Christopher L. Webber's Blog, page 16

In the Spirit

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church, Bantam, on the Feast of Pentecost, May 19, 2013.

When I was eleven years old  I nearly died of pneumonia. I was in the hospital for a month  and almost every day they gave me blood transfusions. That was state of the art medicine in those days and they had only recently learned about  matching blood types. They had a problem matching my blood type so they asked for volunteers from the community and found a man who matched  who was a left-handed pitcher on the town baseball team. I don’t know whether he ever knew who the recipient was and at that age I didn’t dare approach  someone that much bigger and older even to say “thank you” but I went to see the baseball games between my town,  Cuba, New York, and teams from other towns and I always felt a special link to my “blood brother” out there on the mound. It didn’t make me left-handed  and I never learned to pitch all that well but my body was as happy  with his blood as mine and I lived to tell about it.

Since that time, of course,  we’ve learned to share more than blood. Now we can transplant kidneys and  even hearts. Fortunately, we human beings have a lot in common with each other and the Bible shows us how deep that connection is and how much deeper it can be. One thing the Bible takes for granted  that we mostly don’t is this:  there is no word in the Bible  for the individual human body, only for the flesh we have in common. There are words for head and hand and foot and so on  but no word for an individual human body. It’s a way of looking at human life  that I think we Americans  have trouble understanding.  We’re brought up to believe in individualism.  We want to be self-supporting and self-sufficient.

I may have said before that when I lived in Japan  I was surprised to hear the Japanese say so often, “Watakushitachi Nipponjin wa . . .” – “we Japanese” believe this or think that, and I remember thinking Americans don’t generalize that way about us. We Americans don’t tend to think alike or do things in groups. Maybe especially in New England we like our privacy. So I remember being surprised when I first learned that the Hebrew language has no word  for the individual body. It just wasn’t a way of thinking  that I had encountered before. Or maybe I should say I had encountered it but hadn’t taken it in, hadn’t thought about it,  hadn’t understood it. But it’s certainly there  in St Paul’s epistles when he talks about the church as  the body of Christ. “You are the body of Christ,” he writes,  “and everyone members of it.”

We have a shared humanity.  The lines between us aren’t as hard and fast as we like to think.  St. Paul, our patron saint, spoke often about that shared humanity  and he took it to the next level.  He was speaking about how we know that shared humanity in the church,  how even more intensely we Christians share a common humanity.  We have a shared life in the church, we are one body, as we have been saying at the breaking of the bread, because we share the risen life of Christ.  We are one body; we are the body of Christ  and individually members of it. “If one member suffers,” Paul wrote, “all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26)  So that’s a basic aspect of being a Christian:  a shared humanity deepened and enriched by sharing  the life of Christ.

But it’s not just our human flesh that unites us, is it?  Not even just our shared life in Christ. There’s something more to being human  and we call it Spirit. We know it in lots of ways.  There’s team spirit and  low spirits and high spirits. The Holy Spirit is similar: it comes and goes  invisibly but makes an enormous difference.  It’s similar to team spirit and good spirits  but it’s the Holy Spirit and that Spirit makes a difference  all through the Bible but especially in the prophets  and in the life of the early church. It’s the Holy Spirit: God making a difference in our lives.

Now, Pentecost is the festival of the Spirit.  Why isn’t it a bigger festival  than Christmas or Easter? Pentecost is the festival of the Spirit.  Christmas is about Jesus; Easter is about Jesus; Christmas and Easter are about  Jesus coming to be with us and that’s a good thing. But Pentecost is about the Spirit,  and whether we know Jesus or not, we all know the Spirit. We know about team spirit and good spirits  and that invisible something that gets into us and changes our day. And we know how we come away  feeling better about ourselves when we work together with others  in any group effort – like last week’s tag sale, for a simple example. There’s a spirit of unity  and sometimes that spirit comes from God and is known as the Holy Spirit: God in us, God at work within us. So I think we know the Spirit well,  but we go long days, even years sometimes, without noticing, recognizing,  that Spirit within, opening ourselves to that Spirit,  seeking the gifts of that Spirit.

Years and years ago, for some reason,  I began to take an interest in wild flowers and trees and as I learned the names of the roadside plants  I began to notice them as more than just  spots of color beside the road  but now as colts foot  and boneset and chicory  and Joe Pye weed and Queen Ann’s lace and it was like seeing them for the first time. I guess there had always been bergamot growing here and there, but I didn’t really see it until I knew it’s name. I learned about trees, too,  and suddenly I wasn’t just seeing trees but ash and maple and oak  and shag bark hickory. They’d been there all along  but I hadn’t really seen them  because I didn’t know their names. I was blind because I didn’t know the names  for what I was seeing.

I think it’s like that with the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is at work on every side but we don’t notice,  don’t put a name to it, because we’re blinded by familiarity.  It’s like the school boy  who got to seventh grade English and suddenly discovered  that he’d been speaking prose all his life.  The Spirit is at work on every side  but often unrecognized, often unrecognized because so various  and so unpredictable. I mean, it’s one thing to spot a roadside columbine  because they’re always the same shape and size and range of color – but the Holy Spirit is not like that, not predictable.

We sang about the Spirit just now in a hymn that asked for God to come like fire and burn “earthly passions . . .to dust and ashes.”  Really?  Do we really want our agendas, our passions, our likes and dislikes, burned away? It could happen. I’ve known people  who wouldn’t have gone to church on a bet who suddenly found a whole new center  for their lives. And whatever they had done before became dust and ashes, no longer important  because of their new focus. It can happen.  The Spirit is like fire -  it can warm us when we’re cold  and we like that but it can also burn away the false priorities  and re-center our lives and that may be harder to accept.

The Spirit is compared to fire  in our hymns and prayers and fire is essential to human life  but fire is dangerous.  Fire can warm, yes, and fire can destroy.  What is the Spirit doing in the church today? I wish I knew.  Sometimes it seems like a destructive fire. I read last week about the closing  of another church and I wonder what’s happening.

Fifty years ago I moved to a new parish  and preached about the work of the Holy Spirit who was reforming the church’s liturgy,  purging away old customs and patterns, putting a new emphasis on lay ministry. New things were happening and the church was growing  but old patterns were purged away, burned away,  and it wasn’t always easy. There was a new prayer book and women being ordained  and some people left rather than face the new. And now what?  The diocese is closing churches. So are most major denominations. Fire purges out, burns away, sweeps away whole communities – you see  on the evening news people coming back  to areas of California where there’s been forest fire  to find their homes gone and a need to rebuild and start over.  It can’t be easy. Fire sweeps away some ecclesiastical homes as well.

Lots of churches, as I said, are closing these days and I don’t think it’s a lack of faith or zeal. When I was ordained churches were growing  but I don’t think we had better Christians then or better clergy.  It was easier then in a lot of ways  to be a Christian and not so easy now. Maybe the Holy Spirit wants to challenge us and see whether we’re up to the challenge. I was reading last week about the church in Africa, in the Sudan, where 30 years ago 5% were Christian and now 85% – Mostly Anglicans and Roman Catholics. And what has happened in that thirty years  to grow the church?  Persecution and civil war. In a population of some 6 million,  over two million have died,  half of them Anglicans. There are no buildings left, no churches or schools,  in an area the size of Alaska. None of the clergy are paid. Many have been driven into exile in Uganda and Kenya.  But the church has grown, grown like wild fire.  But purged by fire.

What is the spirit doing here in our society? Maybe the Holy Spirit has an agenda  and we have no choice but to try to follow and learn, try to recognize new plants growing up and put names to them. We may see things we hadn’t expected to see  or wanted to see and we may need to learn to say,  “Yes, that’s the Holy Spirit at work purging, burning, renewing, restoring,  inspiring, uniting.”  These are hard times for the church  but don’t ask what’s wrong, ask what’s right. Ask what God is doing in places  where we may not see it at first, may even see it as negative. But it is God’s church still  and God always gives us what we need to do the work God gives us to do.

Ask God to help you see what that work is here and now.  And pray, always pray, for the vision and wisdom and strength to see and do the ministry  God gives you.  The Spirit inspires and purges and burns and renews  but above all the Spirit unites. Just as the same blood flows in our veins – different types but basically the same – so the same Spirit moves in our lives – yours and mine,  uniting us in a common mission. We have different gifts of course,  but there’s one Spirit and a common mission  wherever we may be.

This is the festival of the Spirit  the Spirit that comes like the wind and blows us around  sometimes to distant places but still we share one life. I need to close this last sermon here by saying  how grateful I am that the Spirit  brought me here for a while,  grateful for the gifts and the life we have shared, grateful that we will continue to be  not blood brothers and sisters but brothers and sisters in the Spirit, always members of one another, and still sharing a common life.

Jesus is King?

I used to like Ascension-tide.  It’s upbeat.  It’s concrete.  It’s something to celebrate:  Jesus is King.  Our guy won.  The world is his oyster.

But lately I’ve begun to worry about it  and wonder whether we should  maybe even take it off the calendar. Fact is, they have down graded it. It used to be called “the Sunday after the Ascension”  but now that’s only the subtitle and the real name is “the Seventh Sunday of Easter.”  I think we’re a little nervous about the Ascension these days  There’s the whole up/down problem of the three-storey universe but I also wonder  whether it conveys a message of domination in a world where that’s a dangerous model.  I mean, do we really need to hold up the idea of power as good  in a world where power is usually bad?

