Learning to see "the man behind the monster"

Sermon delivered Sunday, June 26, 2016 (The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 5, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.



I’ve been thinking a lot about Omar Mateen over the past few weeks.

I tend to do that every time there is a mass shooting: I think about the shooter. Of course I grieve for the lives lost, but I am always drawn to those figures who are instantly vilified after these events: Dylan Roof, Wade Michael Page, Adam Lanza – names that become household names, repeated endlessly by news media along with the words “disturbed,” “mentally ill,” “radical,” “extreme,” or in the case of our latest shooter, “terrorist,” since his religious background happened to be Muslim – but whatever labels are thrown at them, we always seem to leave “human being” off the list. Even as the media tracks down their relatives, friends and neighbors trying to paint a picture of who this person was, somehow they still use terms that separate “us” from “them,” that reduce a person to a monster.

But something in the picture of Omar Mateen that has emerged over the past several weeks has humanized him to me considerably: the speculation that he might have not been completely straight. Numerous people at Pulse, the gay nightclub where he shot and killed nearly 50 people and wounded more than 50 more, have come forward to say they had seen Mateen at the club on numerous occasions before, and some also said they had interacted with him on gay dating websites.

So far, FBI has said they have found no evidence that Mateen was having relationships with men in their investigation of his electronic communications, but the speculation continues. If Omar Mateen found himself attracted to men and if he found this impossible to reconcile with the teachings of his religious tradition, then perhaps it was out of a conflicted struggle with self that he opened fire on the patrons at Pulse that night. We already know about the high rates of suicide among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth, but now we have a possible example of how the internalized self-hatred that so many LGBT people feel as a result of society’s condemnation of them can put others in danger as well.

We may never know whether or not Omar Mateen was gay, or bisexual, or questioning his sexual identity. In some ways, that’s none of our business – what was no doubt a very personal struggle for him has suddenly been laid open for the public to pick apart. But I find it extremely relevant in our context as a religious community, because whether or not these allegations are true, the story of someone struggling with same-sex attraction and feeling rejected or condemned by their religious scriptures, tradition, leaders, and community is true for countless people. Whether or not this is Omar Mateen’s story, it is someone’s story. And this event has put the dangers of religious condemnation of same-sex attraction in a national spotlight.

In the Episcopal Church, we have come further than many on acceptance of same-sex couples and the gifts their relationships bring to us in the church. And I know I am likely preaching to the choir here at St. Cuthbert’s, but we all know that there are many churches and many other religious communities out there who continue to condemn same-sex attraction as unnatural and sinful. The same day of the shootings, a pastor here in California preached to his congregation that “as Christians, we should not mourn the death of 50 sodomites.” Pastor Roger Jimenez of the Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento told his congregation that the biblical response to Orlando would be to affirm that those killed “got what they deserved,” because according to the Bible, “the sin they performed was worthy of death.”

Despite the ways in which religion and scripture have been discounted by many people in our society, they remain powerful influences over the lives of millions of people. Far from being outdated and irrelevant, the interpretation of scripture can be a matter of life and death! The book of Hebrews says “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” (Hebrews 4:12), and unfortunately that sword can be dangerous! It can be used both for good and for evil, as a tool to defend against injustice or as a weapon to break down and destroy.

Our passage from Galatians today contains elements that have been used as weapons in our history. The dichotomy that Paul sets up between “the flesh” and “the Spirit” in this passage and in many of his other writings has influenced Christianity negatively with regards to our understanding of sexuality for centuries. Paul holds up celibacy as a model, saying one should marry only if one can’t “control oneself” in terms of satisfying one’s sexual urges, and talks about everything that is “of the flesh” as being against God’s will. “Do not gratify the desires of the flesh,” Paul says in Galatians 5:16, and interpreters have often read the phrase “desires of the flesh” as a code word for “sexual desires.”

But here’s where interpretation is so very important, and where we can see how important close study of the texts can be. The Greek word for flesh, sarx, is most literally translated, “flesh” or “body,” but it can also be used to mean “human nature,” and a nuanced understanding of this usage completely changes the meaning of this passage. The online concordance I often use to look up Hebrew or Greek words for a more complete understanding of their meaning said that when sarx is used negatively in the Bible, as in “don’t gratify the desires of the flesh,” it’s talking about that human nature that leads us to think we don’t need God, that we can make all our decision and do everything on our own, apart from God (which, if you recall, was the original human sin in the Garden of Eden).

