The Bible and the Church

Easter 5b • SJF • Tobias S Haller BSG

Philip said to the Ethiopian, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He said to him, “How can I, unless someone guides me.”

It is no secret that there has been some significant tension in the Anglican Communion over the last several years. One of the sources of tension has revolved around the place of the Holy Scriptures in the life of the church. In the late 90s, the Bishop of New York appointed me to serve on a committee charged with drafting a statement concerning the Anglican view of the Scripture. Now, it might be surprising to some to hear that there is such a thing as an Anglican view. But one of the characteristics that distinguish each of the various traditions in Christendom lies in how each of these differing members of the one Body of Christ understand and regard the Scripture.

So today I want to take advantage of the reading from Acts as a springboard to talk about a very important and central belief in the Christian faith as Anglicans have received and understand it: the role and place of the Bible.

Just about every Christian church holds the Bible in a special place in its life and worship. Perhaps it comes as a surprise to you to hear that not all churches treat the Bible in the same way. But the way Anglicans regard the Bible is not the same as the Roman Catholics or the Baptists or the Methodists, or the Eastern Orthodox, to say nothing of those who wander further afield and produce their own Scriptures — such as the Mormons. They have added an entire additional volume of Scripture to the Holy Bible, which they call Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

But even among the other traditions I mentioned, there is not complete agreement even on what makes up the Bible. The Roman Catholic Old Testament has books that Protestants do not accept as Scripture, in spite of the fact that the early church accepted them as such. These are books from the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures used in the days of Jesus and Paul, including some books not originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic — books of the wisdom and prophetic tradition, along with the history of the Jewish people in the days of the Maccabees: the time when Greek culture, language and governance dominated the Mediterranean world. Protestants generally rejected these Greek additions, and instead accepted only the older Hebrew and Aramaic material for their version of the Old Testament — again, in spite of the fact that Saint Paul and the early church make reference to these Greek scriptures in their teaching.

Anglicans — with our usual desire to find a compromise and cover all the bases — accept these books that the Protestants reject, but put them in a separate category: suitable for instruction but not for doctrine — a neat solution similar to having ones cake and eating it too!

So one of the things where Anglicans differ with many of the other Christian traditions lies in the books of which we consider the Bible to consist. But before I go into any more of the differences, let me mention the things we have in common with most of Christendom when it comes to the Holy Scripture.

First of all, we hold the Bible to be a unique record of God’s saving work from creation through redemption. We hold it to contain revelations of God that we could not find by any other means. That is, you don’t need the Bible to tell you that murder or theft is wrong, even though the Bible will tell you that — for this is part of universal human knowledge and isn’t peculiar to Jews and Christians. But nature or reason alone cannot tell you that God created the world, or that Jesus Christ redeemed it. These sublime truths are available to us only because God has told us this through trustworthy witnesses — the prophets whom God inspired, and the apostles who witnessed and testified to the work of God in Christ — and we accept their testimony.

Second, in common with almost all Christians we make use of the Scripture in our worship, public and private. We not only read Scripture as part of our liturgy — the Daily Offices and the Holy Eucharist — but we encourage people to read and study the Bible on their own.

So much for what we have in common. But we quickly come to differences between the churches once we move beyond these basics. The first is the one I alluded to earlier, the very contents of what you will find between the leather covers of a Bible varies from one tradition to another.

That is important when it comes to some matters — most of them hot button issues at the time of the Protestant Reformation when the Protestant Bible was pared down to eliminate parts of it that the Roman Catholics were using to support their view over some of the bones of contention, such as prayers for the dead and the invocation of saints. (It’s strange, but so often the do-and-die issues of earlier ages come to seem of so little importance in following years. I wonder if we’ll ever learn?)

However, the most important difference between us Anglicans and those of the other Christian traditions lies in how we understand the Bible. At the Reformation, when the Church of England took the form in which we know it today, battles were raging not just about which books were Scripture and which were not, but about how the Scripture — whatever it consisted of — was to be understood.

There were three basic traditions in play at the time: the Roman, the Reformed, and the Anabaptist. The relics of these traditions remain in how the present day Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Baptists regard the Scripture.

The Roman view elevated Tradition to an equal level with Scripture, and placed full authority for biblical interpretation in the hands of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. This allowed the Roman Church to teach doctrines that were not mentioned in the Scripture, or which couldn’t be proved by it — such as that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin, or that she was bodily assumed into heaven at her death — and to enforce acceptance of these dogmas.

The Reformers took a similarly restrictive view when it came to biblical interpretation: it was to be in the hands of the church leadership. But while they rejected the Roman tendency to require things beyond theScripture,they went further in the other direction: so that if something wasn’t in Scripture you not only couldn’t require it, but you couldn’t do it. So they objected to things such as the use of a wedding ring in marriage — no wedding rings in the Bible! — vestments for clergy, the baptism of infants, or the distinction between the offices of presbyter and bishop — which they understood as two different words for the same office.

The Anabaptists, on the third hand, were the liberal freethinkers of their day: for them the understanding of the Scripture was up to the individual, whom God would inspire with a true understanding, and without benefit of clergy to guide or instruct. This led to a multiplication of many smaller and smaller sects as private interpretation splintered the various groups as they followed different teachers. Later, in this country, a number of theories of biblical inerrancy or biblical literalism developed out of this school of thought.

So, Anglicans found themselves poised in the middle of this triangle of extreme views. In particular, we found a middle point between the Roman tendency to require belief in things you couldn’t find in Scripture, and the Puritan tendency to forbid anything that couldn’t be proved by Scripture.

We came up with the wonderful word sufficient: the belief that God has a purpose for Scripture — and that purpose is salvation. That is what Scripture is for: to lead us into God’s way, God’s truth, and ultimately, God’s life. The most important teachings in Scripture aren’t the things that you could find out by common sense, and without the church’s help, such as that theft and murder are wrong. The truly important supernatural teaching of Scripture is that God created us, and in Christ has redeemed us, and that we are capable of becoming children of God through the grace of God.

So the Anglicans denied the church power to require anything to be believed as essential to salvation if it could not be proved from the Scripture. And at the same time held that the church did have the authority to allow things about which Scripture was silent, as long as they worked for the good of the church and the people — so we could keep our wedding rings, vestments, infant baptism and bishops!

But what about that Anabaptist view — that sense that every Christian had the right to be his own Pope and decide what Scripture meant for him or herself? Well, this is where the Ethiopian eunuch comes in. What did he say to Philip? “How am I to understand unless someone guides me?” Guidance is crucial — guidance on the Way to the Truth and the Life; guidance which all we pilgrims need: but guidance, not coercion.

So we Anglicans ask a similar question, and what’s more important, have an answer, in our Catechism. Page 853 of the Book of Common Prayer lists this question, “How do we understand the meaning of the Bible?” and answers, “We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures.” And as the Catechism goes on to explain, the Church referred to here is not just the bishops, not just the clergy, but the whole community of the faithful. So while we Anglicans encourage folks to read the Bible on their own, we neither leave them on their own, nor place a commanding prelate or a forbidding puritan a at their shoulders. Rather, we encourage the dialogue and discussion among all of the faithful — clergy and laity alike — that leads to better understanding of those portions of the Scripture we may find it hard to understand — our about which we might disagree.

Ultimately, as Philip showed the Ethiopian, the heart of the Scripture lies in how it points to Christ. He is the living Word of God to whom the written Word of God — the Scripture — leads us in the Way into the Truth, and the Scripture is useful to us only to the extent that it performs that task, a task for which we are assured it is, as the Anglican tradition puts it, sufficient. For its ultimate purpose is to bring us to the new Life of faith — as it did the Ethiopian, who, when once on his Way the Truth was opened to him by the Spirit’s guidance and Philip’s teaching, immediately asked to be baptized into the new Life, to become himself the newest member of Christ’s body, the church.

Most of the tension in the present life of the Anglican Communion would vanish in a flash as sudden as Philip’s disappearance if we would simply take Jesus the Word of God at his word! The Scripture is not hard to understand in this respect, though we find it hard to put it into practice. He has told us mortals what is asked of us — it is amply stated in John’s teaching to us today in both epistle and gospel: the commandment of God is to believe in Christ and to love one another. Got that?

When Jesus summarized the law in his commandment to love God and neighbor, when he taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to do unto others as we would be done by, he meant what he said, and he gave us both a task and a promise. Those in Christ who love their sisters and brothers in this way — doing for them as they would be done by — have observed God’s commandment. All the rest is commentary.

My sisters and brothers, as I prepare for the General Convention this summer, where I will serve as a deputy from this diocese, along with three other priests, four lay persons, and the three bishops who serve New York, this is what I will keep in mind and heart. The Scripture is sufficient to salvation, for it has told me the truth that is so simple a little child can sing it: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. This simple truth is my armor against doubt, against judgment, against those who seek division and domination, against bigotry and ignorance, against pride and power, against all who would diminish human dignity or deny human worth.

So, as Christ taught us in his Word, “Let us love one another, not in word or speech but in truth,” neither condemned by our hearts nor dismayed by those who would demean us or deny us. God is love, beloved sisters and brothers, and we follow his commandments when we love him and each other.Against this the Scripture records neither law nor prophet, but rather the voice of the Lord himself to affirm us in our faith in the power of the Spirit, now and to the end of the ages.+

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Church of the Good Shepherd

SJF • Easter 4b • Tobias S Haller BSG

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

The fourth Sunday of Easter, as is the case with a number of other Sundays, has a nickname. It is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” — for on this Sunday the collect and the readings remind us that we have a good shepherd: one who knows us as we know him, a good shepherd whose voice we recognize, a caring shepherd who calls us each by name, a shepherd who places us ahead of himself, and who has laid down his life for us. We are the sheep of his pasture, and he has called us together into a flock, a community, a church.

Just what kind of a community is this Church of the Good Shepherd? What kind of sheep make up the fold we call the Church? If you’ve ever driven through the country you can tell just by looking which herds of cattle or flocks of sheep are well-cared for and which are neglected. You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you can certainly judge a shepherd by his sheep! If you see a group of scraggly sheep huddled near a broken-down fence shivering in muddy squalor, you know what their shepherd is like. And when you see fat and fluffy sheep munching on lush green grass, you also know something about the one who looks after them.

So it is that when you look at a church you can discern marks or signs that let you know what kind of relationship that church has with its lord and master — or who their master really is. For not all churches follow the Good Shepherd. Some have had the misfortune to follow wolves dressed as sheep! Who can look at pictures from the Jonestown massacre, the bodies piled on each other after the perverse communion of cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, and think these people were well cared for. Who can look at the pictures of the dead bodies of the leader and members of the Heaven’s Gate cult neatly tucked up in their bunk-beds, dead in their hope to be raptured to the tail of a comet, but rather simply dead in their tennis shoes, and think this was the kind of shepherding anyone with half a brain would want for herself or others. Who can listen to the reports from the riots and massacres in Rwanda, where Christians took to hacking each other to pieces with machetes and hatchets — who can hear such things and say, This is the work of a Good Shepherd? This is not the work of a good shepherd, but of a thief who came in to rob and steal, a wolf who snatches and scatters.

It is easy to see such marks of a bad shepherd. So what does the flock of the Good Shepherd look like? Well, the first thing to note about the Church of the Good Shepherd is that, as the reading from Acts tells us, “there was not a needy person among them.” In the flock of the good shepherd you don’t have three or four fat and happy sheep and twenty or thirty skinny forlorn sheep. The flock of the good shepherd is marked with the brand of Generosity. Everyone helps out together, pitching in and working together for the benefit of the whole community, not just the profit of one or two at the expense of all. No, in the Church of the Good Shepherd “there is not a needy person among them.” The sheep of the good shepherd look out for each other, acting almost as much as assistant shepherds as sheep. They bear each other’s burdens. They keep an eye on each other’s needs, and give of their own goods to benefit each other.

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There is an old saying, one which Jesus himself repeated, “If the blind lead the blind both fall in the ditch.” Now, there are many kinds of blindness, and as I learned when I worked at the Lighthouse for the Blind some years ago, not all blindness is total. Many people suffer from limited capacity to see, as a result of some specific form of injury or illness. While the Lighthouse served many people who suffered from total blindness, it also offered support to those suffering from what is called Low Vision — some impairment that limits vision but doesn’t render one totally unable to see.

One of the wonderful stories the folks at the Lighthouse tell is about two elderly gentlemen who acted as shepherds to each other. One of them suffered from macular degeneration, which meant he only had residual peripheral vision: he could see nothing directly in front of him. If you want to have an idea what this is like, make two fists and hold them in front of your eyes — all you can see is what is at the edges of your field of vision. Close to home, this is the kind of visual disability our dear sister in Christ Marilyn Cotton suffered in the last years of her life. It means you cannot read, or see where you are going, but it preserves the peripheral vision that is good at spotting movement at the edges, and enables you still to walk down stairs. The other gentleman had severe glaucoma, and the effect of this disease had left him with what is called “tunnel vision” — he could only see a narrow area directly ahead of him. Again, if you want to get an idea what this is like, form your hands into imaginary binoculars and hold them up to your eyes. This kind of low vision is adequate for reading or looking straight ahead, but makes moving around a real challenge. Well, these two old gentlemen met each other through the Lighthouse, and formed a quick partnership. They discovered that, arm in arm, they could travel the streets of the city, shop and carry out the business of everyday life: one of them able to read the street signs and the labels on packages, the other able to help them navigate the busy sidewalks of Manhattan. They were quite a sight — but they didn’t mind. Their partnership was a wonderful example of cooperation and mutual generosity.

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In the same way, the church of the Good Shepherd is generous, generous with the kind of generosity that comes from making use of what is to bring about the best that can be, no one person saying either, I need this more than you do, or What can I possibly offer. Remember, God doesn’t ask for what we don’t have. God takes what we have to give when we give it, when we offer it in this spirit of generosity, the sign and hallmark of the Church of the Good Shepherd. And as we learned with the loaves and the fishes — God makes more of it.

Out of this generosity there grows another mark or sign that a church belongs to the Good Shepherd. John the beloved disciple writes, “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness? No one who abides in him sins.” Now, the root of sin is self-interest. That’s why selfish self-interest is the opposite of generosity, and it leads to the disorder of lawlessness that is the opposite of simple purity. I’ve always said that ifyou need any evidence of the existence of sin, you need only drive over to the exit from the Cross Bronx Expressway on to the Major Deegan, to see the incredible traffic jams that result when drivers disregard the lane markings, pull ahead of a line of waiting cars by driving on the shoulder, and then try to nose their way back into the line up at the exit. Lawlessness, disorder and the sin born of selfishness stand in opposition to the purity of self-giving generosity. The purity of the Good Shepherd is that he gives himself up for his sheep, he sacrifices his own life for the sake of the flock. And the community of the Good Shepherd similarly shows forth that purity and the good order that comes from placing others first, stepping aside in the graceful dance of charity and love. In the community of the Good Shepherd people place the needs of others ahead of their own.

