have been converted to Christ in the last few decades on that great continent.

So, when you experience the church in Africa, it’s as though the Christians there are actually living The Acts of the Apostles, complete with massive conversions, reports of healings and exorcisms and, of course, the persecution which looks for all the world like what the early Christians went through at the hands of the Roman Empire! And one thing you can’t help but be impressed with is the excitement and even the urgency with which they practice the Faith.

I’m always reminded of that when I read today’s Gospel…where Jesus says, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet…blessed are those… whom the master finds alert when he comes. (And) know this: if the owner of a house had known at what hour a thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Luke 12 passim)

We have here two ways of describing how Christians should remain on the alert for what we call “the Second Coming” of Christ or “Judgment Day.” The first: how workers should behave when the boss is away – they should keep working, be good stewards of what has been entrusted to them, and be ready for the CEO’s return. The second image: how a homeowner should remain vigilant all night long, lest the house be broken into – since burglars don’t usually call for an appointment before they show up! You have to be alert! As, apparently Representative Elijah Cummings was a few weeks ago when his house was broken into!

Jesus’ point here, of course, is that we only have so much time to get our work done here on earth. That argument was particularly compelling in the first century when Christians expected the Second Coming of Christ to happen very soon. From what we know of the early church, some Christians used this as an excuse not to work at all. I mean, why bother if Jesus is going to show up tomorrow?

St. Paul, in his letters to the Thessalonians, and Luke in sharing Jesus’ metaphors in this Gospel, takes the opposite view. If he’s coming back soon, get busy! New Christians, like those I met in Africa, often have that same sense of urgency because they (like the Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and some Pentecostal groups) still look for Jesus to return at any moment.

It’s harder for Western Christians, like ourselves, who have long since made peace with the fact that it may be a long time until Christ’s Return, harder for us to keep that sense of urgency. But let me tell you, my beloved, as one who lost his first wife to an unexpected heart attack at the age of 54; and as one now married to a woman who lost her eldest son during his first days in college in a tragic climbing accident, I can tell you for a fact: We never DO know the day or the hour!  God might not yet be ready to judge the earth. But you and I might meet our Maker on the way home from church this morning! Or as victims of a mass murderer should we find ourselves in a Wal Mart…or a pub…or a school…or a church!

You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour! We still need to have the urgency and the sense of purpose those early Christians had, as our sisters and brothers in Africa still have! For it is our hope and our expectation that Jesus Christ will one day judge both the living and the dead – as we say every Sunday in the Nicene Creed – so let’s be good stewards of whatever time we have left! Let’s get busy! Busy doing what? Our Lessons from Scripture today tell us:

From Isaiah:   Get busy and cease to do evil, get busy learning to do good; get busy seeking justice, get busy rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, pleading for the widow.” (Isaiah 1) Working for an end to violence and oppression in all its forms!

From the Psalmist: “I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices, your offerings are always before me…Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, but those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.” (Psalm 50) Get busy walking in the way of love. Because, as our Presiding Bishop often says, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God!”

And, from the book of Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. ” (Hebrews 11:1) Get busy keeping the Faith…no matter how bleak things may look in our world today. Because faith is our only hope! And love is the only answer.

In other words, as we live our lives day by day, as we await the Coming of Christ or even the completion of our own journeys here on earth, we are to (as the Methodist founder John Wesley is reported to have said) “do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, for as long as you ever can.”

So, we are not only to offer God the sacrifice of thanksgiving here in the Eucharist each Sunday but to offer sacrifice by walking in God’s ways every, single day.  And we are to keep the Faith, like our ancestors did, no matter what challenges we may face in this sinful and broken world.

Be dressed for action, dear friends, and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return…You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour!

When I was the Presiding Bishop’s Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, working out of our Church Center headquarters in New York, I used to attend Daily Morning Prayer in the Chapel with members of the staff.  One day, we had just completed a weeks-long, course-reading of the Book of Ecclesiastes (which we had as our First Lesson today). This is Wisdom literature filled with rather depressing words like these:

“…it is an unhappy business that God has given human beings to be busy with…all is vanity and chasing after wind…I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it all to those who come after me…What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1) Emptiness.

The officiant that day was Brother James of the Brotherhood of St. Gregory who worked in the office of Anglican and Global Relations. When he finished the reading, he said, “The Word of the Lord. And thanks be to God that – in our lectionary – we do not have to hear from this bitter old man again for two years!”