This usage of sarx, according to that concordance, refers to

“making decisions (actions) according to self – i.e. done apart from faith (independent from God's inworking). Thus, what is "of the flesh (carnal)" is by definition displeasing to the Lord – even things that seem "respectable!" In short, flesh generally relates to unaided human effort, i.e. decisions (actions) that originate from self or are empowered by self. This is carnal ("of the flesh") and proceeds out of the untouched (unchanged) part of us – i.e. what is not transformed by God.”

At Bible study on Wednesday night, Fr. John Rawlinson noted that in his translation of Galatians 5 from the Jerusalem Bible, the word translated as “the flesh” in the New Revised Standard Version, which we use in our lectionary readings and which is printed in your bulletins and you just heard read a few minutes ago is translated as “self-indulgence.” This passage sounds very different in that translation. Instead of:

“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.” (Galatians 5:16-17, NRSV)

We have this:

“Let me put it like this: if you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit, the Spirit is totally against such a thing, and it is precisely because the two are so opposed that you do not always carry out your good intentions.” (Galatians 5:16-17, Jerusalem Bible)

To me, this makes so much more sense with everything else I know about the message of scripture. Self-indulgence is the issue, not “fleshly desires.” I like how the concordance made the point that even things that seem “respectable” can be considered “of the flesh” if we understand the meaning in this way. So, the “desires of the flesh” that we are commanded not to gratify could be something as acceptable as accumulating wealth – something that is certainly “respectable” and praised in our society, yet if done solely for self-gain, is condemned by the scriptures. The key is not so much the action as the intention behind the action. Just as the scriptures can be used for good or ill, so can any action. Yes, sexual desires can lead to sin, but they are not inherently sinful any more so than the instinct for self-preservation, which keeps us alive but also leads us to do things that benefit ourselves at the expense of others.

But unfortunately, many people who read the scriptures – of the Christian faith and of other religions – never delve this deeply into the meaning of the text. They read something in translation from another language and take it as God’s word from on high, without even knowing whether that translation even fully conveys the meaning of the original text, or without fully understanding the historical context in which it was written. Thus “do not gratify the desires of the flesh,” a relevant warning about the dangers of self-indulgence, can become one of many passages used as a weapon to condemn and ostracize people who express themselves sexually in a way that makes some people uncomfortable.

Pastor Jimenez in Sacramento based his remarks about the shooting in Orlando on his understanding of the scriptures. He talked about what “the Bible says” about homosexuality and used that to undergird some incredibly harsh words. In his sermon, he said to his congregation:

"Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?" Um no. I think that’s great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida, is a little safer tonight. The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job — because these people are predators. They are abusers. I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put the firing squad in front of them and blow their brains out."

After a social media firestorm of backlash against his remarks after they were posted on YouTube, Pastor Jimenez continued to defend his position when interviewed by news media. He said to reporters,

"As far as the Bible is concerned, they crossed a line. The sin they performed is worthy of death. I realize our society doesn't take that, but that's what the Bible says. If someone does something that's worthy of death and they end up dying, I'm not gonna mourn them."

Although I’m not familiar enough with the Qur’an, the scriptures of Islam, to quote equivalent passages in that tradition, I imagine Omar Mateen might have read similar passages that were used as weapons in his tradition that led him to think that somehow shooting and killing as many gay people as possible was more acceptable to God than embracing his own attraction to men. But ironically, his actions in killing people were more "of the flesh" than it would have been for him to have a faithful, committed relationship with another man, had he been single and available to do so.

As I’ve reflected on what might have been Omar Mateen’s internal dilemma with great sadness and compassion, an interesting parallel from the early 20th century French novel, The Phantom of the Opera, later made in to a stage musical, came to mind. Born with a horribly disfigured face, “the Phantom,” as he is called since he lives a reclusive life where no one sees him, is ostracized by society and winds up living in a lair underneath the Paris Opera House, where he terrorizes people through constant violence, including murders, in an attempt to exert control over the workings of the opera house. One could use all of the words we use to describe mass shooters to describe him: disturbed, tortured, radical, extreme, mentally ill, terrorist. He falls in love with a young soprano named Christine, who he mentors from behind the walls of her dressing room, never revealing his face. She knows him as her strange “Angel of Music.” When his true form is finally revealed to Christine, he is convinced that it is his physical deformity that prevents her from loving him. At the very end of the play, after wreaking havoc on the opera, killing the star behind the scenes so he can walk on and play Christine’s love interest, and then whisking her off to his lair, Christine has had enough. She yells at him:

"Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood?
Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?"