This is what the community of the Good Shepherd looks like: generous, self-giving, pure and orderly. Now, it might not look perfect at first sight. You might wonder about that odd pair of old men walking arm in arm, both of them dealing with limited vision, yet somehow making their way through the busy streets. But you will sense at once as you see how together they can accomplish what neither could do on his own, in the willingness to share in the work, to be generous and cooperate and bear each others burdens, that they understand what it means to be part of a good shepherd’s flock.

That’s what the Church of the Good Shepherd looks like. Is that what we at Saint James look like? Look around you. Do you see people you are glad to see? Do you see people you would help when you could, people you can count on to help you? I know what I see, and I know what I’ve seen. I’ve seen great generosity, and the courage to pitch in. I’ve seen some spats and disagreements over the years, yes, but I’ve also seen commitment and fortitude. And over the last six years since I returned to this fold, I’ve seen the telltale marks of the Good Shepherd’s hand on this place. I’ve heard him calling each of us by name, and I’ve heard the responding voices of a whole flock of people willing to follow where he leads. May it ever be thus, may it ever be thus, to the glory of God alone.+

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New Moses, New Commandment

SJF • Easter 2B • Tobias S Haller BSG
Moses said, The Lord you God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.

For as long as there has been a Christian church there has been an underlying tension woven into the fabric of that church; almost like the elastic woven through the cotton of a waistband. And this tension has chafed and irritated, bound and discomforted the church from the very beginning. It is the tension between Law and Grace. I have spoken of it before, and I will have occasion again, my friends, for it seems we Christians never seem to be able quite to set aside those corsets and girdles, however uncomfortable, and put on the new garments God wants us to wear, the ones that fit without binding and chafing; the ones that, in accordance with the Law itself, are not made of two materials woven together, but which, even though one size fits all, fit us to a T as if custom tailored for each of us.

The Scriptures bear witness to this historic conflict between Law and Grace, between slavish bondage under the law and the freedom of the children of God living by grace. In the weeks leading up to Good Friday we reviewed the controversy as it was played out in the ministry of Jesus himself, and in his confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes, the lawyers and the legal authorities both sacred and secular — culminating in his Passion, as he confronted Caiaphas and Pilate, the symbolic but also very real representatives of religious and civil law. The Pharisees and scribes thought the law was what God wanted — after all, he had given it to their ancestors, through Moses. They had missed the point that the law was intended as a temporary measure. The Law was like the training wheels on a child’s first two-wheel bicycle — useful to the end intended, but meant to be set aside when training was done. The law had become, for the Pharisees and scribes, an end in itself, not a means to a greater end — as if people were made for the law rather than the law for the good of the people.

That’s why Jesus had so much trouble with them when he healed on the sabbath, or when his disciples ate without washing, or when Jesus allowed himself to be seen — horror of horrors — with sinners. The self-appointed protectors of the law couldn’t understand that grace had come among them in the flesh, and that the law and the prophets were being fulfilled even in their day— the very thing they had hoped for was happening,and they didn’t see it. They were a bit like folks who spend hours and hours planning for a holiday, collecting and studying the brochures, planning their itinerary, but then missing the boat when it comes time to sail.

That’s not as unlikely as it sounds. Some years ago James and I were going to visit my sister and her husband for a holiday in Germany, where she was stationed with the Judge Advocate General’s department. She and I share in a tendency to want to be careful to dot every “I” and cross every “T” — and that is an important part of her livelihood as a lawyer — in the military, no less. Well, the first portion of our trip was an overnight train-ride from Frankfort to Berlin. The train was to depart a few minutes after midnight, so after supper we packed up our bags and headed to the train station. We boarded the train, ready to be shown to our cabins, but were stopped short when the conductor, after examining the tickets, gave us a disapproving look — and if anybody can give you a disapproving look it’s a German train conductor — and said that the tickets were no good.

“What’s wrong?” we asked. “These are for yesterday’s train; you see the date — well it is now past midnight and the date is now a day later.” We were, in fact, exactly 24 hours late for our train trip. Fortunately, there were some empty cabins, and after a great many more disapproving looks and head-shakings, we were settled in. So in spite of all of our efforts to obey the rules, it was the conductor’s decision to be gracious that allowed us to complete our trip. Grace wins out over law all the time!

But as we know from Holy Week and Easter, this victory of grace over law isn’t easy. Jesus did not receive such a gracious response. The protectors of the law stuck by the law as they understood it, and they handed over and rejected Jesus, the holy and righteous one, and, as Saint Peter reminded them, asked to have a murderer given to them instead.

And as our reading from Acts shows us, the conflict between Law and Grace didn’t stop when the author of life — done to death by the authorities — was raised from the dead by God. No, the struggle continued in the tensions between the first followers of Christ and their Jewish brethren.

And I wish I could say that the struggle found an end when the church finally came into its own. But sadly, the church itself has struggled time and again within itself, as factions and divisionshave torn the body of Christ; as new self-appointed church police have decided it was their task to separate the wheat from the chaff, or the sinners from the righteous — forgetting that all have sinned, all have fallen short, that there is none righteous, not one, and that it is only by grace that any of us dare stand before our Lord.

Now, the church surely knows that. So why is it that it so often reverts to law instead of grace? What is the source of this impulse to resort to Law in response to the reality of human sin? Well, what do you do when people simply won’t behave? Law is a natural response to bad behavior: it constrains the wrongdoer by force, contains the wrongdoer by putting him in jail. The law can even impose the ultimate penalty, death, the one that utterly removes the wrongdoer from the picture.

Law can stop criminals — it can also stop crime. It sets up its boundaries of walls and razor-wire; it establishes limits by age and speed — you must be so many years old to get a driver’s license, and the law will then tell you how fast you can drive.

But what law cannot do is change the human heart: it can constrain or punish wrongdoing, but it cannot erase the impulse to do wrong — it cannot free the human heart from its bondage to sin, its desire to possess and control, it’s seeking of its own advantage at the expense of others. It can get you to the station, but it can’t turn the clock back 24 hours and make your expired tickets good. That requires something else. It requires a conductor with a softened heart, and a willingness to understand and forgive, and what’s more provide a place for you.

The law that Moses brought, the law the Pharisees and scribes knew so well, and tried so hard to follow, was the same law that Christ at his coming fulfilled, in accordance with the promises given through the prophets. As Saint Peter told the crowds, Moses had promised that another would arise like him, by whom the people would receive new instruction; and Moses charged the people to heed him when he came. And in fulfillment of this promise, Christ arose and gave a new law, a new commandment.

This new commandment was not like the old: a commandment that could only prohibit or punish. This new commandment would not be based on bondage to restrictions or fear of punishment. This newlaw would not be like the old law that brought imprisonment and death. No, the new commandment would work by changing the very source of the problem: the sin-wearied human heart that did wrong because it was unable to do right, the fearful, selfish heart that sought only its own advantage at the other’s expense.

For this new commandment was the commandment to love, even as Christ has loved us: with the love that gives itself completely for the sake and salvation of the those who are loved, the love of God given in Christ to undo all selfishness, the love of Christ to imbue all grace.

For who of us does wrong to those we truly love? Yes, we do sometimes act in keeping with the old song, and “always hurt the ones we love” — but surely those hurts and harms represent our failures to love, not our successful loving.

No, love under grace does no harm; love, under grace, doesn’t just shake its head and say, “Your ticket is expired.” Love changes us in the place we most need to be changed, to be transformed, in the heart that if left on its own becomes a receptacle for all that is worst in us, but which, if cleansed by the power of God, emptied by repentance and compunction, sanctified by God’s presence and filled with God’s grace and forgiveness, can become a storehouse and a treasury upon which we can draw for ever.

God has committed this treasury of forgiveness and grace to his people: he has told the church that its mission is not to enforce the old law, but to proclaim the new commandment: to love even as Christ loved us, to forgive those who sin against us even as we have been forgiven. Christ greeted his Apostles — all but one of whom had abandoned him in his hour of need — with the greeting of peace. He strengthened them to receive the Holy Spirit, and committed the treasury of grace and forgiveness into their care when he said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.” And he assured us in the prayer we say each day, that it is in forgiving that we are forgiven.

So beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, let us rejoice as the disciples did when they saw the Lord, when he said to them, “Peace be with you.” He accepted their day-old tickets and let them on the train to his kingdom, the “kingdom come” where his will is done, where we are no longer constrained by the bondage of the old law, but may rejoice forever in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Bread on the Hillside

at Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church
Maundy Thursday 2006 • Tobias S Haller BSG
When the hour came, Jesus took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.

Tonight we celebrate and commemorate the founding of the Holy Eucharist. This is part of our annual observance of the events of Holy Week, and it marks the turning point from the joy and celebration of Palm Sunday towards the sad and bleak experience of Good Friday. Last Sunday we stood with the crowds on the streets of Jerusalem, (a few of us on the streets of the Bronx, right around the corner!) palm branches in our hands, to welcome Jesus as we shouted Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Tomorrow we will follow him on his last pilgrimage to Calvary; we will keep company at the foot of the cross, and bear silent witness as he is laid in the cold, stone tomb. Tonight we began with a memory of another of God’s great victories: the Passover of the children of Israel, but before this night is over we will have stripped the sanctuary bare, doused the lights, and gone out into the darkness prepared for tomorrow’s sorrow. But before the darkness descends, before the altar is stripped, we will do tonight as he did on the night he was handed over to suffering and death, as we share in the feast he instituted on that night so long ago, the new twist he gave to the ancient Jewish feast of Passover, as we remember and recall him and all he did for us — Christ, our Passover, in whose feast we will all share.

Now, there is more to this feast than mere bread and wine — and not just because we preceded it with a wonderful potluck seder! This is no ordinary bread, no ordinary wine — not ordinary food and drink. This is a participation in the life and death of our savior until he comes — the meal he left for us by which he never leaves us.

But how, you might well ask, can bread save us? The little bread we will eat in communion, the tiny sip of wine — these would not be enough to save us if we were starving! Ah, but my friends, there is ever so much more to it than that: this bread, this body, is not for my body or your body alone — no it is for the body of the church, the whole community of the faithful, for it is by his body and blood that we become who we are: the body of Christ on earth, to do his will in all we undertake. For in the bread of the Holy Communion, what was once grain on a hillside becomes one bread. And in the Communion itself, we who are many, become one, through the perfect sacrifice of our Lord, who gave himself to the death of the cross on our behalf. The bread we eat is the bread of his sacrifice, the bread of his death, broken to remind us that he died, but feeding us to remember that he lives.

Once upon a time, long long ago, in a Japanese fishing village a man learned how grain on the hillside could save the lives of many. And so did the whole village. The man lived on the top of the hills overlooking the sea. The hills were terraced for growing rice, and they belonged to the man who lived at the top of the hills, away from the shore, away from the fisherfolk and their everyday doings. He was a very rich man, while most of those who dwelled down below simply made it by, day by day. They didn’t envy the old man — this was just the way things were, and everyone had their station in life; so as long as there were fish to catch, the villagers didn’t begrudge the rich man his land or his grain. They traded their fish for grain in due season, and everyone had plenty. And the rich man was a good man, a fair man, and his prosperity helped them all in the long run. The sale of his grain in the capital brought him the resources to build a fine temple on the hillside, and support the monastery near it. Rich man, fisherfolk and monks, all benefitted, and were content.

One year the harvest had been particularly good. The sheaves of grain were gathered in, bundled and ready to be loaded onto carts. Soon that grain would feed the people of the capital, perhaps even the Emperor himself. The rich old man smiled to himself as he stood before the storehouse, looking over the stacks of sheaves, as they glowed warmly in the sunlight that streamed through the doorway and lit the rice-paper walls with a golden glow.

As he stood smiling, and rocking on his heels in contentment, he felt a deep and distant rumble, a vibration too low to hear, but very noticeable to his old legs. He knew, of course, that it was a distant earthquake; far away, nothing to worry about. And so he went back to his review of the crop, smiling as he saw how high the sheaves were piled, in places right up to the wooden beams. He reached out to touch the bundles lovingly, gently, like a proud father might pat his son on the head.

As he glanced over the grain with swelling pride and satisfaction, his eye happened to stray through the open doorway, out towards the sea. His brow furrowed. What was that? He went to the doorway and looked down the terraced hills to the shore. The villagers below were going about their end-of-day business; preoccupied with mending nets, stacking part of their catch to bring to town the next day, stringing the rest on cords to hang to dry. But the old man on the hill saw something else, something strange and worrisome. The sea was moving. Yes, he looked again; yes, the sea was going away, moving out away from the shore. And at once he realized with horror what was happening. Sure enough, out in the distance, out at the western horizon lit by the setting sun, a line had formed on the sea. And he spoke one horrible word in a strangled voice — tsunami.

Quickly, the old man called his grandson. “Bring me a torch! Hurry!” The boy looked at him wide-eyed, but ran off obediently, and quickly returned with a torch from the house. After one last loving look at his grain, the old man took the torch and walked along the edges of the sheaves, letting the flame lick at the ends of the bunches, until they joined together in a devouring inferno, spreading quickly to the storehouse, its paper walls and wooden beams feeding the flames as they leapt skyward. The old man went out to the edge of the hill and looked down to the village below, and then up to the line at the edge of the world, the line that was moving closer every minute.

The people down below couldn’t help but see the flames from the burning storehouse on the hill above. One of the monks was first to see the flames, and he rang the temple bell, and down below the villagers looked up, and then dropping their nets and crates and fish and cords, the whole village grabbing buckets and pails, started running up the hillside, splashing through the terraced pools, scooping up water as they ran, women cupping up water in their leather aprons, bearing it like a child as they rushed along, tumbling up the paths to help their rich neighbor put out the fire that was destroying his grain and his storehouse.

As they came to the hilltop, they wondered why the rich old man wasn’t looking at the fire, but out to sea, as if possessed. “Look,” he said, “look at the sea.” And as they turned in wonder to look, they saw the line on the sea grow until it became a wall of water rushing towards the shore with terrible deliberation, swifter than a horse could gallop or an eagle soar. And as they watched in silent horror, the wave came crashing down upon their empty village, shattering the bamboo huts, boiling up the hillside and destroying the carefully tended terraces, and then, as if satisfied with its destructive assault, withdrawing to its place, like a tiger slowly pulling back his paw, revealing the damage done by his claws, the gouges and gaps of ruins and wrecks where once a village and terraced rice-paddies had stood.

No one said a word. Slowly they turned to face the old man, in the dimming light of the setting sun, the fading light of the fire crackling out behind him, a man no longer rich, but as poor as any of them. He said, “I had to burn the grain to warn you? I knew you would come to help me, and it was the only way I could help you.”