Well, we all broke out into similar laughter, agreeing with what he said on that particular occasion. But I’m actually glad we have books and passages like this in the Bible — because biblical literature is no “Pollyanna, keep-smiling-be-happy, fantasyland” account of human existence. The Bible is about the real world! Virtually every human emotion and life circumstance can be found somewhere in pages of the Bible.

And lots of it can be found in the 150 Psalms, like the one we had today: “For we see that the wise die also; like the dull and stupid they perish and leave their wealth to those who come after them. Their graves shall be their homes for ever, their dwelling places from generation to generation, though they call the lands after their own names.” (Psalm 49:9-10)  This is Reality Therapy, friends!

The one who wrote the Letter to the Colossians (our Second Lesson today) had no illusions about human nature.  The list includes anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language and lying (among other things). If he was writing today, he would also include the sins of racism and xenophobia which lead to mass shootings like the one yesterday in El Paso (it’s too soon to know the cause of the one in Dayton) and he might also include the cowardice which keeps the U.S. Congress (and all of us, really) from doing something about it!

And then Jesus tells a story in the Gospel about a greedy landowner who could only think to build bigger and bigger barns to store his abundance rather than sharing them with those who might not have enough. He’s not criticizing the man for his savings account in old age or making plans for the future, but for making the mistake of believing that he can save himself at the expense of others, taking advantage of his own “rights” at the expense of the rights of others.

No, the Bible doesn’t flinch at taking a hard-eyed look at life – the good, the bad, and the ugly! What saves it from being a wholly negative set of documents is that the authors are always looking for God and God’s presence in the midst of the tragedy and suffering of daily life! Even the Book of Ecclesiastes ends with these words, “Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come…Fear God and keep (the) commandments); for that is the whole duty of everyone.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13)

The Psalmist begins his song with words like these: “Hear this, all your peoples; hearken, all you who dwell in the world, you of high degree and low, rich and poor together.  My mouth shall speak of wisdom, and my heart shall meditate on understanding.” (Psalm 49:1-2)

The author of Colossians counsels us in the midst of pain and struggle to “…seek those things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3) Keep an eternal perspective even in the midst of struggle in this broken world!

And Jesus also challenges us to keep our attention focused on God lest we end up like the selfish landowner who thought his many possessions would save him, “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves, but are not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21)

Scott Peck, the author of the pop-psychology text “The Road Less Traveled” so popular back in the 1980s began the book with these words, “Life is difficult!” Yes it is, and Christians – except for those deluded enough to follow the “prosperity gospel” – have never had any illusions about that! The question is, how do we survive…and thrive…in this difficult life?

The best spiritual director I ever had was a Franciscan sister named Mary Dingman.  I would meet with her monthly and pour out my heart and soul with the joys and sorrows of being Bishop of Iowa… and a husband… and a father…and a son – all of which roles were more than challenging at times. But, in almost every situation, rather than engage in problem-solving or amateur psychology, Mary would simply ask, “So where is God in all this?”

She knew, as all good spiritual directors do, that her job was not to “fix” me or my problems, but help me identify and rely on the Presence of God who can be found in every circumstance life presents – if we have eyes to see. And that’s the one thing the Preacher of Ecclesiastes got wrong. Life is not all “Vanity” (emptiness). Life is Presence.

For God is present everywhere and in everything – even in the midst of tragedies like El Paso and Dayton, God is present in the courage of the first responders and medical personnel and the families of the victims. May God also be present in helping us not to give up the good fight for responsible gun control in this country and against the evil forces which keep this from happening.

If you’ve not seen the statement on all this issued by the clergy of our National Cathedral, even before these two most recent mass murders, I encourage you to do so. It’s a model of the kind of things we need to be saying and doing as church!

The spiritual disciplines and practices which Christians follow (and which I hope we can talk about in Spirit School after Community Hour today) – practices like prayer, reading the Bible, celebrating the Eucharist – are all simply ways of helping us pay attention to God. And to bring our minds and hearts back to God when they stray. Developing a Rule of Life for yourself, a pattern of how you will pray, read Scripture, come to church – these practices can bring your attention back to God in the midst of real life, of the real problems and difficulties that life presents.

Because Christianity is about this life…every bit as much as the life to come. And God knows…we need to know that today.

T

We had some very tough words from the Lord, delivered through the prophet Amos, in our First Lesson today: “The end has come upon my people…The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day…the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place…”

“On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.  I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation…I will make it like the mourning for an only son…” (Amos 8 passim) Tough words!

