One with God, Creation and One Another

 

One with God, Creation, and One Another

We are asked in Baptism: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Once you experience this – seeing the Christ in one person – it then becomes easy to see Christ in “all persons.” This is what storyteller Matthew imagines what the Day of the Lord, or the Day of Judgment, will look like (Matt 25:31-46). Whether or not we recognize Christ in others, there he is right in front of us in all these poor, forgotten, marginalized people he is talking about serving. As you feed the hungry, you are feeding Christ, whether you recognize him or not. It’s what the ancient Celts were getting at by seeing and talking about the Oneness of us all; the Oneness of all creation! People must have experienced this in Christ, in Jesus. He was capable of seeing no distinctions among different people. 

There is a possible translation problem It says “all,” pantes, “nations,” ethne. Which is possible. Yet, biblical documents written in Greek, ethne more often is used to translate the Hebrew goyim, or Gentiles. Broadly, gentile simply means non-Jewish. Matthew writing after the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, gentile would also include non-Christians as well. This markedly changes how we might read this passage. And perhaps explains why both groups, those who serve those in need and those who don’t, neither is looking for Christ, nor do they recognize Christ. Despite Jesus declaring his Oneness with all those who are poor and disinherited. 

One of the first times I saw the face of Christ in another human being was in a movie called, Excuse Me, America, featuring Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, in North-East Brazil. In the movie he comes to America and meets with Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Caesar Chavez and others who, like himself in Brazil, worked for dignity and justice for all people – most especially the poor. Near the end of the movie Dom Helder is at an organizing meeting for the farmworkers in California, the crowd is singing We Shall Overcome, and the camera zooms in on Dom Helder’s face. With a beatific smile on his face, tears streaming down as he listens to the singing of the poor farmworkers, I could only see the Transfiguration of Christ. It was then that I instantly knew what he means when he says, “Although for some people it may appear strange, I declare that here in the North-East Christ is called Jose, Antonio, Severino, Maria, Ana, Fernanda. Ecce Homo! Here is Christ the human. The human being who needs justice, has the right to justice, deserves justice.” [i] 

It's important to know that Dom Helder’s life-long campaign on behalf of the poor everywhere met official resistance within the church. Yet, it was his deep understanding of this imagining of The Final Judgment in Matthew 25 that kept him true to serving the Christ in all humanity. Even his love of those who fought him in his quest for justice for all. 

Ever since, it has been my experience that those who practice the most devoted service to others have always been the most Christ-like persons I have ever met. And in every instance, they would be the last people to even think that they were Christ-like in any way – which, of course, makes their service to others, especially the poor and disinherited, even more Christ-like. As Dom Helder also says “He [Christ] said, whoever is suffering, humiliated, crushed is he. In our own time, when more than two-thirds of the human race are living in sub-human conditions, it’s easy enough to meet him in the flesh…For my part I am as sure of Christ’s existence as I am of my own hand with its five fingers I can touch and see. I meet Jesus every day. And we are one. No doubt about it.” [ii]  I meet Jesus every day. No doubt about it. 

We call this Christ the King Sunday – and yet our Lord and King is best seen among those who are hungry, thirsty, in jail, naked, sick, and strangers in the land. It’s a very different kind of King whose kingdom is realized among those who serve those most desperately in need. Those who serve, as Matthew tells it, do not seem to recognize the Christ in those they serve, and least of all in themselves. They are not necessarily Christians, or Jews, or of any other religious practice. 

I believe Matthew’s Jesus challenges the Church itself. He seems to say: If these Gentiles, non-Christians, non-Jews, know how to love God and love neighbor without ever hearing my teaching, how much more must our community of Christ be so directed in all that we say and all that we do? There is no other reason we are here. 