(Notice the use of “flesh” to connote sexual desire here – that biblical expression continues to influence art!)

He responds,

"That fate which condems me to wallow in blood
Has also denied me the joys of the flesh
This face, the infection which poisons our love….
This face, which earned a mother’s fear and loathing
A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing…
Pity comes too late! Turn around and face your fate!
An eternity of THIS before your eyes…"

He rips of his mask and thrusts his deformed face in front of hers.
But she responds,

"This haunted face holds no horror for me now
It’s in your soul that the true distortion lies."

The tragedy in the Phantom’s story is that he was so obsessed with something he thought was wrong with him, so fixated on something that society told him was wrong with him, that he turned into the monster he thought he was. And maybe, just maybe, this is what happened to Omar Mateen as well.

In a moment of tenderness earlier in the play, after Christine first removes his mask against his will and gets a glimpse of his face, after throwing a tantrum and cursing her, the Phantom crumbles to the stage and quietly begins singing a much softer, gentler tune…

“Fear can turn to love
You’ll learn to see to find the man behind the monster
This repulsive carcass who seems a beast but secretly
Dreams of beauty
Secretly, secretly…”

At the very end of the play, when the Phantom holds Christine’s fiancé hostage, demanding that she choose to marry the Phantom instead or else he will kill her finance, she does something that changes the entire course of action. As the Phantom yells menacingly at her and her fiancé struggles in the noose the Phantom has placed around his neck, she suddenly goes into a pensive moment that recalls the tenderness of that earlier moment when she first removed his mask. She says, half to the Phantom and half to herself,

“Pitiful creature of darkness,
What kind of life have you known?
God give me courage to show you
You are not alone!”

And then she kisses him. She chooses to respond to terrorism and violence and threats with love. She sees the man behind the monster, as he’d said she could. She acknowledges him as a human being and touches him with the caress of a lover.

And this gesture of love transforms the Phantom. He lets Christine and her fiancé go free, and then disappears, never to be heard from again, never to terrorize the opera house again.

I believe it is the role of religion to help us see “the man behind the monster,” but too often religion has been in the business of telling people they are monsters rather than reminding them they are beloved children of God.

A song by the contemporary Christian artist Brandon Heath muses on all ways we miss seeing that the people we pass by in society every day who are hurting or wounded in some way. In the song, Heath prays for God to allow him to see the world as God sees it. He sings,

"Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see,
Everything that I keep missing,
Give your love for humanity.
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten.
Give me Your eyes so I can see."

I call this seeing with “kingdom eyes.” Seeing as God sees, not as the world sees. Seeing the man behind the monster. Seeing a human being where the world sees “a terrorist.” To those who would agree with Pastor Jimenez’s views, I say, THIS is the truly Christian response to Orlando, and to any other mass shooting. To truly see the broken-hearted, to see the ones forgotten, to see everything that we miss in our superficial view of the world. To mourn with the victims and to show love to the ones society tells us are monsters, to pray that “God would give us courage to show them they are not alone.”

Who knows? Had Omar Mateen been part of a community where he felt safe to question his sexuality, if he’d had any hope that his questioning would have been met with compassion and love rather than condemnation, maybe he never would have walked into that nightclub with that gun that fateful night. While we can’t change the past, I can only pray that Omar Mateen finally found some peace when he met his maker. And I imagine that he most likely discovered that those 49 souls he assumed were abhorrent and sinful were there to welcome him with open arms into the fellowship of the saints when he arrived later that same evening.

Authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led

Sermon delivered Sunday, May 1, 2016 (6th Sunday of Easter, Year C) at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

Acts 16:9-15, John 14:23-29



“Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

This line from today’s passage from Acts is a classic in the theology of evangelism and missions. Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia pleading for help has been echoed in the call stories of evangelists throughout the centuries – many missionaries have framed their sense of call to travel abroad with a similar sense that a foreign people is asking them to “come over and help us.”

