A Different Understanding of God

ONLINE REFLECTION, PROPER 8, YEAR A, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

JUNE 28, 2020

TEXT: Genesis 22:1-14

I would encourage you to read the first lesson, from Genesis 22, linked to this post a little further down.  It will help you understand my comments today.

This passage – Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac – has been called one of the most disturbing passages in all of scripture. Why would a loving God ask Abraham to sacrifice their heir of promises that God had made to him.

To make sense of this passage, one must understand the topography and history of Jerusalem. Let me share that with you.

There are three valleys in the ancient city of Jerusalem:  the Kidron Valley, which is between the Mount of Olives and the city’s walls;  the Tyropean Valley, also called the Cheesemaker’s Valley, and Gehenna, or Hinnom Valley.

The site to which Abraham brought Isaac for sacrifice is believed to be a massive rock outcropping, which ultimately became a central place of worship.  It was in the Ancient Temple at the time of Jesus and is now within the massive Islamic holy place known as the Dome of the Rock.  It was on that rock that Abraham meant to sacrifice Isaac.

But Jerusalem had a history even before the time of Abraham.  A pagan cult known as the Molechites – those who worshiped the God Molech – used to sacrifice children in the Hinnom Valley, also known as Gehenna.  Gehenna ultimately became a garbage dump, and a place where the bodies of criminals and unclean animals were burned.

So, there had been sacrifice of children nearby by the Molechites.

The story of Abraham gets across an important point to biblical-era listeners.  Yahweh – the God of Abraham, Isaac and his heirs – does not require or desire sacrifice of children.

That may seem obvious today.  But, in the biblical-era Mid East, that was Good News.  The God of Abraham was a loving God.

Hundreds of years later, Jesus would talk about hell.  The word he used for hell was Gehenna, the valley where human sacrifices – a tragic garbage dump – took place.

Today, thanks be to God, we are much more advanced.  We would not consider sacrificing our children.  But we have the truth: Our God is a loving God who has Jesus speak lovingly of children, referring to them as examples of those who will enter the Kingdom of God.

The Law of Unintended Consequences

ONLINE REFLECTION, PROPER 7, YEAR A, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

JUNE 21, 2020

TEXT: Genesis 21:8-21

I would encourage you to read the first lesson today, from Genesis 21:8-21.

I want to talk with you this morning about what I call ‘The Law of Unintended Consequences”… or the “Boundless Grace of God.”

Genesis is one of the most interesting books in the Bible.  In this passage, we have the continuation of the patriarch story.  Abraham and Sarah have conceived and delivered the second of the three patriarchs, Isaac.  His birth is the begging of the realization of God’s promise to Abram earlier in Genesis.

But it is not that simple.  Sarah, being elderly and without child, had given her slave girl Hagar, to serve as a surrogate for her. Abram and Hagar had conceived and delivered a child.  His name is Ishmael.  But he is not the bearer of God’s promise.  Only the child of Abraham and Sarah could carry forth the promise – the Covenant with God… for all the nations of the world to bless themselves by Abraham name.

Sarah has seen her son, Isaac, playing with the son of Hagar, Ishmael.  She encourages Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael – which Abraham does.

The passage tells us that Hagar and the child who has been rejected by his father, Ishmael, are near death in the desert.  But God intervenes.

God tells Hagar that his promise will extend to Ishmael as well – he will live, and that Ishmael’s descendants will be a great nation.

There you have the seeds of the three great monotheistic religions having claim to Abraham.  The Jews and Christians claim lineage from Abraham, because we trace our roots to him back through Isaac and Jacob.  The Muslims claim their roots to Abraham through their descent from Ishmael.

So, it is all quite interesting.  Abraham intended to send Hagar and Ishmael away – to be done with them.  But the boundless mercy of God provided another avenue. Ishmael – though separated from his father – would flourish as a people.

Here’s my point:  God can take our sinfulness, our conflicted motivations, our human brokenness, our lack of commitment, and use it for his purposes.  That doesn’t mean we look for opportunities to fall short… but it does mean that the fate of the world and God’s kingdom does not ride on our shoulders alone.