I remember reading an essay a long time ago by an English theologian  in which he puzzled over the way Americans accept the idea of Jesus as king.  He said in effect,  “Here we have a whole country full of people insisting on democracy  and yet completely untroubled by the idea of Jesus as king.”  Well, why is it that we still go slightly crazy over Prince Harry and roll out the red carpet for royal visitors?  We fought a war to be rid of royalty and then we welcome the royals back  even though most of them  are hardly role models for anyone?  Why are we so willing to accept the notion that Jesus is King?  As if royalty and power were something wonderful?

And it’s not just Ascension Day by any means and not just the word King. To use the name “Jesus Christ” is to say it again. Christ means King, so Jesus Christ is King Jesus  and what does that really say  about our relationship with God and our relationships with each other? Think about it.

Well, begin by thinking about Jesus.  Can you read the gospels  and come away with a picture of Jesus as King? Again and again people  tried to push that role on him and again and again he resisted.  In the gospel of John, it says:  “When Jesus realized  that they were about to come and take him by force  to make him king,  he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” When Pilate asked Jesus:  “Are you the king of the Jews?”  Jesus never gave a direct answer. He said, “I came to bear witness to the truth.”  And did he act like a king? Did he in any way imply that he had come to take power?  When he entered Jerusalem, the royal city, he rode in on a humble donkey  and yes, people hailed him as king but I see nothing in the story that implies a desire for royal power. No, the story is one of humility, the rejection of power, and when Pilate nailed a sign to the cross that said, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews,  it was intended to be a sneer at the Jews – this crucified criminal is a Jewish king –  but it also summed up, it seems to me, exactly what Jesus thought of kingship:  a useless title, an empty honor, a symbol supreme  of the worthlessness of human power. And the gospel of John seems to say  that if you want to see what human power is like, what kingship is really like, you should look at the cross. Jesus said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all people to myself.”

But is it the crown or the cross that has become  the fundamental symbol of Christianity  to which we have been drawn?  We know the answer. But have we ever really tried to apply it?  I think you could argue that this country did. We created a country without a king,  a unique experiment.  You have to wonder why it took so long for people to make the experiment because certainly the Bible provides a constant critique of the whole  notion of kingship. Way back in the Old Testament there’s a story  known as Jotham’s Fable  about a time when the trees decided to have a king. And they asked the olive tree to be king  and the olive tree said,  Should I stop producing oil in order to be your king? And they went to the vine and asked and the vine said “Should I stop making grapes for wine  to come and be your king?”  And so it went until they came to the harsh and useless thorn bush  and the thorn bush became their king.

Fast forward almost 3000 years and you come to  Alexis de Tocqueville,  the French philosopher and politician  who wrote a study of American life almost 200 years ago that is still studied today.  He commented on the fact that in America  “there was so much distinguished talent among the citizens and so little among the heads of the government.” That was almost 200 years ago and it seems to be still true, doesn’t it?  But isn’t that exactly the point  that Jotham’s fable is making:  the kings of this world, rulers of this world,  are people not much good for anything else. I hate to be cynical about government  but it’s awfully hard to be positive, isn’t it? As our coins say: In God we trust -  not in human leaders.

And that’s the story of the Old Testament:  once upon a time, there was no king in Israel because they were subject only to God. But then they came to a point where they insisted on having a king  so they could “be like other people.” And Samuel warned them what a king would be like. “A king,” he said, “will take your sons and daughters  to be his servants and take your wealth  to embellish his court”  But they insisted, We will have a king so we can be like other people. and so they were given kings who fought wars like other kings  until the country was destroyed.  And they never had another king but they survived  while other nations with powerful kings disappeared.  Why, then, would they still have hailed Jesus as king?  Why, then, do we still call him the Christ, the king? Why do we use the terms of human power in seeking a relationship with the spiritual? Haven’t we seen by now how destructive – and unconstructive – human power can be?

A year ago this time – how soon we forget – we were in the midst of our  quadrennial election cycle and struggling with the issue of what we know or need to know or want to know  or don’t want to know about how power has been used by those we have elected.  Power corrupts – Lord Acton’s summary of human experience is there in the Bible to be read. Jesus knew it, and avoided it,  and never claimed to be king.  And here we come hailing him as king and I see no good solution to it  until someone writes new hymns and new prayers  as joyful and positive as the old ones.  But I do think we can do two things now: one, look for better images for our relationship with God and two, look for better role models around us than we generally get from politics and the media.

Let me take the second one first.  I was talking with a college student a while ago  about her career goals and they were good ones.  She wanted to do  the kind of work our society needs but doesn’t pay for.  And I quoted my favorite slogan about career goals, the words of an English philosopher (C.E.M.Joad) who said,  “The purpose of a liberal arts education is  to enable you to despise the wealth  it prevents you from acquiring.”  I was delighted to discover that  she knew the saying  and had even seen it up-front in one of her text books. It occurs to me that we might describe Christianity as intended to help you despise the power  that can destroy your soul.

Why should it be that even in a democracy  there is still so much corrupting power?  Why should we have a system in which  money is the controlling influence? What would Jesus say? If we know the answer to that, and I think we do,  then can we find a relationship with Jesus more in keeping with his teaching and his life?  I think we can.

Start with the gospel story – the whole gospel: what does it show Jesus doing?  Do you see any evidence in him of a hunger for power,  a desire for people to kneel before him, any interest in titles,  any slightest implication that he asks us to treat him like royalty?  Then how do we come into a relationship with Jesus?  What images can we use? If you had been in first century Palestine, what would have happened?  I can imagine Jesus walking through town, stopping in a house here or an office there,  chatting with people at the Bantam Market, giving them a hand with their groceries. The relationship is one of friendship –  unlimited self-giving friendship that takes Jesus into places not considered respectable –  where would those be in Bantam and Litchfield?  –  and into relationships with people not considered respectable. Power hungry people don’t act that way. But Jesus wasn’t out for power,  he was seeking friendship with us. So friendship is one basic model for our relationship with Jesus and our relationships with others.

Or what about the image Jesus used of a vine and branches?  “Abide in me,” Jesus said. It’s a relationship of shared life,  a relationship with Jesus  that incorporates him into our daily lives,  in our hearts, on our mind, always within us – relationships with each other of shared life. That’s one model for our relationship with Jesus: the vine and the branches.

Then there’s also the sacrificial model: the cross. Jesus died for us, gave himself for us  and that’s perhaps the most critical model for us to hold up for ourselves  and for our world. When was the last time a politician called on you for self-sacrifice:  we’ve been asked to prosecute a war  without raising taxes and cut back on services, schools and health care and safety rather than raise taxes. Wouldn’t it make sense if we love our country to be asked to sacrifice for it?  Isn’t that democracy is all about?  You don’t expect kings to be self-sacrificing,  to turn down the thermostat in the palace, to invite the poor and the hungry in to share their wealth,  but isn’t that the model Jesus gives us?  St Paul said it best, I think,  in the Letter he wrote to the Christians in Philippi:   “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,  who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.”  Yes, every knee should bend  as we humble ourselves to serve our world as Jesus served and serves us.

So it’s Ascension-tide, let’s celebrate. But let’s remember also  that this Jesus we hail  came among us in poverty, descended all the way down to us before he ascended on high, and became our Lord through his humility,  through his death,  his total self-giving of himself for us. So let’s find ways to hold up that model, the model Jesus gave us, a way of life that rejects power but seeks humbly, sacrificially of living for our community, our friends, our world, and seeks to live in him and let him live in us.

The Strangeness of Prayer

A sermon preached at St. Paul’s Church Bantam, Connecticut, on May 5, 2013

Let me begin by telling you a story.  Four or five years ago, I woke up one morning remembering very clearly a dream. In my dream, I saw a stretch of road  that was very familiar to me. It’s New York State Route 74 that runs between Schroon Lake and Ticonderoga in the Adirondacks. My family often went there in the summer when I was growing up and my brother now lives on a side road  that goes off the main road at just the point  where I was standing in my dream  As I looked at the road, I saw that the east-bound traffic was backed up, not moving at all,  and I asked what the problem was and I was told that there had been a motorcycle accident.  That was my dream.

I don’t know who I spoke to or who answered my question.  I thought about that for a day or two  and then sent my brother an e-mail.  “Here’s a strange question,” I said: “would there have been an accident recently  on Route 74 near the turn to your road.”  The answer came back:  “Well, that’s really strange! I went in to the post office a couple of days ago  and they were talking about a motorcycle accident that had blocked the road  for a while.”

Now I tell you this story  to make only one simple point:  this world we live in is very strange.  This was, you might say, a useless dream.  I think the accident had happened  before I had the dream  but even if it was later, would I have sent my brother a warning?  And if I had, would he have stood out on the road and flagged down motorcycles to warn them? And if he had, wouldn’t the state police have taken him away  for further analysis?  So why?  My brother and I are good friends but not so terribly close that we read each other’s minds.  Why?  My only point is that the world is a strange place  and there are many aspects of it that defy scientific explanation.