Before we, or any church, says or does anything at all, it is paramount that we recognize this mystical Oneness that Dom Helder lived and breathed all of his 90 years among us. It is utterly freeing to abandon the natural tendency to focus on our differences and those dimensions of “self” that divide us, and to focus wholeheartedly on our inherent Oneness. It changes everything. Those in power, those who wield power, want us to believe life is about fighting for all we can get – individually, and as a nation. It’s every man, woman and child for themselves. This is what is most often recognized as kingdoms and empires: grabbing for ourselves the land and the resources of others for our own consumption. Many of the parables of Jesus recognize this as human sin. Instead, Jesus advocates a reversal, a turning of the world right-side up again! And people like Dom Helder, Dorothy Day, Caesar Chavez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez and countless others throughout the centuries have worked for such a just and dignified society, with or without any personal knowledge of Christ – just like the folks in our vision of the Final Judgment who ask, “When did we see you naked, hungry, thirsty, sick and in prison?” 

We do well to remember just how this feast of The Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe came to be. Pope Pius XI, writing in the aftermath of World War I, noted that while there had been a cessation of hostilities, there was no true peace. He deplored the rise of class divisions, unbridled nationalism, and a world that was being gripped by anti-Semitic and authoritarian-fascist dictators. He felt the church, of all institutions, needed to return to being icons of Christ – those who day in and day out see Christ in all persons, respecting the dignity of every human being. We must ask just how important this vision of Pius is for our time? 

Oscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, in a homily on March 24, 1980, in a small hospital chapel said, “God’s reign is already present on our earth in mystery. When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection. That is the hope that inspires Christians. We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.” [iii] Minutes later, while celebrating the Eucharist, Romero was shot down by government assassins. For serving the poor, the destitute, the disinherited. For living a Christ-like life. For seeing Christ every day in the poor he served. May we ponder the symmetry: November begins with All Saints and ends with Christ the King.

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[i] Hall, Mary, The Impossible Dream: The Spirituality of Dom Helder Camara (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY:1980) from his Inaugural Address, quoted on p.75

[ii] McDonagh, Francis, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings, (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY:2009) p.120

[iii] Brockman, James R., SJ, The Violence of Love: Oscar Romero (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY: 1988) p.206

Fearlessness Proper 28A

Fearlessness

God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Tim: 1:7 

Fearlessness. Stories of fearlessness. Which I fear we confuse with ruthlessness. When it really is about abandoning our fears so we may be more attentive, more present, to the ways of the Lord. Which itself is about risking to use the gifts we have been given profligately, rather than fiercely holding onto them, which results in a false sense of security. 

We see this illustrated in the story in Judges chapters 4&5. We are told that the people had sinned. No specific sin is mentioned, but most often it is forgetting that as we have received God’s love and mercy, so we are to extend these gifts not only to one another, but to all others. The narrator tells us the result of this lack of love for our neighbors resulted in God sending a foreign army and a foreign king to reign harshly over Israel for twenty years. Two things in this. First, twenty years is not meant to be a specific amount of time, but rather suggests it was a long, long time. Secondly, it does not mean that God literally sent King Jabin and his 900 chariots under the command of General Sisera. Rather, Hebrew scripture is unique in the world of ancient literature, and assumes that the conquest was a result of the people having lost their way, burying the love of God, ignoring the needs of others, and that therefore it must be offensive to God. That is, they assume responsibility for their actions, or inaction, and accept that their own behavior resulted in a long-time crisis. 

Indeed, God’s bountiful love and mercy is evidenced by God raising up a new prophet and leader for Israel to meet the current crisis. A woman. Deborah. We are not told how she communicates with God, and God with her, but she sends Barak of Naphtali to meet the 900 chariots of Sisera and drive out the foreign invaders once and for all. Barak insists that she accompany him. She agrees, but makes sure he understands that it will be a woman who fells Sisera. The armies of Barak prevail, but General Sisera escapes and seeks comfort and a hiding place in a home he believes to be safe. The woman of the tent, Jael, takes Sisera in, covers him with a blanket, and provides him with milk and curds to eat. Weary from running, and filled with Jael’s provisions, Sisera falls asleep, ordering her to tell no one that he is not there. Yes, she says. But then, while he sleeps, she drives a stake through his temple, fulfilling the prophecy of Deborah that Sisera would ultimately be felled by a woman. Deborah and Jael, because of their fearlessness on behalf of the whole community,  are two of the most popular female names in Israel to this day. 

