What is God's answer to evil?

“Deliver us from evil.” We say those words each time we pray the Lord’s prayer. And for us Episcopalians, that is quite often. We pray the Lord's prayer at virtually every service. What are we asking for?

In today’s first meditation, I suggested that whenever, wherever evil happens, God is there, that when humans suffer as a consequence of evil, God is there. But is being present, comforting us, getting us through it, God’s only or primary answer to the problem of evil? Is that all we mean when we pray, "deliver us from evil”?

I think not. We Christians believe in a future in which God’s triumph over evil will be complete. In Revelation (21:1-4, NRSV), “the Lamb that was slain” will reign over a new heaven and a new earth. God will wipe away tears; Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.

John is describing a world beyond the reach of evil, beyond even the shadow of past wrongs done to us. Jesus himself spoke of this (John 16:21-22, NRSV); he likens it to a woman who is in the great pain of childbirth, but the moment the child is born, the power and joy of new life pushes the pain into the background. Our joy will be complete, Jesus says.

These and many other passages point to God’s answer to the problem of evil. And that answer is forgiveness, forgiveness as enacted and represented by Jesus on the cross.

God did not shun evil. God did not come to earth in military might to overthrow evil by force—as the Jews long expected. Rather, God came in the form of a peasant carpenter, a pacifist at that, to wrestle with fear and dread, but nevertheless to embrace evil and suffering, to experience the feeling of having been abandoned by God, and to forgive… even as he still hung dying on the cross.

Forgiveness is God’s answer to evil. But the point of the cross is NOT that the victory was won, and so now there’s nothing left to do. Rather, the cross has won the victory so that redeemed people can begin living out God’s forgiveness in the world.


The church is not merely the “community of the saved,” although some church communities seem to focus almost solely on that. Rather, we are the community of the redeemed, now become a kingdom of priests to serve God in this time between the cross and the ultimate victory of God in the new heaven and new earth. There's a difference between being merely "saved" and being "redeemed." (See N.T. Wright, Evil and the Justice of God.)

And, of course, forgiveness is one of those odd things. We can only experience it by also giving it away. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us,” we pray.

I wonder how often those words roll easily off our tongues without a thought to their implication. Jesus sought to make them real by telling the parable of the servant who was forgiven a debt by his master, then failed to forgive those who were indebted to him. If you don’t forgive, said Jesus, you won’t be forgiven.

Some people interpret this to mean that God withholds forgiveness until we have done something to earn it, like forgive someone else. I don’t think so.

Jesus died for the sins of the world! And he doesn’t have to keep dying over and over again every time we screw up! It’s done. God enacted forgiveness for the sins of humankind, past, present and future, by embracing the evil and suffering of the cross.

What I believe Jesus means is that until we forgive, we are conditioned and controlled by the evil done us. We have no peace. We are driven by anger and hate that sap our energy and deaden our spirit. Nothing eats away at the human soul like the inability to forgive.

And even though God’s forgiveness is already in place, ready and waiting, we cannot accept it or experience the peace it brings as long as we are stuck in unforgiveness.
                                         

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young is the story of a man’s journey back to God after the abduction and murder of his little girl. The following bit of the conversation between “Mack,” the protagonist, and God comes right after God asks Mack to forgive the man who killed his daughter (p. 225):

      "I don’t think I can do this," Mack answered softly.
      "I want you to. Forgiveness is first for you, the forgiver,” answered [God], "to release you from something that will eat you alive; that will destroy your joy and your ability to love fully and openly."

AMEN

For this second quiet period, I invite your reflection on forgiveness, both that which you have received and that which you have given--or perhaps not yet.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the second of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the last meditations in the next few days.
                                     

Where is God when evil happens?*

One of the great conundrums of Christianity is the presence of evil in a world created by a good God. Indeed, we believe not only that a good God created a good world, as told in the Genesis accounts, but we believe also that the same one and only God is all powerful and could stop or prevent evil in the world at any time.

Of course, we have the story of the fall of Adam and Eve to explain how evil came into the world. As a woman, I am all too aware that much of humankind throughout history would really like to blame it all on Eve!

