That We All May Be One

For the last several Sundays we’ve been making our way through the 22^nd chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew in our Sunday readings. We conclude that chapter today and, once again, it makes more sense if we put it into the context of the entire chapter. Matthew 22 begins with the Parable of the Wedding Banquet with the king deciding to go out into the streets and invite the riff-raff – good and bad people alike – to attend his son’s wedding reception since the original guests were too busy with their worldly pursuits to accept his invitation.

That story is about what Dean Alan Jones calls “God’s astonishingly bad taste!” I mean God doesn’t really seem to be very discriminating about those called to the Banquet. God loves everybody. Absolutely everybody! Astonishingly bad taste, really! This description of God in Jesus’ parable so angers the Pharisees (who were always so concerned about “who was in” and “who was out,” who was clean and who was unclean) that verse 15 says that they “plotted to entrap him in what he said.”

And that led to last Sunday’s wonderful Lesson about “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s!” Jesus turns the trick question about taxes right back on the Pharisees and gets himself out of a potential “Catch 22.” One of my friends recently said about this parable that Jesus had learned a very important lesson in life that I commend to you — just because someone asks you a question doesn’t mean you have to answer it!

That brilliant tactic shuts the Pharisees up for a while. Verse 22 says, “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.” Yes, I suppose they did – no doubt blushing with embarrassment at how he had outfoxed them! So, next in Matthew 22 the Pharisees’ archrivals the Sadducees take over. This was the group that really didn’t believe in the possibility of resurrection from the dead or in eternal life at all. So they try to trip Jesus up with a pretty far-fetched story of a hypothetical situation where a woman was married and then widowed seven times, and then she died. (No wonder, we might say – after seven husbands!)

But their silly question was, whose wife will she be in heaven since she’d been married seven times? Jesus’ answer here was dripping with sarcasm when he says, “You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” In other words, he’s suggesting that one of the reasons the Sadducees didn’t really even believe in resurrection was because they had such a limited view of it!

If you try to picture heaven as just a celestial version of life here on earth, you’ll always be confused. Eternal life is about a whole new plane of existence, a complete transformation of our earthly existence. Arrangements like jobs and families and neighborhoods won’t have any meaning in heaven because everyone will be in communion, in “love and charity” with God and everyone else. It will be one community of love and acceptance for us all!

Well, that silences the Sadducee party for a while and the Pharisees take over again in today’s Gospel. This is sort of a “good cop, bad cop” sort of  interrogation! “If you’re so smart,” they seem to say, “then tell us which commandment in the law is the greatest.” Now it’s important to note that they probably weren’t just talking about which of the “Ten” Commandments was most important. The rabbis and scholars by Jesus’ day had identified some 613 “mitsvot”, or commandments, scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible which people were supposed to obey. No wonder many people had given up even trying to practice their religion or even to please God!

But Jesus’ brilliant mind instantly culls through those 613 rules and lifts out two of them – one from the Ten Commandments about loving God (Deuteronomy 6:5) and one from the book of Leviticus (19:18) about loving neighbor. Rabbi Hillel (a contemporary of Jesus) had responded in somewhat the same way when he was asked the question. He said, “What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary; go and learn it!”

By now, Jesus is getting a little irritated about being hassled like this and badgered with questions, not because anybody was particularly interested in the answers, but precisely in order to trip him up. So he decides to have a little fun with his inquisitors! He turns to an obscure Psalm (110)  which begins like this, “The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” The traditional interpretation was that the first LORD refers to God and the second “Lord” refers to the Messiah. (In other words, the Lord God said to my Lord the Messiah, sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.)

But if, as the tradition had it, David was the author of this Psalm, and the Messiah was to be a descendent of David, how could he call his descendent his “Lord?” In Jewish law, the offspring could not be regarded as greater than the ancestor, so David could not possibly be calling one of his descendents, “Lord!”

Now it is absolutely clear to me that Jesus is just playing with his adversaries here. He actually is a descendent of David, according to the genealogy in the first chapter of this very Gospel according to Matthew!  And yet David was indeed calling him, the hoped-for Messiah, “Lord.” What Jesus is saying is, “Don’t try to trip me up by your facile quoting of Scripture out of context and with evil intention.” I can quote Scripture with the best of you – and it doesn’t mean a thing!