In what many think is one of the oldest poems in all of the Bible, the Song of Deborah celebrates this saving event: “…when people offer themselves willingly, bless the Lord…Most blessed of women is Jael…of tent dwelling women most blessed. He [Sisera] asked for water, and she gave him milk, she brought him curds in a lordly bowl.” [i] This ancient tale of God’s ultimate forgiveness and mercy still has lessons for us all today. Jabin and Sisera stand as symbols of the many oppressive consequences of human sin. Just as Deborah and Jael highlight God’s choice of these two women to fearlessly remind one and all of God’s concern that oppression needs to be rooted out and not allowed to stand. The commemorative poem also shows surprising compassion for Sisera’s mother: “Out the window she peered, the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice – Why is his chariot so long in coming? … Are they not finding and dividing the spoil? …Spoil of dyed stuffs for Sisera, spoil of dyed stuffs, embroidered, two pieces of dyed work embroidered for my neck as spoil?” This ancient Israelite poem recognizes the sadness and pathos of so many others on both sides when the battle is over.   

Then there is another odd story from Jesus about a man leaving on a journey. He entrusts his property to three servants: five talents to one, two to another, and one to a third. A talent was roughly equal to 20 years wages for a common laborer, perhaps in the neighborhood of anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000 in today’s dollars! When the master returns, the servants are asked to account for what they have done with what he gave each of them. Two invested wisely, and doubled the value of what had been entrusted to them. The third was fearful and had buried the talent entrusted to him. He returns just the one talent to the master. To say the master is unimpressed with the servant’s excessive prudence, has him “cast into the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.” The story ends with an easily misunderstood proclamation: Ordering the one talent to be given to the servant with ten, the master says, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” [ii] 

It's easy to misunderstand the lesson here if we think strictly in terms of the money involved. What if the talents represent the power of the Holy Spirit given to the disciples when Jesus returned to the household of God’s eternal love. Jesus left them with two gifts, two charges: Love God, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself; as God has forgiven and loved you. There was great hope throughout the church that Jesus would return to subdue the Roman Empire once and for all. Jesus’s telling of this odd story suggests that in the meantime, in the days between, his followers are to be fearless in loving God and loving neighbors – all neighbors, including people with whom we have had historic differences like the Samaritans. As the Second Letter of Timothy declares, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a strong mind!” [iii] And as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 13:11, “And the God of love and peace will be with you.” 

These are the “talents” that have been generously given to us all: the very means to be a people of love and peace, and the promise of God’s presence wherever we may be, no matter what the current crisis may be. Paul further instructs the Corinthian church, and thereby all of us, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test. … but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” [iv] 

This is the fearlessness God in Christ wants for us. Gives to us. Expects us to use for the spread of the Kingdom of God here and now. The One who came to us from Love, returned to Love, so that we might be his people of Love throughout and all around the world. God was with Deborah and Jael. God was with the two servants who risked using the talents entrusted to them, rather than give in to fearfulness, saving God’s love and mercy for a rainy day. Every day is a rainy day.  How might we be the good and faithful servants of the Lord like all those who have gone before us? How might we, in times of great crisis, be fearless on behalf of the truth? On behalf of God’s kingdom of mercy and love?

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[i] Judges 5: 1-31

[ii] Matthew 25:14-30

[iii] 2 Timothy 1:7

[iv] 2 Corinthians 13:5-10 

Apocalypse Now! Proper 27A

 

Apocalypse Now! Proper 27A

Back in the beginning of the present century, on my way to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Old Ellicott City, I would pass a billboard that said something like: May 21/Be ready. It was paid for by radio evangelist Harold Camping who had predicted that Jesus and the Rapture would arrive on May 21, 2011, to transport faithful Christians to His Heavenly Banquet! Needless to say, May 21 came, and went, and here we are. This expectation was a total fiction. 