I want you to think about that  because today is Rogation Sunday, the day when it was traditional  to pray for the crops. The word “Rogation” comes from the Latin word “To ask.”  It’s a day about prayer, about asking God to bless the crops,  so I want to talk about prayer.  I believe there is no more important thing we do  than pray and I want you to think about prayer. I want you to think about your life and your prayers and I want this sermon to make a difference  in your life and mine also so that we all spend more time in prayer. I know I don’t spend time enough in prayer  and I’m sure at least some of you also don’t pray enough.  I want to change that.

Now there are two poles of opinion about prayer.  And let me say, I am focusing on prayers of petition, prayers asking for something. There are other kinds of prayer: prayers of thanksgiving,  prayers of confession, and prayers of praise, but I think it’s prayers of petition  that cause the most trouble.  As I said, there are two poles of opinion  about prayers that ask God for things. One opinion is that prayer makes no difference; the world is what it is, it evolves in a mechanical,  scientific way and prayer makes no difference.  The other pole believes that prayer is a formula for changing things  and if you just pray the right way,  you’ll get good results.

I remember years ago  some people connected, I think, with Norman Vincent Peale,  a very popular self-help preacher fifty years ago, conducted an experiment.  They planted some seeds and they prayed for some of the seeds  and not for the others. And measured them to see  whether prayer made a difference. I don’t remember what the result was. That was a Protestant experiment  but I think Roman Catholics often make the same mistake. What is it that happens, when they canonize a saint?  They look for results. They form a commission  to investigate miracles attributed to the possible saint.  Usually there are claims of healing and they look for evidence  that someone was healed  when medical science said the disease  was beyond healing. Now, the funny thing is that both poles have  the same orientation. They’re both science based.  They both look at prayer as something that either works or doesn’t  and, one way or another, they think you can measure it, prove it, settle it one way or the other.  I don’t think so.

I think that misses the point, misunderstands prayer. Prayer is not a technique for getting things done.  It’s not like that, because God is not a machine. God is a personal God  and prayer is part of the relationship  between human persons  and a personal God. And that’s really all you need to know.

But a third mistake, it seems to me,  is often made by people who take that idea and run with it  and say, “Right, prayer isn’t about changing things, it’s about building relationships, getting us closer to God.”  And there’s some truth to that.  Other kinds of prayer are exactly about that: prayers of praise and thanksgiving  are about our relationship with God: not to change the world but to change us,  to get our lives back on center. If we praise God for God’s goodness  and give thanks for all God’s gifts, that builds up our relationship with God  and that’s a good thing. Prayers of Confession are like that too: they get us back together with God  by getting rid of the problem areas.

But that’s not what intercession and petition are about:  those are prayers that ask for something. And the question is whether we can still do that  In a scientific age. And I think we can – if we know what we’re doing.  We can make requests in prayer if we remember that we are dealing not with science and proof and results  but with interpersonal relationships: it’s all about us and a personal God.

And if it’s a personal relationship,  we ought to know what’s involved and what to expect. I mean, do you approach your husband or wife  as a scientific problem to be solved with measurable results?  Have you learned over the years that one approach gets better results than another?  Well, yes; it’s better to say “please” than to make demands. It’s better to ask when the sun is out  than when your partner’s plans just got rained on. But none of that is a formula.  Sometimes there’s no way to get what you want and you might as well accept it. And sometimes your partner reads your mind  and does what you want, gives you what you want, or something better than what you wanted,  without your ever asking at all. It’s a relationship.  But asking is part of it.

Some people say, If God knows what’s best,  why do I need to ask?  Can’t I just trust God to do what’s best for me? Well, no; because sometimes God can’t give you  what God wants to give just because you haven’t asked. Think again in personal terms.  Suppose your child is at the age when he or she might benefit by having a bicycle. They would be freer to go see their friends.  They could maybe run some errands for you. But they haven’t asked. So you wait, because if they don’t want it enough to ask,  they probably aren’t really ready for it. You’ll know they are ready when they ask and then you can give what they asked for. So God waits, maybe waits year after year,  for us to open the door for God to come in and give us  the guidance and strength we need that we can never get without asking,  opening ourselves, making room, for the gifts God wants us to have.

Look at prayers of asking that way:  look at them as part of a personal relationship. Look at them as part of a good relationship,  an intelligent, loving relationship.  I’ve known families in which  the relationship was not loving or intelligent.  I’ve known families in which  the children’s every wish was indulged: they got whatever they asked for. But they didn’t get what they needed,  which was love, not toys. I’ve known parents who gave their children  whatever they asked for, not because they loved them  but because they didn’t want to be bothered. God is not like that with us.  God wants to be bothered, God wants to give us gifts – and does -  but God also knows  whether we are able to use the gifts we ask for or whether it might be better for us  not to have them, to wait, to grow up, to mature,  to come to the point where the gift will be to our benefit, not our harm.  But don’t you be the judge of that.  Let God decide.

There’s an old Scottish catechism that says: “Prayer is the offering up of the desires to God  for things agreeable to God’s will . . .”  Prayer is saying: “God, this is what I want; give it to me if it’s your will, but give me what you know is best.”

Years and years ago,  I had an Inquirers’ Class of young couples who had recently moved to the area and we got on the subject of prayer.  And some were saying, “I don’t think we should pray selfishly for things we want.”  I said, “I think you should let God decide.  If there’s something you really want, be honest about it, tell God what you want,  and ask God to give you what you need.”   I said, “If you want a little red wagon,  tell God about it and get it off your chest and see what happens.”   Months later a man who had been there that night  stopped by to talk and he said, “Remember that talk you gave  about prayer and asking for what you really want – and little red wagons?”  And I said, “Yes, sure.”  And he said, “Well, the one thing young couples in this area really want is a house.  They get married and find an apartment and babies come along  and they want a house.”  And he said, “You know, all the couples in that group have gotten houses, and there are lots  of friends of ours who weren’t in that group and none of them have gotten houses.”

Tell God what you want.  Ask God to give you what you need. Don’t hold back.  Don’t say, “I don’t want to bother God with my petty concerns.” Tell God what you want – and maybe add a little, “But whatever . . .” afterwards.  Do you remember the story Jesus told  of the widow who kept coming to the corrupt judge asking for justice?  Finally the judge  gave her what she asked  just to be rid of her. Now that’s outrageous, but Jesus said, “Take that as an example. Wear God out with your prayers and maybe God will give you what you want  just to be rid of you.”  Jesus said it, not me. But take his advice, not mine.

Well, if you have children,  you know they want lots of things  and some things will be good for them  and some not.  And you are the decider. You might have given them the good things anyway  and they might not have needed to ask. But you don’t want them to stop coming to you  because you always know best. You want them to come; you want to hear what they’re thinking;  you want to build a deeper relationship  In the process. Ask.  God wants you to ask.  But be ready to accept answers  you hadn’t expected.

Think again about that dream of mine.  This world God created  is a strange and mysterious place. Learn to live with the mystery of things,  the unexpectedness  and unexplainableness of things. Accept the fact that we aren’t in charge and need to turn to God  again and again and may never know the result. But pray.  Deepen that relationship.  Ask God to make a difference. I promise you, God will – though you may not see it or know it or understand it.  But God will make a difference.  Ask for good leadership for this parish. Ask for new life for our church.  Ask for better health and lower taxes and a better class of politicians and fewer guns in the wrong hands and nice weather for the tag sale.  Ask.  Jesus told us to ask. So do what you’re told!

Visions and Reality

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church, Bantam, Connecticut, on April 28, 2013.

I remember an evening many years ago. I had just come to a new parish and a member of the parish had brought together several younger couples in the community, all nominal Episcopalians but non-participating, to meet the new Rector and perhaps be drawn back to the church. So we had a good dinner and then, while a recording of the Messiah played softly in the background, we were led into a discussion of why these particular people were not involved in the Church. There were lots of reasons. One didn’t like the church school, one didn’t like vestments, another was put off by something else. Some went elsewhere because their friends did.

Finally it came round to me to say something. And I had been more and more struck by the contrast between the music and the conversation. We had just reached the Hallelujah chorus; you heard it read this morning: “Hallelujah for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth – King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” The incongruity was just too much: the sublimity of the music and the pettiness of the conversation – and I guess I said so. So nothing came of it; but I still recall that night whenever I hear the Hallelujah chorus – or even the text from Revelation which we heard today.

If ever there were a text to embarrass and silence us, it’s this text: there is the vision of God in all God’s glory and here we are in all our triviality and pettiness. We are in the same position as Job after God had spoken. Job said: “My words have been frivolous: what can I reply? I had better lay my finger on my lips. I have spoken once … I will not speak again.”  On the one hand, the glory of God; on the other, the insignificance of humanity.

Think back; way back: suppose you had been a Christian in the years between 90 AD and 100. I wonder if there’s ever been a harder time for the church. The last one of the disciples who had known the Lord had died or was about to die. The first generation of witnesses was gone. The Messiah had not returned. And persecution had reached such a state that it seemed hardly possible to continue. Besides, the Christian Church itself was increasingly divided between different schools of thought, some teaching one thing and some another. Divided, discouraged, persecuted – how could this be the Messiah’s will?