So…what does “mean a thing?” In fact, what does “mean everything?” According to Jesus, it is the “first and great commandment” and the “second which is like unto it.” Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Leave the rest of it to others. Leave the church fights and the theological disputations and the “proof texts” and the holier-than- thou attitudes to others. As for you – fall in love with God and love other people.

On those two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

The rest is commentary!

Proper 21A. Trinity Cathedral.

When you are trying to understand a passage of Scripture, it’s very important always to look at the context of that passage. We have some nine or ten verses from Matthew’s Gospel this morning and they begin like this: “When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things; and who gave you this authority?” (Matthew 21:23)

At first glance it may appear that they were questioning Jesus’ authority to teach. However, by this time Jesus was well accepted as a kind of itinerant rabbi and, in any case, it was always acceptable for a Jewish male to stand up in synagogue or Temple and comment on the Torah portion for the day. Besides, they don’t say, “by what authority are you teaching?”… They say, “by what authority are you doing these things!” They were concerned about what he was doing!

And what had he just done? Well, twelve verses earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, he had been greeted as the Son of David by crowds in the street, and he had pushed over the tables of the money-changers in the temple and driven them out for turning a house of prayer into a den of robbers!

That’s what the chief priests and the elders were upset about. Not so much about what Jesus was teaching, but about what he was doing. And what he was doing was challenging both the political and religious establishment of his day, and doing so in the heart of the political and religious capital city – Jerusalem.

According to a recent book by New Testament scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, two processions entered Jerusalem on that first “Palm Sunday.” One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. While Jesus and his followers were entering the city from the east, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor and his legions were entering the city from the west. Pilate’s entry into Jerusalem and its significance would have been well known in the Jewish homeland of the first century.

It was standard operating procedure for the Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for all the major Jewish festivals. This was not out of any respect for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects. It was to reinforce the Roman garrison permanently stationed in Fortress Antonia in case there was trouble. And there usually was trouble, especially at Passover, a festival celebrating the liberation of the Jews from an earlier oppressor, the Egyptians.  There would be trouble on this Passover as well!

By staging a “counter procession” to Pilate’s, Jesus wanted to make a specific point. His purpose was to fulfill the prophecy made by Zechariah that the Messiah would come to Jerusalem in a very specific way – not like King David, in splendor on a white horse at the head of a procession of armed men, but “humble, and riding on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Moreover, Zechariah tells us what kind of king he would be:

“He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war-horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” This Messiah would not be a king of war, but a prince of peace.

What a contrast to that other procession! On one side of town, Pilate was entering Jerusalem in a display of imperial power – cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, the sounds of marching feet, implicitly claiming that the Romans were the rulers of the ancient world.  On the other side of town, Jesus and his rag-tag group of followers were trotting into town on foot and on a donkey with children and the poor claiming him as representing the true Ruler of the ancient (and modern!) world – the living and true God!

That’s what the chief priests and the elders of the people were “on” about in questioning Jesus’ authority. And that’s why Jesus turns the question back on them, wanting to know what they thought about that other bold prophet, John the Baptist. “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin,” he asks.

“Uh oh,” they gulped, “If we say he was from God, he’ll want to know why we didn’t listen to him. If we say he was only speaking on his own authority, we will have a riot on our hands. Those are John’s people out there – the poor, the lost, the least and the lonely.”

And that’s why Jesus told the story about the two sons – the one who said he wouldn’t work in the vineyard but did; and the one who said he would and didn’t.  For you see, dear friends, in the final analysis, it doesn’t really matter what you profess to believe. What matters is what you actually believe!

It doesn’t really matter what you say you’re going to do. What matters is what you do. And what you actually do in this life will ultimately depend on which procession you’re in – Pilate’s or Jesus’s?

St. Paul puts the challenge to us in today’s Epistle: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.”

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:5-11).

Which procession are you in today – Pilate’s or Jesus’s.