At its best, casting missionary work within this framework encourages people to be willing to go wherever God calls them and to respond to expressed human need wherever they find it. But at its worst, conceptualizing missionary work in this way has led to a patronizing kind of approach in which the missionaries go of their own initiative to “help” people who have not expressed a need for help, bringing with them an attitude that assumes they have all the answers and solutions to bring to the people they have set out to “help.” Let’s explore that shadow side a bit more before we turn our attention to what I believe is a corrective to that shadow side within this very passage.

Any time we talk about “helping” others, we have to step back and examine the power dynamics at play. It is often much easier to be the “helpers” than to be the “helped.” The “helpers” are the ones with power, money, with enough abundance in their lives that they have something to give. The “helped” are the ones “in need,” the ones who lack something, the ones who are vulnerable and dependent. It is much easier to see ourselves as the competent givers than the vulnerable receivers, and yet in our relationship with God we are ALL vulnerable and dependent. The roles of “helper” and “helped” are never completely separable when God’s Spirit is at work. That’s the tricky part and the key thing to remember anytime we begin to see ourselves primarily as the “helpers.” All encounter that is led by the Spirit is intended for the mutual transformation of both parties, and requires listening and obedience on both sides.

The blueprint for evangelism we have in the Acts of the Apostles, the stories of how the first disciples spread the faith in its earliest days, show story after story of mutual encounter. I’m struck by how often the people to whom the disciples are sent to bring the message receive their own vision from God ahead of time to let them know these people are coming. It’s not like the disciples are the only ones receiving visions telling them what other people need; the people they are sent to have also been spoken to by God and they are ready and waiting for them when they arrive.

We’ve heard several of these stories lately: in Paul’s conversion story we heard a few weeks ago from Acts chapter 9, Paul receives a vision from God telling him to go into the city and wait for someone to come and tell him what to do, and Ananias receives a vision telling him to go look for Paul, the infamous persecutor of the church. When they meet up, they confirm that they each have received visions that brought them together. In Acts 10, we hear the story of how Cornelius, the Roman soldier, receives a vision that he should send for Peter, and right about that same time Peter receives a vision telling him that all foods are clean and the Spirit tells him that some men have come looking for him and that the Spirit has sent them. This leads Peter to share the Gospel with Cornelius, breaking tradition in taking the message to and including Gentiles, not just his fellow Jews.

In today’s story, we don’t have as clear of an example of the Spirit moving on both sides – we’re not told whether the people of Macedonia also received a vision telling them to expect the disciples, but Lydia is receptive and open to their message when they arrive. And far from a patronizing encounter where the disciples do all the “giving” and “helping” to this “poor lost soul,” Lydia does her own share of giving right back – she shows them hospitality by providing lodging for the disciples while they are in her community. The encounter is one of mutual transformation, mutual benefit, mutual assistance, not just from one side to the other.

And perhaps the most important aspect of this evangelism story is that it is Spirit-led; it is God’s initiative that leads to Lydia’s conversion, not Paul’s or any other person’s. Paul and his crew weren’t even planning to go to Macedonia originally; they had planned to continue to travel in the region where they had been. If our first lesson had started just three verses earlier in this chapter, at verse 6 instead of verse 9, we would have heard this introduction to the journey to Macedonia:

“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.” (Acts 16:6-8)

It’s here that our reading for today picks up, with verse 9:

“During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days.”

It is in Philippi that they encounter Lydia. Now, if you look at the map I’ve included in your bulletins, you’ll see all these cities or regions that were mentioned in the reading have been circled. Look at where Phrygia and Galatia are, in the central part of what is now Turkey. That whole region is called “Asia” on the map, and even though the scripture says they had already been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia,” still they try to go to Bithynia – see where that is on the map? Even further north than Galatia, and still East! It’s like, um, hello, what part of “not in Asia right now, folks!” did you guys not get? But “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go there, and so they go down to Troas – see where that is? Basically as far West as you can go and still be in Asia. They’re trying desperately to hang on to what they already know, to stay in the area that’s familiar to them, to continue to try to do something in Asia despite being told that their ministry is not there right now. So here they are, hanging out in Troas, at the very edge of their familiar territory, and it’s here that Paul receives the message to go to Macedonia – even further West – a whole different land mass! They follow that call and they wind up finding Lydia in Philippi. She was the one God had prepared for them to encounter next, and if they hadn’t been willing to listen to the Spirit’s promptings and follow where God led, they would have never even met her.

