With special thanks to the students in PHIL 233, UA Fall 2012

 

A few months ago, I had a very interesting conversation at the end of a guest lecture.  We were talking about what kind of ideas were purely academic and what might be offensive.  For example, I showed a picture of a diagram relating many kinds of car bumper stickers.  Each one was a fish, but some were Jesus fish and others Darwin fish.  One was even a gefilte fish.  Some considered the diagram offensive because it made light of a religious image.  Whether the image is or is not offensive, I leave for another time.  The important thing for now is that it started a conversation.  It got us talking about what is a religious image.  What represents something holy and how should we treat things people take as holy?

This conversation made me realize that The Symbol of Christianity is not the cross.  Don’t get me wrong.  The cross is a symbol of Christianity, but I realized it is not the most important one.  The Symbol of Christianity is a human, created in the image and likeness of God.  We look to Jesus who was God incarnate, and we have many pictures of him.  Here’s the thing, though.  We do not have so many pictures of Jesus because he is God.  The Israelites were sternly warned against images of God.  That would be idolatry.  We have pictures of Jesus because he is human.  We have pictures of Jesus because he fully manifested the holiness present from the creation of the first human.  We say that in Jesus there is a new Adam, and we call him the firstborn of the new creation.

In Christianity, it is the image of God in each and every person that represents for us – symbolically, figuratively, and iconicly (not just analogously) – the central truth of Christianity.  In us, God is pleased to dwell.  Once I started looking at things this way, Christianity began to make so much more sense.  The ancient customs of the church, in this case preserved in the modern Roman liturgy lay this out clearly.  It is the priest that forms the focal point of the church (sitting in a sedia behind the altar) and not the cross.  It is the priest who represents Christ, not because of some magic property but because of the human nature of God. The Episcopal Church mostly retains this only in episcopal liturgies, where a bishop’s chair (cathedra) is places as the focal point of the church.

We (all Christians) are temples.  This is why so many Christians have been against tattoos and body art.  It’s a literal interpretation of the body as temple and the body as the image and likeness of God.  [This is also why Coptic Christians place cross tattoos on the insides of their wrists, to mark their oneness with Jesus.]

This is why the Roman Catholic sign of the church is a crucifix (a carving of Christ suffering or dead on a cross).  It’s not the instrument of torture, but the image of the man on it that is meant to impress – the divinity in humanity. I was raised with a rather different symbolism.  I was raised to see an empty cross as a better sign of Christianity because Christ is no longer crucified.  I still feel that way, but I see it in a new light.  The empty cross is a provocation.  It is not meant to capture the eye as the crucifix.  Rather, the empty cross should be a provocation.  It should force us to ask the question of where Jesus is, if he is no longer there.  It should give us hope and also give us pause.

Near the end of the Gospel of Matthew (28:5-7), an angel appears to the women in Jesus tomb and says:

“Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’”

Humans, all humans, are the sign of Christian faith.

This Lent I invite you to join me in meditating on this mystery.  What would it mean if we saw all human bodies, in their curious diversity, not just as holy, but as sacred objects reflecting the depth of our tradition?  How would that change the way we look at questions of torture, famine, disease, and war?

One last point.  How would it affect questions of beginning and end of life issues?  It’s easy for that to become polemical, and I don’t want to go there.  As much as I have strong opinions on abortion (against) and euthanasia (against), I respect the heartbreaking complexity of these issues. I wonder to what extent concepts of the human body as sign and sacrament affect people’s positions on these questions.

I ask you to think about how the human body serves as a symbol of humane divinity and divine humanity for yourself and others.  It’s more than a meditation for me.  It is a sudden and surprising insight into how others relate to one another and to God.  It’s an opening up of traditions in the early and medieval church that I have never understood before.

 

 

Today I had the pleasure of worshiping with the people of Church of the Apostles in Oro Valley, AZ.  Here is the sermon I shared.

Collect for the 4th Sunday after Epiphany (C)

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Readings:

Jeremiah 1:4-10 (“Now I have put my words in your mouth”)

Psalm 71:1-6 (“In you, O LORD, have I taken refuge”)

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4:21-30 (“no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown”)

Sermon:

I love today’s reading from I Corinthians.

Indeed, I am tempted not to preach at all,

but simply to read the lessons over again,

to bask in them with you.

That I will not do,

but I might have to do something a little different,

something slightly unexpected,

because I fear we have all heard this story

and the Gospel story so many times,

we don’t stop to look at it with new eyes.

So, let me come at this from another angle.

I want to share with you a Zen Koan,

a story from Buddhism designed to open you up to an important truth,

something like scripture for Christians.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

The story has something to do with expectations

and with learning.

The professor in the story wants to know about Zen Buddhism

but he is so full of expectations –

historical knowledge, philosophical speculation,

personal prejudices, and hearsay –

that he cannot be open to the teaching Nan-in wants to give him.

The professor cannot drink the new tea,

because he is always trying to poor it into a cup already full.

We all do this.

We all want God to give us answers,

but we usually ask for them with a caveat.

God, tell me how to be happy –

just so long as I can be happy and financially secure.

God, tell me how to escape loneliness –

Just so long as I can escape loneliness and still be self-sufficient.

God, help me share my faith –

just so long as I don’t have to talk to people I don’t know,

or people I do know who might judge me.

I don’t know about you,

but I do this all the time.

I want answers, but I want my kind of answers,

and truthfully, if my kind of answers worked,

I wouldn’t need to turn to God,

now would I?

 

Today’s Gospel also reminds me of a Far Side Cartoon by Gary Larson.

It shows a classroom full of students,

and one in the middle raises his hand.

He says, “Mr. Osborne, may I be excused?  My brain is full.”

We do this all the time,

and sometimes it has to do with too much information,

and sometimes it has to do with being emotionally overwhelmed,

and sometimes it’s just a matter of trying to do too many things at once.

And we can’t take in any more.

Luke is telling us that Jesus’ friends and relatives,

the people he grew up with,

had their tea cups full.

They looked at Jesus and all they could see was Joseph’s son, the carpenter.

They couldn’t imagine, so they couldn’t see,

Emmanuel, God with us.

They were even offended when he tried to add something new

and so they chased him out of town.

As wonderful as it was, it didn’t fit.

Too many other things crowded it out.

How many times have you failed to see Jesus,

simply because your mind was too full?

In Buddhism the prescription is mushin or empty mind.

Meditation leads to a clearing out of the clutter.

In Christianity, we call it selflessness and humility.

We speak of a special kind of prayer called contemplation,

which focuses on adoring and appreciating God,

without asking anything or even praising,

just basking in the glory of God’s goodness.

How many hours of the day do you spend in contemplation?

How many minutes?

Christians also speak of losing ourselves in service to others,

but that’s a trickier route,

because it can be easy to focus on what we want to give,

and fail to listen for God,

who is always there ahead of us.

So I’d encourage you to work in the world,

evangelism and mission are tremendously important,

but don’t forget contemplation a well.

There’s a sermon in itself,

and if I were here with you every week, I might stop there.

But I am not.

