Sermon delivered Sunday, May 7, 2017 (Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A), at The Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Aptos, CA, on my first Sunday serving that congregation as rector.
Sermon Text(s): John 10:1-10
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
Jesus, in using the image of himself as a shepherd, says that he came to give the sheep “abundant life.” He doesn’t say he came just to protect them from the thief, just to keep them alive. He came to give them abundant life – lots of life, more than they already had.
The kind of “life” Jesus is talking about here is more than literal, physical life, more than a beating heart and breath in our lungs. He’s talking about emotional life – lightheartedness, joy, excitement, love, resilience, fulfillment. Jesus came to give us more than breath in our bodies; he came to give us joy in our souls, the kind of joy that is unshaken by the ups and downs of life, an abiding joy that lives deep down, that connects us to the Source of all that is, the Source that tells us, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
I can’t think of a more perfect passage of scripture to begin our lives together as priest and people than this line from John’s Gospel about abundant life, because this is what the Church is all about: receiving and celebrating the abundant life that Jesus offers to us.
It’s sort of a personal mantra of mine that people should feel as comfortable in their church as they do in their own living rooms, and what I mean by that is that the church should be just as safe of a space for them as their private home is. It should be a place where they feel completely free to be themselves. Too often, the image people get of “the Church” is that it is a place of judgment, a place where they have to put on a certain face, keep up appearances, be presentable. But I take the view that, as the saying goes, the church is not a club for saints, but a hospital for sinners. It’s a place where we stand before the Almighty God to whom “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,” as our Collect for Purity says. It’s a place we come to lay bare the whole truth about ourselves and to reckon with what we find there. For some of us, it’s a lot easier to do that in front of God than in front of other people. But if you’ve ever been to a 12-Step meeting or a support group of any kind, you know that that kind of vulnerability and intimacy, the kind that leads to the healing of wounds and the ability to live your life to the fullest, is possible within the context of a gathering of flawed human beings. And I believe the Church should be about creating those kinds of spaces for people, spaces where people can experience the abundant life that is possible in Christ.
On Wednesday, I shared part of my spiritual journey with the Episcopal Church Women at the luncheon they held to welcome me, and I mentioned that although I was raised in church, I didn’t come to know Christ and commit to follow him until I was a teenager. In the first few years after that “conversion experience,” I listened to a lot of contemporary Christian music. One song I heard during that time, a song by Ginny Owens called “Free,” gave me an image of the kind of life that could be possible for me if I could truly embrace the gift of God’s grace. Nearly 20 years later, I’m still working on letting go enough to truly experience this kind of freedom, but I have tasted moments of it, and I deeply believe this is the kind of abundant life to which Jesus calls us. The song starts with a description of what the author’s life was like before she embraced God’s grace:
Turnin’ molehills into mountains
Makin’ big deals out of small ones
Bearing gifts as if they're burdens --
This is how it's been
Fear of coming out of my shell
Too many things I can't do too well
‘fraid I'll try real hard and I'll fail --
This is how it's been
‘Til the day you pounded on my heart's door,
And you shouted joyfully,
“You're not a slave anymore!
You're free to dance --
Forget about your two left feet!
And you're free to sing ---
Even joyful noise is music to me!
And free to love
'Cause I've given you my love and it's made you free…
Free from worry
Free from envy and denial
Free to live, free to give, free to smile!” [1]
This is what “abundant life” looks like to me: Singing and dancing with abandon because I know I am accepted as I am. Giving freely because I know I have more than enough to share. Radiating love to all around me, drawing from that internal well of joy, unshaken by the ups and downs of this world, that comes from knowing that Christ has given me his love and it’s made me free. I don’t claim to be a perfect picture of that in every moment, but it’s the image I hold in my mind of the kind of life that is possible if I allow God’s grace to work in me.
Because although the world operates out of a mentality of scarcity, hoarding things because we believe there is not enough to go around, the message of the Gospel is one of abundance. In God’s economy, the concept of “scarcity of resources” does not exist. The gift of God in Christ is more love, more grace, more mercy, more soul food than we can possibly consume on our own. In the face of such abundance, we are compelled to share – because as that grace continues to flow into us even after it has filled us up, it overflows out of us to everyone around us. There is so much grace available that we literally cannot keep it all to ourselves. As the psalmist says, “our cup is running over.”
What does this look like in practice? The image of the early church in our passage from Acts 2 this morning gives us an example:
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”
That intangible, internal sense of abundance can be translated into an experience of external abundance as well. The church is meant to be a place where we all share what we have to make sure that the needs of all are met. To the extent that we do that, the church community itself becomes a sacrament – “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,” as the Book of Common Prayer defines it (BCP 857). And as with all sacraments, both aspects must be there for it to be truly sacred – the outward sign is meaningless without the inward grace, and the inward grace is meaningless if it does not manifest in an outward sign.
So as we come together today as priest and people, I pray that our lives together will be sacramental: manifesting through outward and visible signs the inward and spiritual grace that we know through our relationship with Jesus Christ. I pray that our community will be known as one of abundance – abundant life, abundant gratitude, abundant compassion, abundant giving. Through our gratefulness for the abundance of God’s grace, I pray that we too, like the early church, will distribute our plenty to any among us who have need – and I hope we’ll sing and dance with abandon while we’re doing it.
[1] Ginny Owens, "Free," from the album Without Condition. ℗ 1999 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Placing love of neighbor above personal freedom
Sermon delivered Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015 (4th Sunday After the Epiphany, Year B), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
In our second reading today, the apostle Paul is advising the church at Corinth about whether or not Christians should eat food sacrificed at the temples of other gods.