In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus’ familiar instructions to his disciples to “deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow him.” (Matthew 16:24) That challenge has been interpreted in a variety of ways across the centuries. The original readers of the Gospel probably knew that the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking had all suffered martyrdom for following him, and so they prepared themselves, if necessary, to give up their very lives for the sake of the Gospel if that became necessary – and it sometimes did…and does today.

Sometimes the command to “deny” oneself took on a pietistic and ascetic quality, leading Christians to engage in fasting and abstinence, giving up various kinds of food and drink or even denying themselves the joys of marriage and family life by living celibate lives or taking on the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In addition to these orthodox ways of practicing self-denial some believers adopted unhealthy, or even pathological, expressions – sometimes intentionally hurting themselves in order to share in the sufferings of Christ.

Well, this morning I’d like to suggest that our Second Lesson today tells us about all we need to know about living a life of self-denial and about taking up our crosses. These verses from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans (12:9-21) might be called “The Ten Commandments of Christian Discipleship.” Let’s take a look:

1. First, Paul writes, “Let (your) love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good.” Notice it does not say, “hate the one who is evil.” It says, “hate what is evil.”  Our very Baptismal Covenant instructs us to renounce “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God…the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God…sinful desires that draw us from the love of God.” So we can reject and even hate those forces and powers and desires that get in the way of our relationship with God. But we are not free to hate people who may be oppressed by those forces or powers. We are to love them – with a love that is genuine – even while we hate what is evil.

2. “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” “Honor” – now that’s a word we don’t hear too often today. To honor another person means to show them respect. And another part of our Baptismal Covenant requires us to respect “the dignity of every human being.” We may not think that every person is worthy of our respect — and indeed their actions may not be . But every human being has a certain dignity simply by being created as a child of God. And, no matter how tarnished that Image of God may be, we are to look for it…and respect it….honor it…for that person too is a child of God!

3. “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.” I must say: it is sometimes pretty frustrating to me to see how lacking in “zeal” and “enthusiasm” Episcopalians can be! Now I don’t expect a church full of “happy, clappy” Christians every Sunday, but when I look out sometimes when we are singing words like “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name, let angels prostrate fall.” or making some of the responses in the Liturgy it is hard for me to tell whether some of you believe those words or are excited by those concepts…or not!  Be ardent in spirit, Paul says…when you serve, and worship, the Lord.

4, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” I think the key to this “4^th Commandment” is to persevere in prayer. Prayerful people are hopeful people…and prayerful people are more likely to be patient in times of trouble. Spend some time each day with your God in personal prayer and see if you do not gradually become more patient with others…and more hopeful.

5. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.” This is a call to share! Share your material resources with others. Open your hearts and your hands and your homes in hospitality to others. As far as our life at Trinity Cathedral is concerned, this means giving generously to support the life and work of this church, and look around for the visitor and the newcomer and the stranger and make an effort to welcome all who come here to become part of our parish family and our church fellowship!

6. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” God knows, this may be the most difficult of all these “10 Commandments for Christian Discipleship,” but it is in some ways the most distinctively Christian. Non-violent resistance to oppression, praying for our enemies, even forgiving those who wish to harm us go back directly to Jesus’ life and teaching and find the clearest expression in his last hours on the Cross. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” was his prayer for his persecutors even while they were driving the nails through his hands! If he could do that, can’t we at least try to ‘bless those who persecute us?”

7. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” Today, we would call this having “empathy.” Empathy means to try to identify with the thoughts and feelings and attitudes of another person. Try to “be where that other person is” if you want to be in relationship with them, and perhaps be of some assistance. Be sensitive to the needs and wants of others.

8. “Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are.” This is the Christian virtue of humility. Pride was, and is, the original sin! If you can have an accurate reading of yourself and keep in mind that there is always someone smarter, more compassionate, or holier than you are, you’ll have no problem “associating with the lowly,” standing in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized which is also part of our Christian vocation.

9. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.” This goes back to that tough #7 about blessing those who persecute you. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was an Old Testament, not a New Testament, ethic. And it eventually leaves everyone toothless and blind! Someone has to stop retaliating for evil; someone has to absorb the pain and refuse to pass it on. Jesus has already done that to the ‘nth” degree! Can’t we try to imitate him in that?