The Rapture is not found in the Bible. An English pastor in the 19^th century named William Miller came up with this idea. He predicted a specific date. He and his followers watched and waited. The day came and went, and there they were. Despite this failure, Millerites and others have persisted in making other predictions, none of which have come to pass, and here we are. If one Googles, “Does the Bible speak of The Rapture,” the answer is: The word rapture isn't used in the Holy Bible, but the idea of Judgment Day appears in all the canonical gospels. Rapture is a modern, not a biblical, contrivance. Such expectations are a complete fiction. 

Imagine my surprise last weekend when I opened the Sports section to find the comics, first opening to the Arts page, to find the following book listed in the New York Times Nonfiction Best Sellers at # 9: The Great Disappearance: 31 Ways to Be Rapture Ready, by David Jeremiah! God bless Dr. Jeremiah, for outlining with authority, step-by-step, how the Rapture will take place whenever it does. But really, I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t this be on the Fiction top ten list?” 

Not entirely. Our spiritual foremothers and forefathers wrote of a day of judgment. Such an idea exists in both Old and New Testament texts. Not necessarily as a literal expectation. Not as a literal truth. Rather, more like a genre – a genre of literature called apocalyptic that occurs in historical periods when the People of God are in crisis. The principal crises are slavery in Egypt, the captivity in Babylon, and the Occupation by Rome and destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. 

Such texts write of a hoped for and extraordinary intervention by YHWH, the God of the Exodus with whom Joshua calls the people to renew and reaffirm their covenant relationship. [i] As they leave the Wilderness Sojourn to enter the land the Lord has promised to be their new home, they are to swear off the local gods and idols and renew their loyalty to the Lord YHWH and no other, as had been outlined at Mount Sinai. 

Carried off into slavery once more to Babylon, along with the writings of the prophets who do their best to explain how this crisis arose, were some apocalyptic writers who urged the people not to worry. As in our shared past, the Lord shall intervene once more. In the meantime, remain loyal and continue to live life according to the covenant and its 613 Torah commandments. Indeed, it came to pass that Cyrus of Persia (modern day Iran) liberated the people and facilitated their return to Jerusalem, and the lands of Judah and Israel. 

The next crisis was being a colony of first the Greek and then the Roman empire. Faithful living of Torah became increasingly challenging. The Pharisees advocated strict following of the commandments. The Sadducees advocated strict observance of the ritual sacrifices in Jerusalem. Some groups returned to the wilderness and lived strict ascetical lives of excessive purification. And some followed Jesus who advocated love of God and love of neighbor to be The Way, or The Path, to eventual salvation from the Roman occupation. By the time the Temple was destroyed there existed nascent Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean. 

Again, there arose those who wrote apocalyptic visions urging the now two communities in crisis to stay the course of Torah, of the commandments, but with one obvious change: with no Temple there could be no more sacrifices. Thus, was born rabbinic Judaism as we know it today, in which most important festivals are celebrated around the family dinner table, and Christianity, with its unique sacrificial and eschatological meal we call The Eucharist, or Holy Communion. 

The most controversial New Testament document was an apocalyptic vision called The Revelation of John, presumed to be written by an exile on the island of Patmos with an extraordinary grasp of the texts of the Old Testament. It is estimated that fully 80-90% of John’s Revelation is directly quoted from or refers to Old Testament texts. This was truly ingenious! 

Although classic apocalyptic literature in the Bible often looked forward to a “day of the Lord,” John’s Revelation makes an astonishing and breathtaking claim: the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is that day of the Lord. That is, God’s saving event has already happened! Now we are to live accordingly no matter what the current crisis may be. 