Clearly, the prophet is announcing a severe judgment that is coming upon his people. We often tremble at harsh judgments like those when we hear them read out in the Old Testament, or even in the New!  But it’s important for us to hear and understand who those judgments are being pronounced upon! The prophet also makes that clear:

“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain and the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale?”

God’s judgment is coming on those Old Testament “corporate giants” who are taking advantage of the needy and the poor, and who cannot wait for another work week to begin so that they can continue to overcharge the people and cheat them out of their rightful earnings:

“We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals…”

You see, back then, the ephah was used to measure wheat, while the shekel was used to weigh coins.  The seller would measure the wheat by the ephah and receive in exchange silver weighted by the shekel. So, by making the ephah small and the shekel great, the merchant gives the buyer less wheat and receives in return a larger amount of silver.  In other words, the poor folks, trying to buy bread, were being cheated! Sound familiar? The system was just about as rigged in that day as it is in ours. But Amos is telling his people that the Lord is about to bring judgment on that kind of practice. And I believe the Lord is still standing in judgment on those who take advantage of the poor in our day!

“You tyrant,” sings the Psalmist this morning, “why do you boast of wickedness against the godly all day long? You plot ruin; your tongue is like a sharpened razor, O working of deception.  You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking the truth. You love all words that hurt…” Sound familiar? Have you watched the news lately?

You see, God expects the kings and presidents and rulers of this world – whether they be captains of industry or politicians – to govern justly, for the good of the people. Both the Old and New Testaments recognize that we have to live in systems where some people are placed in positions of authority over us.

In the Epistle to the Colossians this morning, St. Paul writes that, in Christ “all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1)

Now there was a time when the Church “spiritualized” the words “thrones and dominions and rulers and powers” and even said those things were the spiritual powers in heaven – like ranks of angels. That is not what St. Paul is talking about! When he says, “thrones and dominions and rulers and powers” that’s exactly what he means. The thrones of earthly kings.  Dominions like nation states. Rulers like those who lord it over people.  And the “powers that be” who seem to control everything in this world!

Paul says that those things exist, all right, and that God accepts that, but they are supposed to serve God for the benefit of the people! Not to oppress and take advantage of the people for their own well-being! When they do – in Old Testament times or today – they stand under the judgment of God!

So, how are our governors and rulers and fat cats supposed to behave? How are they supposed to know how to behave? Well, believe it or not, the simple Gospel story we had for today tells us how. They are to listen for the Word of God!

Once again, we often miss the point of the wonderful Mary and Martha story (Luke 10:38-42) we heard a few moments ago. It’s often interpreted as meaning “Well, some of us are Marthas and some of us are Marys.  Some of us are activists and others are more contemplative by nature.” But that’s not what the story says!

In this case, Jesus rebukes Martha for her busyness! Oh, it’s a gentle rebuke. He says, “Martha, Martha you are worried and distracted by many things: there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part…”  

Martha was not just taking care of business. She was distracted by her busyness and complaining about her sister for not helping her out! Maybe we can all sympathize with that, but the point of the story was that Mary was the one who recognized that she was in the presence of the very Word of God in Jesus, and nothing was going to keep her from paying attention to that Word.

Our busy lives can distract us too from hearing and paying attention to God’s Word. But if we miss hearing it, for most of us, the damage will be done primarily to ourselves, maybe our families. But when our leaders either refuse or forget to listen to God, the results can be devastating. People suffer. Some people die.

So, let’s never forget to pray for our leaders. But let us also never forget to call them to account, like the prophet Amos did in his day. For “the time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”

Scary words.  Words that may describe our times! But there is still time for our leaders – and for us – to change.

 IF we take time to listen for the Word of the Lord!

Well, the first round is over! The first round of “debates” (read “forums”) between the Democratic candidates for President in 2020. All 20 of them! And there are more, but only 20 qualified under the rules for the televised events this week.

While it is way too early in the process for me to decide on a candidate, I thought I might log my early reactions while they are still fresh in my mind. I read an article recently which suggested leaving aside — for now — the elusive quality of “electability” since, in the age of Trump, nobody knows what that actually is any more.

Instead, the author suggested that we focus on three things in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses (at least): does the candidate have the character you would like to see in a President; does the candidate share your values; could the candidate, if elected, do the job. That seems completely sensible to me and I have ranked six of my favorites, so far, below who seem to meet those criteria.

Elizabeth Warren — Early on, she would not have been high on my list. But she is easily the smartest, among the toughest, has a compelling personal story and a “plan for everything!” Even if a number of them are aspirational and — short of flipping the Senate to Democratic control as well as winning the presidency — have little chance of being signed into law, they address the right issues, particularly income inequality and the widening gap between rich and poor in this country. This senator and former Harvard professor knows economics!