In our Gospel passage for today, Jesus promises the disciples that after he is taken from them, they will continue to have a teacher and guide in the Holy Spirit: “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he says. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” (John 14:25-26)

The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of God among us, to continue to guide and direct the church in the ways that God wants us to go. The disciples had the benefit of an actual human person in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to teach and guide them, but now we are left with this illusive and not-so-easy-to-identify Holy Spirit as our guide. Our challenge is to remember that we still have a teacher and guide with us, because it is a lot easier to ignore that guide if it is not a physical person actually speaking to us and showing us the way. It’s a lot easier, in the absence of a physical person as leader, to be guided by our own ideas and desires rather than God’s ideas and desires.

I’ve said quite a bit about that distinction lately, and I want to make clear that I’m not saying that our ideas and desires are inherently opposed to God’s ideas and desires. They can, in fact, be the same thing. But the key is remembering to ask the question, to listen for where the Spirit is leading us and being open to the idea that that might not be the same place we’ve decided we want to go. Like the disciples in our passage from Acts today, we might think we’re going to Bithynia, but God wants us to go to Macedonia! Sometimes when we listen to the Spirit, we find a whole new direction that we hadn’t even thought of before. Other times, we confirm that the direction we’re already going is indeed of God – but again, remembering to listen is the key point.

So the corrective to the shadow side of Christianity’s missionary impulse is to ensure that evangelism is always Spirit-led. When left to our own devices, we know the horrible things we are capable of – coming in to a community and tearing away their time-honored traditions and the ways God has spoken to them throughout the centuries, insisting that they do things our way, right down to the clothes they wear and the language they speak, falsely equating one particular human culture with the Gospel. But when we look at the stories of evangelism in the book of Acts, the account of how the faith first spread, we are reminded that authentic evangelism is always Spirit-led. It is God-initiated rather than human-initiated. And it is never a one-way encounter. It is never one people telling another what to do. It is always a mutual encounter in which both sides have received messages or visions from God and together they attempt to discover the wonderful thing that God is trying to do in their midst and to be faithful to that call.

So as we consider the ways we might reach out to our neighborhood and the community around this church building, let us be in prayer and deep listening about where God is calling us – and how God might already be speaking to the people around us. Being still long enough to listen will help us ensure that our evangelism is Spirit-led rather than human-led.

Who are we to hinder God -- even when God breaks tradition?

Sermon delivered Sunday, April 24, 2016 (5th Sunday of Easter, Year C) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

(Acts 11:1-18, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35)


“Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people.”

We use that phrase to conclude the reading of the Scriptures in public worship at St. Cuthbert’s. This phrase comes from a liturgical resource called “Enriching Our Worship,” which was made available to the Episcopal Church in 1998 as a supplement to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It offers alternative phrases and imagery to the more traditional wording in the prayer book.

The traditional phrase used after the reading of Scripture in the prayer book is, “The Word of the Lord.” But I much prefer “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” for several reasons. 

Although I do believe our scriptures to be “The Word of the Lord,” I think using that phrase so casually and without clarification can lead to a misunderstanding of how we are to engage with them. To me, when I hear “THE WORD OF THE LORD,” I imagine some big booming voice of authority sending down a message from on high. To me, that phrase has a sense of absolutism that does not encourage inquiry and exploration. This is the truth, the whole truth, the undeniable, indisputable truth, so help us God!

But “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” has an entirely different ring, at least to my ears. Rather than telling us to be passive recipients of something coming down from heaven, it invites us to discern what God is saying to us now in and through this text. It doesn’t imply that there is one meaning and all we have to do is accept it. When we are invited to “Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people,” we must do something in response to the scripture. We have to use our own faculties, our own God-given gifts for discernment, to figure out what God is saying to our church, to our community, to our country, to our world, through this passage of scripture.

This semantic distinction is important, I think, because it reminds us that God’s revelation to us is ongoing, not static. While maintaining and preserving tradition and passing it on to the next generation is important, if we focus only on that part of religion, we can end up knowing more about what God said to the ancient people than what God is saying to us today.

The letter to the Hebrews says that “the Word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), and our brothers and sisters in the United Church of Christ remind us that “God is still speaking,” which has been their official slogan since 2004. Despite the fact that the scriptures include stories of God encouraging change in individuals and within communities, and of God saying outright, “I am doing a new thing!” – whether through the ancient prophet Isaiah or the futuristic book of Revelation – many people still tend to think of God – and therefore religion – as unchanging, unchangeable, set in stone, and church can be a place where “innovation” can be a dirty word.