This was an issue of some controversy to the church in Corinth, a Greek city composed mostly of Gentiles who worshipped the traditional Greek deities like Zeus and Hera. When Gentiles became Christians, they were taught to stop worshipping those Greek deities and to worship only the Jewish God, who Christians believed had become incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ. One of the ways they had worshipped at the Greek temples was to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to those gods, so many of the new converts were abstaining from that meat after they became Christian.
But some Christians insisted that it was ok to continue to eat the meat that had been sacrificed in the Greek temples because the Greek gods did not exist anyway, so eating meat that had been sacrificed to them was harmless. It was probably an inconvenient hassle in that society to avoid meat sacrificed at the Greek temples, since much of the meat sold in the public market would have come from that source. Rather than having to go to great lengths to avoid it, some members of the church reasoned that it was not actually a problem to eat it after all.
Paul writes to address this conflict and to advise the community on how to stay in relationship with one another despite their disagreements. Although Paul agrees in principle with those who insist that it is harmless to eat the meat from the Greek temples, he calls them to abstain from doing so if it causes harm to their fellow Christians’ faith. He encourages them to be willing to inconvenience themselves by voluntarily giving up a behavior that is harmless to them for the sake of their neighbors, to give love of neighbor a higher priority than the exercise of personal freedom.
Earlier in this first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, there is a summary of this point in chapter 6, verse 12: “All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Although we may have the freedom in Christ to know that we will be forgiven of our sins no matter what we do, the command for us to love our neighbor as ourselves demands that we consider how our actions will affect other people, and limit our freedom accordingly.
This tension between personal freedom and responsibility to the common good comes up in secular terms in our discussions of the right to free speech. In general, though we pride ourselves on “freedom of speech” in this country, the courts have generally upheld the idea that that does NOT give one the right to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater if there is not in fact a fire. It may be technically permissible to do so, but it is not beneficial to the common good and safety of those gathered to create a situation where people would panic and perhaps hurt one another in their haste to leave the theater. Thus, even though it is permissible for Christians to eat the meat sacrificed to the Greek gods, it may not be beneficial to the greater community of the church for them to do so.
Paul refers to those who are likely to be led astray by seeing other Christians eat meat in the Greek temples as “weaker” Christians, and although this term carries with it a judgment call about who is “right” and “wrong” in this argument, his point is that in order to most fully reflect God’s love, we must always consider the weakest or most vulnerable members among us and how our actions will affect them. There is a well-known saying that the greatness of a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members, and that is certainly true about the body of Christ. Paul encourages us to always be aware of the lowest common denominator, of the most inclusive course of action possible to keep the most people together at the table.
This call to inclusivity and awareness of our most vulnerable members may mean that we are asked to voluntarily give up something we enjoy doing or to change our behavior in a way that perhaps we would prefer not to do, out of consideration for others. B.W. Johnson, a late 19th century Church of Christ pastor and professor, said this in his commentary on this passage from 1 Corinthians:
“The Christian principle, the rule of love, is, ‘If eating meat, or going to the theatre, or going to a ball, or attending the fair, or drinking wine or beer, causeth my brother to offend, I will not do these things while the world standeth.”
Now, we may think that sounds like an extreme statement, and in general, we in the Episcopal Church tend to pride ourselves on the fact that we allow and even celebrate many things that other Christian communities frown upon – whether that be going to a ball, or attending the fair, or drinking wine or beer. But sometimes, the emphasis we place on the freedom we have in our actions in this church can take such a priority that we can forget to consider the effects of our actions on others. We can sometimes act in accordance with the secular principle of celebrating our right to do whatever we want rather than in accordance with the Christian principle of placing love of neighbor and our responsibility to the community above our own wants and desires.
To put a little flesh on this concept with a specific example, I would suggest that one of the areas where this plays out in the Episcopal Church is in our attitude toward the use of alcohol. Now, I know this can be a touchy subject, but I assure you that it is probably a fairly good parallel to how touchy the subject of eating food from the Greek temples would have been to our brothers and sisters in the first century A.D., so let’s think about it carefully for a little bit.
Many of us appreciate the fact that the Episcopal Church is not as “uptight” as some other denominations in its approach to alcohol. In fact, that accepting view of alcohol use is even part of the reason some of us chose this church as adults. We appreciate the fact that this is a place where having a glass of wine is not looked upon as a sin. We know that even in those denominations where drinking is forbidden, members often do so in secret and feel shamed about it, so we reason that if people are going to drink, at least in our church it can be done in the open and without shame, and thus hopefully in a more moderate and healthy manner. But in certain contexts in the Episcopal Church, from church functions to seminary parties, I have seen drinking taken to excess, and this kind of behavior laughed about and even encouraged. We all know the jokes about alcohol and the Episcopal Church – whether it’s the reference to us as “Whisky-palians” or the joke that “wherever there are four Episcopalians, there’s a fifth.” I’ve laughed at these jokes as much as the next person, but when I take a step back and really think about it, I find this levity toward excessive drinking to be somewhat disturbing in light of the issue Paul raises in today’s passage from 1 Corinthians. Are we causing our brothers and sisters to stumble by our attitudes in this area? How are we caring for our most vulnerable members, those in our midst who struggle with addiction to alcohol?
Certainly people with addictions are ultimately responsible for making their own choices to abstain, but remember what Paul said to the church at Corinth. “If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” I doubt Paul became a vegetarian for the rest of his life as a result of this issue, but even so, his rhetorical point should give us pause. If alcohol is a cause of our brother or sister’s falling, should we not consider more carefully how we approach it within our Christian community together? Heaven forbid that the church should be the place where someone is led to a relapse of their addiction, but it could happen.
People who don’t currently have problems with alcohol may resent this call to restraint or consideration, protesting that it is unnecessary for them, but if we are to take the Scripture seriously, this passage encourages us to be willing to limit our freedoms based on love of neighbor, to be willing to alter our behavior in ways that may be unnecessary for us in order to more fully include and welcome our brothers and sisters in Christ.