And as much as this is an interesting truth about the world,

as much as it is interpretation of scripture,

I haven’t yet gotten to the Good News.

The good news has to do with Jesus Christ in the world.

The good news has to do with grace and peace and joy.

As hard as we try, we have this terrible tendency

to think of love as something else to add to our tea cup.

It happens again and again in our history as a church,

and it has led to tragedy after tragedy,

both personal and common.

We want to make love into an act,

or a belief,

or an ideology,

or, worst of all, into a commodity.

We want to think of love as something with which we fill our cups.

It is not so.

Love is that space within us, which can be filled.

Love is the openness to God in the world.

More than that, love is the process of tea flowing into and out of us.

It is the opposite of security

and the absence of certainty.

It is the willingness to not only see God, but be God in the world,

an openness to allow grace – God’s good gifts –

to flow into us,

and out of us,

to fill us and overflow into the world.

Paul says

“Love is patient; love is kind;

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.

But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will come to an end.

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.”

Love is that which makes all these other things possible,

because it does not fill, but empties.

Even faith, that most blessed of gifts,

a true relationship with God,

pales in comparison with the love that makes it possible.

Even hope, that necessary companion in life,

the ability to see the future in the light of grace,

pales in comparison with the love that illuminates it.

When all else passes away, love remains.

Love abides.

And God is love.

This God that we worship,

who came to us in the most unexpected way,

this God revels in emptying itself into creation.

This God flowed into us, that we might flow into the world.

And that God should be that way,

that the world should be this way,

not full of love, but filled with a dynamic loving,

a constant filling up and emptying out,

a giving of self to neighbor,

and giving back to God,

this is glorious, ecstatic, lively – even fun.

I simply haven’t the words.

That is the good news.

That is the wisdom that sounds like foolishness.

You have been given things for the sole and wonderful purpose

of giving them away.

God wishes you to be like God,

not only empty so that you may receive,

but full so that you might give.

It’s why we do not hoard.

It’s why we do not worry.

It’s why we do not complain about the rain

falling on the righteous and the unrighteous,

about good things happening to bad people.

It’s why we pray for our enemies and love those who persecute us.

If you ask me, that is the core of Christianity,

That God gave his only begotten Son;

that Jesus emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness,

that the Spirit fills creation.

There is no challenge in evangelism,

no hardship in charity,

if only we can enter into this reality;

if only we can, in the real sense of the word, be in love.

And so, this week I offer you, curiosity.

I ask you to empty yourself and see things anew.

Come to Jesus as little children.

Contemplate the glory of God.

And then empty yourself,

share what you have.

Give away your possessions – yes really give away your possessions.

Don’t give them up, give them to.

Give them to people that need them.

Give away your dreams – share them with the people around you.

We all suffer from a lack of fairy dust,

and it’s no wonder why.

The world has taught us to lock away our idealism,

where it won’t get us into trouble.

Get into trouble.

For God’s sake, get yourself into a little trouble

for being too open, too curious, too trusting, and too generous.

Worse things could happen.

Give away your knowledge.

People need it.

I guarantee you, everyone in this room knows something

that could benefit someone else.

It starts with the simple act of voting and talking about politics.

Horrible, I know.  Uncouth, improper, sometimes antisocial.

But that’s the way democracies work,

people sharing what they know

and what they think,

and making decisions together.

Teach someone how to knit, or fix a car, or crochet, or make the perfect omelet.

You have that within you.

Most of all, I ask you to give away your time.

It’s one of the easiest things to give away,

and yet we are all so reluctant to part with it.

Every person you meet could be Jesus.

In a very real way, every person you meet is Jesus.

Every single human being lives in the image and likeness of God.

Every single person carries that within them.

Take the time to see it.

Empty your cup and stare into the world.

Gaze in wonder.

Stare in astonishment.

Stand gape mouthed and grinning at the world.

Give time to God in contemplation.

Give time to your neighbors in group projects.

Give time to yourself to learn something you really wanted to know.

Homework time.

You can write this down, or just remember,

but I really do expect you to do it.

Think for a moment.

Name one possession you are going to give away this week,

to someone who needs it.

Name one dream you are going to share

with someone who didn’t know about it already.

(Don’t tell Pastor Megan I said this)

Name one way you are going to get in trouble for a good cause.

Introduce yourself to one person you do not know,

and look – really look – for the light of Christ in them.

I think if you do these things more than once,

you will find it difficult to stop.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly,

but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part;

then I will know fully,

even as I have been fully known.”

The Kingdom of God is at hand.

It lies just around the corner,

just a breath away,

if only we can empty our cups

and allow them to be refilled.

It is a land of perishable goods,

because true goods are good to be shared.

It is a land of insecurity,

and incalculable wealth,

A land where there is neither emptiness nor fullness,

but a love that fails to recognize where one ends

and another begins, but flows freely.

“And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

and the greatest of these is love.”

This morning I was delighted to worship with St. Michael and All Angels’ Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ.  Here is my sermon.

 

 

Collect (III Epiphany)

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Readings

Nehemiah 8:1-10 (For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.)

Psalm 19 (The heavens declare the glory of God)

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a (Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.)

Luke 4:14-21 (“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”)

 

Sermon

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my
heart be acceptable in your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.”

 

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

 

I’ve been thinking this week about questions of Christianity,

of membership, and baptism, and belonging.

What does it mean to be a member of the body of Christ?

One of the books I’ve been reading suggested

that it was one thing to believe in God,

but once you say you believe in Jesus,

you’re starting to push the envelope.

I wasn’t sure what that meant.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

I’m still not sure, but I know it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about the difference between an abstract faith,

a generic commitment to the way the world works,

and a concrete commitment to Jesus Christ and the church.

 

And now I’m starting to sound evangelical.

That happens on occasion.

It makes me uneasy, though.

It makes me uneasy because there is a danger within evangelicalism,

a danger of making Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m entirely committed to the Lord and Savior part.

It’s the personal part that gives me pause,

because when God is mine personally, I can use God

as a measuring stick by which to judge others.

And that doesn’t sit right with me.

God is not an abstract ideal.

God is a real person, in Christ Jesus.

So, if I were to say, Jesus Christ the person is my Lord and Savior,

that would work for me.

Perhaps that’s what the phrase is supposed to mean.

Nonetheless, I tend to refer to him as our common Lord and Savior.

 

 

And now I’m starting to sound catholic.

That happens too,

because I really do think that God comes to us

(and through us, and with us)

in the church.

That too makes me a little uneasy.

It makes me uneasy because there is a danger in catholicism,

a danger of losing that personal relationship,

within the big, complicated mess of our common life together;

a trap of thinking that whatever it is needs to be done,

needs to be done by someone else.

And that doesn’t sit right with me.

My relationship with God does not depend on anyone else’s approval.

And God’s call to me goes beyond the church’s role in my life.

So, where does that leave us?s

As members of a church that is both evangelical and catholic,

a church that, on good days, shares in the joys of both perspectives,

and on bad days is prone to the errors of both.

Who are we?

 

We are the body of Christ and we are individually members of it.