But our scriptures on this Fifth Sunday of Easter, in this season of change and renewal, put innovation right up front and center. Beyond John’s vision of the heavenly king proclaiming “I am making all things new” in the passage from Revelation and Jesus giving a “new commandment” to the disciples in the passage from John, perhaps the most striking example of innovation is in our passage from Acts, when Peter receives a revelation from God that leads him to abandon the dietary laws that were central to Jewish tradition.

Now, it’s perhaps not possible to overstate how significant this change was for Peter and for the followers of Jesus. Although there is a common misperception that Jesus rejected Jewish tradition and ritual because of the many times he broke the Sabbath or challenged the authorities, Jesus actually was not really a religious innovator. He followed the traditional Jewish practices and he observed all the Jewish festivals. He told his followers, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill.” In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, he has this to say about Jewish law:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-19)

Now, given that context, Peter’s vision telling him to “get up, kill and eat” animals that were forbidden by Jewish law to be eaten is extraordinarily radical! Peter immediately protests, saying, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” He probably thought this vision was a test, to see if he’d do the right thing, to see if he’d be tempted to eat any of the “forbidden fruits” he was being shown on this sheet coming down from heaven. I imagine Peter might have been remembering Jesus’s words: “Whoever breaks one of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” “No way am I going to break the dietary laws,” Peter’s thinking, “I’ve already screwed up enough times; I’m not going to screw it up again! I know the right answer to this one – ‘By no means, Lord, I wouldn’t DREAM of disobeying the law!’”

But in the vision, God insists that he do so! “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” says the voice from heaven.

I spent some time in evangelical non-denominational churches in college, and I remember a key part of their teaching was that no revelation could ever contradict scripture. So if you thought you had a vision from God, you had to go back and read the scriptures and see what they said, and if what you felt God was telling you to do was contrary to what the scripture said, it couldn’t be an authentic message from God. This line of reasoning was often used to explain to women who felt a call to ordained ministry why that couldn’t be an authentic message from God. Since women leading congregations would contradict scriptures that said, “Women should be silent in church,” or “I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man,” then obviously the woman must be confused or misunderstand what she’s really being called to do. God would never call a woman to ordained ministry, because that would contradict scripture!

But by that line of reasoning, Peter’s revelation in today’s passage from Acts would also be invalid! I’m sure some of the believers in Jerusalem rejected Peter’s message for the same reason: “What do you mean, God told you to eat unclean animals? That contradicts the scriptures! God would never tell you to do something that contradicts scripture!”

And yet, Christian tradition has held up this story as an example of how the Spirit moved among the believers in the early church, and the church would look very different today had Peter’s vision not been taken seriously – we would all still be keeping kosher and all the other commandments of the Jewish law as well. We would have essentially been required to convert to Judaism in order to become a follower of Jesus. But Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation acknowledged that God was bringing in the Gentiles even without their conversion to Judaism. Peter’s contrary-to-scripture revelation was central to the birth of the church and what it would become, and therefore central to our identity as Christians today. We now regard this example of breaking tradition as scripture!

The revelation Peter received wasn’t just a new interpretation of an old way of being; it was literally rejecting something that had been sacrosanct and endorsing something that had been forbidden! If this was possible, how could the church ever know for sure that they were following the right path? How could they be sure they were following God’s will, if God’s will could change with the next revelation to come along?

We still continue to struggle with these questions today. The debate over women’s ordination that raged in the 20th century in Protestant churches and of course continues today in the Roman Catholic Church, and the debate over same-sex marriage that has become the “hot button issue” of the 21st century, are just two obvious, high profile examples of the church wrestling with whether God can move us in a direction that “contradicts tradition” or “contradicts scripture,” but we can see this dynamic at play in any number of situations in the church, in issues large and small, any time we feel ourselves being called to move in a direction that somehow seems to be contrary to what is taught in the Bible or church tradition, and yet, we feel this call so strongly that we cannot deny that it is of God.

And although he valued the religious tradition of his birth and upheld it, Jesus himself also taught his followers that the action of God in this world is not always so easy to pin down. He compared the work of the Spirit to the wind. In John chapter 3, he answers Nicodemus’s inquiry about how to enter the kingdom of heaven by saying, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit moves where it will, and our job is to be still long enough to listen for it and hear where it is moving, and to acknowledge it wherever we find it, even if it contradicts everything we’ve always known.