I’m not suggesting that we all give up drinking, necessarily, but that we be more intentional and aware of the effects drinking can have on others, and of the way we talk about and present our drinking in the church. And it’s not my intention to unfairly pick on alcohol – there are certainly many other topics we could consider from this perspective. Interfaith dialogue is one of them. For some Christians, seeing Christian leaders participate in prayer and worship with people of other faiths can be a stumbling block to their faith, and this is certainly an area where one could call me to be more considerate and careful toward others as I engage in interfaith work in the church. So this sermon is not intended to be a moralistic condemnation of all alcohol consumption, but simply a call for us to be more thoughtful and considerate of the effects of our actions on others in all areas of our lives.
During this season of Epiphany, we are called to consider the ways in which Christ was made known in his day – the historical events and miracles that revealed his identity as the Son of God – and also to consider the ways Christ is made known today through our lives and witness. At the end of the service, we pray in the Epiphany blessing that Christ the Son of God may be manifest in you, that your lives may be a light to the world. During the rest of this season, take time to examine some of your actions and choices in light of how they affect those around you. Ask yourself, “What does this action manifest in my life? Does it make Christ more fully known to those around me?” Even if the behavior is something you think is harmless, consider whether it might make your neighbor stumble in their faith, and if that is a possibility, think twice before you do it.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
In our second reading today, the apostle Paul is advising the church at Corinth about whether or not Christians should eat food sacrificed at the temples of other gods.
This was an issue of some controversy to the church in Corinth, a Greek city composed mostly of Gentiles who worshipped the traditional Greek deities like Zeus and Hera. When Gentiles became Christians, they were taught to stop worshipping those Greek deities and to worship only the Jewish God, who Christians believed had become incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ. One of the ways they had worshipped at the Greek temples was to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to those gods, so many of the new converts were abstaining from that meat after they became Christian.
But some Christians insisted that it was ok to continue to eat the meat that had been sacrificed in the Greek temples because the Greek gods did not exist anyway, so eating meat that had been sacrificed to them was harmless. It was probably an inconvenient hassle in that society to avoid meat sacrificed at the Greek temples, since much of the meat sold in the public market would have come from that source. Rather than having to go to great lengths to avoid it, some members of the church reasoned that it was not actually a problem to eat it after all.
Paul writes to address this conflict and to advise the community on how to stay in relationship with one another despite their disagreements. Although Paul agrees in principle with those who insist that it is harmless to eat the meat from the Greek temples, he calls them to abstain from doing so if it causes harm to their fellow Christians’ faith. He encourages them to be willing to inconvenience themselves by voluntarily giving up a behavior that is harmless to them for the sake of their neighbors, to give love of neighbor a higher priority than the exercise of personal freedom.
Earlier in this first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, there is a summary of this point in chapter 6, verse 12: “All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Although we may have the freedom in Christ to know that we will be forgiven of our sins no matter what we do, the command for us to love our neighbor as ourselves demands that we consider how our actions will affect other people, and limit our freedom accordingly.
This tension between personal freedom and responsibility to the common good comes up in secular terms in our discussions of the right to free speech. In general, though we pride ourselves on “freedom of speech” in this country, the courts have generally upheld the idea that that does NOT give one the right to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater if there is not in fact a fire. It may be technically permissible to do so, but it is not beneficial to the common good and safety of those gathered to create a situation where people would panic and perhaps hurt one another in their haste to leave the theater. Thus, even though it is permissible for Christians to eat the meat sacrificed to the Greek gods, it may not be beneficial to the greater community of the church for them to do so.
Paul refers to those who are likely to be led astray by seeing other Christians eat meat in the Greek temples as “weaker” Christians, and although this term carries with it a judgment call about who is “right” and “wrong” in this argument, his point is that in order to most fully reflect God’s love, we must always consider the weakest or most vulnerable members among us and how our actions will affect them. There is a well-known saying that the greatness of a society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members, and that is certainly true about the body of Christ. Paul encourages us to always be aware of the lowest common denominator, of the most inclusive course of action possible to keep the most people together at the table.
This call to inclusivity and awareness of our most vulnerable members may mean that we are asked to voluntarily give up something we enjoy doing or to change our behavior in a way that perhaps we would prefer not to do, out of consideration for others. B.W. Johnson, a late 19th century Church of Christ pastor and professor, said this in his commentary on this passage from 1 Corinthians:
“The Christian principle, the rule of love, is, ‘If eating meat, or going to the theatre, or going to a ball, or attending the fair, or drinking wine or beer, causeth my brother to offend, I will not do these things while the world standeth.”
Now, we may think that sounds like an extreme statement, and in general, we in the Episcopal Church tend to pride ourselves on the fact that we allow and even celebrate many things that other Christian communities frown upon – whether that be going to a ball, or attending the fair, or drinking wine or beer. But sometimes, the emphasis we place on the freedom we have in our actions in this church can take such a priority that we can forget to consider the effects of our actions on others. We can sometimes act in accordance with the secular principle of celebrating our right to do whatever we want rather than in accordance with the Christian principle of placing love of neighbor and our responsibility to the community above our own wants and desires.
To put a little flesh on this concept with a specific example, I would suggest that one of the areas where this plays out in the Episcopal Church is in our attitude toward the use of alcohol. Now, I know this can be a touchy subject, but I assure you that it is probably a fairly good parallel to how touchy the subject of eating food from the Greek temples would have been to our brothers and sisters in the first century A.D., so let’s think about it carefully for a little bit.