We are not in charge.  We are agents of the Most High.

Strength from Weakness

ONLINE REFLECTION, PROPER 6, YEAR A, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

JUNE 14, 2020

TEXT:   June 5:1-8

Collect of the Day

On occasion, I walk a half-marathon.  Walk, not run – 13.1 miles. I have done six, thus far.  I generally do it as a fund raiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

While I don’t have a precise regimen, I build my mileage as the race approaches.  My usual walk is 2.5 miles.  As the races gets closer, I will be walking eight miles.

It makes 13.1 miles seem a lot shorter.

The message is that strength builds on strength.

People who lift weights know the principle.  In order to build muscle mass, the body must strain against resistance. So, someone who is beginning weight-lifting starts with light weights.  Someone who is more experienced has graduated to heavier weights.

Time, effort, and energy produce greater strength.  In a sense, practice makes perfect.  Or, at least, practice produces resilience.

That is what Paul is writing about in today’s New Testament lesson from his Letter to the Romans.  In his words:

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 

Paul did not see senselessness in the suffering that he and other Christians faced.  Suffering brings endurance; endurance brings character; character brings hope – and hope does not disappoint.

I would suggest that is a helpful way to view the present time.  The challenges we face can prepare us for greater challenges.  In facing the pandemic, we find new ways of being people of God.  In facing the economic downturn, we become more frugal and more free to share with those who are not as blessed.  In facing the political and social changes, we move toward what our founders called “a more perfect union.”

Today’s challenges may seem unique.  They are not. Christians have been building endurance, character, and hope on experience for many years – even from biblical times.

The Dynamics of Baptism

ONLINE REFLECTION, FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (TRINITY SUNDAY), YEAR A,  JUNE 14, 2020 ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

TEXT:                        MATTHEW 24:16-20

Today is Trinity Sunday, one of the great observances of the church, following on the heels of the Feast of Pentecost – the birthday of the church, celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s begin with the Collect of the Day and the reading of today’s gospel:

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 24:16-20

Last Sunday, we celebrated the Gift of the Holy Spirit.  Today we observe Trinity Sunday. Implicit in each is the Holy Spirit and Baptism.

Jesus tells his disciples in the last verses of Matthew’s gospel, to “go into the world, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

There are two components of baptism I want to emphasize: justification and sanctification.

Justification is first.  In the act of Baptism, we are justified before God.  We are made right with him.  Our slate is cleaned. As page 298 in the Book of Common Prayer says, “Holy Baptism is the full initiation into Christ’s body, the Church. The bond established by God is indissoluble.”

As Jesus says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Paul emphasizes that point, too, in Romans 8.

But, is our baptism like the dog catching the car – we don’t know what to do once we have it?

That is where sanctification comes in.  For most of us, it is a lifelong process of growing in Christ – of emulating his life and teaching.  We grow in holiness.

That is our goal – to become more like Christ, day-by-day; to grow in grace; to see others and the world through his eyes.

If you need to refresh your memory as to what that is, I would encourage you to review the Baptismal Vows that we have all taken – either in our own baptism or in the baptisms of others.  They are on pages 302 to 305 in the Book of Common Prayer. As one of our collects says, Read, Learn, Mark and Inwardly Digest Them.

God bless you all.

The Blood of the Martyrs

ONLINE REFLECTION FOR ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY

JUNE 3, 2020

FEAST DAY – THE MARTYRS OF UGANDA

In my opening video for you, I talked about my belief in “existential redemption” – God’s ability to move through the most challenging circumstances, even death, to bring about New Life. Think about the Hebrew’s standing on the shores of the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army drawing close in their chariots.  Think of the cross on Golgotha, and the Messiah hanging from it. Hope was dead.  But, it was only the beginning.

The church calendar, providentially, today emphasizes that point.