Kamala Harris — She was a favorite early on, but seemed to fade off my radar screen for a while. That all changed on Thursday night! She was strong yet measured, not afraid to take on Joe Biden, and I loved her line when the other candidates trying to out-shout each other, “The American public doesn’t want to see a food fight, they want us to put food on their tables!” With America’s “original sin” of racism still front and center in 2019, the very act of electing not only the first woman President, but the first woman of color would be amazing.

Pete Buttigieg — While the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is not likely to become the eventual nominee, he is one impressive individual! As smart (if not as experienced) as Elizabeth Warren, he has a calm and measured demeanor and balances his military background with progressive ideas both on foreign policy and domestic issues. While light on foreign policy experience, I can see his personality repairing our damaged relationship with allies around the world with the best of them while being tough enough to stand up to our enemies. His courage in standing out there as a married gay man is matched only by his articulate apologetic for a progressive religious faith in the face of the hypocritical use of particularly Christianity by Trump and his minions in the Republican Party.

Cory Booker — Much of what I said above about Kamala Harris could be reiterated about Senator Booker. His vision is upbeat and positive (even more than hers) and he still believes in the possibility in working “across the aisle.” This is not a naive optimism, however, and he knows that there is a limit to this possibility as long as the Senate remains in GOP hands. I am impressed with much of what he did while mayor of Newark and the fact that he still lives “in the hood” lends great credibility and integrity to his stances on such things as income inequality and gun control.

Julian Castro — For a relatively young man, Castro has solid experience not only as the mayor of San Antonio but as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Barack Obama. He had the earliest, and likely the best, approach to dealing with immigration which, if Donald Trump has his way, will be front and center in the 2020 election. The issue is personal for him as the only Latino candidate and his vision is broad, including getting “upstream” of the immigration problem by reaching out (with a kind of Marshall Plan?) to the countries in Central and South American to help stabilize them and mitigate the terror which causes so many to flee to the North. By the way, along with a number of other well-educated candidates, his Bachelors from Stanford and JD from Harvard says volumes!

Bernie Sanders — I have let Bernie slip under the tent on this list because he has been consistent for so long about the economic issues involving Wall Street, big Pharma, and “the billion-ayres” of the top 1 %. While I am no fonder of his grumpy old-man persona than I was when he ran against Hillary Clinton, it is perhaps understandable in one who has fought this battle for so long while watching the country move farther and farther to the Right in these last years. If some of his “tax the rich” solutions seem unworkable (and they do to me, most days), one need only hearken back to the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt to see that those reforms were opposed just as fiercely by the rich and powerful, particularly on Wall Street and in the big banks. The mood of a majority of the country was ripe for such changes in those days. Will it be in 2020?

Well, those are just some initial thoughts. I shall be following the race with great interest in the coming months, but will save my phone-calling and door-knocking until the Democratic Party has decided on its ticket. Then, I will — once again — work my heart out. Because NOTHING…NOTHING…is more important to me than defeating Donald Trump!

She really had felt very little when her husband died. It had been a loveless, arranged marriage between the two families and he was a good bit older than she. So it was almost liberation when a mysterious illness took him within a matter of weeks. It felt like liberation not least because she had played a major role in developing their dealership of the expensive purple dye used in the clothing of the very wealthy in her community.

The dye came from the eastern Mediterranean from the secretions of sea snails found in that part of the world. It cost so much because it took something like 12,000 snails just to produce a gram or two of the dye. Her husband had the connections to import the precious blackish liquid, but she was the one skilled in soaking the wool for hours until the dye was fully absorbed so that it didn’t fade easily and colored the basic material for the garments shaped and woven into cloaks and togas for their customers.

It was those same customers who almost demanded that she take over the business after her husband died, even though she was a woman. They had come to depend on the quality of her work and there weren’t that many such artisans in their Roman settlement just across the Aegean Sea from Athens. She was a Greek Macedonian herself, but had long since become accepted and even respected in her adopted hometown of Philippi.

The first few years after her husband’s death had been extremely busy as she built the business into an even more successful enterprise. She was willing to take risks in the pricing of their products her husband had never been willing to take, and even increased the purchase price of the purple cloth, a cost most of her customers were happy to pay for. She had to do that because she was not only a business woman, but the mother of three growing children which she increasingly needed assistance to take care of as the work load increased in their expanding market.