One Christian who lived at that time, a leader in his church, was sent into exile on a tiny island off the coast of Asia Minor. He no longer had even his faithful congregation to sustain him.  And there, in exile from that tiny, discouraged church, he had a vision: he saw heaven opened and the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, and he heard the thunder of thousands upon thousands of voices singing out, “Alleluia, the Lord God omnipotent reigns.” Looking back, we can tell ourselves how true that vision was. We can, if we want, trace the story of the church from that day to this. We can see how that tiny, persecuted church was reduced to the chosen few and how persecution actually strengthened the church by refining it, eliminating the half-hearted, so that it could in the next two hundred years, growing like leaven in a lump of dough, transform the Roman Empire itself. We can see how it went on from that to become the predominant force in the Western world; how it held civilization together through the dark ages and nourished the fire that would burst into flame in the Renaissance and Reformation. We can see how it spread out from the Middle East across Europe and eventually around the world into every country and culture.

We can say, “Yes, look: who could have imagined a church as beautiful as this with music as beautiful as ours and with such rich traditions and ceremonial. Indeed God does reign, and the vision of John has been vindicated.” We can look back and say, “How wonderful it must have been for that tiny, discouraged church to hear this vision and be encouraged to face up to the persecution knowing that God in God’s own good time would bring the vision to pass.” And that sounds very good until we think about it. From the time this book was written, until the end of persecution was over two hundred years. So I wonder how encouraging that really was. They didn’t know, of course, that it would be “only” two hundred years of persecution. They only knew they were suffering and dying. If we get discouraged about the church today, I wonder how much better we would feel to be told in glowing terms that things will be wonderfully better by the year 2213.

But is the vision just a hope for the future or is it a Gospel for the here and now? I’m sure the author of the Book of Revelation was writing for the here and now. He was writing to his congregation.  He was writing to his friends. He had no idea when the vision would come to pass, but he wanted his friends to know about it because it would help them now. And it is in the Bible for us for the same reason: to help us now. It’s there to remind us of how things really are.

Do you know how things really are? I think we live in a schizophrenic age when it comes to reality. We’re big on science, all in favor of getting the facts. We always want to “come to grips with reality.” But we’re also fond of images and manipulation. We’re good at fooling ourselves. Poll takers have documented the growing distrust and doubt that result from this split personality.  We want to know how things really are, but we are also pretty sure that we don’t know the truth. Nobody knows whether there is an energy crisis or not, whether there’s an oil shortage or not, whether the situation in Afghanistan is hopeless or not. So maybe we’re finally learning that the real world is not the world of the New York Times and television; that’s a world of images, often false images. And we may have realized that we can’t blame the media for being like us, because we don’t necessarily let anyone really see us either as we really are.

Do we really know what our neighbors are like? Do they know what we’re like? Do we know the reality of ourselves? Where does illusion end and reality begin? Have you ever stopped to think that the New York Times is illusion and the Book of Revelation is the reality?  Talk about brain washing!  Somehow we’ve been conned into believing that the front-page sensations of the newspapers – stuff you never heard of before and will never hear of again, that you won’t be able to remember a few months later, or even a few minutes later – we’ve been led to believe that that is reality, and the enduring, eternal, unchanging reality which was the same in the year 100 as it is today – we’ve been led to believe that that is illusion.

You know, sometimes when we hear the news we even say to someone else, “That’s unreal.” But somehow we don’t realize what we’ve said, and how right we are. It is unreal, and the vision of Revelation is an attempt to describe the everlasting realities. That’s what the author wanted his friends to see. But that’s not enough, is it? However real the vision of the new Jerusalem may be, however transitory the events that make news, we don’t generally encounter the new Jerusalem in the Stop and Shop or on Bantam Road. The new Jerusalem doesn’t have much effect on our taxes or the rate of inflation. There’s a gap – and sometimes it seems like a chasm – between the vision of Revelation and the world around us. And the result is that we tend to pay more attention to the world around us – however unreal – than we do to the vision, for all its enduring reality.

But the Bible says something about that too and we need to take the Bible whole, keep it in context. The Bible doesn’t just paint visions, it’s always bringing them down to earth and applying them. Visions have consequences. Look at the lessons provided today. We don’t just read Revelation, we also read the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts and Acts talks about our blindness and the divisions among us and the Gospel of John talks about Jesus being glorified and spells out the consequences: “You must love one another.”  In fact, you know, the Book of Revelation begins with a series of short letters to the churches calling for love and endurance and faithfulness. If you’ve seen a vision of the glory of God you have to do something about it. The Bible makes that clear again and again.

I don’t know why it is but I think we give the visionaries a bad name, and we commend pragmatists and practical people – doers, not seers. And yet, what is the doer doing unless there’s a vision? Where are the pragmatists and the problem solvers and the deciders taking us? And what difference does it make in the long run? I would maintain that it’s those who have a vision who have the endurance and fortitude to get there – and get to a place worth going. I think the history of the church bears that out. And I think it’s those who know God reigns who can see through the persecutions and confusions and doubts of the moment, who can ignore the pettiness of superficial things, to keep their eyes on the things that matter. It’s the visionaries who have seen the new Jerusalem who will never be content with anything less. It’s those who know God reigns whose lives are built on the enduring rock of God’s love and whose lives will give God praise.

The Good Shepherd in Boston

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church Bantam, Connecticut on  April 21, 2013.

I thought I might put last weeks events in perspective by going on line to see how often such events take place.  I learned that there were sixteen mass shootings last year of which Newtown was only the most horrific. But of course Boston wasn’t a mass shooting; neither was 9/11. Maybe we need a general category of horrific events.  But then where would you stop. Do you think there were times when life was simpler and such thing’s didn’t happen?  What about Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima and Auschwitz?  How about Rwanda, less than 20 years ago where somewhere between half a million and a million people were killed in 100 days.

Boston was horrific – but not unusual.  Human being do dreadful things to each other and Christians should not be surprised.  We remember Good Friday. And not just Good Friday. You can also think of last week’s events in the context of today’s readings: St. John’s vision of heaven: a great crowd that no one could number. His angel guide asks him who they are and John says in effect, “You tell me.”  So angel replies in familiar words often read at funerals:

“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.  They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

“These are the ones who have come out of the great ordeal.”  These are God’s servants who have suffered.  It’s a very old story. One of the things I do in my spare time is to go to Hartford once a month and take part in a seminar that studies the Bible in Greek. Recently we’ve been reading the Epistle to the Hebrews and last month we worked on chapter 11, that wonderful portrayal of faith in terms of human witness.

What is faith? Chapter 11, verse 1, tells us it’s “the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” Well, yes, but what is faith?  As the chapter goes on it turns out that the evidence of things not seen is all around us and not invisible at all.  It’s the story of Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses “Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, and David and Samuel and the prophets” and others who  ” ….suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.  They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two,1 they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy.”

The author of that epistle is writing to people who know all about it. It’s happening to them and he’s writing to encourage them by pointing out that they are not the first to suffer – and I’m sure he would have said “You won’t be the last.” Nor were they.  The experience of Christians in the Roman Empire is well known: they were tortured, crucified, beheaded, fed to the lions. Whatever the authorities could think of to induce them to give up their faith they did – and some, of course, did give up But after almost 300 years the authorities realized it was a losing battle and they gave it up and made Christianity the official religion of the empire – so Christians could begin to persecute others and each other.

But Christians also continued to be persecuted themselves.  I lived for awhile in Japan as you know and nowhere were Christians more fiercely persecuted than in Japan from the 16th to 19th century. They were crucified, they were tied to stakes at low tide and left to drown, they were buried to their shoulders while horsemen rode back and forth over them. And Christians were persecuted fiercely in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and Communist China. They are persecuted today in Iran and Pakistan and Northern Nigeria and a number of other places as well.  But not just Christians, of course.  In Iraq today Sunnis shoot and blow up Shiites and Shiiities shoot and blow up Sunnis.

I’m trying, as I said, to put this last week’s events in a larger context. And isn’t it significant that at first we had to guess whether the bomber or bombers were Al Qaeda agents or angry Americans.  After all, we can remember Oklahoma City. The point is, there are lots of angry people out there, and sometimes not very far away, lots and lots of possible suspects, any time something violent happens.

So isn’t it obvious by now that whatever or whoever the immediate cause or excuse the ultimate problem is what Christians call “fallen human nature.” We have a problem larger than any particular cause and the technical term for it is sin. Bad things happen.  We do dreadful things to each other. Why are we surprised?  It’s a sickness that has infected the human race since Adam and there is no “quick fix.”  We can shoot people down or clap them in jail but that’s not a solution.  In the 19th Century, the British exported criminals to Australia — and were surprised to find that there were  still criminals among them.  Brute force doesn’t make people better or  change lives. The only real remedies are worship and prayer – re-centering our lives on the source of good, not evil.