Let us pray:

 O God, by whose providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: Grant that we who remember before you the blessed martyrs of Uganda, may, like them, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ, to whom they gave obedience, even unto death, and by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 24:9-14

On this day in 1886, thirty-two young men, pages of the court of King Mwanga of Buganda, were burned to death at Namugongo for their refusal to renounce Christianity. In the following months many other Christians throughout the country died by spear or fire for their faith.  

These martyrdoms totally changed the dynamic of Christian growth in Uganda. Introduced by a handful of Anglican and Roman missionaries after 1877, the Christian faith had been preached only to the immediate members of the court, by order of King Mutesa. His successor, Mwanga, became increasingly angry as he realized that the first converts put loyalty to Christ above the traditional loyalty to the king. Martyrdoms began in 1885. Mwanga first forbade anyone to go near a Christian mission on pain of death, but finding himself unable to cool the ardor of the converts, resolved to wipe out Christianity. 

The Namugongo martyrdoms produced a result entirely opposite to Mwanga's intentions. The example of these martyrs, who walked to their deaths singing hymns and praying for their enemies, so inspired many of the bystanders that they began to seek instruction from the remaining Christians. Within a few years the original handful of converts had multiplied many times and spread far beyond the court. The martyrs had left the indelible impression that Christianity was truly African, not simply a white man's religion. Most of the missionary work was carried out by Africans rather than by white missionaries, and Christianity spread steadily. Uganda now has the largest percentage of professed Christians of any nation in Africa.  

Several years ago I heard an African clergyman, born of pagan parents, tell of his conversion. He said: 

One afternoon I was bicycling along a road and met a young man about my own age bicycling in the opposite direction. He promptly turned about and began to ride beside me and to talk. He spoke with great enthusiasm about Jesus, whom I had never heard of before, and how He had destroyed the power of death and evil by dying and rising again, and how He was God become man to reconcile man with God. I heard what my companion had to say, and before we parted I had accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Now, the young man who preached the Good News of Jesus Christ to me that afternoon had himself heard of Jesus for the first time that morning.

Renewed persecution of Christians in the 1970's by the military dictatorship of Idi Amin proved the vitality of the example of the Namugongo martyrs. Among the thousands of new martyrs, both Anglican and Roman, was Janani Luwum, Archbishop of the (Anglican) Church of Uganda.     

Janani Luwum, archbishop of Uganda, martyred by Idi Amin in 1977

Uganda is the largest Province in the Episcopal Church… the most Christian country in all of Africa.

The Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church – attributed to the early church father, Tertullian, late in the second Christian century.  A more faithful translation is this: "We spring up in greater numbers the more we are mown down by you: the blood of the Christians is the seed of a new life," 

When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death of Jesus – not just into the promise of eternal life.

One of my favorite hymns includes these words:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go

The rivers of woe will not thee overflow

For I shall be with thee

Thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee,

Thy deepest distress.

A Different Perspective

PROPERS:          EASTER 7, YEAR A    

TEXT:                 1 PETER 4:12-14; 5:6-11

PREACHED VIA RECORDING AND INTERNET TO HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, MAY 24, 2020 – MY LAST SUNDAY THERE.

This is offered as a meditation and not a sermon.

ONE SENTENCE:        The trials through which we are going are recurring theme in history; the provenance of God is the overriding principle.       

                                    

            This is my last Sunday with Holy Trinity as a supply priest.  Please accept my heartfelt thanks for how you have welcomed me into this congregation.

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            Let me focus on the now. We may treat these days as a unique experience in human history.  Despite previous times of the Spanish flu, the Smallpox pandemic, and the Black Plague – and countless others – we see this time as unique.

            Would that it were so.

            These are strange times, for sure.  Likely, we have never personally experienced similar times and, likely, we will not again.  But perspective and kerygma – that is, proclamation – can give us a sense of eternal hope – even in the midst of these challenging times.

            The world in which the early church formed was one of tumult for the budding Christian movement.  The church began in an era of open hostility.  There was hostility from the religious leaders.  There was hostility from Rome.  And the many pagan religions looked down upon Christians.