 

I have been talking with my friend Greg about baptism,

debating really, because we have very different theologies.

He said something that deeply moved me.

He spoke of “sacrificial commitment to the mundane”,

a calling to be accountable,

not only to the broad principles of theology and scripture,

but to the concrete realities of common life;

a calling to live as one body of Christ,

not sacrificing individuality,

but recognizing interdependence.

As a church we are asked to live together,

even when we might make different decisions were we apart.

Jesus walked among us – in the flesh,

and because of that he was subject to our world.

We say he lived and died as one of us.

We remember that he ate and drank with his disciples,

traveled with them, worked with them, taught with them.

Our model is not,

and has never been,

a God utterly separate from Creation,

who imposes laws on a foreign people.

Even in the Old Testament, we see a God of covenant,

who travels with the people,

and works through the human processes of tribe and kingdom,

ritual and priesthood.

 

 

We are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

As Christians, but particularly as Anglican Christians,

we are aware that we are both God’s own as a community,

and God’s own as individuals.

And that takes work.

It means figuring out who we are and what we are called to do

as separate and distinct people,

and then fitting into the common purpose and mission of the church.

 

And not just any church,

not the church universal or the church triumphant,

not the great cloud of witnesses, nor the mystical body of Christ,

as wonderful and amazing as those are.

We are called to the here and now,

for us today, that means

the people of St. Michael and All Angel’s, Tucson.

for us today, that means the Diocese of Arizona, and the Episcopal Church.

We are called to be the Word made flesh.

 

And the wonderful/awful thing about this

is that you can do it anywhere, with anyone.

And the wonderful/awful thing

is that wherever you find yourself,

you are called to create a community of love with those people.

 

The Old Covenant was meant for one people, one tribe and nation.

The New Covenant is meant for the whole world.

 

We have obligations,

but no, I won’t call them obligations – they are not commanded of us

We have opportunities

to build up the body of Christ.

And, just as a physical body is built from simple foods, bread and wine,

so a spiritual body is built from simple actions,

and the two are never separate.

We always need food and drink,

but we also need relationships.

Those relationships are built on love, abstractly,

but concretely they are based on sharing and support.

We share food.

We share our feelings and our thoughts.

We share our money and our possessions.

We share our work in the world.

We even,

and here’s the scary bit,

share our relationship with Jesus.

We say, “it is not just my conscience that guides me,

but our conscience, our faith, our custom.”

 

 

We who are many are one body,

for we all share in the one bread.

We who are many are one body,

For we all share in the one Lord.

 

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

 

This is what it means to follow Christ,

who managed to be one with God and one with humanity

at the same time.

He was baptized into us, as we are baptized into him.

 

And this is hard work,

because sharing does not mean sacrificing.

We sacrifice our independence, by bringing all our individuality to the table.

And we walk a fine line, between idolizing self and idolizing community,

because that’s the way the world works.

The healthy community needs you to be utterly you,

in communion with others who are utterly and openly themselves.

 

 

Do you know the person next to you?

Why do they come to church?

What is their theology?

What image of God do they see when they close their eyes?

And what image when they open them?

What part of the service moves them?

What hymns speak to their hidden heart?

If you don’t know, wait until after the service and ask.

For God’s sake, ask.  And share your own heart and your own faith.

 

Secular culture has taught us to fear this kind of conversation.

We are conditioned to think that one person’s faith must be wrong,

for another person’s faith to be right,

but that is not the case.

And I’ll be bold enough to say,

we don’t even really know our own faith,

until we’ve shared it with someone who disagrees.

That’s when you find out where the edges are.

That’s when you find out what’s really important to you,

what matters.

I guarantee, if you listen patiently,

every single person you have a real conversation with,

will make a gift of one true thing –

one thing you will discover that you believe,

in your heart of hearts believe,

that you never knew before.

 

 

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

 

I hate to say it, but that was the easy part.

As hard as it is to figure out your own heart,

the next step is even harder.

 

Look at the people around you.

Ask yourself what we believe.

Ask yourself what we commit to together.

The weekly confession has a wonderful line,

one I never fail to delight in.

We say, “we have not loved you with our whole heart.”

It’s not plural “hearts” but singular “heart.”

Next time you say that confession,

ask yourself about our heart.

 

Ask yourself what you are willing to offer up

in order to be one with your neighbor.

 

Not sacrifice.

I’m not asking you to give up pieces of yourself,

I’m asking you to offer up pieces of yourself,

to risk discovering that you disagree.

 

Are you willing to commit time every week

to be in the presence of God – together?

Are you willing to commit money from every pay check

to discover what our common priorities are?

Are you willing to commit to honest conversation about God

so that you can discover the content of our heart?

 

 

Does that scare you?

It scares me.

This is the fear of God, the recognition that something greater exists than myself,

and a willingness to enter into it.

It takes courage and patience,

but we can, with God’s help and with a little bit of help from our friends.

 

 

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

 

What we do here, in this building, in this church.

That is only the smallest seed.

This community and this worship is practice.

Beyond those doors lies a world full of people,

who do not know how to talk to one another,

who do not know how to be of one mind, one heart, one joy,

who do not know how to be children of God.

And, just a few who know far better than we.

 

That is the kingdom.

And that is the good news.

That is the yeast that leavens, the seed that grows, the vine and the branches.

 

And that is our call as Christians and as a church.

So that the world may be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

 

I’d like to talk today about a cliche, not because it’s a common saying, but because it represents so clearly the spirit of the age, one of the underlying beliefs of our times – and because it presents a real challenge for Christians.

“There is no free lunch.”

Just five words, but it sums up a very important concept.  “You don’t get something for nothing.”  From the game theory perspective, it goes something like this:  Life is a zero sum game.  Perhaps you don’t go that far.  Perhaps you think that more is produced than is invested, but still, a kernel has to come from somewhere.  Someone has to pay for it, don’t they?

The answer is no.  This has been demonstrated aptly in any number of contexts, the most notable being the Big Bang.  Incidentally, that will be a perfect example of what I’m about to say.  Often something comes from nothing solely as a result of your accounting.  The explosion at the start of the universe may be the result of physical forces acting beyond our range of knowledge.  Sometimes the gentleman two tables over pays for your meal or the lady behind you in line pays for your groceries.  It doesn’t appear on your ledger, but it does appear on someone’s.  Perhaps that’s the point.

But it isn’t.  No one ever says (sincerely), “I’m so sorry it worked out this way, but sadly that’s just how the universe works.  There’s no free lunch.”  What they mean is that if some addition is made to your ledger, some subtraction must be made there as well.

“Anyone who tells you different is selling something.”

Exactly.  They’re selling lunch.

The phrase, “no free lunch” doesn’t mean “don’t expect the universe to be kind.”  It means, “don’t expect me to be kind.”  Don’t tell me your needs unless you’re willing to pay me something for helping you with them.  You can call it entitlements or hand outs or mooching or leaching or whatever you like.  The point is, you’re not getting it unless you pay for it.  This philosophy is fundamental to modern concepts of the free market and libertarianism, perhaps in the most compassionate of ways (everything works more efficiently that way), though often as a mask for self-interest.  I don’t see any way to sugar coat it.  The point of the phrase (the sentiment and the philosophy) is that people don’t give altruistically, sacrificially, and without expectation and I the speaker am included.