After the believers in Jerusalem hear about Peter’s vision showing that all foods had been made clean and then his story of the Gentiles receiving the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish followers of Jesus had, they acknowledge that it is possible that God is moving even in this unconventional way. “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” Peter asks, as he explains why he’s allowed Gentiles to join the community without keeping the Jewish law, and why he’s eaten with them despite their lack of adherence to the Jewish dietary laws. His listeners are silenced, for what satisfactory answer is there to that question? Who are we to hinder God? If God’s Spirit is behind something, good luck trying to stop it.

At another point in the book of Acts, the teacher Gamaliel, a wise elder on the Jewish council, defends the leaders of the church against calls for their execution by reasoning with his fellow councilmembers in this way:

“So in the present case,” Gamaliel says, “I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!’” (Acts 5:38-39)

As we begin the work of discernment about the future this congregation over the next weeks and months to come, let me remind you again about the key role of LISTENING in discernment. We are being invited to “hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people” at St. Cuthbert’s and in this part of Oakland. Our job is to listen for where God is already at work in the world around us, and to join in, to become his partners in creation, in bringing forth that “new thing” in our midst. Our job is to be open to the Spirit’s promptings and to follow them wherever they lead – even if they lead us to break tradition! Even if they lead us to do things that might contradict what we always thought we knew, or what we always thought we wanted for this church and for this community. Because no matter how noble and compassionate our ideas are, no matter how exciting or fun or promising they might seem, and no matter how much effort we put in to fulfilling them, they will never come to fruition if they are not in line with where God’s Spirit is already moving in the world. We can’t FORCE something to happen of our own will if it is not already of God.

So as we discern together, we must continue to ask ourselves “is this plan or this undertaking of human origin, or is it of God?” And we must be willing to accept the answer we receive, for if it is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, we will not be able to stop it, because who are we to hinder God?

Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are capable of amazing things

Sermon delivered Sunday, May 19, 2013 (The Day of Pentecost) at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, 25-27)

On this Day of Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the church in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of God in Christ with us, dwelling inside every baptized Christian and guiding the church to continue God’s work in the world.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus promised his followers that God would send them another Advocate after Jesus was no longer physically present with them. We heard this promise in today’s Gospel reading. In chapter 14 of John’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking to his disciples the night before his death and he says to them,

“…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you… the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:16-17, 25-27).

The Greek word translated as “Advocate” is parakletos, which can also be translated as “counselor,” “comforter,” and “intercessor.” The original Greek term had legal connotations – a parakletos is something like a defense attorney – one who advocates for you by arguing your case in front of another. The literal meaning of the word parakletos is “one who is called in” – more specifically, one who is called in to assist someone in trouble. When Jesus promises the disciples that the Holy Spirit will be a parakletos for them, it is a word of reassurance. “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid,” he says (John 14:27). In verse 18, which our lectionary leaves out, Jesus says that he will not leave his followers orphaned after he leaves this earth. He reassures the disciples that although they may fear his departure, God will not abandon them. The Holy Spirit will be with them, to assist them when they are in need, to defend them to anyone who may accuse them, to guide and teach them. They need not fear, because the very presence of God will dwell in them, a constant inner companion and guide.

The promise Jesus made to the first disciples he also makes to us. As Christians, we too have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Although the biblical accounts differ as to when and how the Holy Spirit comes to people, it is in most cases connected closely with baptism. In some cases, the Holy Spirit comes upon people before they are baptized, as in Acts 10, when the Holy Spirit falls upon the Gentiles while Peter preaches to them, causing Peter to ask, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47). At other places in the book of Acts, Peter and the other disciples promise their new converts that they will receive the Holy Spirit when they are baptized (Acts 2:38), but there are at least a few cases where the Holy Spirit comes to people after their baptism. In Acts 8, the people Philip baptizes in Samaria do not receive the Holy Spirit at their baptism, but only after Peter and John visit and lay hands on them (Acts 8:9-17).

The lack of consistency in the biblical accounts about when and how the Spirit comes to people is testimony to the fact that we cannot know exactly how and when the Spirit will move, nor can we control it. Jesus himself acknowledges this unpredictability of the Spirit, when he says to Nicodemus in chapter 3 of John’s Gospel, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The Spirit’s dynamic, unconstrained activity breaks down any boundaries we might draw about when and where God is present and pushes us to acknowledge the mystery of God’s movement in the world.