“It was the only way I could help you.” These are words Jesus might well have said of his own sacrifice upon the cross. This was the bitter cup that he had to drink, in order that we might be saved. Jesus, the bread that gives life to the world, became poor that we might be rich, sacrificed all that he had on that hillside on the outskirts of town, lifted high upon the cross for our redemption, lifted up so that he might draw the whole world to himself. He perished there on that dark hillside, that his death might be a flaming beacon to call us from afar, to deliver us from the dangers that surround us, while we were going about our busy lives in ignorance. He is the one who calls us to himself that we might be saved, the bread from heaven who gives life to the world — the bread that feeds and nourishes even as it perishes. Therefore let us worthily celebrate this feast, remembering him who died for us and rose again, who gave his life as a ransom for many, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the bread once scattered on the hillside.

The story of the Japanese village is freely adapted from a folk-tale recorded by Lafcadio Hearn.

God Came Down

SJF • Palm Sunday 2006 • Tobias S Haller BSG
The crowd said, He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.

Palm Sunday begins our Holy Week: a time of the church year full of contrasts and contradictions. It is a week that begins in triumph, or what seems to be triumph, and ends in defeat, or what seems to be defeat, and then turns into victory come Easter Day. It is, in short, a week of surprises and turnabouts, of lights and shadows, of joys and pains.

We see this already in the two Gospel passages we heard today, the Palm Gospel at the opening of our worship, and the Passion Gospel we just participated in. The crowd moves from praise to condemnation in a few short steps. As poet Samuel Crossman wrote,

Sometime they strew his way,
and his strong praises sing,
resounding all the day
hosannas to their King.
Then “Crucify!”
is all their breath,
and for his death
they thirst and cry.

But what I would like to do today is go back further than Palm Sunday, further back even than the Epiphany — right back to Christmas, which Saint Paul himself linked with the Passion in his letter to the Philippians. Because that’s when God first came down, when God first stooped himself, emptied himself, made himself weak and vulnerable — for what is more vulnerable than a newborn baby? God, as the old hymn says so well, “came down at Christmas.” He was, as Saint Paul said, “born in human likeness, found in human form.” And in that form of vulnerable meekness, in that human form he came down to us, and in that human form he saved us, even on the cross.

For his meekness was not met with a corresponding charity from those he came to save. No, his meekness seemed to create in the crowds that cursed him an even greater anger, an even greater hatred, to which he continued to submit himself in meekness. Ultimately, he did not back down or come down from the cross — and because he did not back down or come down from the cross, we are here today to testify to him as our Lord and Savior, not simply to honor him as a wise and prudent teacher who got off the hook by careful diplomacy.

We know from the evangelists, their testimony to what happened in Gethsemane, that Jesus did not want to go to the cross; Jesus did not want to die. But he willed to die. He could have backed down from the cross and its pain anytime he chose. But he didn’t. He remained obedient unto death, even death on a cross. He chose to do what he knew God demanded, that the debt of human sin would be paid in human flesh by one who shared that flesh without the sin.

Sin is disobedience, and if Christ had given in to his own fears or the devil’s temptations he would not have been able to carry out God’s redeeming work. And the last temptation, the last temptation of all was voiced by the crowds: “Come down from the cross.” The crowds did not want Jesus to be where he knew he must be, on the cross. The crowds did not want Jesus to be who he was, the messiah, the savior andredeemer of the world.

The crowds did not want a suffering savior, someone who would die for them to save them from their sins. They did not want someone who would die in meekness. No, they wanted some kind of Superman. The Messiah they wanted would use his superpowers, rip those nails out of the wood, break himself free, come down from the cross in power and might, so that, as they said, they “could see and believe.”

But that didn’t happen. There was no flexing of muscles, no ripping of T-shirts in a miraculous transformation like the Incredible Hulk, no breaking free from the cross, no explosive leaping down. There was only the stillness of the hot noonday sunlight, the buzz of flies, the creaking of the wood, and then those clouds of darkness over the whole land for three long, slow and painful hours.

Then finally Jesus broke the silence, as he cried out in a loud voice, a cry of pain and anguish stretching back 1,000 years before his own birth, the cry of his forefather David, a lamentation of abandonment: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The crowd, of course, misunderstood. They realized by now that Jesus was not going to do a Superman act. But they thought that maybe he had some friends in high places. They thought he was calling for Elijah. And so they waited to see if Elijah, the great prophet, the one who’d flown off to heaven in a chariot of fire, would come to the rescue, storming Calvary with God’s cavalry, to rescue Jesus from the cross.

They didn’t have long to wait, for Jesus soon gave a loud cry and breathed his last. Up in thecity, on the other side of the city walls, up on the Temple Mount, people said that the curtain of the Temple had been torn in two. But outside the city walls, on that little hill called Golgotha, something even stranger happened, something most folks didn’t see, but which the Evangelist Mark carefully recorded.

One of the soldiers who stood there facing Jesus almost two thousand years ago did something as strange and unlikely as the death of God’s own son. In spite of Jesus having failed to reveal himself as Superman in disguise, in spite of Elijah’s failure to show up to rescue him from the cross, in spite of his death and suffering, and all other evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that soldier uttered words of faith that some even of Jesus’ own disciples had not yet dared to utter: “Truly this man was God’s son.”

This soldier recognized Jesus in his not coming down from the cross. That soldier knew, as perhaps only soldiers know, the kind of courage it takes not to leave your post, the kind of courage it takes to die so that others can be saved, the kind of courage to throw yourself on a hand-grenade, or stay behind in the narrow mountain pass to hold the way as long as you can while your comrades escape.

One man came down from heaven and didn’t come down from the cross. One man became a convert at Golgotha because of him, a soldier who saw his courage in coming down, his meekness in being lifted up. Only one convert, but it was the beginning, as countless others would come in succeeding weeks and years and centuries; and the word would go forth from that holy city, that holiest of cities, to tell abroad the saving death of Jesus Christ; to spread the welcome and the invitation to join the Meek King at his Banquet. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast.+

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How Much Is Enough?

Saint James Fordham • Lent 4b 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG

Andrew said, There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they among so many people?

The season of Lent, as I noted a few weeks back, is a traditional time for restricting some of our ordinary activities, not because they are bad for us, but so as to increase our awareness and sharpen our senses and sensibilities a bit: as Benjamin Franklin once observed, hunger makes the best appetizer! But on this fourth Sunday of Lent, it is also traditional to “lighten up” just a little bit — just as in Advent, we change to rose vestments instead of purple just for one day.

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Our Scripture readings start us off on a still-somber note, however. We hear of Jerusalem’s infidelity, its sinful priests and people. You know, things were bad in the Temple long before Jesus came storming in with that whip of cords we talked about last week. In spite of the warnings of the prophets, in spite of the dedication of their ancestors, who suffered so much to settle in the land, and build the Temple to God’s glory, the people and priests in Jeremiah’s day have been unfaithful, defiling God’s house, and despising God’s word. As Jeremiah tells us, the women at home were baking little crescent cakes in honor of the moon goddess, and in the temple itself idols had been set up by priests more interested in profit than in prophecy, to honor gods that were not God. So the people and priests alike have been punished and sent into exile in Babylon.

Yet by the end of this passage, the violet bruises of exile have turned rosy under God’s healing touch, and the good news comes that Cyrus is going to rebuild the temple and let the captives return home.

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians continues the rosy view. He describes the immeasurable riches of God’s grace; and then the Gospel tells us how Jesus fed the multitude with just five loaves and two fish. In short, today’s Scriptures lift us up for a moment above the sadness of Lent, and give us a glimpse of the glory that is there up ahead, on the other side of Calvary.

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But today’s scriptures also give us clear guidance on a subject dear to every pastor’s heart: church growth — but not just in numbers but in faith and in grace. We all want Saint James to grow, to continue to grow; but we want it to grow in the right way and in accordance with God’s will; and there’s more to that than mere numbers. So let’s look at our Scriptures for today and seewhat they tell us about growth.

Right from the start, the reading from Chronicles lets us know that God has to come first. The people of Israel have been growing alright — but in the wrong way. In the interest of quick growth they have compromised and connived with the nations round about them, and begun to worship idols even in the temple itself. Not content with polluting God’s house, they also pollute the land, and to squeeze every last shekel of profit from it they stop observing the Sabbath — letting neither land nor worker rest. You’ll realize, I’m sure, from our reading of the Ten Commandments last week, that they have broken three out of the first four commandments already!

So God allows invaders to burn down the defiled house, and sends the people into exile in Babylon, to let the whole country lie fallow for seventy years worth of Saturdays. This is to teach the people that God comes first, and God is not to be displaced by idols, however popular, whatever the consensus, and that the Sabbath rest is not a suggestion, but a commandment.

God knows that people and fields work better and grow more when they stop working and take a rest once in a while. Few workers are as unproductive as those who are overworked, and few farms are as unproductive as the ones over-plowed and over-harvested, without a chance to recover their fertility through a fallow time.

This is just as true in the church. We can get so busy sometimes in our work for God that we forget God himself in the hectic flurry of the work! The sabbath-time that God gives to us is for us, as Jesus affirmed: “the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath allows us time to reflect, to lie fallow for a bit, to regain our perspective, to alter our course if need be, and collect our thoughts and energies, renewed and refreshed and with a new focus on God and God’s will for us. This is part of our reason for Lent: to pause and reflect before we proceed. So our first lesson for church growth is: keep God at the center and take your time.

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The passage from Ephesians picks up on this theme: that growth comes through the grace of God that saves us through faith. We never will grow if we keep doubting God’s promise that we shall grow. And we never will grow if we trust only in ourselves, our own abilities and works. It is God who inspires both the will and the deed, who gives us the impulse to move and the ability to move.

The Church grows because it is the living Body of Christ, not because it’s got the right stewardship program, or a nice music program, or a glossy ad campaign or a healthy endowment fund. All these things may help a church to grow, but if a church is not planted firmly upon the foundation of Jesus Christ it will quickly crumble, and become a desolate habitation instead of a lively presence of God, a spiritual dwelling for the Most High. It is God’s doing, not ours, that makes us grow in grace through faith; it is God’s gift to us, an unearned gift, as Paul told the Ephesians, lest anyone should boast. In fact, tying in the first principle, one of the reasons God asks us to keep the sabbath, to stop working part of the time, is to remind us that we are not doing it on our own: even when we are at rest God is still at work. We can indeed, as the saying puts it, “Let go and let God!”

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And yet, as our Gospel reading shows us, we are not entirely passive participants in God’s enterprise of growth. God takes what we have and transforms it to his ends when we give it up for him to work with.

Notice how Jesus starts off, feigning ignorance, wondering how in the world all of these people are going to be fed, testing the disciples to see what they will come up with. And as in so many other cases the disciples flunk, Philip and Andrew both throwing up their hands because there isn’t enough to go round. But Jesus pays no heed to their concerns, their logical concepts of resource management; he simply takes what is there, gives thanks, and feeds a multitude.

Notice that he starts with thanksgiving. You can guess that Phillip and Andrew are thinking, “Yeah, thanks a lot! Enough for a few sandwiches to feed five thousand!” But Jesus gives thanks for what is rather than worrying about what isn’t. Jesus starts with what he has, which is something — he doesn’t make bread out of stone or thin air. He doesn’t give into the temptation that Satan laid before him in the wilderness. Instead, he makes more bread out of some bread, his thanksgiving transforming what seemed to be too little into enough for everyone to have as much as they wanted.

In the same way God grows the church through us — even when we seem barely able to do the minimum in a world in so much need — God takes us, his own workmanship — when we place ourselves in his hands, and in thanksgiving breaks us — not to destroy us but to use us to enlarge the Body of Christ. God grows the church through the church.

When we place ourselves in God’s hands, and give God thanks for the blessings he gives, and take advantage of what we have — the time and space and means to do God’s work, even if it doesn’t seem like enough — we will find ourselves growing both inwardly and outwardly, in faith and grace and numbers too. Five loaves can feed five thousand, when thankfully placed in God’s hands.

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And this is where the final learning from today’s Scriptures comes in. After the meal on the hillside, after all ate until they were stuffed, Jesus told the disciples to gather up all the fragments left over, so that nothing might be lost.

And that still holds: let nothing, let no one be lost. Some churches keep going as people come and go, flowing in one door because they sniff something they like, and then out the other as their noses get out of joint over this or that. And no one seems to care in these churches with revolving doors because there are always newcomers. But that is not the way God wants the church to grow.

We all know people who left the church over the years for one reason or another. I’m not talking about folks who have moved to North Carolina, mind you, even less those who have moved from our company to the heavenly banquet — but those who have fallen away or lapsed.

We all know people, maybe even members of our own families, who had a Christian childhood but lost touch with the church as adults. We probably all know people who have never felt they had a good reason to come to church in the first place!

But Jesus doesn’t let that stop him. Jesus just says, gather up the fragments, that nothing may be lost! Our God is not a God of acceptable losses, my friends. God wants it all, every last one of his sons and daughters, gathered into his kingdom, united in his love, filled with his grace.

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This is the church-growth plan for which this rosy-tinted Sunday provides a vision and a goal. We are to start with God as the foundation, honoring God alone, putting nothing in God’s place, and taking time to take God to heart in a blessed Sabbath-rest. We are to continue in the grace and in the knowledge of God — who working in us through faith leads us to the good works done in his name. Then, in that faith and trust, we are to offer what we have in thanks, even when it seems like we don’t have enough. How much, after all, is enough? How much is enough when more is gathered up in leftovers than there was in fixings? For after all of our efforts undertaken under God’s gracious will, when we are blessed with abundance, even then we are to waste nothing, to let nothing, to let no one be lost.

This is the way the church grows, my brothers and sisters. This is the way the church grows and becomes what it is meant to be, Christ’s body on earth to do his will, working in us that which is well-pleasing in his sight, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and for evermore.+

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Good Housekeeping

SJF • Lent 3b 2006 • Tobias S Haller BSG

I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind. Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Every human society on earth, every culture, every household has it rules. Whether these are laws handed down from on high by the hand of God, like the Ten Commandments; or enacted by an elected legislature such as our U.S. Congress or state assembly, or simply the rules set in place in our own households — such as who does the dishes or takes out the garbage — some sort of rule or law is useful for the orderly operation of a nation or a household.

I remember when I was young, a family friend of mine also came from a large family — and like mine lived in a fairly small house. I was always amused when I went to visit, because his parents had put up by a novelty sign by the front door: a mock version of an old Western saloon sign giving the house rules, customized with their family name — so this one said the Smith Saloon House Rules, and then went on to list such things as, “all empty seats must be shared” and “no more than six in a bed” and “please use the cuspidors.” (I didn’t know what a cuspidor was; but when it was explained I recognized them immediately — those odd shaped buckets for people to spit tobacco juice into were a common feature of the TV Westerns and cowboy cartoons!) Such were the Smith Saloon House Rules.