Many of us appreciate the fact that the Episcopal Church is not as “uptight” as some other denominations in its approach to alcohol. In fact, that accepting view of alcohol use is even part of the reason some of us chose this church as adults. We appreciate the fact that this is a place where having a glass of wine is not looked upon as a sin. We know that even in those denominations where drinking is forbidden, members often do so in secret and feel shamed about it, so we reason that if people are going to drink, at least in our church it can be done in the open and without shame, and thus hopefully in a more moderate and healthy manner. But in certain contexts in the Episcopal Church, from church functions to seminary parties, I have seen drinking taken to excess, and this kind of behavior laughed about and even encouraged. We all know the jokes about alcohol and the Episcopal Church – whether it’s the reference to us as “Whisky-palians” or the joke that “wherever there are four Episcopalians, there’s a fifth.” I’ve laughed at these jokes as much as the next person, but when I take a step back and really think about it, I find this levity toward excessive drinking to be somewhat disturbing in light of the issue Paul raises in today’s passage from 1 Corinthians. Are we causing our brothers and sisters to stumble by our attitudes in this area? How are we caring for our most vulnerable members, those in our midst who struggle with addiction to alcohol?
Certainly people with addictions are ultimately responsible for making their own choices to abstain, but remember what Paul said to the church at Corinth. “If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” I doubt Paul became a vegetarian for the rest of his life as a result of this issue, but even so, his rhetorical point should give us pause. If alcohol is a cause of our brother or sister’s falling, should we not consider more carefully how we approach it within our Christian community together? Heaven forbid that the church should be the place where someone is led to a relapse of their addiction, but it could happen.
People who don’t currently have problems with alcohol may resent this call to restraint or consideration, protesting that it is unnecessary for them, but if we are to take the Scripture seriously, this passage encourages us to be willing to limit our freedoms based on love of neighbor, to be willing to alter our behavior in ways that may be unnecessary for us in order to more fully include and welcome our brothers and sisters in Christ.
I’m not suggesting that we all give up drinking, necessarily, but that we be more intentional and aware of the effects drinking can have on others, and of the way we talk about and present our drinking in the church. And it’s not my intention to unfairly pick on alcohol – there are certainly many other topics we could consider from this perspective. Interfaith dialogue is one of them. For some Christians, seeing Christian leaders participate in prayer and worship with people of other faiths can be a stumbling block to their faith, and this is certainly an area where one could call me to be more considerate and careful toward others as I engage in interfaith work in the church. So this sermon is not intended to be a moralistic condemnation of all alcohol consumption, but simply a call for us to be more thoughtful and considerate of the effects of our actions on others in all areas of our lives.
During this season of Epiphany, we are called to consider the ways in which Christ was made known in his day – the historical events and miracles that revealed his identity as the Son of God – and also to consider the ways Christ is made known today through our lives and witness. At the end of the service, we pray in the Epiphany blessing that Christ the Son of God may be manifest in you, that your lives may be a light to the world. During the rest of this season, take time to examine some of your actions and choices in light of how they affect those around you. Ask yourself, “What does this action manifest in my life? Does it make Christ more fully known to those around me?” Even if the behavior is something you think is harmless, consider whether it might make your neighbor stumble in their faith, and if that is a possibility, think twice before you do it.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Participating in Resurrection
Sermon delivered Sunday, April 6, 2014 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45)
Our readings for today seem to be getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re all about resurrection! God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to bring them back to life, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Paul tells us that “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Romans 8:11).
Resurrection, bringing life from death, is everywhere in these readings. With the exception of the psalm, there’s hardly a word anywhere about our Lenten themes of sin and repentance. What’s going on here? If Easter is still two weeks away, why all this talk about resurrection in the middle of Lent?
Perhaps it is because we most need to remember the promise of resurrection during times of repentance. Whenever we stop to take a cold, hard look at the ways we are dead in our sins, we need to simultaneously remember the promise that we can and will be made alive through the Spirit of God working in us. The 40 days of Lent metaphorically recall Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, and it is during our own wilderness periods that we are most aware of our need for resurrection. When we come face to face with our shortcomings and our mortality, we are most open to the gift of grace and new life that God offers to us. By anticipating the resurrection two weeks before we make it to Easter, our readings today remind us that God’s offer of new life is available even in the midst of the wilderness.
And these readings also remind us of something about resurrection that we don’t hear as clearly in the Easter passages – they remind us that God invites us to participate in the process of resurrection. In today’s passages, the people are not passive bystanders to God’s miraculous power to bring life from death; they actually join with God in bringing about resurrection.
Ezekiel joins with God in bringing new life to the dry bones by speaking the words God has given him to speak, and the bystanders in the Gospel join with Jesus in restoring Lazarus to life by moving away the stone from the grave and removing Lazarus’s burial clothes. [1] Clearly, the power to bring life from death is entirely God’s, but at least in these stories, God does not do so without involving others in the process. God could have showed Ezekiel a vision of the dry bones coming back to life without any required words or actions on Ezekiel’s part, and God could have moved the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb miraculously, without human involvement, and Lazarus could have walked out already free from his burial shroud. But for whatever reason, God didn’t do it that way. God chose to leave parts of the process for us to do.
It has become somewhat of a catch-phrase in modern theology to talk about people as being “co-creators with God.” This idea proposes that human beings partner with God in the maintenance of the created world and in bringing about God’s purposes in it. In contrast to a view that sees human beings as entirely passive because “God’s in control,” this theology insists that human beings are active partners with God in God’s activity in the world.
Although a common critique of this theology is that it ascribes too much power to humans, coming close to saying human beings are equal to God, the theologian who first coined the term, Phillip Hefner, actually used the phrase “created co-creator.” We are not just co-creators – as if we were fellow gods in the heavenly court – we are created co-creators. We are, in fact, creatures, and the creature is not greater than the creator.