10. And all this leads to Commandment #10 – “If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” That is a very gentle ending to a very demanding list! “If it’s possible,” Paul says! He knows that we will not fulfill all these commands perfectly, but he desperately wants us to try! “If possible…so far as it depends on you…” We can’t be responsible for how another person acts. We can only be responsible for ourselves. We can’t control the other person’s behavior, but we can control ours! “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all!”

So,

Hate what is evil but hold fast to the good

Outdo one another in showing honor

Don’t lag in zeal

Persevere in prayer

Extend hospitality to strangers

Bless those who persecute you

Weep with those who weep

Don’t claim to be wiser than you are

Don’t repay evil for evil

Try to live peaceably with all…

Ten Commandments for Christian Discipleship…

Ten ways to deny yourself…

To take up your cross…

And to follow Jesus!

Proper 10A – Trinity Cathedral. I sometimes think we have too much Scripture read on Sunday mornings! That may seem like a strange thing for a pastor to say but, when you are confronted, week after week, with so much rich material from the Bible, and you hope to come up with a sermon which does justice to all of that (without preaching for 45 minutes or more!), it is a real challenge!

I could use a whole sermon, or even a sermon series, exploring the Genesis story of the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, this morning. Besides being a great story of “sibling rivalry” it’s a fascinating example of ancient literature trying to understand the eternal struggle between the Jews (as descendants of Jacob) and the Arabs (descendants of Esau), the ramifications of which still continue today in the Middle East. Jews and Arabs still cannot figure out how to share the ancient land of Palestine. And the accounts of greed and deception on both sides described in today’s First Lesson continue up until today and are as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines.

But then, I really ought to spend some time dealing with the 8^th chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans which we had as our Second Reading today. At the very least, it needs to be said that, when Paul talks abut the conflict between the “flesh” and “the spirit,” he is not talking about some kind of split between our bodies and our minds – as though the body was evil and the mind, or spirit, good. The Greek word we translate for the “body” is “soma” (from which we get our word “psychosomatic.”)

But the Greek word Paul uses here for “sinful flesh” is the word “sarx.” And sarx refers to our broken, flawed, and fallen human nature. When we sin, it is not just our bodies which sin. We sin with our minds, with our hearts, and spirits – all of us! So, it’s not a question of our bodies being evil and our spirits being good (no matter how it may sound when you first read this part of Romans). The war is not between our bodies and our minds or spirits. The war is between our entire, fallen human nature (what WE want to do so many times) and God’s yearning for us (what God’s HOLY SPIRIT wants us to do).

That’s why Paul can finally say, “…you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit…” Certainly we are still in our bodies! But they are bodies now inhabited by God’s Holy Spirit – which is why Paul can say, “To set the mind on the flesh (on our old, self-centered nature) is death…but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” So many things to preach about…so little time!

I guess about the only consolation a preacher has can be found, as might be expected, in the Gospel today. The parable of the sower. It’s pretty clear that Jesus is not an agent of the extension service today, teaching farmers how to plant their seeds! “Broadcasting” seed is not a very productive method of farming – especially in the sandy, rocky soil of the Middle East. Lots of seed is wasted when you throw it around, not much caring where it falls.

But if, as Matthew suggests, the seed represents “the word of the kingdom,” then things begin to make a little more sense. And the description of the process is one that is borne out in every preacher’s experience! Sunday by Sunday we try to “break open the Word of God” for you as we stand in this pulpit. We don’t do it perfectly, but we try to reach every corner of this Cathedral church with at least a little of that life-giving seed.

Some of you will greet us at the door with “Wonderful sermon…I really needed that.” But then we may not see you again for two or three weeks… and whatever insight you may have gleaned from that particular sermon is just a faint glimmer by that time.

And then there are those of you who believe that one hour on Sunday morning is about all you need for your Christian formation. No daily prayer discipline, no Bible study, no participation in whatever adult education offerings we may be able to provide here. “No root”…is the way Jesus describes it. No rooted-ness, no deep grounding in the Faith. Just a nodding acquaintance with it for an hour or two on Sunday mornings.