Enter our story about Ten Bridesmaids and a banquet in Matthew 25. It’s a rather awkward story about ten maidens who have lamps, but only five of them have enough oil to light their lamps. There is a long delay of the bridegroom coming; he arrives in the middle of the night; we are meant to think that shops will be open at that hour; the unwillingness of the wise maidens to share their oil; when the five return from town the door is shut on them; followed by the strange injunction to “Keep Awake.” (Stay Woke?) Strange, because the failure of the unwise maidens is not that they have overslept, but that they have not prepared for the arrival of the Bridegroom. All this adds up to a truly odd story indeed. [ii] 

Yet, way back in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “In everything, do to others what you would have them do for you.” Then insists that this “doing for others” is bearing the good fruit of the kingdom. Trees that bear bad fruit will be thrown into a fire. Therefore, he concludes, if you are not prepared, not living the Golden Rule, the door will be shut. “I do not know you!”  [iii] 

Two takeaways from this odd story. First, we must remember it is addressed to insiders, members of the community of faith, not outsiders. This is no condemnation of those beyond the Church. Ignoring to love God and love neighbor here and now is the problem. We make ourselves outsiders by not loving our neighbors – all neighbors, no matter who, what, or where. Second, it is “Apocalypse Now,” not later. There is no time to wait. No time to be idle. As John the Revelator declares, “He is risen! He is here! He is with us now and always! Live accordingly!” The Day of the Lord has already come. Now is the time for the rest of the story. We are to be the rest of the story! It turns out that instead of 31 ways to become “rapture ready” there are just two. The Greatest Commandment of all; the summary of the Law and the Prophets: Love God and Love Neighbor. Now! If not now, when? For The Rapture is here and now! Christ is alive!

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[i] Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

[ii] Matthew 25:1-14

[iii] Matthew 7:12-29

I Meant to Be One Two All Saints Sunday 2023

 I Mean to Be One Too!

All Saints Day. We do not tend to think of ourselves as saints. And yet, in the early church everyone who chose to follow The Way of Jesus were often referred to as “the saints.” All were seeking to repent – literally turn their lives around – and accept Jesus’s invitation to live one’s life “as if” the kingdom of heaven could become a reality as the kingdom of God here and now. 

We read the opening passage of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5-7 of Matthew’s gospel, for it is this teaching that forms what Amy Jill Levine calls “A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven.” [i] Jesus begins with a series of blessings which we call The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12. A resource I used to use in leading Youth Groups called these blessings Be-Attitudes – Attitudes of Being – how to be a follower of the Christ in this world. How to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth – as later in Mathew Jesus teaches us to pray, “on Earth as it is in heaven.” 

I have long found it curious that certain people who identify as Christians insist on posting the Ten Commandments all over the place, rather than these core principles of kingdom living, these Be-Attitudes, in which Jesus calls us to be merciful, to be peacemakers, to be humble and meek, to be pure in heart, to be righteous. Most of all, to feel blessed and rejoice, even in the most difficult of times. For even the prophets, often faced the most difficult of times, found time to rejoice and be glad. Most of us can agree, the times have become difficult no matter how and from what perspective we might look at things. The first thing we neglect to do is to rejoice and be glad that despite how dark things may appear, we have these Attitudes of Being to fall back on, no matter what. 

First of all, these opening words of the sermon seek to remind us of the most fundamental dimension of being human: we are created in the image – the eikon, or icon – of God. That is, we are placed on “this fragile earth, our island home” as something like a marker one uses to spot one’s ball on the green of a golf course. We have been placed here as a reminder that this planet comes from a force, an energy, a life-giving source greater than ourselves – beyond our tiny selves in the vastness of this seemingly endless universe! At the same time, we are placed here as those beings who have been blessed with memory, reason and the skills to be the caretakers of the planet and all the creatures that inhabit it. 