But, because we are created in the image of God who is a creator, we are made to be creators as well. Our creative abilities – in the arts, in science and technology, in problem-solving – are seen as a stamp of the divine nature in us. This theology also emphasizes human freedom, because it says that God does not direct every little action that happens on earth, but gives us the freedom of self-determination. No, God does not need us to do anything, but rather than exert total and utter control over us, God chooses to leave parts of the process for us to do. To the extent that we do those things, we become a partner with God in the great work of the divine redemption of the world. It is an unequal partnership, to be sure, but it is a partnership all the same.
The people in our readings for today are examples of the created co-creator. They are partners – however unequal – with God in making resurrection happen. Ezekiel delivers the words, the bystanders in the Gospel roll away the stone and remove Lazarus’s burial clothes. They remind us that although God is fully capable of bringing about transformation without us, God often asks for our help in doing so. God gives us a role to play. God invites us to participate in the work of resurrection.
The actions that Jesus tells the people to perform in today’s Gospel reading are rather symbolic. His specific instructions to them are, “Take away the stone,” and “Unbind him and let him go.” Although we can assume the people were invited to do these things in a literal sense for very practical reasons, the stories in John’s Gospel always have a deeper symbolic meaning.
Jesus invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by taking away the stones – the obstacles in our lives and in the lives of others that prevent the power of God from reaching us. I’m sure we’ve all known people who have constructed such emotional walls around themselves that they shut out everyone around them, and even shut out God. We might have even done this in our own lives at some point. There is a saying of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who relates that God said to him, “O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” We must give love in order to be open to receiving love. If we do not take away the stones from the entrance to our hearts, the power of resurrection can in no way reach us.
Jesus also invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by doing the difficult work of unbinding the shroud of death – the painful memories, the negative self-talk, the grudges and resentments – whatever it is that keeps us bound to the ways of sin and death – he invites us to cut loose those cords so that we can experience and appreciate the full power of the liberation given to us in the resurrection. Even though he had been restored to life, Lazarus’s freedom was still restricted until the people unbound him and let him go. Likewise, even if we have received the gift of new life through the resurrection in our baptism, we too can remain bound by our old burial shroud of sin and death, unless we do our part in the resurrection process and work to loosen those bonds.
This partnering with God in the process of resurrection is not easy business. And we can’t do it alone. Just as Lazarus could not untie himself, and certainly could not have moved the stone away from his grave while he was still dead, so we too sometimes must rely on others to help us move the stones and unbind the shrouds in our lives. This is not to say that others can do it all for us, but that we need companions and guides as we do this work. And while others have a part to play in our liberation, we also have a part to play in theirs – in fact, the two are inextricably linked. As we strive to do this difficult work, this spiritual work of opening ourselves to God and others, of rolling away the stones and unbinding the shroud of death, we find that our best guides and companions on the way are those people who know something about rolling away stones and unbinding shrouds – those people who have been there and have found a way through.
So maybe it’s not so out of character to think about resurrection during Lent after all. For it is only when we have experienced resurrection in the midst of our own wilderness that we are able to joyfully claim our role as created co-creators in God’s great work of redemption in the world.
[1] Insight into the participatory nature of the Gospel passage came from Richard Rohr, Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011): 101. I must give him credit for the inspiration behind the direction of and theme of this sermon.
Our readings for today seem to be getting a little ahead of themselves. They’re all about resurrection! God instructs Ezekiel to prophesy to the dry bones to bring them back to life, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and Paul tells us that “he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also” (Romans 8:11).
Resurrection, bringing life from death, is everywhere in these readings. With the exception of the psalm, there’s hardly a word anywhere about our Lenten themes of sin and repentance. What’s going on here? If Easter is still two weeks away, why all this talk about resurrection in the middle of Lent?
Perhaps it is because we most need to remember the promise of resurrection during times of repentance. Whenever we stop to take a cold, hard look at the ways we are dead in our sins, we need to simultaneously remember the promise that we can and will be made alive through the Spirit of God working in us. The 40 days of Lent metaphorically recall Jesus’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness, and it is during our own wilderness periods that we are most aware of our need for resurrection. When we come face to face with our shortcomings and our mortality, we are most open to the gift of grace and new life that God offers to us. By anticipating the resurrection two weeks before we make it to Easter, our readings today remind us that God’s offer of new life is available even in the midst of the wilderness.
And these readings also remind us of something about resurrection that we don’t hear as clearly in the Easter passages – they remind us that God invites us to participate in the process of resurrection. In today’s passages, the people are not passive bystanders to God’s miraculous power to bring life from death; they actually join with God in bringing about resurrection.
Ezekiel joins with God in bringing new life to the dry bones by speaking the words God has given him to speak, and the bystanders in the Gospel join with Jesus in restoring Lazarus to life by moving away the stone from the grave and removing Lazarus’s burial clothes. [1] Clearly, the power to bring life from death is entirely God’s, but at least in these stories, God does not do so without involving others in the process. God could have showed Ezekiel a vision of the dry bones coming back to life without any required words or actions on Ezekiel’s part, and God could have moved the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb miraculously, without human involvement, and Lazarus could have walked out already free from his burial shroud. But for whatever reason, God didn’t do it that way. God chose to leave parts of the process for us to do.
It has become somewhat of a catch-phrase in modern theology to talk about people as being “co-creators with God.” This idea proposes that human beings partner with God in the maintenance of the created world and in bringing about God’s purposes in it. In contrast to a view that sees human beings as entirely passive because “God’s in control,” this theology insists that human beings are active partners with God in God’s activity in the world.