In our Old Testament reading we hear God deliver the House Rules for his people Israel — there would be plenty of other rules as well, but these were the ones that God wrote himself in letters of fire on tablets of stone: the Ten Commandments. We reminded ourselves of how important we still hold these to be, even though we are not Israelites, when we used them at the beginning of our worship, in the form that Anglicans have called the Decalogue since the days of the first Book of Common Prayer. We Christians give this portionof the law of Moses a central place in our understanding of God’s will, and we regard this portion of the Law not simply as the code of a peculiar people, a wandering tribe of Middle Eastern nomads, but as still having something to say to us in the ordering of our lives. Even our secular society, divorcing these laws from their religious context, gives them a place of honor as a monument in human legal history — along with the Code of Hammurabi, and the Analects of Confucius.

But what happens when we treat these commandments as a monument or a historic document rather than as a set of real house rules. What happens when they no longer are seen as guidance for one’s actual daily life, but simply become decorative artifacts — what they call giving lip service to God; all show and no go! There was once a Boston businessman famed for his hard dealing, who told writer Mark Twain, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top.” Twain replied, “Why not stay in Boston and keep them.”

And of course, the problem is in keeping them — as even Mark Twain himself discovered in later life as tragedy hemmed in this great writer of comic tales, and he ended in skeptical and agnostic bitterness towards both humankind and God. The truth is that it is easier to give lip service than to put one’s hands to work. It is easier to erect a monument to the 10 Commandments on the courthouse lawn than to reform the justice system; it is easier to recite the Decalogue than to observe it.

Saint Paul knew this well — it’s what he is trying to explain in that passage from his letter to the Romans which we heard this morning. Knowing what is good, knowing what is right, isn’t enough. Even when we want to do good, we end up doing what is wrong. As Paul puts it, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do!” He describes the situation as a civilwar or a rebellion — the willful flesh fighting against the mind that delights in God’s will, the head and heart unable to control the hands that find evil lying close by, and take it up for evil use. Finally Paul cries out in desperation, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” And then of course he gives the triumphant answer: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The simple fact of the matter is that on our own we are unable to help ourselves, unable to save ourselves. However good our intentions, however well we know our household rules, we cannot on our own obey them — apart from him. Paul uses the most powerful imagery at his disposal when he says that we have been sold into slavery under sin — even though in our minds and our hearts we want to be obedient to the law of God, our flesh holds us back and keeps us slaves to sin: We have lost the Civil War, slavery has not been abolished, we have been taken prisoner and captive and sent back to the plantation to toil under the hot sun and the whip of a merciless master. Who could possibly liberate us from this captivity?

Well, the answer for us is the same as it was for Saint Paul: thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And our gospel passage today shows him at work in this process of liberation — wielding the whip not of a slave master, but storming into the temple like Indiana Jones, to clean God’s house of the refuse that has piled up there — contrary to God’s house rules! Yes indeed, tolerating these money changers and dove sellers isn’t just a bad idea — it’s against the law! According to the law the Temple is sacred territory — and these money changers and merchants have set up shop within the its precincts; and the chief priests have allowed it because of the kickbacks that have greased their palms.

And so Jesus comes along to set things right: to clear out these lawbreakers, and restore the house of God to its purpose as a temple and a dwelling place for the Spirit ofGod,where the prayers of God’s people may ascend in the smoke of the sacrifice — prayers not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles who have placed their hope in the God of Israel and have come to Jerusalem to worship and praise.

So it is that Jesus wants to enforce the rules of his Father’s house. But there is a more personal dimension to this. Jesus goes on to say that even if the temple is torn down he will raise it in three days — and he refers to the temple of his own body. But let us all remember, my sisters and brothers in Christ, that we too are temples set apart for the presence and the dwelling of God. We too are called to open our hearts that God might come and dwell within us.

And what prevents this? Have we made room for God in our hearts? Can we, on our own? Even though we know the house rules, have we, no less than the chief priests of the temple, compromised and capitulated to the force of sin? Who are the money changers of our hearts? What tables have been set up to clutter the court of our temple? What profusion of sheep and cattle and doves throng to bleat and low and coo — the noise and hubbub of the fairground and the marketplace drowning out the voice of prayer? What den of robbers have we set up in our hearts? Who can deliver us from this unfaithfulness, this captivity and distraction?

None other than our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can cast out the moneychangers from our hearts, and cleanse our temple to make it fit for God to visit. Let us today, one third through our Lenten journey, commit ourselves anew to the rules of God’s household: let us fling wide the portals of our hearts to let our Lord and Master Jesus Christ come in, bearing if need be that whip of cords, to cleanse our hearts of all the iniquity from which we lack the power in ourselves to free ourselves. Let us commend ourselves and one another to God, who alone has the power to cleanse us from our secret faults, and deliver us from our offenses, to wash us through and through so that our hearts and minds, our words and deeds, may be acceptable in God’s sight, who is our Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

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Meditations on the Way of the Cross

by Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG

V. We will glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:
R. In whom is our salvation, our life and resurrection.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

First Station

Jesus is condemned to death

V. God did not spare his own Son:
R. But delivered him up for us all.

The Lord who set his hand upon the deep,
who stretched the compass on the heavens’ face,
who planned the universe and gave it life,
here, now, is trapped — the victim of a plot.
The judge is judged, and shares a sinner’s fate,
while Pilate, at the warning of his wife,
evades his guilt with water and a towel,
delivering up the one who would deliver
the world that owed him all of its existence.
The very ones who call out for his death —
that he deserves to die — owe him their breath.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen

Second Station

Jesus takes up his Cross

V. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all:
R. For the transgression of my people was he stricken.

The eternal word now mutely keeps his peace
and opens not his mouth. The worthy one,
held worthless now, takes up his heavy cross.
The one who bore the weight of all the worlds
now wearily takes up a cross of wood.
The Lamb of God who takes away our sins,
in meekness his last pilgrimage begins.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Almighty God, whose beloved Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption: Give us courage to take up our cross and follow him; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

Third Station

Jesus falls the first time

V. Surely he has borne our griefs:
R. And carried our sorrows.

A star shot from its place in heaven and fell
down to the depths of the abyss. Was Christ’s
descent less terrible, his humble stooping down?
Yet humbly he had washed the apostles’ feet,
so now he falls to wash away our sin.
Can we do less than kneel here and adore
the one who all our sin and anguish bore?

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers, and carry us through all temptations; through JesusChrist our Lord. Amen

Fourth Station

Jesus meets his afflicted mother

V. A sword will pierce your own soul also:
R. And fill your heart with bitter pain.

A mother’s pain! to see her own child die —
tragic reversal, when age sees youth undone.
The heart that stored such hope, such promised joy
now breaks to see the ruin of that hope.
Yet breaking, that heart’s hope finds its release
and brings the world the promise of its peace.

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, who willed that in the passion of your Son a sword of grief should pierce the soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary his mother: Mercifully grant that your Church, having shared with her in his passion, may be made worthy to share in the joys of his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen

Fifth Station

The Cross is laid on Simon of Cyrene

V. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me:
R. Cannot be my disciple.

Simon didn’t know who Jesus was;
just that he’d better do as he was told:
take up that cross and carry it a while.
What unknown hands lift crosses from our backs?
Who serves us? And what strangers do we serve?
Whom do we serve, if not our Lord himself,
who told us that as we each do unto
the least of them we do it unto him?
To follow him we must take up that cross —
to save our lives our lives must suffer loss.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son came not to be served but to serve: Bless all who, following in his steps, give themselves to the service of others; that with wisdom, patience, and courage, they may minister in his Name to the suffering, the friendless, and the needy; for the love of him who laid down his life for us, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

Sixth Station

A woman wipes the face of Jesus

V. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts:
R. Show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

He came to show us all that we could be,
to stand displayed a perfect man, that we
might have a model for our lives. Instead
we turned away; and worse, we cursed and mocked
his beauty, so much greater than our own.
Yet all our hurts and harms could not deface
the inner glory of his perfect soul,
and his wounds only served to make us whole.

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Seventh Station

Jesus falls a second time

V. But as for me, I am a worm and no man:
R. Scorned by all and despised by the people.

How can he bear that weight? How can he bear
the gathered sorrows of a billion souls?
How bear these sins, since he is innocent?
It is no wonder he should fall, beneath
the heavy weight of all this unearned guilt.
All we like sheep are scattered, wandering, lost;
we set the price; and he has paid the cost.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen

Eighth Station

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

V. Those who sowed with tears:
R. Will reap with songs of joy.

What tears are these? Whence comes this grievous moan?
Is it for him, or for the loss of hope?
If this is how the world will treat its Lord,
what hope is there for anyone? For us?
If green wood burns so easily, what flames
will ravage those whose hearts and souls are dry?
It seems for our own sins we’d better cry.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Teach your Church, O Lord, to mourn the sins of which it is guilty, and to repent and forsake them; that, by your pardoning grace, the results of our iniquities may not be visited upon our children and our children’s children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Ninth Station

Jesus falls a third time

V. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter:
R. And like a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he opened not his mouth.

Where is the light? The candles have gone out!
There is no hope, no way to see the way;
the one we hoped would lead us has collapsed.
Yet in his fall, this third bone-weary fall,
his voice cries out, Remember me, O Lord;
and God, who hears the fallen, will not fail.
Up from the depths and darkness without light,
he calls on our behalf through our long night,
his prayer ascending God’s high throne unto:
Father, forgive; they know not what they do.

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen

Tenth Station

Jesus is stripped of his garments

V. They gave me gall to eat:
R. And when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink.

The night before, he’d spoken of his blood,
and blessed the cup of wine, removed his robe
and kneeling, washed their feet; and later, in
the garden kneeled again, and asked his God
to let the cup of bitterness pass by.
All comes together here: wine, blood and gall.
The garments are removed, the veil undone:
We see the naked glory of the Son.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Eleventh Station

Jesus is nailed to the Cross

V. They pierce my hands and my feet:
R. They stare and gloat over me.

The carpenter of Nazareth is brought
at last to Skull Hill’s bloody, dismal mound.
Between two criminals, hemmed in by sin,
the sinless one is nailed upon the cross.
How many times had he with his own hands
wielded the hammer, pegging wooden frames,
or driven nails. He’d made good yokes, good yokes
for oxen at the plough, or at the cart.
Yet here he is undone with his own art.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen

Twelfth Station

Jesus dies on the Cross

V. Christ for us became obedient unto death:
R. Even death on a cross.

What legacy is this, what parting gift?
A mother loses one son, gains another,
as John, belov’d disciple, gains a mother.
The end has come; time for one bitter taste
of vinegar on a sponge, a gasping breath,
the words of commendation, and of death.

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; who lives and reigns now and for ever. Amen

Thirteenth Station

The body of Jesus is placed in the arms of his mother

V. Her tears run down her cheeks:
R. And she has none to comfort her.

Long, long ago, an angel called her bless’d
and full of grace. Did Gabriel know the course
her life would take, the life of her womb’s fruit,
the Son of God — that it would come to this?
And did he know as well that this was not
the end, that there was more — far more — to come?
Yet Mary’s grief is not relieved in this,
as on his wounded brow she plants a kiss.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies’ sake. Amen

Fourteenth Station

Jesus is laid in the tomb

V. You will not abandon me to the grave:
R. Nor let your holy One see corruption.

His foster father was named Joseph, too;
in death, he takes another Joseph’s tomb.
He had no earthly father of his own,
nor would he have a grave but as a gift.
His birthplace was a stable let on loan,
his burial in a tomb another built.
And all this was to free us from our guilt.
The Way is ended, now the tomb is sealed —
our eyes have seen the love of God revealed.

Let us pray. (Silence)

O God, your blessed Son was laid in a tomb in a garden, and rested on the Sabbath day: Grant that we who have been buried with him in the waters of baptism may find our perfect rest in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen

To Christ our Lord who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

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Clash of Symbols

SJF • Epiphany 7b 2006 • Tobias S Haller BSG
You have not bought me sweet cane with money, or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But you have burdened me with your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities. I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

Over the last weeks you can’t have helped but to hear of the violent reactions to political cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper, and since widely reprinted. The violence in response to these cartoons has led to considerable property damage and even the loss of several lives. Some American and European critics — including many Muslims — have noted that the rioters are only ratifying the accusation of one of the cartoons, the one showing the Prophet’s head as if it were a bomb.

But before we Christians in American become too comfortable upon our high horses, clucking our tongues at what many see as the over-reactions of religious extremists, we would do well first to recall how we behave when our own cherished symbols are abused or defamed.

It is no secret that Americans react strongly to the burning of the American flag, and some support legal restrictions to defend this symbol as if it were more than fabric — as if it were the fabric of our country itself.

Or you may recall the to-do not so many years ago when a figure of a crucified woman was exhibited in the Cathedral as part of the UN Decade of the Woman — not as a religious symbol but as a metaphor for the depth of suffering women have endured down through the ages. This sculpture — which was not in a chapel but in an art exhibit — was denounced by some as blasphemous and monstrous.

New Yorkers don’t have to go very far to find something blasphemous if they want to — you may recall the offensive photograph of a crucifix in jar of human waste that was put on display in a deliberately provocative exhibit in lower Manhattan, or the painting of the Madonna daubed with elephant dung that hung in the Brooklyn Museum, and the outrage and protests that followed — not as violent as those against the Danish embassies, but just as angry.

Symbols are powerful, even if their power derives only from our own desire to honor them, or be disturbed at their dishonor. But when we give them this power, and react in this way, do we not come perilously close to violating the purpose for which the law against such images and symbols was given? When God spoke from Sinai and said that we were not to make graven images, it was to the end that they not become the objects of worship. God said, “You shall not make graven images; you shall not bow down before them or worship them.”

So when the Muslim rages at the insult to an image of the Prophet, when the patriot protests the burning of the flag, when the Christian seethes at the sight of a sacred symbol defaced or defamed, have these things not become, to some extent, idols?

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As you know, I am an iconographer, in my spare time — which I don’t have much of these days! I find it a helpful devotion to “write” icons in the time-honored technique of tempered pigment on a wood and plaster base, and we have a number of them here in the church. In our day we tend to take such sacred images for granted. But in the eighth century, there was a protest against such icons, in which the “iconoclasts” (as they were called) argued that such images were idols. The defenders of the icons said that they were reminders of the truly holy — and that the honor paid to them was not intended for the wood and pigment, but for the one who was represented by these physical means. Any honor given to the icon was transferred to the person portrayed in it.

And therein lies the connection: the symbol is the transmitter of honor to the thing symbolized. And so it is the same with dishonor. This is part of the reason so many are so upset about the abuse of such images of the Prophet, the nation, or of God, for the insult to the thing of paper, wood or cloth is somehow transferred to the sacred reality which cannot be portrayed.

But might it not be even worse? When anger steps up to rage, when disagreement flares to violence — is this telling us that there is more at work? Is it a dangerous overstepping into a twisted form worship — have these physical representations themselves become so sacred that we dare not offer them an insult, or tolerate anyone else doing so? Have they indeed become idols?