But Bishop N.T. Wright points out in his book, Evil and the Justice of God, that all of our discussions that begin with Adam and Eve as the ones who introduce evil into the world really ignore an important question: What was a snake with evil intentions doing in Paradise anyway?

Adam and Eve sure didn’t put it there. I am reminded of a Far Side cartoon that depicted God--as an old white man with long white hair and beard, of course--rolling clay into snakes, and saying to himself, "Boy, these things are a cinch!" Perhaps that's why he made so many of them!

The Far Side, by Gary Larse

How evil came into the world is a subject worthy of consideration; it might be less simple than we tend to think. But  I want to turn our meditations in a different direction.

Nine years ago today, a great evil happened here in these United States. Airplanes crashed into buildings in New York City and Washington D.C. Another plowed a furrow into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Several thousand lives were snuffed out—some instantly, others horribly, by being forced to jump to their deaths from the Twin Towers.

Several thousand families lost loved ones, and thousands more lost friends, co-workers and neighbors. We all lost our sense of security, a certain feeling of invulnerability, and of control of our own destiny, as the wealthiest, strongest nation on the planet.

The horror of those events continues to haunt us today. Their repercussions continue to strain social and cultural relationships and to distort our politics.

Today’s meditations are offered to the glory of God, and with special intention for helping us re-think the questions we ask about evil and how we respond to evil.

When Christians turn their attention to the conundrum of evil co-existing in the world with a good, all-powerful God, it is often with a question that implicitly blames God. “Why did God ‘allow’ that to happen?” we ask. And our answer: “God must have had a reason."

It is almost as if we have to give God an “out,” as if the possibility that evil just happens... is too terrifying for words. Or, perhaps we’re thinking, if God doesn’t have a reason, then God must not be so good after all. And that too is terrifying.

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan friar and Roman Catholic priest who publishes a daily online meditation. He says that “loss of control” is the very definition of human suffering.

I think “reasons” are the product of human attempts to control suffering by explaining it. Who are we to say that God must have a reason? WE need reasons. God does not.

Rationalizing evil typically involves both fixing blame and figuring out “what God wants us to do,” given that God must have had a reason for the evil happening in the first place. I suggest that it is precisely this kind of reasoning that leads to all kinds of problematic responses, from using God to justify one country invading another to a pastor in Florida thinking he is called by God to burn the Koran in protest against an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City.

Let us ask a different question: Where is God when we suffer? Where is God when evil happens?

For a period of several days after the Twin Towers fell in NYC, I was profoundly troubled by the nightmarish TV images I could not get out of my head. Then one night I had a dream. I was on the top floor of one of the Twin Towers. I and a bunch of people were standing in the elevator lobby. We were waiting for an elevator that, at some level, we knew would not be coming. We could smell the smoke and hear the roar of the fire below us. We were terrified. Then suddenly, miraculously, the elevator doors opened. We stepped forward. And just as we crossed the threshold into the elevator, the building, the elevator, the elevator shaft, the smoke and the fire... all fell away beneath us. We were instantly lighter than air. We looked at each other and laughed as we soared off into the heavens.

I rarely claim to receive messages directly from God. I don’t hear God’s voice in my ears or head. I question the source of every thought. But that dream was from God and the message was simple and clear. God said, “I was there. I was there when the Twin Towers fell. I was there in the Pentagon. I was there in rural Pennsylvania.”

AMEN.

For this first period of quiet, you might want to read Psalm 73, for it expresses both our lack of understanding of evil and the faith that, indeed, God is with us when evil happens.

*September 11, 2010, I led a Quiet Day at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in West Monroe. Here is the first of three meditations, each guided by a question that will serve as title for these postings. I will post the other two meditations over the next few days.
                                         

Words and Wisdom: A Sermon for 22 August 2010

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

--Rudyard Kipling. 

I use that quote as a signature line that automatically prints at the bottom of my campus e-mail messages. I figure it is one more reinforcement for students of my role in their life at this time, which is to mark up their papers with copious amounts of red ink, to chastise them for choosing weak words, ungrammatical words, imprecise words, words that obfuscate rather than clarify… in the papers they write.

So important are words to humankind that a quick Google-search of the Internet will yield hundreds of “quotes about words.” Here are a few:

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

--James Earle Jones

The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship.