I spent some time last week trying to get inside the skull of someone so unhappy, so angry, that they could set out to kill at random people they had never met. I can imagine getting very angry with someone I know – family or friends, for example. Most violence, of course, is within families. But how could you set out to kill at random? How could you be that angry with the world or perhaps with yourself to kill just anyone?  One thing we know is that many of the gun violence incidents have involved sadly isolated individuals, unstable, unbalanced – we use lots of different terms – but angry at themselves as much as others and often killing themselves in a last expression of that anger. Terrorists are not much different.  They too are perhaps as angry at themselves as at anyone else and ready and willing to lose their lives. No one thought Adam Lanza was angry at America as the 911 bombers were, and the Oklahoma City bomber was, as the Boston bombers may have been, but I think they were all angry at themselves and ready to kill themselves or be killed by others in order to deal with that overwhelming seething, self-destructive anger. The frustration in all this is that it’s so hard for us to know how to respond.  It’s natural for us to be angry. Our lives have been disrupted.  Lots of us had friends and family in the Boston area who had their lives disrupted.  So that’s annoying. And we have a right to be angry.  It’s natural to want to hit back. But at whom?  After 911, we tried to strike back but only got ourselves involved in an endless war that cost us far more than we bargained for and turned out to be almost irrelevant.  Whatever we learn or don’t learn about the Boston bombers, I think we learn more about ourselves. I noticed in the reports from Boston perhaps four different kinds of response: there were, of course, many who ran away. There were also many who had their own friends or family to care for or grieve. There were, thirdly, of course, the authorities whose task was to analyze and search for the culprits. But very different and noteworthy it seems to me – and I’m not the only one to comment on it – was the number of those who ran toward the explosion, whose instinct was not to flee but to help.  There’s a promo clip I often see on MSNBC featuring a man who may be Australian, one of their regular talking heads, I don’t watch his program and I don’t know his name, but he comments on something he has observed about Americans that he thinks is quite unique and it’s exactly what we saw in Boston and Newtown as well – that so many ran toward the danger.  Their instinct was not self preservation but concern for others. Surely that’s what the Bible teaches, the parable of the Good Samaritan very specifically. Who is my neighbor? The lawyer asked. And Jesus told him a story of a man who stopped in a place of danger, where someone else already lay wounded, and risked his own life to help another. If there’s something good to find in these recent tragedies, I think it’s there: the evidence of faith – a thing not seen outwardly but very visible all the same in the actions of those whose lives express it. And faith is often most visible when we act by instinct. You don’t run toward a crisis because you stop to analyze what a person of faith should do.  Faith is also an instinct, an instinctive reaction that grows out of many things – worship and prayer most of all, but secondarily, upbringing and friendships and environment formed by faith – our own faith or the faith of others. Our faith is a pattern of action, an instinctive response that is shaped by others as much as by our own choices. Our faith is shaped by the communities we join and the ones we simply inherit. And we saw something of the result of that last week in Boston.  So that’s one set of things that may be worth saying after Boston: the human community is deeply corrupted by sin and the violence that results is often a result of self-anger but the response of faith is not to hit back not to retaliate and compound the tragedy but to forget our self and accept the risks and hurt that may come from running toward the crisis. Those in white robes are those who came through great suffering – they accepted the suffering, endured the suffering, rather than pass it on and increase it.  But this is Good Shepherd Sunday and the Gospel reading is also relevant. It also tells us about faith And from almost the same angle. One point Jesus made again and again was that the Good Shepherd is one who goes out in search of the lost and strayed and injured and needy and ultimately gives his life for others.  The Last Judgment, Jesus told us, is based on our reaching out to those who were hungry or sick or naked or imprisoned – or injured, surely, yes and the angry and alienated if there’s any way to do it. The Good Shepherd, Jesus said, came to seek and save not those who are saved but those who are lost and he calls us to do likewise.

The vision in the second reading today was of that vast multitude who had come through trials and tribulations, who had not fought back, not lost their tempers, not indulged their anger but suffered, absorbed the evil they were exposed to, as Jesus did, as the Good Shepherd does, as we are called to do: absorbed the evil and tried to bring healing. And maybe that’s enough to say for now: we have a calling as followers of the Good Shepherd, to be agents of change, not people who force change on others but people who open ourselves to God’s grace to absorb the evil, to reach out in compassion, to let God work through us to create that world we heard about in the Revelation of John: where hunger and thirst and anger and hurt are finally healed and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

Lifelong Conversion

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church Bantam, Connecticut, on April 14, 2013, the Third Sunday of Easter. 

When I was in college  I had some friends who were Southern Baptists. They were nice people in many ways, but they believed in a kind of Christianity I had never before encountered. They were fundamentalists.  They believed that the world  was created in seven days and that Adam and Eve were real people. But also, they wouldn’t do home work on Sunday  even if they had a test the next day. And I remember one Sunday, that one of them came back  from the service he had gone to  upset at the preacher  because he had never mentioned the cross. He thought it wasn’t a Christian sermon  if it didn’t mention the cross.

Toward the end of my time in college  they arranged for a revival meeting on campus,  and they invited me to come. I was interested in what they were up to so I went  and at the end of the service the preacher invited those who wanted to accept Jesus  to come forward while we stood and sang verse after verse of “Just as I am” and he exhorted us to come forward. “Let’s sing another verse,” he would say,  “I believe there are more of you who want to come, so please come,  come forward now . . .” I held onto my chair and stayed where I was  and felt very uncomfortable. They had all been converted and accepted Jesus as their personal savior and knew exactly when it was  – and I didn’t. I just was a Christian – always had been and expected I always would be. But there hadn’t been any magic moment  of conversion just a gradual growth in faith over the years.

St. Paul, of course, did have a magic moment  and we read about it this morning. When you get knocked off your horse and struck blind,  you know something has happened.  It makes a difference.  The story this morning from the Acts of the Apostles is one of the most dramatic conversion stories you’ll ever find. If ever anyone was converted, Paul was  and he knew exactly when – twelve o’clock noon on January 25, 35 A.D. Of course, we can’t date it quite that exactly but Paul could. He knew; there was a magic moment. And to hear some Christians tell it,  if there wasn’t a moment like that for you, you’re not really a Christian.

But let’s look at that story again. The brief excerpt we have this morning  begins with Paul riding out from Jerusalem  to the Gentile city of Damascus in Syria – its been in the headlines this week and there’s no way Paul could go from Jerusalem to Damascus these days -  but he was going to see whether there were  any Christians there so he could arrest them and take them  bound to Jerusalem for trial. Paul was a zealot.  He would travel the world to convert people to his beliefs. And God struck him down.  God apparently thought I could use someone like that. So God struck him down  and he was baptized. And the rest of the Book of Acts  tells how zealously Paul traveled the world  to convert people to his new beliefs.

But in a very deep sense,  Paul was not changed. He was in many ways still the same man he had been before -  only refocused,  re-directed. Notice something else about St. Paul. He had grown up in the Jewish community. He had come to Jerusalem to study his faith  at the feet of the greatest teacher of his day. And he believed – or came to believe -  that his faith in Christ was  the logical completion of the faith he had always held. There wasn’t a moment when St. Paul  suddenly came to believe in God or that calls people to worship and obey; Paul had always believed that faith had consequences. No, what we see happening if we read Paul’s story carefully, is a steady process of growth  which had difficulty with one crucial point: the identification of Jesus as the promised Messiah. That was a problem for Paul.  A crucified Messiah didn’t fit -  at first.

But even as Paul  rejected Christianity outwardly  in a strange way he was drawn to it. He knew what Christians taught;  and he was drawn to it; he had to hear more of it;  he couldn’t keep away from it. When they stoned Stephen,  Paul was there watching.  And you have to believe that that made an impression: here was a faith to die for.  It made him angry.  He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want anyone to believe it.  But it nagged at him all the same. And suddenly, suddenly,  he knew; the truth broke through, and he took a major step forward along the path he had been following all unknown ever since he was born.

Now let me take Paul’s story one more step.  We know about Paul’s upbringing. We know about that moment on the road to Damascus. But then what? Was it twenty or twenty-five years, perhaps,  as a missionary,  teaching, preaching, traveling, writing – with no more change? Is that possible?  Well, sometime you might read  two of Paul’s epistles side by side:  the one to the Galatians  and the one to the Philippians, and think about what you find.  In the one to the Galatians, early in his ministry, Paul is angry.  People have been disagreeing with Paul and he wishes they would all  drop dead. He argues, he exhorts, he denounces. But then read the letter to the Christians at Philippi written many years later.  Listen to him talk there about those who disagree: “Some,” he writes, “proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering . . .  What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.” (1:15-18)

What a change from the early epistles!  What a transformation! If you want to talk about Paul’s conversion, talk about that. A friend of mine (the Rev. Daniel Hard) who used to teach at Cambridge in England was co-author of a book called “Jubilate” (Rejoice) in which he talks about  this change in Paul reflected in the letter to the Church in Philippi. He points out that Paul had formerly gloried in his “religion, (his) race, (his) zeal for the law and (his) moral  blamelessness, but (that) all that became worthless to him because of (what Paul calls) “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’ . . . . It is not any intrinsic defect in what he has given up that is Paul’s point, but the transformation of self in trust and praise due to recognizing someone who is worthy of all trust and praise.” And then, this author goes on to point out  that even in this letter  toward the end of his ministry,  “Paul is aware how far he … has to go.” Paul writes, “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own … forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” And the letter concludes: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice . . ”

This is a different Paul,  a Paul who had deepened and matured and grown in ways he himself  might never have anticipated: He had grown in patience and charity and joy.  He was still zealous, yes, but eager now for an even deeper experience  of the joy that comes with mature faith and wisdom and understanding.