And what about what Jesus calls “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth” as obstacles to really hearing and receiving God’s Word? All of us have cares in the world…and all of us expend a good portion of our energy earning the money we need to live and take care of our families. But if those ‘cares’ and those ‘monetary pursuits’ consume all our time and energy and keep us from spending time consciously seeking God and God’s will for our lives, then – no matter how effectively the Word is proclaimed – it will be choked…and “it will yield nothing.”

So, what the preacher has to rely on – when all is said and done – is that at least some of that seed, each week, does fall on good soil. Some of you make an effort to be here every week…you say your prayers…and maybe even take a look at the Lessons which will be preached on the next Sunday and which we list in our Announcement bulletins. You come with open hearts and open minds and don’t let yourselves get distracted by all that competes for your time and energy – family issues, over-committed schedules, worry about finances and security, whatever personal sins and shortcomings you may be struggling with.

No, you show up…like good soil…ready to receive and take in whatever poor morsel of seed we may be able to “broadcast” from this pulpit and this lectern. The “Word of the Kingdom,” Matthew calls it.

And, thank God: that is enough. Because you are the ones who hear the word, and understand it…you are the ones who indeed bear fruit and yield, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty. Fruit of the Spirit seen in your time, your talent, and your treasure – offered in God’s service.

You are the ones who sustain the ministry of this Cathedral parish.

You are the ones who help us, in some small way, cooperate with God in building the Kingdom.

You are the ones who make it worth it – Sunday by Sunday – to “broadcast the Word.”

Thank you.

When Susanne and I were living in New York, we didn’t always have Sunday responsibilities so we had the joy of worshipping together on Sunday mornings. To be honest, at first we found the large and very formal New York Episcopal churches not very friendly and hard to feel at home in. We also realized that it had been a long time since we were “visitors” in a congregation, seeking to find acceptance and welcome like every other newcomer to our church.

Finally, we tried St. Bartholomew’s, a large, historic parish located in midtown right next to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel! I knew St. Bart’s had been through hard times in the past, but had made a real turnaround since the arrival of their new rector, Bill Tully. A large part of that is their commitment to what Bill calls “radical hospitality” and a real welcome for the newcomer.

On their website, you can find these words in a section called “What We Are For:” We are for “the dignity and worth of every person. An open-minded, passionate commitment to truth. The importance of everyone’s own spiritual journey. God’s friends wherever we find them. Seeking Christ in every person who comes through the door. The sacredness of life’s rites of passage. The value of community. The hard work necessary to make sure that all are welcomed. Telling the truth about life’s challenges. A “user friendly” church- experience. Children and families.”

The central sentence in that description caught my attention: “Seeking Christ in every person who comes through the door.”  That line comes from the 6th century Rule of St Benedict, a rule he wrote for his monks about how they were to live together in community and how they were to welcome the stranger and the sojourner into their midst. They were to welcome them as though they were welcoming Christ himself!

If that sounds familiar to you it may be because of the words Christ himself spoke in the Gospel of St. Matthew this morning. Addressing his disciples, Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (10:40) He was, of course, preparing to send his disciples forth to preach and teach and heal in his name. He was about to transform them from “disciples” (learners) into “apostles” (ones who are sent).

And he wanted them to know that they were going out as his ambassadors. So that, whoever welcomed them, into their homes or synagogues or communities, was actually welcoming Jesus and his message as well. Decades later, St. Paul would describe the Church as “the Body of Christ” – meaning that the Church was to be the visible presence of Christ in the world (after his physical presence was no longer with them).

And, of course, the whole purpose of the Body of Christ (whether that was the earthly body of Jesus or the earthly mission of the Church) is – according to today’s Gospel — to “welcome the one who sent” him. Jesus was all about welcoming people, introducing them to God and to God’s Kingdom. He said, on more than one occasion, that when they looked at him, they were actually looking at what God is like. Jesus was the human face of God! And we are to be the human face of God today.