            And in the era in which 1 Peter was written, most of the opposition was class-based in nature.  Most Christians in the area the author of this letter was addressing were the lower classes – many were slaves.

            So, rather than the organized persecution which would come later, these early Christians faced slights, criticism, and ostracization. It is a bitter pill to swallow – but Christians would face worse.

            Like those early Christians, we face challenges that are not as bad as they could be.  This is not the Second World War, nor is it the Great Depression.  But we are facing trials that the author of 1 Peter could identify with, as could the early Christians.

            However, in the midst of those first century difficulties, the Christians embraced hope and faith.  They did so by recognizing they had a different lens through which they looked at the circumstances of that day. Theirs was a different perspective from the world which surrounded them.

            It is a perspective I embrace.  It was described so well by the late Jesuit mystic, Anthony DeMello, in his meditation “The River.”  Hear his words:

I look up at the sky and see the morning star

burn brightly in the heavens.

I imagine what it sees as it looks down

on me and my surroundings

and this portion of the earth.

I visualize what it must have seen

a thousand years ago today…

five thousand…

a hundred thousand…

five million years ago.

I attempt to see in fantasy

what the morning star will see

a thousand years…

five thousand…

a hundred thousand…

five million years from now

on the anniversary of this day.

I pass in review the various stages of my life –

infancy, childhood, adolescence,

adulthood, middle age –

in the following fashion:

I search for the things

that seemed immeasurably important

at each of these stages of my life,

things that caused me worry and anxiety,

things that I stubbornly clung to,

that I never thought I could live with

or without.

When I look back from the distance of today,

how many of these loves or dreams or fears

retain the hold they had on me in former years?

Then I review

some of the problems I have today,

some of my present sufferings,

and of each of them I say,

“This too will pass away.”

I think of the things I cling to

or that I am possessive of.

I realize that a day must surely come

when I shall see them differently.

So of each of these attachments too I say,

“This too will pass away.”

I make a list of the many things I fear,

and of each of them I say,

“This too will pass away.”

To end, I see myself embarking on my daily tasks

with earnestness

and fervor

with which I plunge into a drama

or a game,

absorbed, immersed, but never drowning.

            There is real wisdom and perspective in his words.  It is a perspective – much like 1 Peter’s – which each of us could adopt in these days.

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            I am reminded of riding with my mother in her car in 1958.  The radio was on.  From the radio came the rich and soulful sounds of Mahalia Jackson, singing a song that was very popular then.  I loved that song.

            That song reflects the wisdom and perspective – the deep and profound faith – of 1 Peter and Anthony DeMello.  We need to hear those words today:

He’s got the whole world in his hands,

He’s got the whole wide world in his hands,

He’s got the whole world in his hands,

He’s got the whole world in his hands.

The Eyes and Ears of Hope

PROPERS:          EASTER 6, YEAR A    

TEXT:                 ACTS 26:10-14; ROMANS 8:31-39 (Not the propers for this day.)

PREACHED VIA RECORDING AND INTERNET TO HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2020

This is offered as a meditation and not a sermon.

ONE SENTENCE:        Even in moments of extraordinary clarity, “we see through a glass darkly” the generosity and magnificence of God’s grace.

                  

                                    

            As we approach my last Sunday here, I feel it is important that I share something personal with you, the good people of Holy Trinity.  It is a story of hope which transcends these trying times.  It is a story of hope which spans seven centuries – and even more.

            The thing which has moved deeply inside of me, especially in the past week, involves two names that I have shared with you in my two most recent meditations:  Richard Rohr and Julian of Norwich.

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            Richard Rohr is a prominent spiritual writer and contemplative who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He is the leader of the Center for Action and Contemplation.

            He publishes an on-line meditation each day.  Each week’s meditations are focused on a specific topic.  This past week, his writings have been focused on Julian of Norwich.

            We do not know her true name. Dame Julian, as she is known, was an anonymous mystic who occupied a small room in a church bearing the name St. Julian, in west central England in the 14^th Century.