Now, I think what we can see in St. Paul’s story if we look at it carefully,  is something that broadens our understanding  of true conversion. Martin Smith, an Episcopal priest, points out that the word “conversion”  has been taken over  by people who see it in one dimension only. They define conversion as a dramatic emotional experience and demand that everyone have  that particular experience. But each of us is different;  each of us grows in different ways according to the various gifts  we’ve been given.  Conversion, Smith suggests, is many things:

Appropriation: the process by which something we simply inherited becomes  truly our own.  Once it was something I read in a book, now it’s a part of my life. Intensification: something colorless  becomes vivid, exciting, rich.

Transfiguration: an inward transformation  that becomes radiantly visible.

Maturation: organic change; “you can’t be a tree until you’ve been a seed and a sapling. The need may not be for a Damascus Road experience but a bottle of milk, a little help with the next step.”

Enlightenment is a word used in Eastern religions – but Christianity also is an eastern religion  and sometimes conversion  comes to us as enlightenment, a sudden  “Ahal” that changes everything.

Arousal: like waking up, like falling in love.

Conversion is all these things and there may be a magic moment along the way  and there may not. There may be what seem to us like setbacks  as well as progress.  It’s not always a straight line. It’s not just a moment but a lifetime.  But what matters is the process  of change and growth and maturation –  the emergence of a faith that draws us  onward and outward and upward, that satisfies us and yet leaves us still unsatisfied That’s what matters. That’s what drew St. Paul on  from the very beginning. That’s what also draws us.

What Can I Believe?

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church Bantam, Connecticut, on April 7, 2013.

The problem Thomas had  is the basic problem  every human being has every day: what can I believe?  I have that problem sometimes  in a casual conversation with a friend; I have it often when I watch the news  or read the paper; I have it sometimes when I think about God;  maybe you do, sometimes at least.

What can I believe?  Suppose your friend says,  There’s a sale at the Bantam Market: steak at 5 cents a pound. Your friend has no intention of misleading you  but – you have to ask – did they see it themselves, did they misremember the price,  is there some qualification: first five customers, up until noon yesterday,  available if you buy five six packs of beer first? We just instinctively, and out of long experience, weigh what we hear by a number of factors: past experience, importance to us,  probabilities of various sorts – and then we believe or not, depending.

So: what can I believe  and how firmly can I believe it? I think these are fundamental questions we deal with daily.  But Thomas was being asked to believe  something on which life depends and on three grounds: first what he heard from others,  secondly what he could see for himself and thirdly what he could actually touch.  Three senses: hearing, seeing, feeling.

The first sense, hearing, he was sure was not enough. I don’t think it ever is  when something’s important. Hearsay evidence doesn’t carry much weight  and it shouldn’t. If you ever played a game of telephone  as a child – you know: you whisper something to one who whispers it to the next  and who knows what will come out at the other end of the chain?

I remember a news report, probably five or six years ago, when Barack Obama was running for the first time  and reports were being spread  that he was a Muslim. A reporter was asking some men in a midwestern diner  who they would vote for and why and someone said he couldn’t vote for Obama  because he was a Muslim. And the reporter said, “Well, but he isn’t a Muslim.”  And the man in the diner said, “But what’s what I’ve heard.”

So hearing isn’t very reliable and Thomas knew that and wasn’t about to rely on it, nor was he even ready to be satisfied  by seeing. “Seeing’s believing” is the old saying  but any magician knows that the hand is quicker than the eye and we can think we see something  that’s not really there. In an age when virtual reality is a familiar idea, when we can project holographic images, when we can go to the movies and be shown special effects that are totally unreal,  seeing is not believing.

The result is that touch and feel  become more important than ever and especially because of what we are  as human beings. I am a flesh and blood, material human being.  I may see things, hear things, imagine things, but it’s touch that brings me into relationship with what I am:  flesh and blood, material, capable of banging into things, being hurt by the collision;  that’s reality as we experience it. That’s what we can believe.

Now, I thought I might use this story about Thomas  to talk about how important  the sacraments are to us. Our worship is not just sight and sound  as some worship is. We don’t come here just to listen and speak  as some worshipers do but to taste and touch. To make new members of the church  we don’t just announce it, we pour water over them. We don’t just pronounce two people husband and wife,  we join their hands and wrap a stole around them. Today we use bread and wine to know Christ’s presence here. Jesus says to us as he said to Thomas, “Reach out your hand and feel this bread, my body, and know that I am with you still.”

Christianity is about God’s relationship with the material world.  At the center of our faith is the fact that God came into this material world God created  and lived in it in real flesh and blood. It’s an incarnational faith  and the celebration of Easter  is about the resurrection of the body.  I keep meeting people who think that we believe in the immortality of the soul  but that’s not what the Creed says. It’s about the body, the resurrection of the body. It’s not about a soul that we can’t even see or hear let alone feel; it’s about a reality that we can understand: tangible, what we can touch and taste and feel.  Easter is not about spiritualism;  it’s about materialism.

I’ve probably quoted before  the Archbishop of Canterbury who said, “Christianity is the most materialistic of the world’s religions.” And it is. It’s a religion that has to do with God here,  known to us in flesh and blood and therefore concerned with  flesh and blood, concerned with problems of poverty and hunger.  It’s not a religion of escapism.

But what I want to do is look more deeply at the whole question of matter and spirit  and ask what we mean by that classic division  between spiritual and material anyway. And what I want to suggest is  that this standard division  between material and spiritual  is really out of date, in a post-Einstein world. I don’t believe we know anymore  where the border is between the physical and the spiritual. When scientists talk about quarks and mesons  and subatomic particles and fields of force  that you can’t see or touch or taste, where would you draw the line  between what’s physical and what’s not?

The Prayer Book defines a sacrament as  an outward and visible sign  of an inward and spiritual grace as if there were two kinds of reality,  the material one you can taste and touch and the spiritual one you can’t. In the middle ages, there was a clear line  between material and spiritual and everything had to be one or the other. Christianity with it’s talk about incarnation  and sacraments tried to cross that line but it still left us in a divided world  in which the things that we knew about  from every day experience were the material things while the things that mattered were the things  we couldn’t know directly.

But we live after Einstein  and we know that the material world isn’t all that solid. The wooden walls of this church, we know now,  are made up of atoms that are made up of electrons and even smaller particles some of which we know only as theory  and have never really seen and certainly not touched.  Worse than that, not only is there no way to taste or touch or see  the ultimate elements but they can be turned into energy,  the wood of the pew you sit on can burn and become heat energy and the energy of the sun can be  transformed into the green plants that push up out of the soil. Worse than that,  the material universe includes what science calls “forces.”  We all know about gravity  but then there’s the electromagnetic force and two types of nuclear force. And at the cutting edge of science  you actually find them using terms like “weird” and “spooky” as they try to reduce the material world  to something they can understand. But the physical world keeps escaping from their experiments  and leading them out into a world that sometimes seems more spiritual than material.  What kind of world is it in which scientists  use terms like “weird” and “spooky?”

I saw a book review in the New York Times some while back that talked about “wildly imaginative” new ideas about the basic structure of matter.  It said that the fundamental problem with these ideas is that there’s no way to test them. But science is about testing  and if you can’t test it, it isn’t science – at least not in the traditional sense.  The boundary between the material  and the spiritual seems to have disappeared.  Which takes us back to Thomas,  because that was Thomas’ problem too  and the problem of the Christian church  when it tried to understand and explain the eucharist and the sacraments.

But isn’t that what we should have expected to learn  as we explored God’s world? Shouldn’t we have expected to learn  that it was all one and that the hard cold rock in our garden  which God made is ultimately simply one more expression  of the ultimate reality which is God? Isn’t love one form of reality  and aren’t rocks another? And aren’t both of them evidence of the creativity of the same God. When we take the bread of the eucharist in our hands, that too can be analyzed as matter: flour and water, atoms of carbon and hydrogen and so on, or as potential energy.  If you burn it, heat is created.  If you eat it, the body absorbs energy. This bread is material, physical, but that means it’s also potential energy and it’s transformed into energy when we eat it.  But if you come here with faith,  there’s another kind of energy at work as well, as Christians have always known even though they have often disagreed  as to just what that energy is. But whatever language you want to use,  it has to do with the way Christ comes to us here renewing our lives by his life.  You, a child of God, are joined with God  and your life is renewed.

Thomas didn’t know all that  when he tried to understand  what the other disciples were telling him. He thought he had it all figured out:  there was matter and there was spirit. Matter died and that was an end of it.  Thomas didn’t know about Einstein. And Thomas didn’t really understand  that the world is one, that God is one,  that all life and matter and creation exist only because of God  and there are no boundaries except the ones we make in our heads. Thomas, you might say, was the original scientist,  doubting and questioning and looking for the proof. And that’s what he was made to do.  It’s what we were made to do. God made us to do that: to explore and test  and understand; it’s part of our job as human beings;  we are here to explore and learn and grow in our understanding  of the mystery of life. And if we are doing that at all well,  we ought to be better prepared than Thomas was to understand that bodies can be raised  and life can be transformed and that the piece of bread we are given at the altar  is not simply a mystery beyond understanding but just one more of those places  where the simple divisions break down and the things that separate us from God  are overcome and the material – if we want to use that language –  reveals the spiritual.