When those early Middle Eastern audiences heard and welcomed the apostles and their message, they were actually hearing and welcoming Jesus – which means that they were, at the same time, discovering the true and living God — Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of all! Our task is exactly the same today – to welcome every newcomer and stranger who walks through our doors as though we were welcoming Christ himself. Because, when we do, we are actually welcoming God ever deeper into our lives and into our community.

We need to do a better job of welcoming at Trinity Cathedral. Like most congregations, I know that we consider ourselves to be warm and friendly. But that sometimes means that we are primarily “warm and friendly” to one another. While we have had special “greeters” here in the past and it is certainly part of the usher’s responsibility to extend a cordial welcome to newcomers, to see that they sign our guest book and to invite them to remain after church for a while, if they can, for coffee hour and a time of conversation, it is up to every single one of us to reach out and provide a welcoming atmosphere.

I have seen – and I’m sure you have too – occasions when the 8 o’clock or 10:30 coffee hours are buzzing with conversation and laughter and small groups sitting around tables while a newcomer or a new family stands around in the middle of the Great Hall, looking pretty lonely and pretty lost.

How do you think that would square with Jesus’ words that “whoever welcomes you welcomes me?” How would it square with St. Benedict’s injunction to “seek Christ in every person who comes through the door?” Or even the Church of St. Bartholomew’s commitment to “do the hard work necessary to make sure that all are welcomed?” Not very well, it seems to me.

So, in this time of transition at Trinity Cathedral, as we prepare to call a new Dean and enter into the next stage of our life and ministry in this historic cathedral parish, let’s all of us rededicate ourselves to being the kind of community which wants to reach out…and wants to grow. Hear again what one growing and vibrant Episcopal congregation says it is “for”

We are for “the dignity and worth of every person. An open-minded, passionate commitment to truth. The importance of everyone’s own spiritual journey. God’s friends wherever we find them. Seeking Christ in every person who comes through the door. The sacredness of life’s rites of passage. The value of community. The hard work necessary to make sure that all are welcomed. Telling the truth about life’s challenges. A “user-friendly” church- experience. Children and families.”

That’s what the people of St. Bart’s in New York are “for.” What are we “for?”

I don’t know how many of you may have seen news reports of the latest flap circulating in evangelical circles these days. Now, I don’t mean the obvious fact that Jesus did not return in glory yesterday – no mature Christian, Catholic or Protestant takes these kinds of “predictions” seriously.

No, this has to do with a new book written by Rob Bell, the young pastor of a huge mega-church in Grandville, Michigan, called the “Mars Hill Bible Church.” Rob is the founder and producer of the “Nooma” film series we have been using for the last several years as part of our Adult Education offerings on some Sunday mornings.

His new book is entitled “Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” Not a very modest title, which may be one reason that the book has caused such an uproar in some circles. He has been accused by some of denying the existence of hell and of being a “Universalist” – that is, one who believes that everyone will eventually make it to heaven. He has denied both accusations and staunchly defends his book as not denying the reality of hell, but questioning some of his fellow-evangelicals’ certainty that they know just exactly who is going to hell and who is not!

In one exchange, he argues with a fellow pastor who claimed that Gandhi was certainly in hell. Rob replied, “Gandhi in hell? Really? We have confirmation of this? Without a doubt?”

Of course, those who claim that only Christians —  or even only born-again Christians – will make it into heaven often quote the very passage we have from John’s Gospel this morning: in response to Thomas’ question about how they can know “the way” to where Jesus is going, he replies, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

The first part of that citation is Jesus’ primary point and he goes on in the rest of our Reading today to elaborate on what it means to say that he is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is the way to God because, as he says, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father?” (John 14:9)

The point here is that the fact of the Incarnation means that Jesus is the “human face of God.” God is really quite beyond anything we can touch or feel or see or even comprehend fully. But the Christian claim is that all we NEED to know about God can be discovered in Jesus. When we look at Jesus, we know what God is like! Does that exhaust everything about the nature of God? Probably not. But, again, all we NEED to know about God, we believe we have found in Jesus Christ. He is “the way” for us.

Next, we are told that Jesus is “the Truth.” And John’s Gospel goes on to quote him as saying “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (John 14:10) So, when Jesus teaches, he is not just teaching on his own, he is conveying “the truths” he learned from his Father.”  Jesus is speaking the truth about God because God is speaking though him.