Christians should see the world differently.  We believe that God gave the world as a free gift.  We (at least most of us) believe that Jesus died for the sake of atonement (bridging the gap between God and humanity) without price and without hope of reward.  Christians believe that grace is God’s freely given, undeserved, unrepayable gift.

Christians believe in a free lunch.  I’m wary of overgeneralizing, but I strongly suspect that much of the history of the church can be summed up with this one line:  Grace is free and we’ve been trying to figure out how to charge for it for 2000 years.  No wonder people are suspicious.  “You must believe this.  You must do that.  You must subscribe, join, tithe, obey, demonstrate…”

Here’s the rub.  As fine as that sentiment is, does it really work?  I know from psychology, teaching, and sad experience that people value things more when they pay for them.  I’m a priest; don’t I want people to value grace?  As a pastor, do I not want them to value love?  Am I not, like St. Paul, a coach for the spiritual athlete, urging them on to a better life?  Well yes.  Does that mean that I, like a coach, should ask, even demand performance.  Maybe.

Maybe?  That’s a bit squishy, isn’t it?

Yes.  I confess to a bit of ambivalence here.

First and foremost, let’s talk evangelism.  I have a friend who insists on selling the hard work of salvation to random people on campus.  I don’t buy this as all.  Evangelist as coach doesn’t work, because these people have not signed up for the program.  You wouldn’t accept a football coach or army drill sergeant approaching you on the street and making you do push-ups.  Why on Earth would you put up with a street preacher demanding that you change your life? (Some will object that this is not consistent with evangelism in the Bible.  Check out the note at the end.)

Second comes the question for pastors.  And here is where my ambivalence lies.  I can think of a hundred reasons why pastors would make grace costly.  The number one reason is psychological and sociological.  Pastors want people to invest in the church, in their relationship with one another and with God.  Why not make grace, membership, sacraments (baptism, Eucharist, marriage, forgiveness) dependent upon their contributions.  Why not make them incentives to investing?

[Don't kid yourselves, pastors.  Every time you have required catechesis or membership for baptism; every time you make confirmation classes required for confirmation and Eucharist;  every time you have insisted people join and tithe before performing a wedding;  every time you have demanded penance before absolution, you've used a sacrament as an incentive for investing in the community of faith and practice.]

I’m not sure this is a bad thing.  I think many of the people who come to me looking for forgiveness want and need the ritual and cost, because we have so much trouble believing we are forgiven.  I think the the rite of confirmation is built around personal intellectual and actual commitment to the church.  Confirmation may not make any sense outside of this investment.

At the same time, I worry.  I worry because the methodology of investment, contract, and covenant speaks against the theology of grace.  You cannot charge admission to the kingdom of free gifts.  You can only welcome people in.  No matter how hard we try, we can never get people to invest in true, self-sacrificial love.  It isn’t an investment.

I don’t think there is any way to preach grace, now that I think about it.  You can only demonstrate.  So let me say this.

You have my interest, support, service, and advice.  Not because I should.  Not because God told me to.  Not because it’s right or beneficial, moral or proper.  Not for the sake of reward and not in the expectation of reciprocity.  You have them purely, simply, and fundamentally because that’s what I choose to do with my life.  I love, as often and as well as I know how.

That’s my religion.  If it isn’t “Christianity,” so be it.  Honestly, my only response to that would be that I have no need of “Christianity.”  I really, truly believe that this is God’s will and Jesus’ gift and the point of scripture, but if it were not, I confess freely that it would mean as much to me.  I have received so I give thanks and give.My God asks me to give without hope of reward or reciprocity, only for the sake of giving.  I tell his story because he gave in this way.

I hope for you this kind of self giving.  I think it will make you more joyful, more whole, and more a part of the world around you.  I cannot demand or even expect it, but I can offer it to you, free of charge.

 

 

The Bible and Evangelism

Why on Earth would you put up with a preacher demanding that you change your life?

Isn’t that what the prophets did?  No, not really.  In the Hebrew Scriptures they spend almost all their time preaching to the people of the covenant, people who’ve already signed on.  Mostly we hear of them talking to religious and civil officials who, like modern officials would have been reminded annually of their duties to God, would have said oaths.  {Off the top of my head, I can only think of Jonah preaching to Gentiles and he, like John, preached repentance.}

How about the New Testament?  Well, not so much there either.  Jesus and John preached repentance to the Hebrews, just like the prophets of old.  They urged a people already part of the covenant to enter deeper in.  Jesus practically ignores the Syrophoenician woman until she begs him to be let into the program.  That leaves us with Acts and the Epistles. In Acts, almost all the public preaching is, again, directed at Jews in Jerusalem and Jews and “God-fearers” in Synagogues elsewhere.  Philip is even accosted by a foreign eunuch who insists on being taught and baptized.  The only case where people are not buying in, is the Areopagus, where Paul is very respectful of gentile beliefs and urges the Athenians using their own beliefs as a foundation.

Paul rarely demands anything.  Read closely.  Paul rarely demands anything.  He’s almost always urging, exhorting, even cajoling – though even in his case, tradition holds that he is writing to people who have already written to him asking for help.  These are the words of a pastor, not an evangelist.  Above all, read Romans, where the idea of unearned grace is the central message.  No one is worthy.  No one is bound by the law, and yet righteousness is an option.

I was recently challenged to make a list of books suitable as gifts from godparents to their charges.  I realized that, while there were many books I loved, it was hard (off the top of my head) to come up with the right gift for the right age.  So here is a list of recommendations.  I’ve done my best to narrow it down to books that I’d be happy recommending to anyone.  Different kids will, of course have different needs.

By Age:

2:         The Lord’s Prayer illustrated by Heidi Holder {Out of Print?}

3:         You Are Special by Max Lucado

God Created by Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones

Old Arthur by Liesel Skorpen {Out of Print}

4:         Old Turtle and Old Turtle and the Broken Truth by Douglas Wood

5:         Does God Have a Big Toe? by Marc Gellman

6:         The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

7:         If I Found a Wistful Unicorn: A Gift of Love by Ann Ashford

8:         The Time Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle

A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time

{Hope Larson has a graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time}

9:         Narnia by C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, A Horse and His Boy, The Last Battle, and The Magician’s Nephew

10:      The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Manga Messiah by Tyndale and Next

Manga Bible by Siku

11:      The Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card

Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind

Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin

A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, The Other Wind

12:      The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Good News of Jesus Christ by L. William Countryman

13:      The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King

Oxford Study Bible (NRSV)

14:      To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

            The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell

15:      The Sparrow by Marie Doria Russel

            Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

16:      The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

The Voice: A Story about Faith and Trust by Ryan Metlen

17:      Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

            No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu

18:      The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin

            Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

 

And a few more books that didn’t fit, but seem appropriate.