But, after a while, even the success of her burgeoning enterprise failed to slake the deep thirst for purpose and meaning she had always harbored deep within. This couldn’t be “all there was” to life! So she began attending the local Jewish synagogue in town. She’d always been attracted by the dedication and commitment of the small Jewish community in her area. She had not known much about Jewish theology outside the fact that they claimed the existence of only one God — One they believed had liberated them from bondage in Egypt centuries before and had preserved them as a people through an even more recent Exile in Babylon.  Her initial attraction to Judaism was the centrality of family and the home, something she’d always longed for, but had never really experienced.

So, each Sabbath day she would join the other “God fearers” seated in the back of the synagogue. These were Gentiles who, while not quite ready to take the leap and become Jews themselves, were enthralled by this ancient faith and found that the practical moral and ethical teaching of these rather stand-offish people made sense and actually seemed to improve the quality of their lives to the extent that they were able to observe the commandments and follow the wisdom of Jewish teaching.

When the weather was nice, the community often met just outside the gates of the city down by the river. The breezes were pleasant there, and many seemed to appreciate praying by the waters which reminded them of the place the Red Sea and the Jordan River had played in their own history. They had been brought into freedom more than once by passing through water just like this!

It was in this unlikely location that she first heard the man Paul and his companions expound on the Torah and prophetic readings for the day. They seemed to believe that the mysterious figure of liberation hinted at throughout the Hebrew Bible had actually appeared.  His name was Jesus and he had lived and taught in Palestine only for a few years before being executed by the Romans because they had feared that his followers would proclaim him as their king and challenge the authority of Caesar and his puppets, King Herod and the governor Pontius Pilate.

But, according to Paul, death had not been able to contain the man or his message and rather than scattering like the disciples of so many so-called Messiahs, this community of Christ-followers was growing and expanding across the Mediterranean world and forming cell groups to live a kind of counter-cultural life and to spread the teachings of this charismatic figure.  Paul himself had once persecuted this group, but an experience of Jesus transformed even him and he now considered himself a disciple equal to those original Twelve who had been hand-selected by the Teacher.

Paul, and his friend Luke, said that this Jesus was not like other rabbis and prophets who had come before, but that there was a contemporaneous quality about him. He wasn’t just a deceased martyr or even an historical figure. His Spirit – which some called “the Paraclete,” the “Advocate” – had been poured out on his followers and seemed to inspire them to teach has he had taught and even do some of the same amazing things he himself had done!

She saw that in Paul and Luke and the others. And she soon wanted more than anything else to have the kind of peace, and joy, and love she saw in them become part of her own life and that of her children.  So, she and her family began attending not only the synagogue on the Sabbath but began joining the so-called “Christians” for the common meal they shared after the sun went down and the Sabbath was over.

It was at one of those meals that she found herself asking how she might join their movement. Within a very few weeks, she and her children were immersed in that same river by which the Jewish community prayed and, when they rose up, the water streaming from their faces, they knew that nothing would ever be quite the same again!

Well, that may not be exactly how it happened for Lydia of Thyatira about whom we heard in our First Lesson today.  But it must have been something like that. We do know that, in gratitude for the new life she and her family had been given, she invited Paul and Luke to use her home as a kind of base of operations for their Philippian mission.

We also know that she is considered a saint in several Christian traditions, including our own, and that several Eastern Orthodox churches designate her “Equal to the Apostles,” inspiring icons to be written in her honor.

I think for us she may at least be considered an extremely courageous, first-century woman and a seeker after truth. If Luke’s account in Acts is correct, we may also see her as an example of one of the earliest women leaders in the Christian church, starting by providing hospitality to Paul and his companions – an act which in and of itself underscores her courage since it placed her and her household in some danger. Maybe she is patron saint of the sanctuary movement!

I close with the prayer written for Lydia in our most recent addition of the liturgical resource Lesser Feasts and Fasts and with the intention that we may have the courage to follow her good example.  Let us pray:

“Eternal God, who gives good gifts to all people, and who teaches us to have the same spirit of generosity:  Give us, we pray, hearts that are always open to hear your word, that following the example of your servant Lydia, we may show hospitality to all who are in any need or trouble, through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen”

 A number of us here at New Song are devotees of Father Richard Rohr, the Franciscan author and teacher on the spiritual life. He runs something called the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico and you can sign up for a daily e-mail reflection of his by going to their website – cac.org!