Although a common critique of this theology is that it ascribes too much power to humans, coming close to saying human beings are equal to God, the theologian who first coined the term, Phillip Hefner, actually used the phrase “created co-creator.” We are not just co-creators – as if we were fellow gods in the heavenly court – we are created co-creators. We are, in fact, creatures, and the creature is not greater than the creator.
But, because we are created in the image of God who is a creator, we are made to be creators as well. Our creative abilities – in the arts, in science and technology, in problem-solving – are seen as a stamp of the divine nature in us. This theology also emphasizes human freedom, because it says that God does not direct every little action that happens on earth, but gives us the freedom of self-determination. No, God does not need us to do anything, but rather than exert total and utter control over us, God chooses to leave parts of the process for us to do. To the extent that we do those things, we become a partner with God in the great work of the divine redemption of the world. It is an unequal partnership, to be sure, but it is a partnership all the same.
The people in our readings for today are examples of the created co-creator. They are partners – however unequal – with God in making resurrection happen. Ezekiel delivers the words, the bystanders in the Gospel roll away the stone and remove Lazarus’s burial clothes. They remind us that although God is fully capable of bringing about transformation without us, God often asks for our help in doing so. God gives us a role to play. God invites us to participate in the work of resurrection.
The actions that Jesus tells the people to perform in today’s Gospel reading are rather symbolic. His specific instructions to them are, “Take away the stone,” and “Unbind him and let him go.” Although we can assume the people were invited to do these things in a literal sense for very practical reasons, the stories in John’s Gospel always have a deeper symbolic meaning.
Jesus invites us to participate in the work of resurrection by taking away the stones – the obstacles in our lives and in the lives of others that prevent the power of God from reaching us. I’m sure we’ve all known people who have constructed such emotional walls around themselves that they shut out everyone around them, and even shut out God. We might have even done this in our own lives at some point. There is a saying of Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, who relates that God said to him, “O Son of Being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee.” We must give love in order to be open to receiving love. If we do not take away the stones from the entrance to our hearts, the power of resurrection can in no way reach us.
 |
| Unbinding Lazarus |
This partnering with God in the process of resurrection is not easy business. And we can’t do it alone. Just as Lazarus could not untie himself, and certainly could not have moved the stone away from his grave while he was still dead, so we too sometimes must rely on others to help us move the stones and unbind the shrouds in our lives. This is not to say that others can do it all for us, but that we need companions and guides as we do this work. And while others have a part to play in our liberation, we also have a part to play in theirs – in fact, the two are inextricably linked. As we strive to do this difficult work, this spiritual work of opening ourselves to God and others, of rolling away the stones and unbinding the shroud of death, we find that our best guides and companions on the way are those people who know something about rolling away stones and unbinding shrouds – those people who have been there and have found a way through.
So maybe it’s not so out of character to think about resurrection during Lent after all. For it is only when we have experienced resurrection in the midst of our own wilderness that we are able to joyfully claim our role as created co-creators in God’s great work of redemption in the world.
[1] Insight into the participatory nature of the Gospel passage came from Richard Rohr, Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2011): 101. I must give him credit for the inspiration behind the direction of and theme of this sermon.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Is faith a choice or a gift?
Sermon delivered Sunday, March 16, 2014 (Second Sunday in Lent, Year A), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN (Genesis 12:1-4; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17).
The season of Lent calls us to be intentional about our spiritual lives: to spend time in prayer, in reading the scriptures, and in self-examination and reflection. One could say that Lent calls us to deepen our faith.
Our readings for today convey the message that our faith is what makes us right with God. These passages represent one side of the classic debate between faith and works – is it our faith, our beliefs, that put us into right relationship with God, or is it our works, our actions, the things we do in this world? Our scriptures for today clearly come down on the “faith” side of the question.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul argues that Abraham was justified – made right with God – not by anything he did, but by having faith – by trusting God’s promise to him. In making this argument, Paul is commenting on a passage from Genesis, chapter 15, just a few chapters after our reading from the Hebrew Bible for today. Chapter 15 includes the famous scene where God shows Abraham a vision – that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky – and after that vision, the scripture tells us that “[Abraham] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Paul builds his argument for justification by faith on this line from Genesis. He points out that Abraham was considered “righteous” before God officially made the covenant with Abraham, so Abraham’s righteousness did not come through the law, which was given later, but through his simple trusting in the word he heard from God.
In our Gospel passage, Jesus encounters a prominent leader of Israel named Nicodemus. Nicodemus goes to visit Jesus by night – perhaps because he does not want to be seen associating with this “rabble rouser” in the light of day – but the fact that he goes to him at all shows that he is drawn to him in some way. He acknowledges that Jesus is “a teacher who has come from God,” showing that he does not entirely reject Jesus and his teachings. But Jesus doesn’t give Nicodemus any gold stars for acknowledging him as a teacher. Instead, he launches into a statement about the importance of being “born from above” in order to “see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Jesus can tell that Nicodemus has not yet “gotten it,” so to speak. Perhaps his concern with observance of the law has gotten in the way of his understanding the deeper spiritual message; we don’t know. But Jesus is not impressed with Nicodemus’s tentative praise of him. The passage concludes with one of the most famous lines in Scripture – John 3:16 – “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Again, we are brought back to the importance of faith – everyone who believes in him will have eternal life, just as Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
So, the call to us is to have faith, to believe. In Christian circles, this idea is often presented as much easier than “earning” our way into salvation by our works: “What great news – we are saved by faith alone! All we have to do is believe!” But as anyone who has ever struggled with serious doubts knows, it is often much easier to do “good works” than it is to believe in what are some pretty incredible statements that the church holds up as true. This is why plenty of people can go out and feed the hungry and advocate for justice but can’t bring themselves to say the Nicene Creed. It is often easier to do something than it is to believe something.