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In his novel, Silence, the Japanese Christian author Shusaku Endo describes the terrible era of religious persecution in feudal Japan. The Shogun had invited Christians into the country, but as this new religion began to take hold, he began to be see it asapolitical threat, and instituted a vicious crackdown, including the torture and crucifixion of many Christians. In the novel, a Portuguese priest is forced to make a terrible decision. In order to prevent further torture and execution of the converts in his flock, the magistrate demands that the priest, the leader of that congregation, publicly defame an image of Christ. A bronze plaque is nailed to a piece of wood, expressly designed and created for this purpose — to show one has abandoned the faith by trampling upon it. If the priest does this, it will destroy his authority in the community. But if he does this, the magistrate tells him, the flock will go free, and those who have been tortured will be given medicine for their wounds. If not, they will continue to be tortured and crucified.

As the priest gazes on this image of Christ lying at his feet, he weighs the matter in his heart and mind. Should he do this to save their lives? He looks into the eyes of the bronze image. It is not beautiful as conventional beauty goes: it is the ugly and tortured face of the crucified Christ, the one who bears the sins of the world. He regards it in all of its vulnerability, until finally he chooses to save the flock at the cost of his own position as a leader, even as a Christian. As Endo puts it:

The priest raises his foot. In it he feels a dull, heavy pain. This is no mere formality. He will now trample on what he has considered the most beautiful thing in his life, on what he has believed most pure, on what is filled with the ideals and dreams of man. How his foot aches! And then the Christ in bronze speaks to the priest: “Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know of the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men’s pain that I carried my cross.”

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Who is our God? What is our nation? Who are our prophets? If they cannot bear an insult — or if we cannot bear the insults given to their shadows, their images in paper, wood, and paint — are they what they seem to be, and are we? Have they become idols and we idolaters indeed?

God in Christ bears the shame heaped upon him by those who know not what they do; God in Christ bears the pain inflicted upon all of his images — not just the ones of wood and bronze, of pigment and plaster and paint, but the truly important ones, the true likenesses, the ones of flesh and blood: the brothers and sisters demeaned and defamed day by day in this fallen world of idols. As we do it to the least of them, we do it to the one whose image they bear.

For we have not worshiped him as we ought to have — giving thanks for all he gives, the flowing springs and the food in due season, which we humans are too self-obsessed, to caught up in our own idolatries, to appreciate. We have not brought him our offerings, but rather continue to burden him with our sins, wearying him with our iniquities. When we see healing and forgiveness come from an unlikely quarter to someone we might think not worthy, we cry out, “It is blasphemy!” as readily as we do when things don’t go our way, or when our cherished idols are insulted.

Yet he bears it all — he who has the power to forgive all of our sins because he bears all of our sins. He blots out our transgressions for his own sake, and no longer remembers our sins any more. He bears it all, saying to us, “Trample — for this is what I came to do, to bear the sins of humankind, who know not what they do.”

Such is the sacrifice and love of God, that he allows us to tread and trample in our ignorance and in our folly. He will bear with us when we err, and forgive us when we sin, and free us from the paralysis that binds us.

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He has done this, and he will do it. His capacity to forgive far exceeds our capacity to sin. But need we put him to this test? How much better, dear sisters and brothers, how much better to live as he would have us live, to give our God some rest from the need constantly to suffer, some respite from the sins that make him mourn: to respect and reverence one another — to hold dear the precious images of God who surround us everywhere we turn, the men and women and children who are the members of God’s family, and treat them as God would have us do. How much better to respect one another’s traditions and beliefs — to challenge them if we must, but with humility and in the knowledge that we too make mistakes.

As it took four strong friends to carry that paralyzed man and let him down through the roof, we too need each other to find the way to the healing that is offered, to free us from the paralysis that binds us to our dearest idols. Let us work together, friends, ripping off the roof if need be, to do God’s will in this as in all else. May God help us to turn from wrong and insult, from clinging to idols towards mutual respect for God’s true likeness in each other, in forbearance and righteousness. When in the power of Godthis healing comes, all will rejoice and glorify God, and say, “We have never seen anything like this!”

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It is Well with my Soul

SJF • Epiphany 5b 2006 • Tobias S Haller BSG
The man of God said to his servant, “Look, there is the Shunammite woman. Run at once to meet her, and say to her, Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is the child alright? She answered, It is all right.”

I don’t know about you, but somehow that modern translation doesn’t quite ring in my ears the way the old one did: “Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child? She answered, It is well.”

But whether “all right” or “well” — what a strange thing to say — given the fact this woman’s child has just dropped dead out in the field, and is now lying cold and still in the little room that she and her husband had prepared for the holy man. As she is quick to remind the prophet, she didn’t ask for this child; it was a gift God gave her, which he then seemed to snatch away. Yet still she trusts, still she says, It is well. And therein lies her great faith.

For her trip to see the man of God isn’t simply a trip to the complaint department, a chance to berate this man of God, and God himself, for having deceived her by giving her a wonderful gift and then snatching it away. If a desire to say “I told you so” is all she is up to, we would hardly remember her story today. No, she has a greater cause and a greater hope than this, for her trip to the man of God is not simply to complain but to appeal. And she will not be denied. When she says, “It is well,” she is making a radical affirmation of trust, trust that God doesn’t play this kind of game, and that God will do something to set this situation right. This is her trust and her faith.

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I almost titled this sermon, “Be careful what you don’t ask for.” This woman doesn’t ask for this child — it’s the servant Gehazi’s idea. She doesn’t ask for this child to be born, and yet he is born. And when he is stricken and taken from her, she appeals to the man of God, and throughhim to God himself — to restore what has been taken from her — the life of this child — even though she never asked for him to be born.

But who of us asks to be born? Who of us can ask to be given the gift of life before we have received it? And who of us can ask for our own life to be restored after we have lost it? When we lie, each of us someday, still and cold — in a small upper room, in a hospital or hospice bed, alone or surrounded by our family, it will not be for any of us to say, Let me be restored. But it may be for us, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, to have said those other important words: it is well with my soul.

It is well: these are the words of faith, the faith that knows that whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s — that even when we sleep in death there is a restoration yet to come, not merely a restoration to this transitory life, this life of aches and pains, of suffering and weakness — even if it is also a life of joy. No, it is well — because the restoration that is to come is assured by the same Lord who gave us our being at the beginning. The Lord who formed our souls and implanted them and brought them to life, is the same Lord who will raise our corruptible body from death. So we can say with confidence, It is well, it is well with my soul.

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Our gospel passage today shows us why this trust is well-founded in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ — even though we do fall sick, even though we continue to perish and die — still it is well. For our gospel shows us, that even though Jesus does cure Simon’s mother-in-law of her fever, and cures many who are sick with various diseases in that town — still, at the end of that day, after spending the night in prayer, he speaks plainly to his disciples, telling them that his mission is not simply to heal a few people here or there, but rather to set in motion the great saving message that will reach to the four corners of the world — for that, as he says, is what he came out to do.

The mission of Jesus and his church, although it includes caring for the sick and the suffering, does not limit itself to this gracious and important task: the mission of the church is not merely for the bodies of the few sick it can reach, but for the soul of the whole world which it can embrace. The church works and strives in its mission, and reaches out in the knowledge that even if we cannot heal every sick person, or save every injured person, yet still — it is well! It is well because in spite of death and injury, God reigns. It is well because in spite of suffering and loss, Jesus lives — and in him we too will live and reign for ever.

This is the testimony of faith that we hold as Christians, faith like that of the woman from Shunem. We do not ask for the gift of life before we are born, nor — once it is gone — can we of our own efforts call it back. And yet, it is well, it is well with my soul. For we know that our Redeemer lives, and that at the last he shall stand, and with our own eyes we shall behold him, who is our Savior and our Lord, and who is on our side as Mediator and Advocate. This is nothing less than the hope and faith in the resurrection unto eternal life — not the mere recovery from illness that we all might hope for when we fall sick or wounded — but the restoration to new life that can only come when the seed that is planted perishes and the new life springs up green and fresh from the earth. And as Saint Paul assures us: the new life will not be like the old, but incomparably greater.

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Let me close with a true tale that ties all of this together. In 1873, Mrs. Anna Spafford and her four small daughters sailed for France. In the middle of the Atlantic, tragedy struck, and the ship on which they were sailing was rammed by another vessel that split the ship in two. The terrified mother and her children were swept into the sea, as the ship sank beneath the waves. Fifty-seven people survived the disaster, and Mrs. Spafford was among them. But when she reached port, it was her sad duty to send a cable to her husband, Horatio, back in Chicago, a simplenote consisting of two terrible words: “Saved alone.” Horatio set sail to bring his wife home, he too crossing the Atlantic; and it was on that ship, as it sailed over the waters in which his four children had drowned, that he sat in his cabin and wrote the words to an immortal hymn:

When peace like a river attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea-billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say;

“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Now, you might think that was the end of the story. But it isn’t. The Spaffords had two more children, a son and a daughter — yet tragedy seemed to dog their path as the little boy perished from scarlet fever when only three years old. It was then that this unhappy couple chose to travel to the Middle East, to Jerusalem. Spafford wrote to a close friend, “Jerusalem is where my Lord lived, suffered and conquered, and I, too, wish to learn how to live, suffer and, especially, to conquer.”

So it was that late in 1881, the Spaffords became founding members of what would come to be known as the “American Colony,” in the Old City of Jerusalem.

And in the city that saw Christ’s resurrection, a different kind of rising came about: for in the Spafford’s home, expanded and growing with wing upon wing added, for years after, and even up to this day, a refuge for sick and orphan children was created and thrives: the Spafford Children’s Center. New life came from death.

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Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child? It is well. It is well with many children today because the Spaffords — in the power of faith and following the example of their Lord — turned their tragedy to good. It is well with the souls of many today because God gives us the power to turn to the light he gives, in the hope he offers, for the ends he desires. It is well with my soul, my friends, for he has taught me to know it, and to say it. And I trust that you will join me in this, now and for years to come, to place your trust and faith in our Lord and God, who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and who will raise us too! It is well, my friends — it is well, it is well with my soul!+

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The Cover and the Book

SJF • Baptism of Our Lord • Tobias S Haller BSG

John the Baptist said, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

There is an old saying that things are not always what they seem. This is a true saying, and as the Scripture puts it “worthy to be received.” Certainly there are many things in the world that seem to be designed by nature to deceive and conceal their true identity. Watch any of the nature shows on TV and you’ll see the examples: the amazing stick insect that disguises itself as a twig; the chameleon that can change its color to blend into the background; or the eggs of that interloping bird who lays them in the nest of another species, eggs that look just like those of the unwilling host, deceiving that bird into keeping them warm. Once the chicks are hatched — which happens before the duped bird’s own eggs hatch — the invading chicks push the host’s eggs out of the nest, and the poor host is forced to feed the invaders. And of course, you can also see plenty of other TV shows that show similar behavior among the higher animals — by which I mean people — deception as a willful act, upon which depend the careers of every con man or woman, every trickster and fraud.

But sometimes the misapprehension of a thing is not the fault or the intent of the thing itself, but rests with the perception of the one who sees it. Things are, after all, what they are: and it is often our perceptions that create the confusion or misidentification. Our emotional or psychological state of mind has a powerful influence on what we see: on that lonely walk home late at night along a country road, armed only with a flashlight, it is no wonder that a strangely shaped tree should take on the appearance of a hobgoblin: but it is after all only a tree.

I spoke a few weeks ago about how the limitations of human language can create such confusion: how words or gestures can mean different things in different cultures — my point being that the gesture or the word is just what it is, but the meaning conveyed by it may be entirely different depending upon the person who sees the gesture or hears the word.

Years ago business people tried to address some of the problems caused by this reality by developing symbols and icons that they hoped would be understood everywhere in the world. One of the most obviously necessary ones was the symbol to indicate that the contents of the shipping box were fragile. So to indicate this breakability, someone came up with the idea of using a picture of a broken wine glass in a circle. This seemed to work fine until one company discovered that their shipments of radios to South Asia were not getting through to the intended dealers. On investigation the shipping company discovered that the stevedores unloading the shipments in that remote port thought that the broken wine glass symbol meant that the contents were damaged goods, and they were simply chucking all the boxes into the rubbish. So the international symbol for “fragile” eventually was changed into an unbroken wine glass!

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The reason I mention all of this is the important role that symbols play in the church, most especially in the form of the sacraments. I’m sure all of you remember from your confirmation classes the definition of a sacrament: “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” The sacrament is first a sign: something you can see or touch or hold; but it is more. It actually and always delivers on the promise. It is, in short, a book that you can judge by its cover. It is what it appears to be, without deception or pretense, and it makes good on that appearance by a sure and certain delivery — this is a shipment that always gets through to the intended addressee, clearly labeled as what it is, understood and welcomed and received as such.

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The sacraments represent a kind of ultimate truth in advertising. Baptism truly washes away our sins and makes us members of the Body of Christ, the priestly fellowship of all faithful people. The Eucharist truly feeds us with the body and blood of Christ, giving us strength and food for the journey, and reminding us that just as the fragments of broken bread once formed part of a single loaf, so too we in our separate lives share a common life through this Holy Communion in the body and the blood of Christ. The sacraments are exactly what they promise to be — means of grace to the glory of God.

I mention all of this today because we’re observing the feast of the baptism of Jesus: when Jesus himself came to the Jordan River and allowed John to baptize him. Jesus did not, of course, need to be baptized: the sinless one had no need to be cleansed of sin. Rather, what we see in the baptism of Jesus is the revelation of the true nature of the Christ: certified by the sign of the voice from heaven that speaks not only to Jesus himself but to all those who are ready to hear, whose ears are open to hear that good news, that this is the beloved son of God.

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I noted in the weeks leading up to Christmas that John the Baptist is the original advance man, the patron Saint of “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” And in today’s gospel we see that he is also the patron saint of truth in advertising, of symbols being what they are, and the honesty to clarify what they are not. He says, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John is clear about this because he knows that the people are looking for a Messiah. Under the heel of an occupying power in league with a corrupt local government, the people are ready and set to perceive a savior in anyone who looks even remotely like one. So John makes the extra effort tosay, essentially, “I am just the signpost.”

Think about signposts for a moment. What use would a signpost be if it was in the wrong place, or said the wrong thing, or pointed the wrong way? A signpost separated from the road to which it points is useless or worse; it gains its only value from being at the right place, accurately naming the road by which it stands or towards which it points.

Well, John the Baptist is the signpost — but Jesus is the road; as he will later say, “I am the Way.” John the Baptist is the cover of the book, but Jesus is the Book of Life itself, the Word of God made flesh and come among us, full of grace and truth. And John the Baptist is the promise but Jesus is the Truth and fulfillment. John is the wineglass symbol on the box but Jesus is the unbroken chalice within: the one who comes to us in fragile human flesh to redeem and restore that fallible flesh, the one who truly communicates his saving blood to all of humankind.