--Larry Flynt, publisher of sex magazines, who probably contributed to their misuse

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

--Voltaire, who surely had politicians in mind when he said it.

Even more famously, Voltaire also said: I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That one, it seems to me, is on the endangered quotes list in today’s political climate of gross exaggeration and shrill accusation.

And finally, the Chinese proverb, A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles. Who among us has never spoken that “bad word” we desperately wish we could take back?

Turning to our Old Testament lesson for today, we find Holy Scripture not only affirming the importance of words, but also telling us very clearly that sometimes our words come from God.

The prophet Jeremiah (1:4-10, NRSV) seems to have experienced in some physical way the Lord putting words in his mouth. How incredible! It is hard for me to imagine being able to speak at all… after experiencing so directly the touch of God.

What a powerful story for Christians called to testify to the Good News of Jesus the Christ. We often feel inexperienced and unworthy of the part. But if we take God’s words to Jeremiah seriously, that’s not an excuse. Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you. Who can argue with that?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus heals, as he often does, first by speaking the words: You are free, he says to the woman (Luke 13:10-17, NRSV). In other stories, his healing words are Your sins are forgiven and Your faith has made you whole.

The letter to the Hebrews often challenges me with the complexity of its words and phrases, and I can’t begin to unpack today’s entire passage. But I will draw your attention to this amazing and powerful word and sound picture of Judgment Day.

The one who is speaking, whom we should not refuse, is surely God. In times past, God spoke on earth through the prophets, and those voices shook the earth. But once again, God will speak and shake not only earth but also heaven, and shake and shake… until all that is of the earth is shaken away and what remains is only God’s kingdom, the kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Hebrews 12:18-29, NRSV)

Those of you who took the Handel’s Messiah class last year during Advent and Lent will recall that stunning passage based on a Psalm in which God’s voice is represented in words as music: shake, shake, shake sings the bass, reinforced by the agitated sound of the entire string section of the orchestra.

These lessons evoke questions that have haunted me most of my adult life:
    How do we know which words that we find in our hearts and minds, on our tongues, and in our text messages, e-mail, and so forth, are from God?
    How do we know they are not from one of the other powerful and constant influences on our oh-so-human ways of thinking and speaking?
    How often, before we speak or write, do we even ask the question, Are these words from God? Or from my own social, cultural and political point of view?

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann put this very concern into eloquent words. Praying at the beginning of one of his Bible study workshops, he thanks God for the joy of words given us.

But then he acknowledges that we are also subject to other influences: Our own rich imaginations, cowardice, arrogance. We are, on most days, Brueggemann prays, a hard mix of true prophet and wayward voice.

We are a literate people. Our days are filled with words: printed and spoken, in books, newspapers, magazines, online, radio and television, and on our ever-present smart phones, iPads and laptops. Witness the ease with which I located hundreds of quotes about words… from which to pick and choose the ones that served my purposes this morning.

I am especially concerned about the quality of our political discourse today. It seems that no idea or project is worthy of debate on its own terms. Rather, truth and reality must be exaggerated and distorted in order to be worthy of our support or opposition.

And so an Islamic community center that includes prayer space at 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan becomes “the Ground Zero Mosque” if you’re against it, and if you’re for it, a mere basketball court and culinary school that nevertheless stands for the entire principle of religious freedom in the U.S.

Oh, to know with certainty when the words on our tongues are those of true prophet and not wayward voice!

Of course, Jesus does offer us help with this problem. In another passage in Luke (20:15, NRSV), he promises his disciples, I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand.

We humans are social, cultural and political beings. We cannot and should not check who we are, and the points of view each of us brings to public debate, at the door of our common and communal lives.

But we must, if we are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, choose our words prayerfully and thoughtfully—not just when we are in church, but in all aspects of our lives. We must use our words, not to bludgeon each other or those we perceive as our enemies, but as the eloquent, precise tools of communication they are intended to be.

Dare I suggest that our words can be the outward and visible sign of that one, ultimate Word spoken by God—namely Jesus the Christ—dwelling within.

Today my prayer is, “Fewer words, Lord, but greater wisdom in discerning which are from you and how we might use them to testify to your most holy name.”

AMEN.