And finally, we hear that Jesus is “the Life.” Well, I don’t know anyone – Christian or non-Christian – who does not believe that Jesus lived an exemplary life and that if more people lived more like Jesus, this would be a considerably finer world. Or, as Jesus puts it in today’s Gospel, “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do…” (John 14:11-12) We are to live life like Jesus!

So, we believe that Jesus shows us the way to God…teaches us the truth about God…and exemplifies for us the kind of life God would have us live. He is, therefore, the way…the truth…and the life! But does that mean that only Christians will get to heaven? And, if so, what kind of Christians? Practicing Christians? What about non-practicing Christians?

Catholic Christians? What about Protestant Christians? Conservative Christians? What about Liberal Christians?

Yet, John’s Gospel does quote Jesus as saying: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” What does he mean by that? Well, Peter Marty (our colleague up the street at St. Paul Lutheran) puts it this way in a recent review of Rob Bell’s book in The Christian Century magazine: “the glue holding Bell’s project together is the firm conviction that Jesus is bigger than any one religion. He is the cosmic Christ who will not be co-opted or owned by any one culture. He is supra-cultural.”

“The apostle Paul wrote, ‘In Jesus, God was reconciling the world to himself’ and Bell is not willing to say that what Paul really meant was a reconciliation of the Christian world. Similarly Bell thinks that when Jesus announced that “God so loved the world…’ he actually meant the world. Had John been interested in shrinking the gospel or lessening the scope of the cross, he might well have proposed that ‘God so loved only Christians.’ But John did not.” (May 17 Christian Century, page 25)

No, John did not propose that…but sometimes Christians seem to wish that he had! Some of this debate is new to evangelical Christians, and that’s why Rob Bell has been so roundly criticized by some of his fellows. It’s not a new debate to Catholic, Orthodox, or Anglican theologians. Roman Catholics believe in Purgatory which may allow a way for former unbelievers yet to be recipients of the gift of heaven.

Orthodox and Anglicans often speak of an “intermediate state” called Paradise where we will continue to grow in grace after death while we await the final judgment, and where those who have never heard the word of Christ or who have had it so poorly presented that they rejected it, likewise may have the opportunity to be introduced to Jesus and walk through that “door of the sheepfold” into eternal life with God.

I remember my professor of systematic theology at Seabury-Western once saying “We absolutely must posit the existence of hell…because God will not force anyone to spend eternity with Him who doesn’t want to. BUT,” he continued with a smile, “ if you and I do our jobs, it is not necessary to posit that anyone will actually end up there…finally!”

Well, to be honest, I expect there actually will be those who choose to turn their backs on God once and for all. There are some people who seem actually that self-centered. But let us not join those who criticize people like Rob Bell who at least hold out the hope that, in the final analysis, Love does indeed “win.”

And that those who – knowingly or unknowingly – follow the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus will one day see him face-to-face and (like us) will receive the Gift that neither they, nor we, deserve.

The Gift of Eternal Life!

Easter 3A – Community of Celebration.

As former ecumenical officer for The Episcopal Church, I am a great supporter of our having adopted the Revised Common Lectionary. That’s the scheme which selects and organizes the Lessons from Scripture we read every week. We now share this Lectionary with the Church of England, the Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and others.

Churches like ours which follow a set Lectionary have a great advantage, it seems to me, in that we cover large portions of the Bible each year and it is not up to the preacher to pick and choose which Scripture he or she will preach about each week.

Rather, we have to start with the Word of God, start with the selections provided for us, and then say our prayers, do our commentary work, pay attention to the world around us and the parish we serve, and allow the sermon to be framed out of the interaction of all those factors. So I appreciate the work of those who developed the Lectionary we use.

Having said that, I am at something of a loss to understand why they stopped at what I believe to be one verse short in our First Reading from Acts this afternoon! We come in at the tale end of Peter’s great Pentecost sermon, the very first Apostolic sermon preached after the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit upon the Church, that event which transformed that ragtag bunch of disciples from a fearful, if excited, new Community which had just experienced the Risen Christ, into the most formidable band of missionaries and evangelists the world had ever known!