We are not in the world of deception here, the world of deceit and falsehood, not even the world of mistaken identity and confusion of purpose. We are not here lost in the maze of confusing signs and symbols, or walking along the lonely country roads where our own fears make goblins of the forest. No, here we stand by the riverside, and we hear John’s disclaimer that he is not the one the people seek, and we hear God’s proclamation that Jesus is that very one — the one who will baptize not with water alone but with the Holy Spirit. John is the signpost, the cover of the book, and the promise; but Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is God’s beloved son, the only-begotten and firstborn, to whom we are united in our own baptism, and whose body and blood we share in the Holy Communion that he commanded his disciples to celebrate.

May we so always hear his voice and follow his commands, walking in his way, proclaiming his truth, and celebrating his life.+

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This Old House

SJF • Advent 4b 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG

The Lord spoke through the prophet Nathan and said to David, “The Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name.”

I’m sure that most of us here have seen at least one episode of the PBS TV series “This Old House.” For anyone who hasn’t, it involves a group of experts with a big budget doing massive renovations on different houses of different styles in different parts of the country. One can get quite an education watching this program and learn a good bit about plastering, woodworking, electrical installation, roofing, and heating and air-conditioning. Almost, I must say, as one can learn by being the vicar of Saint James Fordham!

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But on this last Sunday of Advent we are called to think of a different kind of house, or rather two different kinds of houses: one of them indeed something like those on “This Old House” or even more like Saint James Church, made of stone and wood and plaster; but the other of a different sort altogether, made of flesh and blood.

Both of these houses are referred to in Nathan’s prophecy to David. King David, you may recall, had wanted to build a permanent house for the ark of the covenant — a grand temple of stone and cedar as a suitable dwelling place for that powerful and dangerous vehicle of the presence of God. The ark had been carried through the wilderness and housed in a tent and a tabernacle — but never in a house of stone except for that brief time when the Philistines stole it and put it in the temple of their false god Dagon. The wrath of the true God came upon them almost as dramatically as in the Indiana Jones movie about that self-same ark. The Philistines of Ashdod couldn’t get rid of that ark of the covenant soon enough, stricken as they were with plagues, and the statue of their deity Dagon fallen flat on its face. So eventually — after trying to palm it off on four other Philistine cities with similarly disastrous results — they sent it back to Israel with gifts by way of apology.

Given that, one might think twice about building a house for the ark of God to rest in. But David had a mind to build just such a house. However, as he would soon learn, God had other plans, and instructed Nathan to tell David that he was not the one to build God a house of stone. This task would fall to his offspring; as indeed it did when Solomon built the temple that his father had only dreamed of.

But Nathan also spoke of another kind of house: that house of flesh and blood I mentioned a moment ago. The Lord said that he would make David a house: meaning a house in the sense of a royal heritage, a dynasty, like the House of Windsor or the House of Hanover. This royal lineage would not be a house of stone, but a house of living flesh and blood, a chain of inheritance and a royal bloodline that would be passed down from generation to generation. David would not end like Saul — a king with no one to succeed him. No, David would be the first monarch of a kingdom that would last for ever, a royal house that would stand for all time.

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So what happened? Within one generation after David, due to Solomon’s infidelity — as he was led into idolatry by his many pagan wives — the kingdom of David that was to last for all time ceased to be. The kingdom was first divided, the Twelve Tribes split up like a torn and ruined garment, and then after many years of ups and downs, taken off into captivity — Israel first and then Judah, and after returning home from Babylon only marginally ever able to reestablish itself for a brief time, before the Romans finally smashed it once and for all.

And that might have been the end of it all but for one thing. And that is the other house I spoke of: the one of living flesh and blood, of ancestral descent in the royal line. For God would raise up a Son of David, not Solomon, but long after Solomon and his immediate heirs had lost the earthly kingdom. And the throne of this Son of David would endure for ever — for his throne is notan earthly throne, but a throne set in heaven.

So it was that the angel Gabriel went forth to that town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a young woman engaged to marry a man of the House of David. Her name was Mary, and it is said of her that she too was reckoned to be of David’s line — since the angel assured her that Joseph would have nothing to do with the conception of this child but would be his foster-father, and yet that the Lord God would give this child the throne of his ancestor David — his ancestor through Mary “according to the flesh” (as Saint Paul would say to the Romans), even more importantly than through Joseph by adoption.

And so the house into which this child was born was no mere house of wood and stone; it was a house of flesh and blood — this old house of flesh and blood that traced its lineage back long before David, long before Moses, long before Abraham and the patriarchs, back to the beginning when flesh and blood was first made from the clay of the riverbank, and the breath of God breathed life into it, and it became a living soul.

This old house of flesh and blood had seen much damage since those early days; the telltale damage that came from the disobedience of Adam and Eve — the cost of deferred maintenance when we get our priorities out of order. Yet God kept his promise that this old house of flesh and blood could be renovated and restored.

And just as in the TV program “This Old House” the homeowners give the producers permission to come into their homes and do their work of restoration, so too the restoration of humanity begins with just such permission being given. Undoing the disobedience of Eve and Adam, Mary of Nazareth says the words that open the door to transformation: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Mary opens the doors of this old human house and lets God in, to do his wonderful work.

God could make this old house new: working in human flesh the wonder of the incarnation, so that within the womb of Mary of Nazareth, in that house of flesh and blood God himself would be pleased to dwell: the son of God, now in flesh appearing.

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This renovation can happen in our flesh too, this same renewal can come to our own blood — our dilapidated houses can be restored and rebuilt. Our renewal can take place when we allow our Lord and God, by his daily visitation, to purify our consciences, to enter our hearts and take up residence there, in what at his word and work can become a mansion prepared for God to dwell. One of my favorite hymns — and we’ll be singing it at the end of our worship today — contains the wonderful verse addressing God in just this way: “Come, abide within me; let my soul, like Mary, be thine earthly sanctuary.”

God wants this invitation. God will not force this restoration upon us: God has given us the dangerous gift of free-will and we can choose to bar and bolt our doors and pull down the shades and turn out the lights and pretend we’re not at home when he comes to the door and knocks. We can pretend we’re perfectly happy with the falling plaster and leaking pipes and peeling paint of our unrestored spiritual selves.

Or we can accept God’s offer to make us new, to restore and renovate us after his own image, in the likeness of his Son, adopting us through him into that royal lineage of the House of God. God wants our tumbledown bungalows to become palaces and temples and mansions of his habitation. God wants us commoners to be adopted into the royal family, to share with Jesus in the royal priesthood of the kingdom of God. And God will do it if we let him. For he is, as Saint Paul said, “able to strengthen us according to the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed.” May we be strengthened to accept his invitation, day by day to invite his visitation, opening our hearts to say with blessed Mary: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

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Tidings of Comfort and Joy

SJF • Advent 2b 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

Comfort is one of those words that has unfortunately, over time, almost completely lost its original meaning. When we hear the word comfort the first thing that is likely to come to mind is an overstuffed sofa or one of those space-age mattresses we keep seeing in the commercials on TV — you know the ones: where people can balance wine glasses or drop bowling balls next to you, but you can just go right on sleeping because the bed is so, well, comfortable.

But that’s not the original meaning of the word comfort. The original meaning of comfort is “to make strong” — to fortify. It is about taking heart and being encouraged, being strengthened with resolve and given hope that there is better to come. Comfort is not about feeling warm and cozy, it is about facing the future with trust in God and hope in one’s heart, no matter how bad things might have been in the past, or how they might appear at the present. It is a call to be prepared and strong for the good of the days to come.

Let me give you an example of what I regard as a proper use of the word comfort in this old-fashioned sense. When Bloody Mary came to the throne of England in 1553, and reestablished Roman Catholicism as the state religion, the Anglican bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley knew that they would not be long for this world. Sure enough the two of them were burned at the stake on October 16, 1555. As they were about to die that terrible death, Bishop Latimer spoke his famous last words, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as (I trust) shall never be put out.” Clearly comfort is not about being cozy but about being courageous even in the face of such a terrible end, to “be of good comfort” in the knowledge that the flames of present suffering will pass, and the glorious hope of the future awaits.

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So it is that when God commands Isaiah to speak words of comfort to Jerusalem and its people, it is not to say, “Make yourselves at home.” On the contrary, the prophet here is telling the people that the day of liberation has come — they need no longer make themselves at home in Babylon, as once they did. Rather, in these tidings of comfort and joy they are being recalled to their own homeland. God will prepare a way for them in the wilderness, leveling every mountain and filling in every valley, evening out the uneven spots, and planing down the rough ones, to make a broad, clear highway for his people. And God himself will be their shepherd, leading them in his might, and even carrying the lambs close to his breast. These are words of great comfort to people in captivity, words not just to make them feel good, but to live in hope and strength for a better time.

Saint Peter offers similar encouragement in our Epistle today: explaining that the Lord’s delay is not neglect, but patience; He doesn’t want anyone to have any excuse for not being part of the great procession into the new creation, the new heaven and new earth. This world — this Babylon, if you will — is set to expire, and it will dissolve in a flash of fire. So this time of God’s patience is for all of us to be prepared, to be ready, to be courageous, to be comforted with the knowledge of God’s redeeming love for us, and the salvation given in Jesus Christ.

John the Baptist greets us with such words of strong comfort as well: quoting Isaiah and thereby reminding the people of that ancient comforting promise of liberation — not right now, he tells them; not yet — but soon! John is speaking to Jews suffering under the heel of a foreign occupying power: the might of the Roman Imperium with itslegions and fleets. John offers words of comfort to a people ground down by the kind of corrupt government that such a colonial system is apt to promote: the soldiers who abuse, the tax collectors who gouge, the politicians who connive and the judges who turn a blind eye to the poor and favor the rich.

John offers comfort to those on the receiving end of these various injustices, and a warning and a call to repentance to those who practice them. He preaches the word that Paul would take up later: God is patient, but do not presume on his patience. Be strong either to endure or repent: and take comfort in the coming of the Lord.

John appears as a prophet and advance man for the big show that is coming to town — and we’ll hear more about that next week. There is much to hope for, much more to come, much more that will be revealed — so, John is telling the people, take comfort and be prepared.

So it is that all our scripture today speaks to us in the same accents: take comfort — be strong. Be prepared for the Lord who redeems you, and who will come to liberate you from all captivity, who will make the way clear before you, so that you too might be led on your way to the new heavens and new earth, and be at home at last in that place of righteousness.

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Let me close with a story about another great Anglican, Charles Simeon, who was one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society. He could be called a “theologian of comfort,” from the one end of his life in the church to the other. At the beginning of his adult life in the faith, he had much difficulty in preparing himself to receive the Holy Communion, Back then Communion was something you might receive only a few times each year, and much was made about being in a proper frame of mind — perhaps we’ve lost something of that sense of the importance of preparation to receive Communion. There were many devotional guides, little booklets to help with the individual Christian in preparing for “this awful mystery” — and unfortunately for Simeon the devotional guide he used put all of its weight on law, humiliation, unworthiness and obedience as the ways rightly to approach that holy sacrament. This did little but make Simeon feel miserable. Fortunately he came across another devotional guide that took an entirely different approach, a truly evangelical approach in the sense of bringing him tidings of comfort and joy, the good news of the gospel. This book stressed the fundamental truth that the law cannot make one righteous, but that it is only through Christ, and the sacrifice he made of himself once offered upon the cross for our salvation, that we are washed from sin and prepared to welcome him, and be welcomed by him. We don’t have to become worthy — indeed we cannot: it is Christ who makes us worthy! This comforting assurance liberated Simeon, and inspired and strengthened him not only to make his Communion, but to become one of the great evangelists of the Christian faith, spreading the truly good news that, as Isaiah said, we have served our term, and our penalty is paid, and that our Lord has redeemed us.

The end of Charles Simeon’s life reflected this same strong consciousness of comfort. As he lay dying, he greeted the people gathered around his bedside with a bright smile and cheerful sense of comfort and joy. He asked the gathered friends and family, “What do you think especially gives me comfort at this time?” As they did not wish to hazard a guess, he cried out, “God’s creation! For I ask myself, Did God create the world or did I? And I must answer, He did! Now if he made the world and all the rolling spheres of the universe, he certainly can take care of me. Into Jesus’ hands I can safely commit my spirit!”

It is this consciousness of comfort, this acceptance of the tidings of comfort and joy, that God calls us to this Advent time, and on through Christmas, and on through into the rest of the life God gives us, until we too find our way to get ourselves up the high mountain, hearing the voice of theherald of good tidings lifted up, not fearing, in the knowledge of comfort, and hope in God’s promise, and ready to take our place in the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness is at home, and where we too at last shall be at rest with our Lord and our God, to whom all praise be given, henceforth and for evermore.

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Not for Wrath

SJF • Proper 28a • Tobias S Haller BSG

God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or sleep we may live with him.

We come now to the last chapter of The First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians. Over the last few weeks we have heard about how much Saint Paul loved this congregation, and how much they loved him in return. And last week we heard of the comfort he offered them about those who have died, who have fallen asleep in the Lord, and who await his coming with the sound of the trumpet and the call of command.

In this closing chapter, Saint Paul takes up that practical question which many Christians before and since have asked. When will the Lord come? And Paul gives the same answer that Christians first learned from the lips of Jesus Christ himself: the Lord will come at a time when no one expects it, like a thief in the night. When things seem peaceful and secure, then suddenly the judgment will come, and the wrath of God will fall upon all those unprepared for his coming.

This is indeed bad news for those who are unprepared. Our Old Testament reading today paints a picture of the terrible day of wrath that will attend the Lord’s coming. A day of bitterness, a day of warriors crying aloud, a day of distress and anguish, of ruin and devastation, of darkness and gloom. It is a day upon which the people who have done wickedness shall be stricken and walk about as if they were blind. The prophet assures us of a coming day of wrath, a day of mourning, a day of darkness and judgment.

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But Saint Paul reassures us that while the day of the Lord’s coming is bad news for those who sleep the drunken sleep of apathy — who, as the prophet says, say in their hearts, “the Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm” — while this day of wrath is bad news for those who can’t tell good from evil, it is good news for those who are prepared and who have placed themselves in the care of Christ. Those who believe inChristare not in darkness, to be taken by surprise at the Lord’s coming. For them it is not a day of wrath, but a day of redemption and release, a day of judgment, yes: but not a judgment of condemnation, but of acquittal.

For those who believe are not asleep in darkness, but awake in the light, they are observant and watchful, they are ready and prepared for the coming of the Lord. We spoke last week of the form this preparation takes: the oil of hope that is stored up by the wise to light the lamps to welcome the Lord at his coming. And this week Saint Paul again refers to hope, this time as a helmet of salvation, part of the Christian uniform along with the breastplate of faith and love. These three virtues, as Saint Paul would assure the Corinthians, these three Christian characteristics of faith, hope, and love are our shield and protection against the day of wrath, our preparation for the Lord’s coming. The light of faith and hope conquer the darkness of doubt and fear, and love — as the old saying goes — conquers all.