 

Teens and Twenties:

God is Not a Christian: and Other Provocations by Desmond Tutu

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Markings by Dag Hammarskjold

The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

            Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength

 

For Episcopalians:

Book of Common Prayer

Glorious Companions: Five Centuries of Anglican Spirituality

 

Insights from other religions that may be helpful:

 

4          Zen Shorts, Zen Ties by Jon Muth

            The Three Questions by Jon Muth

8          Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Tsai Chih Chung and Brian Bruya’s illustrated works

            The Tao Speaks, Zhuangzi Speaks, Zen Speaks

12       The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

16       The Book: On the Taboo against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

I want to start today’s post with a quote often attributed to St. Augustine of Hippo:

“A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

It’s a lovely quote and I’ve heard it many times.  Alas, I cannot find it in the works of Augustine.  (If you can, please send me the citation.)  Rather, Abigail van Buren (a.k.a. the original Dear Abby) wrote this line.  Regardless, I think it summarizes neatly Augustine’s notion that we cannot definitively separate sinners from saints in this lifetime.  Even the church (pointedly, the church) contains both good and bad people, wheat and tares (weeds) that will not be separated until the end of days.  Further, it emphasizes that even the good face an internal struggle.  The church is a place for people struggling with illness.

It is a wonderful metaphor, but it opens us up to a number of questions that I think need to be addressed for us to take it seriously.

1) What is the sickness?

Sin, certainly, though sin has been constructed in a number of ways.  Let us say, with Augustine, that all suffer from an internal desire to do other than that which is best.  We need not commit to the essential character of Augustine’s “original sin.”  We do need to say that all of us are infected, no matter what place we hold in the church.  This, I think, holds the power of the sentiment.  We must never think of ourselves – whoever we may be: clergy, theologians, pious, … – as the doctors.  We must be fellow patients.

Augustine is actually pretty clear about this in his work, The City of God.  God is the doctor while humans are the patients.  No matter how aware we are of this basic idea, it becomes terribly easy to think of ourselves as physicians’ assistants or at least orderlies, and to some extent we must.  There is treatment going on, isn’t there?  Someone has to administer the treatment.  Here we find a challenge.

2) What is a hospital?

There’s a rather profound difference between what Augustine would have thought of and what Dear Abby would have thought of in terms of a hospital.  In Augustine’s day, a hospital was more likely to be a large facility, mostly filled with sick people who had been separated from the general public, for the good of those inside and outside.  Localizing the ill prevented mass infection and allowed fewer people to see to the needs of the many.  A hospital had many patients, far fewer servants, and perhaps only a a couple doctors with apprentices.  For most people, it was a place to maximize (minimal) comfort for the natural duration of an illness.  In the middle ages, pilgrims and the very poor might stay there as well.  This was the model for centuries.

By the 20th century, a hospital was something very different.  We think of a sterile place filled with medical professionals, whose goal is to cure patients as quickly as possible.  A modern hospital is a place of knowledge and power.  It is a place people go to get better – and then leave.

When we say that the church is a hospital for sinners, we must admit that none of us will be cured in this lifetime – a rather grim prospect.  It’s more like the medieval notion than the modern.  Are we to say that the church provides palliative care?  Are we to say that it provides comfort without cure?  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that notion, but neither am I comfortable with the thought that the church (in this life) cures people of sin.

I fear that many people, faced with this metaphor, develop an amorphous belief that people in the church are healed of their sickness and move on to become healthy nurses – or even doctors.  To my mind, this notion defeats the central point of the metaphor.

3) What is the treatment?

Like hospitals, the notion of treatment has evolved over the centuries.  I think the Biblical answer, like Augustine’s, would be the “health-giving medicine of penitence,” the idea of regret for past action and the subsequent repentance, or turning away from the wrong path.  Augustine speaks of Justice (to each their due), Prudence (knowing the good from the bad), Temperance (ability to resist bad desire), and Fortitude (ability to keep doing good).  Medicine would have to strengthen one of these, allowing the patient to persist in turning.I can see three prominent treatments in Christian thought, historically:

A) Medicine given to the patient – the sacraments have been viewed, particularly from the Roman Catholic standpoint, as medicine given by God and administered by priests to the sinner.  The benefit of this perspective is that it’s concrete and makes grace both physical and visible.  The downside is that it can be viewed as magical or mechanical – compelling God’s forgiveness, rather than asking for it.  Mainline Protestants have flirted with the idea of sacraments, but without the idea that priests have a monopoly on them.

B) Cognitive therapy – doctrines have been viewed, particularly from the Protestant standpoint, as medicine given by God through scripture.  It’s meant to emphasize God’s primary role as doctor, but invariably is considered to be abused unless one uses it according to the prescription of particular pastors and theologians.  It allows for a very clear distinction to be made between those patients that are “on their meds” and those that are not.  Good for recruiting, bad in that it encourages people to be judgmental of one another – particularly bad in that it attaches correct belief to healing so that your own salvation must be in jeopardy if others do not believe the same way you do.  One of you must be using the meds off prescription.

C) Behavioral therapy – practices have been viewed, particularly from Anglican and Orthodox perspectives, as active treatment.  Much as a doctor might proscribe long walks, so a pastor might proscribe a pilgrimage.  It highlights the human role in healing, but runs the risk of confusing doctor and patient.  It can leave one open to “salvation by works,” which Paul and countless others have derided.  It appears, for good and ill, in Catholic Liberation Theology and Anglican Social Gospel movements.  I would venture it is central to the theology of most Baby Boomers.

I’m not entirely happy with any of these models, but I think we’re stuck with them.  The alternative would be to say that we are not sick.  That’s certainly inconsistent with the Christian message in Paul’s letters.  More to the point, I find it inconsistent with life.  We seek an answer to the unsatisfactory state we find ourselves in.  We want answers and religion attempts to discuss them.  Indeed, if we deny the problem, I think we deny any ability to help people.

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the church at the moment is a popular disagreement about how to apply the hospital metaphor to the church.  Many people, perhaps most, believe we really are sick, that the church has the treatment, but that we haven’t been taking our medicine properly.  They want to be more rigorous about trusting sacraments, adhering to doctrine, and doing our exercises.  I appreciate the concern, but the downside is that all three philosophies give the orderlies more power and importance.  Curiously, the authorities promoting each of the three treatments are most disdainful of those who promote the others.

The answer, I think, must be found in the concrete question of who’s getting better.  Which brings us back to the question of whether we’re all sick, and to what extent.  Are we to judge one another, or only ourselves?  I’m not a relativist.  I think there really is sickness and sin.  I am, however, a pragmatist, and I genuinely think that all three treatments help people – but in different doses and different times.

I trust the church.  I think we maintain the balance, because different things work for different people and – most scarily – only the patient can judge whether she is getting better.

Don’t get me wrong.  I must ask whether I want to be more like patient X or patient Y.  I must choose.  I can even give people my impressions on the state of their health, but it is not mine to choose their treatment.  Or is it?

That will be the existential question for the church.  If we are a hospital…

Are members people admitted as patients, or are they members of the staff?