                                                 

Jesus the Plumb Line: A Sermon for 11 July 2010

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for educational opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

Foucault pendulum, Pantheon, Paris.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It is a weight on a string that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down— regardless of what you hang it from. Or, in the case of the one in Chicago, it is—as I recall—a huge brass plumb bob shaped like a child’s top, suspended from the center of the dome on a cable.

And it moves because the earth moves! In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—the ceiling of that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust it’s position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so it gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see. (Click on the link below the picture to see an animated drawing of the pendulum's movement.)

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very rotation of the earth itself.

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at a Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s Old Testament story, I remember it as a reassuring experience rather than a threatening one. Of course, plumb lines have more than one use. They are a builder’s tool for keeping things straight and upright, and a similar kind of discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos.

“Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,” God says. “In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

And if that sounds a bit like Jesus.., well, you’re with me all the way! And today’s lesson from Luke is a perfect example of Jesus being a plumb line.

It begins with the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer, and the lawyer is up to nothing less than entrapment. He knows perfectly well that some of Jesus’ teachings and practices have been rather unorthodox, and so he asks a question to which everyone present knows the “right” answer, the Scriptural answer.

It is a question designed to make the asker look pious, even as he is hoping that Jesus will go out on a limb that he can then chop off. “What must I do to be certain I’ll go to heaven,” he asks.

But Jesus doesn’t rise to the bait, nor does he strike back. Rather, he invites the lawyer to share the Scriptural answer everyone knows, and the lawyer obliges: “Love the Lord your God.., and your neighbor as yourself.”

Ask a simple question, and get a simple answer! Standing there with egg on his face, the lawyer tries again. Surely he can engage Jesus in a face-saving debate if he asks him a truly legal question! “Who is my neighbor?” he says.

And so Jesus tells the story that is probably the most familiar one of the whole Bible, the story that we can’t hear anymore because we’ve heard it so often. So let me try to make it a bit strange so that you can hear it again for the first time.

I’m guessing you are already thinking about the guy in the ditch, the victim of the beating. And maybe you’re wondering if you would “measure up” in the sense of being the one to help the victim as the Samaritan did.

And that’s fine. That’s part of the point. But now shift your attention from the guy in the ditch… to the Samaritan. Notice that Luke does not say he’s a “good” Samaritan. Luke just says he’s a Samaritan. WE added the “good,” and I suspect it has the same meaning as when someone tells a demeaning joke and then follows it quickly with, “I’m really not a bigot. One of my best friends is…” black or Asian or gay or whatever the particular category of people was slurred by the joke.

In other words, we’re quite willing to recognize “good” examples, exceptions to the rule, of categories of people we look down on. So get rid of the Samaritan because Samaritans don’t mean anything to us today, and put in his place a representative of the group of people you fear the most, like the least, resent the most, whatever: An illegal immigrant, perhaps? A smelly street person? Someone who deviates from sex or gender norms? A Muslim?

Put in the story the last person in the world you would expect mercy from, the last person in the world you would think capable of the act of mercy at the center of the story.., and now ask yourself, Am I willing to see that person as my neighbor and my equal in the eyes of God?

That’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is: God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Dine with me. And all will be well. And you will never again have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

AMEN.

God's Politics: A Sermon for Pentecost*

The cover of our service leaflet this morning tells us beautifully what we celebrate today. “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” it says, and the image is a dove on an orange, flame-like background.

If you were to go home and do a Google image search for the word “Pentecost,” you would find that human creativity has had a field day with this event.

My search produced more than 700,000 hits! I did not look at all of them, and I’m sure there were duplicates. But I can tell you that just the first page of results contained 21 images, each of which was unique but all of which were recognizable by most any Christian as images of the event we call Pentecost.

What would be the common elements of those images that make them so readily recognizable? Tongues of fire, of course, and almost always a dove. 

From the blog Walking in Light with Christ

But we just read the story from Acts, and doves are not mentioned. Only tongues of fire. So… why do most of our Pentecost images include doves?

The doves are, of course, a reference to the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptizer in the Jordan River. On that occasion, the Gospel stories tell us, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

It is not surprising, therefore, that many, many Christians down through the centuries have been baptized on Pentecost. And that brings us to another name for this particular Sunday. It is a name that comes from our tradition as part of the Anglican Communion, which began as the Church of England. The name is “Whitsunday,” which comes from Old English and means, nor surprisingly, “white Sunday.”