But even if we can’t define exactly how one receives the Holy Spirit, the scriptures testify that all who are baptized do have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. When we baptize(d) Amelia Anne Suit, Nina Mae Harder, and James Thomas Sullivan (at the 8:45 service this morning), we will say (said) to them that they are “sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” (BCP 308). The Holy Spirit is the gift of all baptized Christians, living in you and in me and in these newest three members of Christ’s church.

So what does it mean to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us? First, it means we are – or have the ability to become – holy. Traditionally, the work of the Holy Spirit has been associated with sanctification, the process of making something holy. When the Holy Spirit enters us and lives in us, it begins to transform us in the process that the Eastern Church calls theosis – becoming one with God. As the Holy Spirit unites our lives with the life of Christ in our baptism, in some mysterious way we actually participate in the life of the Trinity. Through the Holy Spirit’s work in us, we too become holy, as God in Christ is holy.

Secondly, having the Holy Spirit dwell in us means that we are capable of amazing things. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these” (John 14:12). Say what? Jesus’s followers will do greater works that Jesus himself? How is that possible? Greater works than healing the sick? Than walking on water? Than raising the dead? We modern people often think of these miraculous acts as unique to Jesus, but the Gospels and the Book of Acts tell us that the disciples also did miraculous works like these. Remember the story of Peter walking out to Jesus on the water? Jesus invites him to come to him on the water, and Peter does so – but about halfway out, he gets scared and starts to sink. When his focus is on Jesus, Peter is indeed able to do the works that Jesus does, but when he is distracted by the strong winds and fear creeps in, his faith falters – and with it, his ability to do miraculous works.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus is constantly reminding his followers of the power of faith – “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,” he says, “you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20). So it’s not surprising that as he prepares to leave them for the last time, he reminds them of this once again: “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and, in fact, will do greater works than these” (John 14:12). Through the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, nothing will be impossible for us.

Even though we as a culture tend to be skeptical about miracles, most of us probably can think of “Spirit-filled” experiences that either we have had ourselves or we have heard about through others that defy rational explanation. It might be a healing that mystified the medical professionals. Or a strong, uncanny sense that we should call someone, only to find out that they too had been feeling a strong draw toward us at that moment. Or it might be the experience of mystical creativity – a song or a poem or a painting that we are sure we did not create, but that “came to us” through the inspiration of the Spirit. Whatever these miraculous, Spirit-filled experiences might be, our faith invites us to embrace them, not to explain them away. And it also invites us to consider what else might be possible if we let go of our fear and opened ourselves to the power of the Holy Spirit working through us. Now, I’m not suggesting that you all go out and try walking on water – at least not without a life jacket! – but I am suggesting that you seriously consider where and how the Spirit is moving you to act, even if it seems crazy and impossible, and to stop pushing those proddings aside. Trust the power of the Holy Spirit that lives in you, and remember the words of Jesus and of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary – that nothing is impossible with God. (Matthew 17:20, Luke 1:37).

On this Day of Pentecost, as we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, as we welcome three new members of Christ’s Church, as we are reminded of the vast realm of possibility which lies open to us through the power of the Spirit, we say with the writer of Ephesians, “Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20, BCP translation).

Praise the Spirit in creation

We sang this hymn this morning at our community Eucharist (Wednesdays are our "Sundays" here at the seminary). It's a truly beautiful hymn, #507 in The Hymnal 1982 (the official Episcopal hymnal).

Praise the Spirit in creation
Breath of God, life's origin
Spirit moving on the waters,
Quickening worlds to life within
Source of breath to all things breathing
Life in whom all lives begin

Praise the Spirit, close companion
Of our inmost thoughts and ways
Who, in showing us God's wonders,
Is himself the power to gaze
And God's will, to those who listen,
By a still, small voice conveys.

Praise the Spirit, who enlightened
Priests and prophets with the word;
His the truth behind the wisdoms
Which as yet know not our Lord
By whose love and power in Jesus
God himself was seen and heard.

These are just the first three stanzas (not "verses" -- as I'm learning in my "Singing the Word" class, hymns have stanzas, not verses, because they are poems) -- I loved the opening stanza and also the third one that acknowledges that even the "wisdoms which as yet know not our Lord" are inspired by the Spirit.