The former has no requirements.  The latter has many.  When we ask questions about what we require for baptism and what we require before someone shares in communion, we are really asking this question.  Do they only need to be patients, or do we require them to be “good patients.”  Again, curiously, there are people on opposite sides.  The dominant position in Anglicanism and Catholicism for centuries has been to insist that Baptism is for everyone (patients) while communion should be restricted to the worthy (good patients).  Alternatively, Protestants have emphasized that only the worthy should be baptized.  For the last century, the liturgical movement has encouraged us to think anyone can take communion (patients), but only the worthy (good patients) should be baptized.  In all three cases, we’ve been refusing treatment to those who don’t promise to use it the way we want.  That sends a very clear message, a message of well doctors and sick patients, a message of monopoly and gatekeeping – and again, we find ourselves defeating the point of the central metaphor.

I’ll be meditating on the answer to this dilemma over the next year.  I think it will turn out the hospital is not the best metaphor to work with.  In any case, we will be forced to deal with the question of who to include.  We will have to figure out whether the church is the collection of people who want treatment, the collection of people on their meds, or the people delivering treatment.  All three I suppose, but the questions that vex us this century -

Who to baptize? With whom to break bread? Who to marry?  Who to ordain? -

These questions can only be answered when we deal squarely with the medicine metaphor.

This Sunday I had the honor and pleasure of worshiping with with the people of St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ.  The sermon I gave was both commentary on the days readings (3rd Sunday in Advent) and a reflection on the mass shooting in Newtown, CT.  God bless and keep us

Collect

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings

Zephaniah 3:14-20 (Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel!)

Isaiah 12:2-6 (Surely, it is God who saves me)

Philippians 4:4-7 (Rejoice in the Lord always)

Luke 3:7-18 (Bear fruits worthy of repentance.)

Sermon

“Surely, it is God who saves me;
I will trust in him and not be afraid.

For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense,
and he will be my Savior. “

 

If you come away today remembering just one thing, I hope it will be this:

Christianity is not an explanation, but a response.

We claim that God responds to suffering and sin

and we claim that we can respond to it as well,

in love and faith.

 

As most of you know, we experienced a tragedy on Friday.

A gunman walked into a school in Newtown, Connecticut,

shot and killed 27 people before killing himself.

It is a terribly tsad hing to contemplate and a hard thing to cope with,

but we try.  We try to find some appropriate response to the deaths

and to the act.

Before anything else, I would like to take a moment to

remember those who died.

 

Charlotte Bacon

Daniel Barden

Olivia Engel

Josephine Gay

Ana Marquez-Greene

Dylan Hockley

Madeleine Hsu

Catherine  Hubbard

Chase Kowalski

Jesse Lewis

James Mattioli

Grace McDonnell

Emilie Parker

Jack Pinto

Noah Pozner

Caroline Previdi

Jessica Rekos

Avielle Richman

Benjamin Wheeler

Allison Wyatt

 

Rachel Davino

Dawn Hochsprung

Anne Marie Murphy

Lauren Rousseau

Mary Sherlach

Victoria Soto

 

Nancy and Adam Lanza

 

 

It is my belief, and our faith,

that another life waits for them beyond this life,

and that God waits for them in and after death,

so that they may continue their journey.

We pray for all who have died.

 

Many people are asking why?

Why did this happen?

Why did God allow this?

What happened that makes this make sense?

And my first answer must be this:

I do not know.

I, like you, am shocked and horrified.

I, like you, turn to God and ask “Why?”

I am angry and confused, hurt and scared.

This is, I think, a common response.

 

The answer is, “I don’t know.”

And worse yet.  Christianity doesn’t say.

There are many tales about God that try to explain suffering.

We can appeal to free will or God’s mysterious plan or other

attempts to explain the unexplainable,

But those answers fail.

Christianity is not an explanation, but at response.

 

 

God looked at this mess that is our world,

and decided on love.

God sent Jesus into the mess, to be a part of it

and to be one of us, and one with us,

in a time of pain and suffering and confusion.

And we all desperately wanted, then as now,

for him to provide an explanation.

He didn’t.

Though we followed and questioned him,

though we badgered and beat him,

and though we eventually killed this man,

this God among us,

he never explained himself, or the world.

 

But an answer is not always an explanation.

I believe Jesus answered the question,

answered the doubt and the fear.

And I think Jesus was God’s answer.

 

God responded to our suffering by suffering with us

And Christianity stems from that Good News,

from Emmanuel, God with us.

 

Some have said this is not the time for theology,

and I agree, it is not the time for speculation about the mind of God,

it is not time for maundering about the meaning of the universe.

And yet it is a time for talking about God.

It is a time for making choices.

And that, at its heart, is why theology matters to me.

That’s why Christianity matters to me.

At times like these.

It helps me know which way to go.

 

 

It’s terribly easy to break things

but so much harder to put them together.

It’s terribly easy to destroy

and fearfully difficult to create.

The universe seems uneven in this way,

and it’s not simply a matter of faith or religion.

It turns out to be a perfectly straightforward rule in physics.

We call it entropy

and it means going from disorder to order takes work.

I don’t have time to talk about the science today,

but if you like, I’d be happy to say more later.

For now, know this,

it is easier to unmake a thing than to make it.

 

And this is a large part of the suffering for me,

that so much care went into these 28 lives,

so much love and work and giving,

and then we lost them so suddenly.

And we feel that loss keenly,

and dream of some magic response,

some sudden turning around of time,

that would bring them back.

But it doesn’t work that way.

And we think about blame and vengeance,

we seek some outlet for our anger,

that perhaps if we just tried hard enough,

a sudden response could meet the sudden tragedy.

But it doesn’t work that way either

 

I will propose a hard truth.

There is no such thing as an anti-bomb,

no grenade that reassembles the things it hits.

Creation will always be long and messy and difficult,

and so much more complicated than destruction.

Death will always seem easier than life –

at least in this lifetime.

It is right to grieve.

And it is right to mourn and rage and question.

The events warrant that kind of response.

 

 

But that is not all.

Christianity has more to say on the matter of creation and destruction.

The response to destruction is re-creation.

We remember that every Sunday.

We recall that Christ, come to us once on Christmas,

returned from death,

and will continue among us,

until he comes again when all things will be made new.

And still we wonder.

Why doesn’t he come now?

Why doesn’t God fix the world?

I do not know,

but I know that fixing things takes longer than breaking them,

and I have hope in that.

I have hope in God bent to the task of redeeming the world,

I have hope in our ability to turn around,

as Mark would have it, the baptism of repentance.

 

When you say the Nicene Creed today,

I’m going to ask you to say it differently,

not as an explanation of the world,

but as a tale of God’s love for and response to the world.

In Old English, believe means to “hold dear” or to “give your heart to.”

I give my heart to this story of God doing the hard work of making the worldd,

and continuing in the hard work of redeeming it.

I give my heart to the story of this very God,

in the form of Jesus, came to us, lived and died as one of us,

and continues in that work.

I give my heart to the work of this very God,

in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life,

acting through the church, turning people around,

and bringing them into the life which transcends death.

I give my heart to this response to death,

even though I doubt I will ever understand the why,

I understand the what next.