            As you may recall, she is known for her near-death experience and the series of 16 visions which appeared to her during that traumatic time.  The writings which emerged from that dramatic day became known as Revelations of Divine Love.  It is the oldest book in English written by a woman.

            As she lay on what was presumed to be her death bed, a deacon stood over the 30-year-old Julian and pronounced Last Rites.  It was then that the visions began.  She later recovered, and committed those visions to writing.

            Her words and the descriptions of what she saw ring down through the centuries.  They tell us of the tender love… the self-giving… of the eternal nature of God.  Her words stand over and against the word of the Church of that day, which had focused on guilt, sin, and fiery judgement.  Her overarching vision was an ever-loving, ever-giving, and ever-forgiving God.

            Hers was a vision of profound hope in a century marked by the Bubonic Plague, in a town which saw three-quarters of its inhabitant claimed by that illness.

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            Richard Rohr focused on Julian’s visions, and saw in them the nature of the Holy Trinity.  He saw how the intimate relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit pointed us toward God’s relationship with each of us.  Woven gently into each person is the imago dei – the image of God – that cannot be obscured.  Though our lives – complex and conflicted as they are by the human condition – accumulate layer upon layer of the less than holy, the essence of God’s image continues in our true nature.

            That image may be buried very deeply. Though you and I may not be able to see beyond the scars of human existence – the anger, the bitterness, the addictions, the betrayal, the sin – God sees that divine nature at our core… and we are to assume it is there in each other.  That may be hard – but it is our call.

            And, what’s more: Try as we might to prove ourselves worthy in the eyes of God, that worthiness is already indelibly there. Doubt, though we might, our belovedness in relationship to God, it cannot be taken away.  Our embrace by the Holy is beyond dispute.

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            That point was emphatically made to me years ago.  It came in a personal experience much like Julian’s. Time and time again I have to revisit that experience to get properly oriented.

            It happened like this:

            The experience was 15 years ago, in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina.  I was on diocesan staff in Mississippi.  We were struggling to assist the six congregations which had seen their facilities utterly destroyed by the storm and its raging tide, and assist the thousands who were left homeless.

            There were long, long days, and frequent trips to the affected area.  Gas, food, electricity, water and many resources were in short supply.

            Unbeknownst to me, the stress was taking its toll.  I found myself collapsed at home with some unusual neurological symptoms.  I was alone in a dark room, as Nora worried about my wellbeing.  Various doctors were consulted.

            I was in and out of consciousness in the dark room.  But two scriptural images were prominent in my slumber. Again, and again they came to me, and I knew I had to pay attention.

            The first image was from Acts 26 – the third time the apostle Paul’s story of his conversion experience is told in Acts.  Hear those words, Paul’s testimony:

I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, ¹³ when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. ¹⁴ When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

            

            These were Paul’s words to King Agrippa.  Their uniqueness occurred to me.  Even though his conversion – his Road to Damascus experience – had been told two previous times in the Book of Acts, it is only this time that the last eight words are included: It hurts you to kick against the goads.

            I had to find out what goads were.  It turns out they are sharp sticks used to herd sheep.  And it would hurt to kick goads.

            Saul – his name before he took the name Paul – had striven to persecute the church.  His righteous anger and striving were – in the eyes of Jesus – counter-productive.  He was hurting himself by trying so hard.

            I internalized that lesson.

            The second image that came into my mind was from Paul, as well – from his Letter to the Romans.  The eighth chapter of that that book is considered by many to be the high point of the New Testament.  Hear Paul’s words:

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³ Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
    we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            In the darkness of my room, the light of revelation shown clearly to me.  It was in the last words of the passage:

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            His words were the essence of the message that Julian of Norwich had heard.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God. It was the message of the tender love of God – of God’s faithfulness, forgiveness, grace, and mercy which transcends – that is, trumps – every human failing and condition.

            I heard that message – actually, the two messages – very clearly.  It has changed my life.

            I hope you can hear it, too.