I’m very interested in why it is that certain people find it easy to believe, to have faith, while other people find themselves stuck, unable to move past their doubt and skepticism to surrender to the life of faith. What made Peter, Andrew, James, and John willing to drop everything and follow Jesus when he called their names, while Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus, but not willing to leave everything to follow him? Why are you all here week after week, active in the life of the church, while you may have friends or family members who were raised with the same exposure to the church and the Christian faith, who are not active in church, and perhaps even skeptical about religion in general? If faith is what makes us right with God, how do we get it? What makes it possible for us to have faith?
I used to believe that faith was entirely a choice: God has created us with free will, so we have the freedom to choose faith or to choose unbelief. From this perspective, the burden of action is entirely ours. God has already acted in history, through the resurrection of Jesus; now it is our choice whether we accept or reject that gift of life.
But as my faith developed, I began to question the notion that my faith was entirely my choice. Yes, I did choose to follow Jesus when I was a teenager and have continued to try to follow him, but why was I drawn to pursue a spiritual path at all? I no more chose my natural inclination toward thinking theologically than I chose my affinity for strawberries or for the color purple. Those things were planted in me from the beginning, it seems, part of my personality, something I did nothing to create.
So I began to think that perhaps the ability to have faith at all is a gift from God. One commentator on this passage from John points out that Jesus’s use of the birth metaphor points to the initiative in matters of faith coming from God rather than from us. Just as babies do not choose to be born, so we cannot choose to be “born again” [1] – such an experience is a gift from God that is bestowed on us. Jesus says to Nicodemus, “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). Just as we cannot control the wind, we cannot control how God’s Spirit moves in our lives and in the lives of others.
Looking at it this way allows us to let go of feeling like the burden is all on us – to have faith and to lead others to have faith. A friend who was going through a difficult time once said to me that in her dark moments, she has to believe that God chooses her, rather than the other way around. “I CANNOT choose faith right now,” she said. “So I have to trust that God chooses me.” From that theological perspective, the burden of action is entirely God’s. If we have faith, it is only because God has created and planted that faith in us.
But that idea is not entirely satisfactory, either, for it runs the risk of falling into fatalism and making a mockery of human choice, making us into puppets stripped of any kind of real freedom.
And so, I’m coming to think that perhaps the truth is somewhere in between those two viewpoints. In true Episcopal fashion, I’m proposing a via media, a "middle way," which is that faith is neither entirely our choice nor entirely a gift from God, but some complicated combination of the two. The problem with the other two scenarios is that in both of them, there is only one active party in the equation: either faith is entirely up to us, or faith is entirely up to God. But faith in God is a relationship, and a relationship requires action by both parties. For a life of faith to flourish, both we and God need to act. The key is remembering that we control only our side of the relationship.
We can smile and act friendly toward someone, but that does not guarantee that that person will become our friend. We cannot control how the other person will respond to us. The same is true in our relationship with God. We can pray and come to Eucharist and say all the right words and do all the right things, but that does not guarantee that in our heart of hearts, we will truly believe and feel close to God. We still have to wait for God to show up, for God to act on God’s side of the relationship. Despite what our liturgies sometimes lead us to believe, we cannot make God show up by saying certain magic words or making certain gestures with our hands. God is not a robot or a vending machine. We cannot force God’s action in our lives, any more than we can force ourselves to have faith.
So perhaps what we are called to do during Lent is not to deepen our faith, but to deepen our spiritual practice. What we can control is our actions and choices on our side of the relationship. We can choose to show up wherever it is that we feel most likely to encounter God – in the church, out in nature, in the midst of our family and friends – and wait. This might mean we spend more time in silence, more time listening rather than speaking in our prayer life. But whatever the practices that work best for us, we can do them with a posture of openness – perhaps literally, praying with open hands, open palms, or metaphorically, opening our hearts – so that we become more receptive to God’s presence and action within and around us, so that we are primed and prepped to notice when God does choose to show up.
Jesus told Nicodemus, “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). In our spiritual practice, we are building ourselves a wind turbine, so that when God’s Spirit does blow in our lives, we have the mechanism ready to capture its energy and allow it to fuel us.
This is what spiritual practice is all about – it is quite literally a practice to prepare ourselves to be ready for those moments when we receive a vision, or a strong inner sense of God’s call, or a deep abiding sense of God’s love and comfort – all of which are pure gifts of grace. We cannot make those experiences happen, but we can keep the lines of communication open. And that’s all we are asked to do on the spiritual path – to show up, to be open – and to leave the rest to God.
----
[1] Dick Donovan, Sermon Writer (www.sermonwriter.com).
The season of Lent calls us to be intentional about our spiritual lives: to spend time in prayer, in reading the scriptures, and in self-examination and reflection. One could say that Lent calls us to deepen our faith.
Our readings for today convey the message that our faith is what makes us right with God. These passages represent one side of the classic debate between faith and works – is it our faith, our beliefs, that put us into right relationship with God, or is it our works, our actions, the things we do in this world? Our scriptures for today clearly come down on the “faith” side of the question.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul argues that Abraham was justified – made right with God – not by anything he did, but by having faith – by trusting God’s promise to him. In making this argument, Paul is commenting on a passage from Genesis, chapter 15, just a few chapters after our reading from the Hebrew Bible for today. Chapter 15 includes the famous scene where God shows Abraham a vision – that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky – and after that vision, the scripture tells us that “[Abraham] believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Paul builds his argument for justification by faith on this line from Genesis. He points out that Abraham was considered “righteous” before God officially made the covenant with Abraham, so Abraham’s righteousness did not come through the law, which was given later, but through his simple trusting in the word he heard from God.