So it is that we are fully equipped — children of day and light, ready for the arrival of our Lord and dressed for the occasion in our fine garments, with our lamps trimmed and ready. He has given us all that we need to be ready for him. And woe to us if we do not make use of all he has given us.

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That is the theme of our gospel parable today: the story of the rich man going on a journey and leaving his property in the care of his servants. Some are given more, and some less — but all are given something. The good and trustworthy servants make something more out of what they’ve been given, so they are able to show their profit to the master when he returns.

But that third servant; what are we to say about him? Even knowing that his master is a shrewd character who tries to maximize his investments, even reaping profit on the side from wherever he can get it, this third servant has nothing to show except what he started with. In spite of knowing how interested his master is in reaping a profit, this servant has done absolutely nothing to advance his master’s interests. No wonder the master is amazed at this fearful servant — a man afraid to put the talent to work, and content to bury it in the ground.

As Saint Paul assures us, that servile fear represents the opposite of hope, the hope that takes a risk and trusts that good will come. Ultimately, Paul is telling us, as Jesus is too, that people get what they expect, they get what they deserve: if they live in fear, their fears will be realized. If they live in hope, their hope will be rewarded. “Perfect love casts out fear” — and the love of God calls us to that perfection of faith, that light of hope and that love for God and neighbor that are nourished and supported by our Lord and his promise. Perfect love, and the faith and hope that go with it, cast out fear as light casts out darkness.

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We have all been given talents, my sisters and brothers. We all have been given the wherewithal to do something for our Lord. Some may have more and some have less, but all of us have something to work with. And most important among the things we have is our participation in the Christian household, the church. We have been adopted by our heavenly father, and made children of light, so that we need not fear the darkness. God has given us the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of salvation. Should we not put them on? Should we not be dressed for the occasion? Should we not live lives of hope and trust, willing to put to work the talents God gives, rather than sitting back simply content that they have been given? Isn’t it clear that God wants to find us busy when he comes, not asleep at the switch? Isn’t it clear that God wants not complacency, but hope? Not satisfaction, but zeal? There is a warning in our Lord’s words, “Not all who call me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 7:21) Doing God’s work, working God’s will: that is the task for which God gives us the talents and skills of faith, hope and love.

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Some years ago, a minister encountered a member of his church who (as they said in those days) was “a backslider.” The minister said to him, “ I haven’t seen you in church for a long time.” The man responded, “Well, the dying thief didn’t go to church and Christ accepted him.” The minister pressed the point, “But you used to help out at the soup kitchen; won’t you come lend a hand again?” But the man said, “The dying thief didn’t help out at any soup kitchen, and the Lord accepted him.” The minister countered, “Well do you at least read your Bible every day?” But the man kept to his principles and said, “The dying thief didn’t read the Bible, but the Lord accepted him.” And so finally the minister said, “My, it looks like the only difference between you and the dying thief is that he was crucified with Jesus!”

My friends, our faith is not meant to lull us into the sleep of complacency; our hope is not meant to be treated like an insurance policy tucked away in a drawer; and our love — if we do not express it to our neighbors as to ourselves — if it bears no fruit, it will convict and condemn us on the last day. God gives us these things to put them to use: our faith, our hope, and above all, our love. He gives us these things on loan to be used for his purposes, not ours. God gives us talents and skills, all of us differently, but each of us valued in the sight of God for what we can do for him and for his kingdom, and for our brothers and sisters. The Lord has given us all of this, and he wants a return on his investment. These talents are ours on loan: like the tools handed out in the morning at a construction site — tools to be used through the course of the day, to do the work God gives us to do. Let us not, like the lazy servant, be found only able to give back what he gave with nothing more to show. Let us rather use what God has given us — our faith, our hope, and our love — to increase his kingdom here on earth, that when he comes again in power and great glory, we may be with him forever in heaven.

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The Oil Supply

SJF • All Saints’ Sunday 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those that died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.

On this All Saints’ Sunday we continue with our reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. In this chapter, Saint Paul finally gets to the main theme of his correspondence. People in this congregation, as in many others, had been eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus, the promised second coming. And the problem for believers was that this second coming appeared to them to be delayed; and what is more, a number of the members of these congregations had died, and those who remained were concerned about their fate.

In speaking of those who had died, the people of those days, including Saint Paul, used language that isn’t well reflected in our present translation — they would say “our dear brother or sister has fallen asleep,” much as someone today might say that someone has “passed away” or “gone home.”

The English priest Colin Stephenson tells a story of a visit he paid to a convent of Anglican nuns some years ago. At the door he asked the sister who answered if he could see the Mother Superior, who was an old friend. With a lowered voice, the sister said, “Mother is playing the harp in Jerusalem.” Father Wilkinson answered, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that; when did she die?” The sister then suppressed a little laugh, and blushingly explained that every room in the convent was named after a place in the Holy Land, and that “Jerusalem” was the music room, and that Mother Superior was in fact playing the harp there!

Even within the scripture we see how this kind of polite language could cause confusion from time to time; you mayremember how in John’s Gospel Jesus refers to Lazarus having “fallen asleep” and the disciples say, “Lord, if he has just fallen asleep he’ll be fine.” Jesus has to correct them and tell them he means that Lazarus is dead — and yet, even given that, he will awaken him.

And this brings us to the problem that faced the Thessalonians and Saint Paul. What happens to those who “had fallen asleep” — who had died before the Lord’s return? Were they lost for ever? Would they rise again like Lazarus? What was to be their fate?

So Saint Paul reassures this congregation. He reminds them that Jesus himself died and rose again and that their friends and family members who had died will also rise again from death at the coming of the Lord. Those who are still living will be joined by those who have died, when they rise from the dead at the sound of the trumpet and the call of command, and the whole congregation of God’s faithful people will be joined together to meet the Lord and be with him for ever. These are the words of encouragement and hope that Saint Paul gave that congregation, and they are words of hope that have been repeated many times since to many other congregations. I have said them myself, right from his pulpit; they are central to the Christian faith, and are, perhaps more importantly, the substance of the Christian hope: Death is not the end! This is one of the reasons we celebrate the feast of all the saints each year; and to drive the message home, the message of new life in Christ, All Saints’ Sunday is also one of the four baptismal Sundays of the church year: when we remember that we who are baptized into his death shall share with him in a resurrection like his. This is the word of the Christian hope.

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But we hear today also a word of warning. Our Gospel today also refers to those who fall asleep, who awaken at the call of the Lord, but of whom only some are ushered into the banquet as friends, while the others are shut outside like strangers. And although our text ends with the admonition to “Keep awake,” that does not seem really to be the point of this story. All of the bridesmaids, after all, fall asleep as the bridegroom’s arrival is delayed. (I will note this has to be a first: I’ve never officiated at a wedding where the groom was the one who was late!) But be that as it may, the real issue here doesn’t seem to be whether the bridesmaids stay awake or fall asleep, but rather if they’ve got enough oil for their lamps. The smart bridesmaids bring along an extra supply of oil; the foolish ones just bring the lamps along with whatever oil is already in them. The lamps burn down, the bridesmaids fall asleep, and suddenly the bridegroom comes. Uh oh! Talk about the problems of an oil shortage!

Over the years people have interpreted this parable symbolically: the lamps indicate wisdom and the oil knowledge; or the oil symbolizes righteous deeds stored up in anticipation of the last judgment. But it seems to me that it isn’t necessary to chop and slice and dice this story quite so fine in order to see the point that Jesus is making, as in the old Boy Scout motto: Be prepared! Or as Saint Paul would say, not to be like those who have no hope, but to be encouraged and prepared and hopeful for the coming of the Lord. The foolish bridesmaids seem to have thought, “Well, the bridegroom might come or he might not. I’m just going to bring my lamp as it is.” The wise and hopeful ones said to themselves, “He will surely come, so I will be prepared with extra oil so that whenever he comes I will be ready.” They lived in hope.

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Well, the Lord’s coming is delayed — has been delayed for 1,950 years or so; many, many Christians have fallen asleep. The question is: what did they do before they fell asleep. Did they, through their lives, live in hope? For all of us, we know, will end up being summoned — joined with that great throng that has gone before: all of us will be called forth to show what our lives were like; the secrets of the each heart will be laid bare, most importantly: did we live in hope? Those whose lamps burn brightly, who, as Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount, have bodies “full of light”; who above all have prepared themselves to be with God for ever by their faith and by their hope, who “have built their hope on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness” — these will enter the banquet hall to rejoice with the bridegroom at the never-ending feast.

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Author Paul Adams notes that on the Niagara River, upstream from those mighty waterfalls that have formed the background to many a honeymoon, the river is actually peaceful, calm and navigable. But at a certain point on the calm part of the river there is a small bridge under which the water flows downstream towards the mighty waterfalls, and on that bridge there are two signs posted. The first says, “Do you have an anchor?” And the second sign says, “Do you know how to use it?”

This is the message of our Gospel today: Do you have a lamp? Do you have oil for it? I trust and I hope that you do. I trust and I hope that you, and all the others we remember today who have worshiped God both in this church and in other churches in other places and at other times have stocked away a supply of oil — the oil of hope in Jesus Christ. “I do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about all those who have fallen asleep, so that we might not grieve as others do who have no hope.” We have hope in our Lord and God, trusting not in our righteousness but hoping and trusting in his manifold and great mercy. And this hope is our supply of oil to anoint our hearts, to brighten our countenance, and to light our lamps — so that when the trumpet sounds and the voice of command calls forth, we may rise to new life, and bear our lamps on high and enter that heavenly city, Jerusalem the Golden, there to rejoice for ever with the Bridegroom, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.+

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The Father’s Day

SJF • Proper 26a 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG

Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “As you know, we dealt with each one of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

We continue this week with our extended look at the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians, and it follows through on where we left off, with yet another emphasis on his love and care for these folks, who must surely have been very special to him.

Last week Paul used the image of a mother nursing her children, and this week he portrays himself as the other parent, the loving and caring father who encourages and urges and pleads with each of his children to do the best they can, living a life worthy of God and God’s kingdom. As I reflect on this with you, I wonder if we are hearing an echo of the Lord’s Prayer here in Saint Paul’s letter. Could this have been a reminder to the Thessalonians, who must have used that prayer each day as every Christian did? Isn’t this a reminder of God the Father, whose kingdom we pray each day will come, who loves us and cares for each of us, giving us our daily bread; and who encourages us to be our very best by forgiving us our very worst, even as we forgive those who sin against us?

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus also alludes to the prayer he committed to his disciples, when he reminds them that they have one Father — the one in heaven. Jesus does this to contrast good fathers and bad. As I said a few weeks back when we were talking about mothers, there are good mothers and bad — as Isaiah assured us, some mothers might even forget or abandon their nursing child. But God is different: God is all good, through and through, better than any human parent, father or mother. Ultimately, only God is the perfect parent, who will never forget or forsake his children.

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Jesus feels so strongly about this, that he drives his point home by saying, “Call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father— the one in heaven.” What he means by this is that no earthly father cancompletelyfulfill that role the way only God can — to be not only the giver of life, but the preserver of life, even unto the life of the world to come. No human father or mother can be quite as good as God, who in Christ is willing to give up everything to save the life of his children. To emphasize this teaching about our perfect Father in heaven, our scriptures lay before us today examples of imperfect fathers on earth, from bad to worse.

We start with the worst: the false prophets who lead the people of God astray; who give false but comforting prophecies of peace as long as they get something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths.

I don’t know if any of you have been following the cable TV series, Rome, but there was a good example of exactly this kind of thing in an episode a few weeks back. When Julius Caesar entered Rome with his army, even though he was breaking Roman law he wanted to be sure that he got the blessing of the religious authorities — the pagan priests who, according to the Roman religion, were supposed to be able to tell the future by watching how birds flew. Yes, I know that sounds odd, but that’s what they did. Well, Julius Caesar invited the chief priest to a dinner party, and as a matter of casual dinner conversation indicated how a very large sum of money might find its way into the accounts of this chief priest’s wife. Much winking and nodding ensued. And sure enough when Julius Caesar came to the Temple on the day appointed to foretell the future, sure enough the birds flew in the right direction— with a little help from a several servants out of sight behind a wall, dropping a brick outside the cage of birds and furiously waving their aprons to shoo them the right way!

Apparently it was the same in the Israel of Micah’s day: as long as you crossed the palms of the prophets with enough silver they would be sure to give you a good word: they were bribable judges, and priests for price, giving oracles for money.

And things weren’t any better hundreds of years later in Jesus’ day. The primary difference appears to be that the bribery was in a somewhat less obvious form. Rather than monetary bribes, the Pharisees and scribes received a less tangible honorarium: the place of honor at banquets, thebest seats in the synagogue, people bowing and scraping to them in the street and in the market, and being called Rabbi, which means teacher, or Abba, which means father. And it is also clear that these guys had absolutely no concern for the people who honored them. On the contrary, they placed heavy burdens on their shoulders, but didn’t even lift a finger to help them with them. One might well ask why the people put up with this — but you might just as well as ask why the Romans thought you could tell the future by watching birds! Maybe people just like getting good news even if they’ve paid for it; or maybe people like being told, “Do this; do that” because it relieves them of the burden of having to take personal responsibility for their lives.

Whatever the reason, this kind of bad fatherhood had been going on for a long time. And all of these bad fathers have one thing in common: they are interested only in themselves. They are only concerned about others for what they can get out of them: food to fill their mouths, money to line their pockets, seats of honor at the banquet, and salutations on the sidewalk.

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How different, Jesus tells us, how different, Saint Paul assures us, is our God and Father in heaven, who sets for us the model of all good fatherhood. Paul shows us one crucial aspect of what a good father is like in this passage from First Thessalonians: notice how quickly he shifts from the language of being like a father, to the language of being a brother, and then even to the point of being the child: as he says that when he lost touch with the Thessalonians even for a short time he was made like an orphan by being separated from them.

So too Jesus calls for this inversion of hierarchy: if you want to be the greatest then you must be the servant. “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

This is the great inversion of the order of the world that took place in the Incarnation itself. Unlike the scribes and Pharisees who sit in Moses’ seat, but don’t get up to lift a finger to help anyone; Jesus left his heavenly throne and came down to be with us as one of us, to be our brother, to serve and to save a fallen people. In a certain sense he descends from his heavenly father’s side and becomes the child of all humanity: the Son of Man — think about that odd expression by which Jesus speaks of himself so often — the Son of Man, humanity’s child, the one who leaves his Father’s heavenly throne and comes to earth — as we will celebrate in a few weeks’ time — as a vulnerable infant in a manger.