Second of all, these Attitudes of Being mirror the very characteristics of the God, the Source, the Energy that has placed us here as caretakers: humility, which comes from a root meaning “of the earth;” purity of heart and mind; mercy; righteousness; joy and gladness. Yes, even when things are at their worst, as when they threw the prophet Jeremiah into the bottom of a well to shut him up from telling the truth no one wanted to hear, even then we are to be glad that we have lived up to these Attitudes of Being with faithfulness and righteousness, talking truth to power. 

AJ, as Amy Jill Levine likes to be called, points out something I would never have noticed on my own. This word “righteousness” in the Sermon on the Mount points back to the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel and the inclusion of four women in a long list of patriarchs: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. These four women, each in her own peculiar way sometimes, represent what righteousness is all about – putting the needs of someone else ahead of your own. Which, as we know, is the basis of the kind of agape love of neighbor the Bible always reminds us that we are to practice. 

Judah, Tamar’s father-in-law, by whom she conceives twins, is the one who says that she “is more righteous than I.” Rahab, a Canaanite woman in Jericho, not only deceives her king to save the lives of two Israelite spies, but also strikes a deal with them to save her family after the walls come tumbling down. Ruth, a Moabite widow, does the hard work of harvesting a field to save and protect the life of her widowed mother-in-law Naomi, as the two of them are refugees seeking asylum in Israel. And Bathsheba reminds us also of her husband, Uriah the Hittite, a faithful foreign soldier who refuses to leave his forward unit despite the danger that ultimately takes his life. And of course, the genealogy tells us of Joseph, who refuses to dismiss his betrothed Mary who is pregnant, he knows not how; refuses to humiliate her; but rather marries her, and protects her and her son by fleeing as refugees to seek asylum in Egypt when Herod threatens to kill her child and all other infants in Bethlehem. These otherwise ordinary people are icons of God and icons of righteousness. People who put the needs of others ahead of their own – and even beyond generally accepted norms! [ii] 

In honor of the four righteousness women, we do well to honor the first woman listed in our calendar of saints in the Book of Common Prayer: January 9, Julia Chester Emery, Missionary, whose life spanned from 1852-1922. One of eleven children of Sea Captain, and devout Episcopalian, Charles Emery and his wife Susan. Like most of her siblings, Juila devoted herself to religious service to others. [iii] At the age of 24, like her sister Mary before her, Julia became National Secretary of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Board of Missions for forty years. This lay woman, visited every diocese in our church to raise money and support for missionaries around the world, and started the United Thank Offering in which people throughout the church would have a small blue box with a slit on the top. One is to put a few coins or bills in the box each time you feel thankful. These offerings are collected to this day to support mission efforts at home and abroad. Under her guidance, women received canonical status to become deaconesses in the church, and were granted special status at our church’s General Convention. Each year on January 9, we are to remember the righteousness of Julia Chester Emery, a laywoman, who worked tirelessly on behalf of the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

We sing, “for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” A hymn first published in 1929, authored by another woman, Lesbia Scott. Ms. Scott composed a number of hymns and tunes for her own children, and published them in a collection, Everyday Hymns for Little Children. As we sing this song, we are to remember, not all the saints were martyred or performed heroic deeds, but folks like you and me. Ordinary people who live faithful lives according to the principles outlined in the Beatitudes, Attitudes of Being. 

All Saints Day. A time to remember just who we are and whose we are. We are all of us saints created in the image of God, to bring forward these Attitudes of Blessing and Being: humility, righteousness, peacemaking, courage, and mercy. Being merciful, wrote Kurt Vonnegut, is the one good idea we have been given so far. As we seek to embody the kind of life Jesus announces in his first public teaching, we are promised a life for which we and others can all rejoice and be glad! We are God’s beloved. God is well pleased with us! Amen.

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[i] Levine, Amy Jill, Sermon on the Mount (Abingdon Press, Nashville:2020)

[ii] Ibid, p.xv-xvi

[iii] Book of Common Prayer, p.19