 

Christianity is not an explanation, but a response.

That response is love:

God’s love for us and our love for one another.

There’s only so much time this morning,

so I can’t go into too much detail,

but I know John and Greg and Vicki,

and I know that every Sunday, from this very spot, they teach love,

and I know Virginia Kat and Raymond and Linda Dewey,

and countless others seated here week after week,

and I know that they radiate love.

There’s only so much time this morning,

but let me say this – the response is to love one another,

to care for one another.

To be honest and to listen,

to share your burden of anger and grief, doubt and fear,

so that others can bear them with you, even God.

To be open to turning around and learning new ways to be.

To love one another,

as Jesus loves us and gives himself for us

in Christmas,

at Easter,

and at this very table, week after week.

 

This work, this response is so much more important than anything else we can do.

It means a radical reorientation of life,

away from mastery and toward service.

It doesn’t mean giving up on explanations,

but it does mean recognizing that charity is so much more important.

 

It isn’t language I use often,

but I use it today.

We are at war.  There is a struggle going on,

and the battle runs through our hearts and through our souls.

Will we choose life?

Will we choose the difficult task of rebuilding, even when destruction looms?

Will we choose to create, though we know the path will be long and hard?

Will we look for love, deep within ourselves,

not against the fear and doubt, but through them and with them?

Will we turn, and continue turning?

 

I wish I could say it was easy.

It isn’t.

I wish I could tell you the details

why it is the way it is,

and exactly how it will all turn out.

I can’t.

I can tell you to question God.

I will.

I can tell you to be angry and sad and frustrated.

I am.

But through all of this,

pick up the pieces.

Build.

Respond to tragedy with honesty and love

Because God is doing that very thing right now,

and has been all along.

That is the response.

That is the meaning.

 

 

The Good News is not an explanation but it is a response.

 

Those committed to faith being something other than relationship,

those most committed to belief being something other

than giving your whole heart,

are those most committed to a response other than love.

It’s not good enough.

 

I invite you into the peace of Advent, the peace that is no peace.

I cannot give you an explanation, but I can give you a task.

I can invite you into God’s loving response

to the suffering we face.

To love one another fully, deeply, truly,

one moment and one act at a time.

 

“And the peace of God,

which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

Justice means giving to each in proper proportion.

Justice is an abstract principle.  It has no flesh to it.  This can be a challenge on occasion for, while we may all agree to seek justice, we seldom agree on exactly what that means.  A number of ideologies exist that inform how we view justice.

1)   To each equally – egalitarian.  This principle says that every person should have equal rights, opportunities and privileges regardless of any other factor.  It is one of the dominant schools of thought in America, even though it is completely incompatible with

2)   To each according to their ability – meritocratic.  This principle says that every person should be entitled to what they produce.  In the US, the closest we come to consistency is to say that the government should provide according to 1, but should never interfere with #2.

3)   To each according to their need – charitable. This principle says that every person should have the minimal level of rights, opportunities, and privileges necessary to some standard of living.  This concept of justice motivates international concepts of human rights and US laws regarding disabilities, minority groups, and poverty.  I would argue that this is the Christian standard (see, for example Mt. 25:34-46).

4)   To each according to their station – classist.  This principle says that different classes of people deserve different treatment based on their place in society.  It may be defended on the basis of 2, 3, or 5 or simply stated as a truism about the universe.  The US has largely rejected classism, though remnants appear in formal address, a few prerogatives of clergy, and in the military.

5)   To each according to the greater good – functionalist.  This principle says privileges and opportunities should be assigned in a way that maximizes the benefit to society as a whole.  Once again, we can see that different ideas of what’s good for society will make this work dramatically differently for different people; a clear example, however, exists in the military where national defense is the goal.

One of the traps we have fallen into in national debate has been fuzzy thinking or fuzzy speaking about which of these 5 standards of justice we are appealing to at any given time.  I think all Americans still wish to defend the ideal of “Liberty and Justice for All,” but we fail to think critically about what that means.  A Libertarian may be arguing against social services for reason 1 while a Progressive is arguing for them for reason 3.

The challenge for each of us – whether we live in the US or not – is to identify what we mean by justice, which ideology we’re appealing to, and how strongly we’re willing to defend that position.  Is it reasonable to appeal to be egalitarian most of the time, but meritocratic for some few things?  Certainly, but we need to be aware that we cannot simply strengthen one ideology to one end…

Ideologies have a life of their own.  We’ve seen it in the military, where privileges for the sake of the common good have been abused.  We’ve seen it most dramatically in classism, that can start with “separate but equal” and move to domination.  Every ideology has pitfalls.

Whenever you’re making an argument about equal rights or special privileges, quotas or profiling, social security or entitlements, I hope you’ll think a little about which concept of justice appeals to you and how far you’re willing to see it go.

This evening, I was blessed to be with the Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Episcopal Campus Ministries at the University of Arizona for our annual Ecumenical Advent Service.  Here is the sermon I gave

Readings

Jeremiah 33:14-16 (The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise…)

Psalm 25:1-9 (To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul;)

1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 (How can we thank God enough for you)

Luke 21:25-36 (“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars…”)

 

Sermon

Time is a tricky thing.

Sometimes it seems to stick to you, clinging and weighing you down.

When will the semester end?  When will school end?  When will I be independent?

Other times it becomes slippery and evades your grasp.

Where did all the time go?  Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Or her?

Time is relative, and shifting.

A famous theologian once said:

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect,

but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint,

it’s more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.”

Well, maybe it wasn’t a theologian (It’s from the Dr. Who episode, “Blink”),

but the point remains.

Time is much messier and harder to understand than we want it to be.

 

We celebrate the church year for a number of reasons,

but chiefly, I suspect, so that we can get a grasp on time as it goes by.

The church seasons are a way of marking and sanctifying time.

Every week we remember the six days of creation and the day of rest.

Every Sunday we recall the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

with us and for us.

We orient ourselves to sacred time,

so that we see ourselves as part of the sacred story

and the sacred story as part of ourselves.

 

Keeping time can be hard for this generation,

and I include myself in that;

I’m thinking of generation X down to millenials and whatever comes next.

We find it difficult to maintain the same routine,

day after day, week after week, year after year.

But it is a valuable thing,

a prayer and a meditation that helps bring us closer to God.

We sanctify the week and the year with our observances.

 

 

This Sunday marks the beginning of the church year.

We celebrate the life of Jesus and the life of the world

with every passing of the seasons.

Jesus’ birth or incarnation at Christmas,

God’s presence among us during Epiphany,

Jesus’ ministry and challenges during Lent,

his suffering and passion in Holy Week,

and his resurrection in Easter.

And then comes the season of Pentecost,

when we remember that we are the Body of Christ

made present to the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And around we come to the beginning of the cycle again,

but this time, we await not only the first coming of Jesus,

the incarnation,

we also await the second coming,

the end and fulfillment of life in this world.

 

So I think of this Sunday as Alpha and Omega Sunday,

or the apocalypse in a bottle.

Apocalypse is an interesting word,

the more so this year, when there is so much hype about 2012.