Why “white Sunday”? Because many people were baptized on this particular Sunday. And the color people wore to be baptized? White, of course.

The Christian church has always understood and affirmed a powerful and direct connection between the baptism of our Lord by water and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and the baptism of the disciples by the Holy Spirit in the form of tongues of fire on Pentecost.

Now, I want to go back to those Pentecost images I found with my Google search for a few minutes. In addition to the dove and the tongues of fire, what would they have in common? Who do you suppose they depict receiving the Holy Spirit?

If you are thinking the 12 apostles, you are correct. Almost every image contains exactly 12 male figures… plus one woman. And who would that woman be? Mary, the mother of our Lord, of course. 

                                      

So, how does that fit with our story? Actually, not very well! Luke the historian, who wrote the book of Acts, begins his book with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Then in chapter 1 verse 12 he tells us that Jesus’ disciples return to Jerusalem and all were together in one place to await the coming of the Holy Spirit—just as Jesus had instructed them.

In Acts chapter 1 verses 13 and 14, Luke names some of the people who were there: The 11 apostles are named in verse 13. And then verse 14 says, “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”
                                       

From The Sacrament of Pentecost

At the end of chapter 1, Mathias is chosen to replace Judas. The story makes it clear that he and another man were nominated from a larger group then chosen by lot. In other words, many scholars think about 100 disciples of Jesus were probably present at the first Pentecost, and a number of them were women!

Our artists over the centuries have tended to simplify the picture a great deal. Again, many depict just 12 men and Mary receiving the Holy Spirit. A few of the images I found depict 12 men, Mary, and two or three other women. Only a couple of images actually show the larger crowd that was there, a larger crowd that includes a number of women, and children!

From The Bridge Online

So, why is that important? It is important because Pentecost has another meaning that tends to get lost in all the imagery of doves and fire and apostles and Mary.

The other meaning is that with Pentecost, God let it be known that the Gospel message and the Holy Spirit of God are for everyone. Not just a handful of Jews, but everyone. Not just men and one or two women, but everyone. Not just people who looked and thought alike, but everyone.

To fully appreciate how this happened, we need to go back to a story that is told in Genesis (11:1-9)—the story of the Tower of Babel. You will recall that the people of the earth at that time all spoke the same language: “one language and the same words,” says Genesis.

To us, that actually sounds rather good. Wouldn’t it be easier for us all to get along, to communicate better, if we all had one language and the same words!

What happened, of course, is that things went so smoothly that people got rather cocky and over confident. They decided they didn’t need God. And so, in Genesis 11, they say to one another, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

Now the Lord God comes to check out what they’re up to, and does not like what he sees. The Lord sees that the people are arrogant, and that they think they can build their way to heaven, without turning to the Lord their God.

And so the Lord puts a stop to the nonsense. The Lord goes down and confuses the people’s language, makes them speak all different languages so that they no longer understand each other, and the Lord scatters the people over the face of the earth.

This is often referred to as “the curse of Babel”—that humankind around the world developed different cultures and different languages. And it certainly made it harder for people to communicate and to understand each other and to get along.

But Pentecost changed all that. Pentecost reversed the curse of Babel, and today’s reading from Acts describes how it happened. The Holy Spirit comes, first, with the sound of a violent wind, and then tongues of fire. And, Luke says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

But that’s only half of the miracle! The other half is that the listeners “from every nation under heaven…each one heard them speaking in the native languages of each.” And what a diverse array they were: Parthians, Medes, Elamites… etc., etc.

At Pentecost, God demonstrated that it was okay for people to speak different languages, and that through the power of the Holy Spirit, people could in fact understand each other and worship together anyway.

In fact, there’s a special kind of unity, a unity of the Spirit, that comes precisely from diverse humans of different languages all worshiping the same God together. The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed human diversity from a curse that divides… into a miracle that unites.

AMEN.

*This sermon was preached at St. Luke's Episcopal Chapel in Grambling, La. as a dialogue with children. The adult congregation listened in and enjoyed it too.
                                      

Let Go and Love: A Sermon for 16 May 2010

Last Sunday at St. Luke’s in Grambling, I preached a sermon called “Love and Let Go.” Today, my sermon is called “Let Go and Love.”