If you read about saints and poets,  it’s surprising, I think, how often they see evidence of God not in some great burst of light and glory but in simple, material things:  a rock, a stream, a daffodil, a leper. A sacramental faith should do that for us: send us out into a world  “alive with the grandeur of God” and ready to have our eyes opened like Thomas’  to see God there,  to see God again and again in the life, in the world, around us  and say as he did: “My Lord and my God.”

A Snowstorm for Easter

A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at St. Paul’s Church Bantam, Connecticut, on Easter Day, 2013.

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds n things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God . . .”  Colossians 3:1-3

You may not want to hear this, but I was kind of hoping for a snowstorm this morning.  A really outstanding blizzard would have been the perfect way to round off the Winter of 2012-13. What’s the point of having grandchildren, if you can’t tell them you survived the Winter of 2012-13 when it snowed so hard Easter morning we couldn’t get to church?  But more than that, and my real reason for hoping, was that a snowstorm would have given me the perfect illustration for my sermon. And I’m sure you know how important that is.

After all, a good sermon illustration is often remembered long after the point is forgotten.  Years from now people would still remember how the Vicar actually wished for snow on Easter. As the years went by people would even recall that he actually prayed for snow.  Finally there would be stories of how snow began to fall as we left church that morning.  And what was the sermon about?  Well, that’s not so easy to say. I called on a woman once who told me how much she liked y sermon about pizza.  Pizza?  I couldn’t remember ever mentioning pizza in a sermon and she couldn’t recall what the sermon was about.  There’s nothing like a good sermon illustration to make a sermon memorable.

But you see, snow would make a marvelous contrast with the Easter hymns like the one we sang at the beginning of the service: “’Tis the spring of souls today . . . all the winter of our sins long and dark is flying . . . Now the queen of seasons bright with the day of splendor . . .” There’s another hymn, not on the agenda this morning, that says, “Lo, the fair beauty of earth, from the death of the Winter arising . . .”  And still another you may remember that begins “Welcome, happy morning . . .” and goes on about “Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough…” But you see the point?  It’s all about springtime and flowers and such.  And my thought was that with a good, old-fashioned nor-easter raging outside we would be struck by the contrast between the hymns and the weather, aware of the total incongruity between outside and inside, between what we were saying and what the outside weather was doing. And I thought that would be the perfect illustration of what always happens at Easter year after year.

I’ll offer three examples based on my text from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.

One: We live in a highly competitive, selective world. Some of you might experience this in terms of college admissions. There are lots of colleges that turn down five or ten applicants for every one they accept. And beyond schooling, there’s competition just about everyone faces sooner or later for a job and career advancement.  At every step of the way someone is checking credentials, saying “yes” to some, “no” to others. If we want a car loan, a credit card, club membership, the question is always the same: “What are your credentials? Are you qualified?”  That’s our world.  And if it were snowing outside, inside it couldn’t be more different.

Like: what are your Christian credentials? Do you tithe?  Were you in church every Sunday all Lent?  Have you said your prayers every day, fasted on Fridays?  Have you visited the sick, fed the hungry?  Did you see someone at the door checking your credentials, marking the lists of those to be accepted or turned away?  Well, of course not.  This is the church, not the outside world, and this is, on principle, the least selective place you can find anywhere. The Christian Church has no standards.  Beliefs, yes; criteria no.  Jesus Christ died for us as we are. That’s the Gospel.  So come, respond, as you are. Time enough to change later on.

Today’s epistle is a turning point passage in St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  He’s laid down the story of God in Christ and how we have been set free from fear and death by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  By baptism, no questions asked, available to the tiniest infant who has no clue, we’ve been given the gift of life.  And now, says St. Paul, “if you are indeed raised to new life in Christ,” let’s think about what that means. Let your life begin now to be changed, let it begin to reflect the gifts God gives you.  But, you see, it’s first things last: backwards by the world’s standards. Know that Christ died for you; come as you are to accept the life he offers.  There are no qualifications, no exams or admissions fees, for God’s gift of new life.

A second illustration: Together we make up a world that’s in an awful mess. You have probably noticed. We read the papers, turn on the news each day, just to see whether the scotch tape is still In place that holds it more or less together.  If it isn’t the Middle East or Cyprus, it’s North Korea or Syria or Afghanistan or somewhere else.  Do you remember that song the Kingston trio used to sing that went something like this: “There’s rioting in Africa, they’re starving in Spain; there’s hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch, and I don’t like anybody very much.”  That’s still what the world is like.

Things haven’t much changed.  The world’s in bad shape. And if we were involved in politics, we would spend our time flying endlessly from here to there and back again like our Presidents and Secretaries of State: scotch taping the cracks, trying to keep the crazies under some sort of control. If we’re involved in any human society, from the U.N. and Afghanistan down to the Town of Litchfield and Borough of Bantam, be it what to do with the Stowe house or the Court House or the number of ribbons on the trees on the village green, life is an unending succession of crises. If we can take enough time away from it, to get to church at all, we hope for a short sermon so we can get back to the telephone and television and newspapers and the latest crisis.

But here again, you see, if it were snowing outside, the church couldn’t be more different.  The epistle says: “Set your mind on things above, not on things in the world” and that’s obviously ridiculous.  What sensible person with practical problems to solve is going to take advice like that?  The President should tell his staff, “Well, today I’m thinking about heaven, setting my mind on things above, so Syria can wait?” No, of course not.  We have to be sensible.  And notice how well we’re doing by being sensible!  Is it time to think again?

Corporately or personally, when we set out to solve our problems, we always apply the same standards don’t we?  We have to be practical, don’t we?  Have to be fair and just, and treat everyone equally. It sounds good. But does it work?  If Arabs bomb Jews, it’s fair and equal to bomb them back.  But what exactly does that solve?  If a couple have marriage problems, do you think the main concern should be to make sure they share responsibilities equally, that they’re fair to each other, that they respect each other’s rights, balance out his and hers?  I don’t.  I think that marriage counseling that centers on that sort of human dynamics has about the same chance of success as a U.N. peace-keeping mission. It may be better than nothing, but it isn’t the real solution.  lf love of God isn’t primary in a marriage – or any part of life – there’s potential for trouble.  I side with St. Paul.  First get straight your relationship with God, and then all the rest will follow.

Who was more responsive to human need: Jesus with his mind set on God, or the disciples, worried about food, afraid of the storm, concerned for their position?  It’s about as logical to the human mind as a snowstorm on Easter Day, It really is too bad we couldn’t arrange it!  “Set your mind on things above,” says St. Paul; set your mind on faith. That’s the new, backwards logic of the Gospel that sets us free.

Example Three:  The world cares about life.  People tell us, “So and so’s full of life’ Bill or Sue is the life of the party; that’s a live organization; that’s really living.”  But come to church on Easter full of life and spring-time hope and the joy of living and what happens? The Vicar’s sermon text, St. Paul’s letter to early Christians, says, “You have died.”  You see what I mean by contrast?  But the question to ask is this: if we are serious about life, if we care about our world and each other at all, isn’t it time to recognize that no human effort, no plans, no strategy, however sincere and well-meant and energetically pursued can accomplish any more than such efforts have usually achieved through all the centuries.

Why do we go on thinking that we are the first ones to see things so clearly, or care so much, or work so hard? We are, of course, terrific, the world is lucky we’re alive. And we’ll deal with all those unsolved problems first thing tomorrow and this time, for sure, we’ll get it right.  That’s the old story; we’re here to tell a new one: once, one man did something more, something new: he entrusted the totality of his existence to God. He died.  He made the radical, total break that had never been made before. And that’s why we’re here.  Not because he lived, but because he died.  That death gave God the opening to do what human beings couldn’t do.  He raised Jesus from death to life and opened the door to that new life to all mankind to share.

The Gospel I’m talking about is a proclamation of life and freedom.  There are no standards to worry about. There’s no need to concentrate on the world and its problems.  Even life is nothing to clutch at and death is nothing to fear.  This is the new community built solely on the power of God.  So let go of everything else and trust in that power.  Believe. Rely on him. That is indeed the difference between night and day, slavery and freedom, death and life.

If the time has come for you today to take a step toward that new life, that freedom, then come.  Here today at the Altar, receive that gift, be raised in Christ, and live in Christ a life so new, so different, that whether it snows today or not, you will remember it only for the joy of the springtime of this new beginning.

Affirming the Resurrection of the Body

A homily given by Christopher L. Webber at the funeral of Ellen Keeney on March 27, 2013.

If we have to think about death – and we do -  there’s no better time than Holy Week because the essential message of this week is that death need not be meaningless,  need not be an end but a beginning.  Easter is the annual celebration  of that basic, core message of Christian faith: death has been conquered, the door to eternity is open.

I wish we had better words to use  because the more I think about it the more impossible it seems.  We read in the Bible about a heaven with streets of gold and gates of pearl where there is no need for a sun or moon, and that’s beautiful but it’s so far out of tune with our world that it’s hard to take it seriously. Those that described heaven that way did the best they could with what they knew. But they knew too little even about our world  and we know too much – and still too little.

How can we talk about a Biblical heaven  when we know the size of the universe, when we know about black holes and galaxies and spiral nebulae? Any words we have are like those an infant might use to describe a computer -  actually they could do it better than I can – but what language can we find that will work for us when it comes to death and life? How can we talk about heaven, about life after this earthly life, when we still have barely a beginner’s knowledge  even of this earth?