Peter begins with the Old Testament prophecies, rehearses the story of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection and how that ties into those ancient prophecies, and concludes with this powerful line: “Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified!” (Acts 2:14).

Well, that got their attention and the text says that:  “when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter tells them that they must “repent” (must turn around and go in a new direction – must now follow the One they had betrayed, or at least deserted) and be baptized so that their sins might be forgiven and so that they might receive that same Pentecostal gift of the Holy Spirit. We’re then told that his hearers welcomed that message and were baptized – some 3,000 persons on that very day! Pretty impressive!

And I suppose that, if all we were interested in was “church growth,” creating “mega churches,” and putting (as it is sometimes indelicately stated) “more butts in the pews,” that might be a good place to stop the First Lesson for today. But look what the next verse says, the verse that was “left out” for some strange reason: “…that day about three thousand persons were added. THEY DEVOTED THEMSELVES TO THE APOSTLES’ TEACHING AND FELLOWSHIP, TO THE BREAKING OF THE BREAD AND THE PRAYERS! (Acts 2:42)

Beloved, coming to faith in Jesus Christ and being baptized into his fellowship is just the first step in a life of Christian discipleship! In some ways, that’s the easy part. Then comes the life of discipleship! Then comes the day to day, week to week, year after year after year JOURNEY INTO CHRIST! And Luke describes that journey, in the Book of Acts, as having at least four components:

The first is being devoted to the Apostles Teaching. Those early Christians were going to have to devote themselves to sitting at the Apostles’ feet, week after week, just as the Apostles had sat at Jesus’ feet week after week, and be instructed in how to live the Christian life!

At the very least that was going to entail learning how to love God and loving their neighbors as themselves. That was going to include treating other people with justice (treating people as God would treat them). It was going to entail healing the sick and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and turning the other cheek rather than responding to persecution with violence and revenge.

The second component in being a disciple was to devote themselves to “Fellowship.” Now, that’s a word that has been so watered down in today’s church as to be virtually indistinguishable from hanging around for coffee hour after church or showing up at a pot luck supper three or four times a year! What it meant for those earliest Christians was much more like what it means for the Community of Celebration! All things held in common, not a poor person among them, accepting all comers – even the outcasts and the marginalized. The word is “koinonia” in Greek and it means, according to New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, that:

“in Christ, Christians not only belong to one another but actually become mutually identified, truly rejoicing with the happy and genuinely weeping with the sad…Koinonia is part of the truth about the body of Christ. All are bound together in a mutual bond that makes our much-prized individualism look shallow and petty. This fundamental meaning of koinonia best explains its other uses, particularly that of “generosity” or “almsgiving”…Christians give to one another because they belong to one another.”

The third component of discipleship is “the breaking of the bread.” Originally that meant sharing meals with one another and with the poor but, after the sun had set on the Sabbath Day, it also meant sharing the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist with one another as Jesus had done at the Last Supper and as we are doing here tonight. It was to do as St. Paul had instructed in First Corinthians “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,” (I Corinthians 11:26)

And finally, the fourth component – they were to pray, to become people of prayer. The Old Testament patriarchs, matriarchs and prophets were people of prayer. Jesus was a man of prayer. The Apostles were becoming people of prayer, especially after they had received the Gift of the Holy Spirit on that Pentecost morning. How can we serve God and follow God’s will without communicating on a daily basis, two-way communication (offering our praise and thanks, confession, intercession and petition…and also sitting in silence and contemplation listening for that “still, small Voice” of the Master? I don’t see how we can.

So…three thousand baptized in a single day? Very cool. It has taken us 15 years to baptize that many in my diocese! But unless every one of those newly-baptized are also “discipled,” turned into real disciples of Christ, we might as well not have wasted the water!

“Brothers, what are we to do?” the congregation asked. “Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Yes, but if that Holy Spirit has been truly received, four things will be required: devotion to the Apostles’ teaching, true fellowship, the breaking of bread…and the prayers.

We are doing all four of those things in this service.

Thanks be to God!