This group recently held an international conference in Albuquerque entitled “The Universal Christ: Another Name for Everything!” A bit of an overstatement perhaps! But over 2,000 people showed up in person and another 2800 or so of us from several continents joined the live stream over the course of four days.  Lectures and presentations by Richard Rohr and others were interspersed with liturgies and times of contemplative prayer as well as opportunities (for those who were there in person) for small group interaction.

The overall message was that union of humanity and divinity that we Christians have seen in Jesus is but one shining example of a truth that has been present from the beginning of time and across all religions and none:  Namely that every single created Being throughout all eternity and in every Universe is in God and that God is in everything! Rohr calls that part of the “Perennial Wisdom” – that which is simply true, and which has been experienced in many ways by many cultures and many religions – perennial wisdom!

When we Christians say that “the Word became Flesh” in Jesus, we are simply recognizing a unique example of the fact that Spirit and Matter have never been separate in the first place, and that we only experience things that way because of some pretty dualistic and body-denying theology that most of us grew up hearing from pulpits and in religious classrooms. Spirit is good; flesh is bad! We need to be “saved” from that!

What we need to be “saved” from is not so much “original sin” (often wrongly identified as sins of “the flesh!)  but from the blindness that keeps so many of us from seeing the Oneness and the beauty of God’s Creation everywhere. We need to be “saved” from that!

Another dimension of the universal nature of God’s love and God’s grace is what we are celebrating here on this Easter morning – the Resurrection! One of the other presenters at this conference was John Dominic Crossan who is a Roman Catholic biblical scholar and author of a number of books on the Historical Jesus.

Crossan’s contribution to the concept of the Universal Christ was to point out that, while most of Jesus’ life and ministry are described in some detail in the Gospels – the healings and miracles, events like the Transfiguration, the trial and execution of Jesus on the Cross, even experiences his followers had of him after the Resurrection such as Luke described in today’s Gospel — the actual moment of Resurrection is never described in the New Testament.

So it remained for artists to try and give us pictures of what it must have been like. Initially, icons and paintings only showed symbols of Jesus rising from the tomb – the Chi Rho symbol (which looks to us like an X and a p – the first two letters of “Christ” in Greek) or the familiar IHS abbreviation. Later, there were depictions of Jesus stepping out of the tomb, perhaps trailing his grave clothes behind him.

All those were depictions of an individual Resurrection – Jesus! The Eastern Orthodox Church soon developed an even richer way of showing the cosmic significance of the Resurrection by paintings and icons of what Crossan calls the Universal Resurrection. I have an example of one of those icons which I have placed on the Altar so you can take a look on your way up for Communion or after our liturgy today.

Icons like this show Jesus rising from the dead all right, but he is not alone. Instead he is grasping the hand of Adam and Eve and leading them – along with figures representing all of humanity out of death and Hades into New Life.  The 17^th century Anglican priest and poet George Herbert must have seen one of these icons when he wrote: “Sing his praise/ without delays/ Who takes (you) by the hand/ that (you) likewise with him (may) rise.” Or, as a contemporary Orthodox theologian puts it, “The Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; it is the beginning of the transformation of the world.” (Patriarch Athenagoras).

 It’s the kind of thing our Lessons from Scripture were trying to hint at today:  In our First Lesson, “Peter began to speak to Cornelius and the other Gentiles: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.  You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all’!” (Acts 10:34)

And in our Epistle from the 1^st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so ALL will be made alive in Christ…For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (I Corinthians 15:19 passim)

These icons attempt to show all this symbolically. Jesus is bringing with him Adam and Eve, representing all of humanity; also David and Solomon and John the Baptist, representing the Jews. He’s leading out St. Paul and some others who had not even died at the time of the Resurrection. This shows the symbolic nature of the icon’s message. It was not intended to be literal, but symbolically true!

And the truth it is trying to convey, the truth the New Testament is trying to convey, the truth that Easter is trying to convey is that the promise of Eternal Life is not for a select few. Our Prayer Book Catechism says that when Christians hope for eternal life, we hope for “a new existence, in which we are united with all the people of God, in the joy of fully knowing and loving God and each other.” (BCP 862) That’s pretty dry theological language. The icon says it better! So do these lines from one of our hymns today…

Christ is alive! No longer bound to distant years in Palestine / He comes to claim the here and now and conquer every place and time.

Christ is alive! His Spirit burns through this and every future age/ ‘til all creation lives and learns… his joy, his justice, love, and praise. (1979 Hymnal #182)

Easter is that big, dear friends! Easter is Universal! And THAT calls for a celebration!