You might be tempted to think that I just can’t get enough of my own clever alliterations with words! But in fact those titles help me focus on a truth brought home by this moment in the church year. (And, by the way, this is a continuation of that sermon, not a repeat.)

The truth those titles focus on flies in the face of conventional wisdom, as God’s truths often do. We say, “You can’t eat your cake and have it too!” And if it is cake we’re really talking about, that’s fine and good.

But if it is God’s love we’re talking about, then that saying can lead us down the wrong path. The truth about God’s love is we can only have it by giving it away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life, from chocolate and ice cream, to a nice dinner at a restaurant from time to time, to retirement and travel.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess. And then something happens that drives home the illusory nature of possession. The economy nosedives. Hurricanes, tornadoes and floods demonstrate their power.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then life happens. Children grow up and leave. Friends and family die. We must let go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

“To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

This truth, that we must give away God’s love in order to have it, is brought home by this last Sunday of Easter. Throughout Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again.

Remember, he left them seemingly for good on Good Friday, only to return in resurrected body three days later. But even as they were struggling to adjust to his appearing and disappearing at will, entering and leaving rooms without using the doors, popping up to cook breakfast on the beach, looking not quite like the Jesus they knew… yet undeniably him…

Even as they were struggling to grasp this new reality, he was preparing them for something else. Two Sundays ago, he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. Last Sunday he said, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” What a contradiction in terms!

And then, he goes. Just like that—and seemingly without warning—he lifts up his hands, prays for them and blesses them, and rises into the clouds.

How mystified they must have been! The Gospel accounts say they “gazed” into heaven. Older translations say, “Their eyes were fixed.” In other words, they stared after him.

And now here we are in that same pregnant pause. Jesus of the resurrected body is gone. The words of his magnificent prayer for us ring in our ears. We are those who “believe…through their word,” that is the word preached and written first by those disciples, the word that has continued to be spoken down through the centuries.

We are those who have received his glory, so that we may be completely one as he and the Father are one. So that we may know the Father’s love as Jesus the Christ knew the Father’s love, and so that we may share that love with the world, which does not know the Father’s love.

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

But we have an advantage the disciples did not have at that moment of watching Jesus leave them--again. We know about Pentecost; they had yet to experience it.

We know that by letting go of Jesus the resurrected body, they—and we—receive him in a whole knew way. They did not yet know.

Yes, Jesus had tried to tell them that too. “I will go away, and I will come to you,” he had said. The Father will send a comforter, he had said. And he had breathed on them. Yet they did not know.

They had to let him go, to watch him go. And then, when they began to share the love he had for them and the Father had for them through him, he came again on that glorious Pentecost day

And he comes again, over and over, whenever and wherever believers invite him.

Because we are doing Morning Prayer today, we skipped the Epistle reading. It is the closing verses of the Revelation to John, and I want to read it now because it ends with a prayer. Most obviously, this prayer is for the final coming of Jesus the Christ. But it is a prayer we can pray at any time, and it is perfectly suited to this breathless moment between the Ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Here's the reading:

“At the end of the visions I, John, heard these words:
    ‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’
    Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
    It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." (Revelation 22: 12-14, NRSV)

And now here is the prayer:
    "The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
    And let everyone who is thirsty come.
    Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
    The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
    Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
    The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.” (Revelation 22: 16-17, NRSV)

AMEN.

Love and Let Go: A Sermon for May 9, 2010

Lydia, the seller of purple cloth, is one of my favorite Bible characters. Perhaps that’s because purple is my favorite color. Or, perhaps it’s because I was once a seamstress, and couldn’t manage to pass through a dry goods store without lingering long over the many colors and textures. All too often, I went home with yardage that was already fashioned into something wonderful in my mind, but that ended up in a drawer, one of many unrealized projects.