You’d think we would’ve gotten over that in 2000,

but no.

We think apocalypse means the end of the world,

and in a way it does,

but it also means the beginning.

The word comes to us, curiously as the first word of the last book of the Bible.

The author writes:

apokalypsis iEsou Christou, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Greek word means to lift the veil, to see clearly.

 

This, by the way, is why Bible scholars get so upset

when you call it the book of Revelations (plural)

instead of the Revelation (singular).

It is not a series of visions, which John of Patmos had,

it is a single account of the revelation of Christ at the end of time.

 

 

Now for the hard part.

Jesus says:  “Truly I tell you,

this generation will not pass away

until all things have taken place.

Heaven and earth will pass away,

but my words will not pass away.”

What does this mean?

Are we to take it literally, as the early Christians did?

Are we to believe that the end of the world will come in our lifetimes?

That seems … unsatisfactory.

Perhaps 100 generations have come and gone since that time,

and we have been warned that

“no one knows about that day or hour, except the Father.”

Alternatively, we could take it as some vague metaphor,

but I am not inclined to think God speaks so obscurely.

I think that time is complicated.

I think that there is one history, a history of the world,

that runs from Creation through Incarnation to the Apocalypse,

from the beginning of time to the end of days.

I think that there is a second history, a history for each of us,

that runs from our creation through our birth until our death.

And the second history, God willing,

mirrors the first.

We each have our moment of crisis and trial.

We each will experience moments of transcendence,

when we have a chance to see God and reality unveiled,

Jesus coming in all his splendor.

We each, if the analogy suits you,

live through the great battle

between the children of light and the children of darkness.

We each “will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.”

 

 

This is not to deny the historical sense,

the story of the world sense.

I do believe that Jesus

will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.

And, as with personal resurrection in the flesh,

so too, I believe the world will be reincarnated.

I believe that there will be a new heaven and a new Earth,

that I will see my redeemer in the flesh,

and I shall see my God face to face.

And I cannot tell you how the two stories fit together … yet.

I cannot tell you how my redemption

matches up with the redemption of the world,

though I suspect they are related.

Still, I have faith in each,

and in both.

 

Perhaps time travel is the right metaphor after all,

for, while we are traveling through history,

we are also on our own pilgrimages,

our own paths toward the heavenly kingdom.

And with Paul, I give thanks for fellow travelers.

“How can we thank God enough for you

in return for all the joy that we feel

before our God because of you?”

It is not a pilgrimage to be taken alone,

but one that we take with others,

a road we travel with a great cloud of witnesses,

saints living in this world, and saints passed on to the next.

 

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down

with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life,

and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.”

There will be signs, and there will be a great Apocalypse,

but there will also be a personal journey and personal signs.

As we mark the week and year to remember the great arc of history,

so God makes plain the salvation of the world

in the salvation of each and every soul that passes into light.

 

 

Christianity is the art of becoming,

we, with the world, are being transformed into something greater,

something more magnificent, beautiful, and holy

than we could have asked or imagined.

It is not a simple journey, or easy.

It requires patience sometimes

and decisive action at others.

It requires following sometimes

and forging a new path at others.

But I think we will always be on the right path,

if we remember this rule:

“What can we do that unveils the glory of God?”

“How can we see God revealed in our lives?”

and “How can we be the revelation of Jesus Christ in the world?”

I call it an art and not a science,

for no one can tell you exactly where or when the opportunity will arrive.

No one in this life can explain fully how, or when, or even why,

but we do know that all things are coming to their proper end.
We know that despite the barrenness of winter,

in spite of trials and tribulations,

the tree of life will bear fruit.

And it will happen in your lifetime …

one way or another.

 

This Advent, this Christmas, I invite you to think about the Apocalypse,

the unveiling of Jesus Christ,

dare I say, the unwrapping of a gift,

the present God gives us of reality,

marked not only in the fabric of time and space,

but on the fabric of our very souls,

or core and our reality.

This post follows up on the last, in which I introduced the question of whether our universe continues down a fixed path or moves between possible paths.  Does the road fork?

Now that we have an idea of a branching or unbranching universe, I want to tackle the question of vision.  This is particularly important for an a empiricist, like myself.  I value what my senses tell me – but I’m also cautious.  Vision may not always be so straightforward as it appears.

I can look see things in the present, both in a literal sense and in a figurative sense.  If I say that I see my desk, that’s a literal statement.  Photons travel from my desk to my eyes, where they cause electrical impulses to travel to my brain.  If I say that I see what you mean, I’m being figurative.  It may well be that the same result occurs – electrical impulses in my brain -  but we think of it differently.  Medieval scholars called this faculty for having pictures in our head “imagination” and they debated quite hotly over the relationship between the internal image and the external reality.  These days we tend to reserve “imagination” for talking about things we see in our heads that don’t exist anywhere else.  Then, scholars wondered (following Plato) if the images came from some real, but non-physical source – the realm of perfect Ideas.  They thought the intellect “saw” things which the senses could not.  Just like sense vision, intellectual vision was an internal process that reflected an external reality.

Thus, when they imagined future events, they thought they must in some sense exist.  Otherwise, we couldn’t “see” them.  This begs the question of what it means to “see” the future.

Let me introduce two new words – retrospection for seeing the past and prospection for seeing the future.  We recognize that retrospection and prospection must be more like imagination than they are like physical vision.  We also recognize that they operate very differently.  Our retrospection may be clouded – we may not know what happened – but we are confident that there is exactly one past.  Beyond the clouds lies a single path stretching back into history.

On the other hand, prospection presents us with multiple futures.  Whether or not I believe in a branching universe, I must admit that two types of prospective images may inhabit my universe, futures that might come to pass and futures that cannot come to pass.  The former are possibilities, the latter illusions.  Strict determinists think that there is only a single future, one actual/possible and many illusions.  Non-determinists think there are at least two possibles (still only one actual) and many illusions.

Sadly, many of us can be confused by retrospection, prospection, and statistics.  How do you interpret statistics?  Retrospective statistics work beautifully.  I can say that the Sun has risen 100% of all days in history.  I can say that I flipped the coin 500 times and it came up heads (roughly) 50% of the times.  I can say that half of the Cesium has decayed or that half of the planets had rings last time I checked.  But what does it mean to apply statistics to the future?  What does it mean to say that 50% of future coin tosses will be heads or half of all planets we will observe have rings?  It becomes a problem of induction.  How do you argue from the past to the future?

The inequality of retrospection and prospection makes this particularly painful.  We want future probabilities to correspond to the proportion of imagined futures that agree with the actual future.  In either case we have to account for illusions, but in the branching path case, we also have to account for the chances of going down different possible paths.

When I say that physical determinism has been ruled out, I mean that the actual future cannot be predicted from the current state of the universe, but I have not said whether it is obscured by ignorance (as with retropsection), by illusions, or by multiple possibilities.  All three are consistent with quantum mechanics.  Empiricism cannot resolve the issue because, even if there are multiple paths, the whole set of communicating scientists travels down exactly one path.  The other patch can never be directly observed, only prospected.