Let me read you some words of John Donne that may help. Even four hundred years later I don’t think we can do any better than this:

“In the first discoveries of the unknown parts of the world, the maps made were very uncertain, very imperfect. So, in the discovery of these new heavens and this new earth, our maps will be imperfect. It is said of old map-makers that when they had said all that they knew of a country, they said that the rest was possessed by giants or witches or spirits or wild beasts so that they could explore no further. So when we have traveled as far as we can with safety, that is as far as ancient or modern explorers lead us in the discovery of these new heavens and new earth, yet we must say at last that it is a country inhabited by angels and archangels, with cherubim and seraphim, and that we can look no further into it with these eyes. Where it is, we do not ask. We rest in this: that it is the habitation prepared for the blessed saints of God. In that heaven the moon is more glorious than our sun, and the sun as glorious as the one who made it. In this new earth all the waters are milk and all the milk is honey; all the grass is corn and all the corn is manna; all the clods of earth are gold and all the gold of countless carats; all the minutes are ages and all the ages eternity, everything is every minute in the highest exaltation, as good as it can be, and yet superexalted and infinitely multiplied by every minute’s addition; every minute is infinitely better than ever it was before.”

And having said all that, Donne goes on to say:

“Of these new heavens and this new earth we must say at last that we can say nothing.  For human eye has not seen nor ear heard nor heart conceived the state of this place.”

Of that heaven, the best we can say is  words fail us. But what else do we have?  Well, we have art and music, we have Picasso and Bach and Mozart who said things even John Donne couldn’t say. And symbols are a great help; the Catholic faith is big on material symbols. A former archbishop of Canterbury once said “Christianity is the most materialistic of the world’s religions.” Catholic Christianity is about symbols and signs and sacraments and the resurrection of the body.  It’s not about some sort of amorphous spirituality, but reality,  the only reality we know: the real, physical world around us that tells us so much more than words can ever express.

Consider the wedding ring, a sacramental symbol:  Ellen’s was made of an ancestor’s tie clip. It was rich in symbolism before she ever wore it.  And think how much more it came to mean  as the years went by. Think what that hard nugget of gold conveyed,  what it meant. You can’t see that or weigh it but it’s undoubtedly real, an imperishable reality,  or at least a reality that transcends language and art.

If a ring can contain and convey so much,  how much more the human body? Yes, the body ages and wears out and dies  but the reality it expresses and conveys grows and deepens and has a potential beyond imagining. The Creed we will say in a few minutes talks about the resurrection of the body, not the immortality of the soul.  It’s about the reality we know, not an imaginary something we don’t know.

I think people often make a mistake when they come together for a funeral and make it simply a trip down memory lane.  There’s a lot, of course, to remember,  a lot for which to give thanks, but maybe more important there’s a future to imagine if we can find ways to do it. After all, why would a God capable of creating a universe so vast create us simply for a brief sojourn on a medium size satellite of a minor star? We can do better ourselves.  We can create immortal works of art and music – well, we call them immortal,  but only because they have  a material existence in this world greater than ours – but we have a potential greater still;  either that or we’re wasting our time here today.

We’re here I’m sure to give thanks for the past, for all the love and joy that Ellen shared with us  all.  But even more we are here to give thanks for the future, to give thanks for the dim, shadowy, childhood knowledge we have of the future for which God made us and of which Ellen has already begun to understand more than all the saints and sages have ever known.

John Donne summed it up with this prayer:

“Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house of God and gate of heaven that we may dwell in that place where there is no cloud nor sun, no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light, no noise nor silence, but one equal music, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but one equal communion, no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity, and keep us, Lord, so awake in the duties of our callings that we may sleep in your peace and wake in your glory to an unending possession of that realm which your Son our savior Jesus Christ has purchased for us with the price of his own blood.  Amen.

What’s New?

What’s new?

Listen to today’s reading from Isaiah:

Remember not the former things or past events.

Behold, I am doing a new thing.

Now it springs forth.

Do you not perceive it?”

“Behold, I am doing a new thing,” says God through the prophet, and that makes me nervous. We live in a world of new things and they’re not all good by any means. How about those new fleuorcarbon spray cans a few years back – which they discovered later chewed up the ozone layer? What about the wonderful new medications that led to birth defects?  What about these great new work-saving computers that produce more paper than we can deal with? What about the new world order that has the Middle East in turmoil? At least the old ways were familiar. At least the old order was stable and we knew how to live with it.

Isn’t there always a tension in our lives between the old and familiar and the new and untried? The new offers great adventures and great rewards – but also, by definition, the unknown carries unknown risks and dangers. We know what’s wrong with the old but at least we know how to compensate And s6 we also know very well how to tame the new and make it fit old ways. The new gets old pretty fast.  Even in the Bible. Even God.

But surely, if ever there was a book that challenged us with the new it’s the Bible. Read chapter one, verse one, and you find something totally new and unprecedented: God is making a world out of chaos. Turn to the last chapter of the last book and again we find a new world being made and it tells us it’s coming soon. When Jesus went home to Nazareth to preach, they said, “What is this? A new teaching?” And they threw him out.  God may be into doing new things, but we’re not usually eager to hear it.  Chapter after chapter, verse after verse, the Bible depicts God at work making a new world, new lives, new people. And that can be threatening to people like us who need some constants in our lives. So we like to hear the Bible  in the old familiar King James Version.  So we lose the promise of the new in the comfort of the old.

“Behold, I am doing a new thing.

Even now it springs forth.

Do you not perceive it?”

Do you perceive it?  I do. Yes, I perceive it. But it makes me nervous all the same.  What is happening in our world.  Are you comfortable with climate change, th storms of last winter, the plan to build a sea wall to protect Manhattan?  We have a sense of momentous changes unfolding, a new kind of world.  Is it, perhaps, the kind of fundamental change we recognize in hindsight in the Renaissance, the Reformation, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution. There’s a new world on our doorstep and no one knows what it means.

Just in the last fifty years we’ve seen atomic energy unleashed, the advent of the omnipresent computer, space exploration, the collapse of communism. And maybe that’s only the beginning. Those are mechanical things. Far more profound are the changes in the human spirit. What’s really happening in our society? What’s going to happen as drugs destroy families, as environmental concerns create and destroy ways of life, as our understanding of human sexuality changes? What’s happening in the churches when I seem to have more in common with the new pope than with a good many Episcopalians?  But can the Roman Catholic church survive without enough priests? Will the Southern Baptists survive their deep divisions over the Bible? Can any of our churches survive as we know them? And what will replace them, if not? Are we even ready to let the question be asked?

Our new bishop likes to ask “What is God doing?” but the fact is, it seems to me, that none of us really knows what God is doing and so it’s natural to be afraid and cling to the familiar. And that’s why people get so angry about everything from the authority of the Bible to the Second Amendment.  Give me my secure little place in the world where I can do things the old way and not be challenged and I like to think I’ll be happy. But I might also be left behind.

When God offers something new, why would I cling to the old? Because finally this is God’s world and God is at work in the changes. If you want to be a fundamentalist,  that’s the fundamental message of the Bible: that this is God’s world and God is at work in this world to make it new, not to preserve the old. It’s God’s world. God is re-shaping it. And Christians have nothing to fear. That’s the faith we stand on.

And what a difference that makes. Suppose it were otherwise. Suppose the hands that shaped the world were those of Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or even the new pope.  That’s when you’ve got a right to be afraid. Because not one of them has a clue what God is doing.  And that’s alright, it’s better that way. The biggest problem is if they get in the way, try too desperately to hang onto the old or try too frantically to impose their own ideas.  God is at work. That’s our confidence. And that’s why we read the Bible.

We’ve seen glimpses this Lent of the big story, the direction God is moving. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Isaiah. God calling a people, overcoming oppression, creating freedom. We’re moving on these next two weeks to the climax: Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter.  And however old the story may be, it’s still new and still powerful as we hear it again.

But more than that: here’s the most important point. Here I am talking about the about the new and here we are re-living the old.  What’s the point of that?   Well, I wonder if it’s something like what happens when a person has a stroke, becomes paralyzed, can’t move an arm or leg. There’s a process called patterning which requires sometimes teams of volunteers and infinite patience. You take the paralyzed limb and move it in a pattern over and over again and slowly, slowly, slowly the connections seem to be reformed and the limb seems to re-learn the forgotten skills and begin to move again on its own. Maybe we’re something like that. We’re afraid, we’re paralyzed, we’re not very good at moving out into new territory. So what we’ve learned to do is go back and repeat the old, walk again with Abraham as he moves out from the old home town toward the unknown,  stand with Moses at the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s armies bear down on him,  y sit with the disciples at the Last Supper and share the broken bread, watch with the disciples at Calvary, run with them to the empty tomb.  Do it again and again and again until we remember at last what it feels like to trust God and enter the new world God is making. Do it again and again until we can move forward confidently ourselves.

Here in this ancient pattern of worship God reminds us again of the new world being made and challenges our routines, our habits, our sense of self, and feeds us and calls us to see the new, respond to the new, to be the new, to become contributing members of the new creation God is bringing to light here, now, in us.