I imagine Lydia, her colorful goods spread around her, leaning forward to listen eagerly to Paul preaching the Good News (Acts 16:9-15, NRSV). The workings of the Holy Spirit often seem hidden from human eyes. But the power of the risen Lord was quick to show itself through Lydia. Her heart was opened; she and her household were baptized. Then, having brought her household into the faith, she brought Paul and his mission team into her household.
                                                                                                                                                                  

I don’t know if the designers of the lectionary predicted the possibility of the 6^th Sunday of Easter falling on Mother’s Day, but they couldn’t have made a better choice. Lydia was a mother of the church in more ways than one.

She Worketh Willingly With Her Hands by Elspeth Young

Some sources say she was Paul’s first convert in Europe. As a merchant, she was no doubt a woman of some influence in the community. She not only brought her own family into the faith, but also turned her home into the beginnings of the church in Philippi.

Today’s lessons are full of “good things,” of which the work of the Holy Spirit in leading Paul to Philippi and in opening Lydia’s heart and mind are but two. “Good things” is even the theme of today’s collect. It begins, “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding...” (BCP, p. 225)

For the writer of today’s Psalm (67, BCP p. 675), the good things include God as equitable judge of all peoples and guide of the nations. They include a good harvest. These verses are all about interactions between a loving Creator who sheds light and generous blessings on those who love and praise God.

Light is also a big part of “the good life” in the new Jerusalem of John’s vision in Revelation (21:10,22-22:5). This holy city, which descends from heaven, needs no sun or moon because “the glory of God IS its light and its lamp is the Lamb.”

The gates of this wonderful place are never closed. The river of the tree of life runs through it, and the tree of life feeds the peoples and heals the nations. And all the people will bask in the light and worship the Lamb.

“O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things!”

In today’s Gospel lesson (John 14:23-29), Jesus is also in the business of handing out good things. The first is a promise: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,” he says, “and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

The second good thing Jesus hands out in this passage is an outright gift: “Peace I leave with you,” he says, “my peace I give to you.”

Wow! The peace of the risen Christ freely given! And in return for our love, God the Father and God the Son in the person of the Holy Spirit take up residence in our lives.

What more could we ask? Yet so often, our lives do not seem the least bit peaceful. They are too full of unreasonable demands and unfair situations, death and destruction, and conflicts of all sizes and shapes, from road rage to the news of yet another oil spill and yet another suicide bombing in the Middle East.

Who could ask for a better deal than God-With-Us, in exchange for nothing more than our love? Yet so often, we can’t love God for all the unlovable people in the way! From the guy who curses our hesitation in traffic to the suicide bomber, from the slow cashier determined to test our patience to the teenager whose appearance and mannerisms are designed solely to shock our sensibilities—the children of God come to us disguised as the unlovely.

 “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things… as surpass our understanding.”

Hmmm. We are accustomed to not understanding evil things. But good things? What’s to not understand?

I love chocolate and ice cream. I love cool mornings to work in my yard. I love my son. These are good things. What’s to not understand?

Perhaps what is difficult about good things from God is that we can only have them by giving them away.

This is in rather stark contrast to many of the good things the world has to offer. We work hard to earn the money to have a good life: the chocolate and ice cream, a yard to work in, Mother’s Day dinner at a nice restaurant with our children.

Especially in a society such as ours, in which economic growth depends on our purchasing of goods and services, we learn to understand “good things” as things we can possess.

We get so confused at times that we think we possess the lovable people God has put in our lives: our children, our spouses, our friends. And then something happens that drives home our utter lack of possession of the people in our lives. Children grow up and leave, and we must let them go. We discover that love and relationship cannot be put in a jar and stored, like pints of mayhaw jelly lined up on the pantry shelf, to be pulled out and enjoyed during the off season.

 “To love” is a verb! It is a way of being in the world that is a lot like breathing: half taking in and half letting go, taking in, letting go. We breathe in God’s love for us, and breathe it out in our love for one another. We breathe in our love for one another, and breathe it back to God.

During this Eastertide, we have heard Jesus over and over attempt to prepare his disciples for the fact that he must soon leave them… again. Last Sunday he reminded them that he was going where they could not go, at least not yet. This Sunday he says, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” How mystified they must have been!

How mystified we still are at this good thing from God that can only be had by giving it away.  Love in relationship with God and the people of our lives—the lovable and the unlovely—has its being in moment by moment and day by day interactions. We must live it rather than try to possess it.

AMEN.