In our Gospel passage, Jesus encounters a prominent leader of Israel named Nicodemus. Nicodemus goes to visit Jesus by night – perhaps because he does not want to be seen associating with this “rabble rouser” in the light of day – but the fact that he goes to him at all shows that he is drawn to him in some way. He acknowledges that Jesus is “a teacher who has come from God,” showing that he does not entirely reject Jesus and his teachings. But Jesus doesn’t give Nicodemus any gold stars for acknowledging him as a teacher. Instead, he launches into a statement about the importance of being “born from above” in order to “see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Jesus can tell that Nicodemus has not yet “gotten it,” so to speak. Perhaps his concern with observance of the law has gotten in the way of his understanding the deeper spiritual message; we don’t know. But Jesus is not impressed with Nicodemus’s tentative praise of him. The passage concludes with one of the most famous lines in Scripture – John 3:16 – “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Again, we are brought back to the importance of faith – everyone who believes in him will have eternal life, just as Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
So, the call to us is to have faith, to believe. In Christian circles, this idea is often presented as much easier than “earning” our way into salvation by our works: “What great news – we are saved by faith alone! All we have to do is believe!” But as anyone who has ever struggled with serious doubts knows, it is often much easier to do “good works” than it is to believe in what are some pretty incredible statements that the church holds up as true. This is why plenty of people can go out and feed the hungry and advocate for justice but can’t bring themselves to say the Nicene Creed. It is often easier to do something than it is to believe something.
I’m very interested in why it is that certain people find it easy to believe, to have faith, while other people find themselves stuck, unable to move past their doubt and skepticism to surrender to the life of faith. What made Peter, Andrew, James, and John willing to drop everything and follow Jesus when he called their names, while Nicodemus was drawn to Jesus, but not willing to leave everything to follow him? Why are you all here week after week, active in the life of the church, while you may have friends or family members who were raised with the same exposure to the church and the Christian faith, who are not active in church, and perhaps even skeptical about religion in general? If faith is what makes us right with God, how do we get it? What makes it possible for us to have faith?
I used to believe that faith was entirely a choice: God has created us with free will, so we have the freedom to choose faith or to choose unbelief. From this perspective, the burden of action is entirely ours. God has already acted in history, through the resurrection of Jesus; now it is our choice whether we accept or reject that gift of life.
But as my faith developed, I began to question the notion that my faith was entirely my choice. Yes, I did choose to follow Jesus when I was a teenager and have continued to try to follow him, but why was I drawn to pursue a spiritual path at all? I no more chose my natural inclination toward thinking theologically than I chose my affinity for strawberries or for the color purple. Those things were planted in me from the beginning, it seems, part of my personality, something I did nothing to create.
So I began to think that perhaps the ability to have faith at all is a gift from God. One commentator on this passage from John points out that Jesus’s use of the birth metaphor points to the initiative in matters of faith coming from God rather than from us. Just as babies do not choose to be born, so we cannot choose to be “born again” [1] – such an experience is a gift from God that is bestowed on us. Jesus says to Nicodemus, “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). Just as we cannot control the wind, we cannot control how God’s Spirit moves in our lives and in the lives of others.
Looking at it this way allows us to let go of feeling like the burden is all on us – to have faith and to lead others to have faith. A friend who was going through a difficult time once said to me that in her dark moments, she has to believe that God chooses her, rather than the other way around. “I CANNOT choose faith right now,” she said. “So I have to trust that God chooses me.” From that theological perspective, the burden of action is entirely God’s. If we have faith, it is only because God has created and planted that faith in us.
But that idea is not entirely satisfactory, either, for it runs the risk of falling into fatalism and making a mockery of human choice, making us into puppets stripped of any kind of real freedom.
And so, I’m coming to think that perhaps the truth is somewhere in between those two viewpoints. In true Episcopal fashion, I’m proposing a via media, a "middle way," which is that faith is neither entirely our choice nor entirely a gift from God, but some complicated combination of the two. The problem with the other two scenarios is that in both of them, there is only one active party in the equation: either faith is entirely up to us, or faith is entirely up to God. But faith in God is a relationship, and a relationship requires action by both parties. For a life of faith to flourish, both we and God need to act. The key is remembering that we control only our side of the relationship.
We can smile and act friendly toward someone, but that does not guarantee that that person will become our friend. We cannot control how the other person will respond to us. The same is true in our relationship with God. We can pray and come to Eucharist and say all the right words and do all the right things, but that does not guarantee that in our heart of hearts, we will truly believe and feel close to God. We still have to wait for God to show up, for God to act on God’s side of the relationship. Despite what our liturgies sometimes lead us to believe, we cannot make God show up by saying certain magic words or making certain gestures with our hands. God is not a robot or a vending machine. We cannot force God’s action in our lives, any more than we can force ourselves to have faith.
So perhaps what we are called to do during Lent is not to deepen our faith, but to deepen our spiritual practice. What we can control is our actions and choices on our side of the relationship. We can choose to show up wherever it is that we feel most likely to encounter God – in the church, out in nature, in the midst of our family and friends – and wait. This might mean we spend more time in silence, more time listening rather than speaking in our prayer life. But whatever the practices that work best for us, we can do them with a posture of openness – perhaps literally, praying with open hands, open palms, or metaphorically, opening our hearts – so that we become more receptive to God’s presence and action within and around us, so that we are primed and prepped to notice when God does choose to show up.
This is what spiritual practice is all about – it is quite literally a practice to prepare ourselves to be ready for those moments when we receive a vision, or a strong inner sense of God’s call, or a deep abiding sense of God’s love and comfort – all of which are pure gifts of grace. We cannot make those experiences happen, but we can keep the lines of communication open. And that’s all we are asked to do on the spiritual path – to show up, to be open – and to leave the rest to God.
----
[1] Dick Donovan, Sermon Writer (www.sermonwriter.com).
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