This self-sacrifice stands in stark opposition to the self-interest of the bad fathers in our readings today. A good father not only lifts a finger to help his children; he will do everything he can to save them, even at the cost of his own pain and suffering.

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Not too many years ago, one fine summer day, a father was out driving in the country with his young son. As they drove along with the warm breeze coming through the car window, a bee flew in on the wind. It buzzed around inside the car, terrifying the child, because he was allergic to bee venom — and a sting could send him into shock or even kill him. Without a moment’s thought, the father reached out and grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then tossed it out the window. He looked over at his son, whose eyes were still wide with fear and confusion. Then the father showed his son his hand, on the palm of which the stinger had penetrated, and the venom sack still pumped by reflex. “You don’t have to be afraid of that bee any more,” he said. “I’ve taken its sting for you.”

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This is what a good father will do for his son. This is what Christ did for us all. This is what we are called to do for each other. May God give us the strength to lead lives such as this, lives worthy of God our Father, who has called us into his own kingdom and glory. Thus every day can be our Father’s Day: the Day of our Father who is in heaven, to whom be ascribed all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth, and for evermore.

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The story of the father, the son, and the bee is adapted from Adrian Uieleman.

The Fair Trade Alliance

SJF • Proper 25a • Tobias S Haller BSG
Saint Paul wrote the Thessalonians, “As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed.”

We continue this week with our exploration of the First Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, picking up with chapter 2. Last week we heard about how proud of this congregation Paul was, for they knew that God had chosen them even as they had chosen to follow God, turning away from empty idols to embrace the living message of the gospel.

Saint Paul continues the theme of his love for this congregation in the second chapter. Here he describes himself as being like a nursing mother tenderly caring for her children, dealing gently with them and providing for them, and most definitely — to get to my theme for today — not taking advantage of them but rather dealing with them fairly and generously.

It might seem odd that Paul would even have to mention such matters as fairness, and go further in appearing to offer a defense for his actions. The sad fact is that some things never change. There is nothing new under the sun, and that includes fraudulent evangelists bilking people of their money, and snake oil salesmen promising miracles but doing nothing but instantaneously emptying their victims’ pockets and purses: now you see it; now you don’t! And the scam artist is gone in a flash.

The modern world has put a new spin on some of this extortion through our wonderful world of telemarketing, Internet fraud, and identity theft. How many of us get several emails a day purporting to come from the widow or lawyer of some Nigerian or Saudi businessman, asking for help delivering them of the uncomfortable millions of dollars they have stashed away somewhere, and if you help you will get ten percent or more, because you are such a wonderful Christian soul. Before these frauds became so common as to be laughable, I know of a bishop in another diocese who fell for one of these scams and handed over his bank access numbers to effect the transfer — and was rescued from disaster just in time by a well-informed member of his diocesan board! I don’t know about you, but I find these hoaxes particularly offensive because they cloak themselves in the language of “Calvary greetings in the Lord” and the effort toportray the hoaxer as a poor suffering widow with cancer — who just happens to have ten million dollars!

As I say, there is nothing new in all of this. There was plenty of monkey business going on back in the days of Saint Paul — and then as now believers were often the victims of slick operators who played on their faith, and on the call that we hear in the Book of Exodus: to care for orphans and widows. The idea of wolves in sheep’s clothing — or scam artists in widows weeds — is nothing new, and as Saint Paul points out there were those who made use of flattery to worm their way into position to take advantage of believers.

One example of this that we know from the Acts of the Apostles is that of Simon the Magician — who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from the Apostles so he could go into the apostle business for himself. And there were other shady evangelists roaming the Mediterranean with words of flattery and trickery — Saint Paul would elsewhere call them “the super-apostles!” — and their greedy outstretched hands were ready to take advantage of anyone swept up by their message.

As our Old Testament reading shows us such chicanery and selfishness were abroad in the world long before Saint Paul was a twinkle in his father’s eye. Moses had to enforce God’s law against pawnshops and loan sharks taking the shirt off someone’s back or charging them interest such as only a modern credit card company could dream of. Oh, yes indeed, what’s old is new! People have been taking advantage of other people for just about as long as there have been people on this earth.

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So Saint Paul is anxious to remind the Thessalonians of his plain dealing with them, his working with them with gentleness and care, and his determination to share with them, not only the gospel of God’s salvation, but even himself, to give himself to them. This is what I might call a “fair trade alliance” — Saint Paul gives the Thessalonians the gospel, with love and care, and the people of that congregation offer affection and respect in return. This is why Paul uses the imagery of a nursing mother with her children: what more intimate and gentle image can there be for actually giving of yourself? And all the mother expects in return is the love of her children — she isn’t nursing her children for ulterior motives, but just because theyare hers.

In this, of course, Paul is following not only the commandant of our Lord Jesus Christ, but his example. For Christ not only taught, as we see in the gospel today, that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, but he gave himself up as a ransom for many, for the salvation of the world. The trade, you see, is fair, but it is not completely balanced, at least not according to the scales of human commerce. A mother gives life to her child, and a nursing mother continues that gift. How can a child possibly repay that? What can you give in return for your life? The most the child can do is to love and respect and care for the parent — but the gift of life only flows in one direction, from the parent to the child.

The same is true in our relationship to God: God gives us life and is the source of our being. What we are called to return to God is our love — with all our heart and soul and mind. We are called to dedicate ourselves to God, who not only gives us life at our birth, but who gives us new life in Jesus Christ — so we owe a double thanks. And the only way even to approach a balance in this fair trade alliance is to offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a holy and reasonable sacrifice to God, dedicating ourselves to his service, and walking before him in righteousness all our days.

And as Christ has taught us, and as Saint Paul so well understood, the highest righteousness we can follow is not punctilious observation of the fine points of the Law of Moses, but living in the life-giving Spirit of Christ: to follow in the path Christ laid out for us, loving God with all our heart and soul and mind, and our neighbors as ourselves. We are called to follow the way that Saint Paul commended in his life with the people of Thessalonica, dealing with each other fairly and gently, not seeking advantage and certainly not with greedy intention or trickery, but being as fair and generous as we possibly can with each other. We sang to God in our opening hymn, “Thou dost give thyself to me, help me give myself to thee.” There is no better way to give ourselves to God than by loving and honoring him, and by loving each other as much as we love ourselves. That, my friends, is a fair trade.

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Let me close with a parable about such a fair trade. Once there were two brothers who lived at opposite sides of a field their father had left to them when he died. In the center of the wheatfield stood the threshing floor they also shared. Each day at the end of the harvest they would separate the wheat from the chaff at the threshing floor, and then evenly divide the grain. One of the brothers was single, the other married with many children. One evening, as he was heading back to his home at the far side of the field, the single brother thought to himself, “This division of the wheat isn’t fair to my brother. I live alone, and only need to feed myself, but he has a family to care for.” So he turned around, and beginning that night and each night thereafter he stealthily crossed the field to his brother’s house, and put a large portion of his share of the grain into his brother’s granary.

That same night, as the married brother too was heading home, he thought to himself, “This equal division of the grain isn’t right. I have children who will provide for me in my old age, but my brother has none. I should return some of the grain to him, so he can sell the surplus and have resources to hire servants when he is too old to work in the fields.” So he too turned back and crossed the field stealthily, and unloaded a large portion of his grain.

This went on for some time, and each brother wondered why his grain supply never seemed to be more or less than it had been before. Then it happened one moon-bright night that the brothers stumbled into each other near the threshing floor, and when they realized what each had done, they embraced and then burst into tears, and then to laughter. And it is said that the place they met, and that threshing floor, in latter years became known as a holy place, and as the town grew to take up the fields and surround that spot, a great church was built that stands to this day.

May we, my brothers and sisters in Christ, be as generous with each other as these two brothers were, loving our neighbors as ourselves, as gracious as was Saint Paul to the people to whom he proclaimed the gospel, and give thanks and glory to our loving God, who has given us life and salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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The story of the two brothers is adapted from Donald J. Shelby.

The Cross-Shaped Life

In memoriam Patrick Ignatius Dickson BSG

Saint John’s Getty Square Yonkers • Tobias S Haller BSG

From now on, let no one make trouble for me; for I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.+

Towards the end of William Shakespeare’s tragedy, King Lear, the old man comes stumbling onstage, bearing his dead daughter Cordelia in his arms. One of the horrified onlookers asks, “Is this the promised end?” Then a few moments later, as Lear struggles towards his own death, and finally breathes his last, that same onlooker says, “O, let him pass! He hates him much That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.”

Certainly Patrick Ignatius was stretched out on a rack of tough suffering these last few years. Given that frail physique, already stretched so thin he almost disappeared when he turned sideways, I was amazed at how much of a licking he could take and still keep ticking — and with such Timex-like regularity and patience. For us to wish him still here would be to wish more suffering for him. Instead, in God’s mercy, his pain has finally found its promised end.

That day came as we knew it would. More importantly, as Patrick knew it would, so that we who miss him can take some comfort in knowing what Patrick knew: he knew his promised end; he knew the answer to that age-old heart-felt plea, Lord let me know my end and the number of my days. And as that end drew near, he was prepared and fortified and ready.

To know one’s end does not come easily. The knowledge of what manner of death one is to diedepends upon living a life so dedicated and so consecrated that the end comes not as a shock or an interruption, but as a natural and fitting conclusion to a life as surely aimed towards that end as Robin Hood’s arrow is to the bull’s-eye.

For this end, this promised end, is not simply a termination but an accomplishment, not a stop but an arrival at the point towards which the whole of life has been guided. This end comes because the Christian has put on Christ, has embraced Christ, and him crucified, and has thus been transformed into his likeness and into his shape. It is by living the cross-shaped life that you come to know the manner of death you are to die, and to take comfort in that knowledge, so that from then on no one can make any trouble for you. In the knowledge of your end in Christ, your arrival at this promised end, in the accomplishment of this ultimate sign of the cross, all else falls away to insignificance. In the light of the cross of Christ, in the life shaped to its discipline and its beauty, all things find their meaning, and in its shadow, nothing else matters.

So what does it mean to live a cross-shaped life, like Paul to bear in your own body the marks of Jesus branded, to be crucified to the world even as your world has been crucified? What does it mean to be made to fit the shape of the cross, and of the one who hung upon it, lifted up so that he might draw that whole world to himself and transform it into his likeness?

It means a life of dedication, a life of service, a life of humility, a life of deference, a life of patience. It means a life of kindness and concern, of firm resolve combinedwith gentle disposition. It means walking in the light, with both eyes open, keeping both eyes on the promised end, upon the cross, free from distraction by the petty dissensions of the old world and its obsessional concerns with advantage and power and control — what old King Lear called the “court news”: “who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out... packs and sects of great ones that ebb and flow by the moon.” It means knowing what is truly vital and vitally true, and holding fast to it, if need be nailed to it, come what may.

For ultimately it means sacrifice, my friends — which is not suffering, but sanctification — not the mere dedication of the old but its transformation into the new life, the new creation; not the laying down but the lifting up of life. It means death to self before the self dies, and the embrace of the living hope of resurrection present and active even in the midst of that death, even the death of the cross, with voices raised and singing alleluia even at the grave.

Those who knew Patrick Ignatius could see all of this at work in him long before his final illness. We were blessed that the trajectory of this man’s life intersected ours and arced through it with such clarity, sure of his end as he was of the promise. For Patrick Ignatius, the cross was not merely a symbol, it was a sacrament — a real presence of his Lord, an effective instrument of that promised end. He embraced it and shaped his life in accord with it — stretching out his arms in love. Our brother in Christ — now in Christ even more perfectly and completely — our brother in Christ hasgiven us all an example — which is what saints do.

Do you think me hasty so to canonize him? Do we need to wait for a few miracles and some certificates from the hierarchy? Need we frame a resolution for the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to submit to the tender mercies of the General Convention’? Give me, I pray, a break.

For, rather, dare we not, we who saw the arc of his life pass through ours, extrapolate the end of his trajectory? His life was shaped to the cross and the man who hung upon it: pierced through the side by the wound of charity that strikes the heart and breaks it too — and opens the fountain of love. Pierced by the wounds of dedicated hands that do the work God gives them to do, and feet that walk in the way of the Lord’s walk, the way of that self-same cross. We have seen a life marked and branded with the signs of the cross as clear as the stigmata; we have seen a life lived in the way of the cross, lifted up, not for the whole world, but for those who have been blessed to share a portion of this pilgrimage, stopping station by station with the bended knee and confessing tongue of prayer and dedication.

Patrick Ignatius set us an example, and we are called to follow: To form our daily intentions, to direct our daily actions, to take the cross of Christ as our template and our goal.

This is the cross of Christ in which we glory, towering over the wrecks of time. This is the cross of Christ, standing as high above the valley of death’s shadow, as Christ stands high above all creatures, worthy to be lifted up precisely because he was willingto descend to those depths and die for those he loved.

This is the cross that stands above all controversy and dissent, all pride of place and privilege, all earthly wealth and power, the need to possess, the need to control. This is the cross that transforms the world by confounding its values and turning it upside down, undermining the easy ploys of manipulation and deceit by which the children of earth think to barter their lives and better their lives.

This is the cross to which Patrick Ignatius shaped his life, and which we are called to share. Now and every day. May we find strength to take up that cross each day and so embrace it, that we too, with trusting hearts will know our promised end and find our goal, the arc of our cross-shaped lives fitted neatly into the places prepared for them from before the foundation of the world, in the everlasting comfort of the peace and mercy, the knowledge and the love of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Clothed in White

SJF • Burial of Riley Kenneth Francis • Tobias S Haller BSG

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.”+

Who are these, robed in white? This is one of the many questions that were addressed to Saint John the Divine in his vision of the world to come, a question asked, like all of them, by someone who already knew the answer. And when John politely pointed that out, the answer was given: “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple.”

I draw upon this text today, because we are marking the death of one who, clothed in white, stood here in this church, before this altar, this earthly shadow of the heavenly throne of God, and worshiped him, perhaps not day and night, but certainly week by week quite literally for decades. The Sundays on which Ken Francis was not here, either in the choir or in the sanctuary, were few and far between. He stood at my left hand, as he stood at the side of Father Basil Law, and Fathers Mercer, Pfaff, Scott, Lau, and Boatright, and the many other priests who have had the privilege of sharing in that ministry. He stood at the side of Bishop Taylor, whom we are blessed to have with us today, and at the side of Bishop Moore, and Sisk, and Dennis, and Martin, and others who have served in this diocese and beyond.

Some of these priests and bishops have gone before, just souls made perfect by the one who is perfect, and they too, we fervently trust, now are clothed in white and stand before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple. And I trust and hope that they number among them our friend and colleague Riley Kenneth Francis.

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My trust and hope is not simply based on the idea that people get what they deserve; that a good man like Ken will simply find his reward because he deserved it; that a good and faithful servant will hear those words of comfort from his master, “Enter your master’s joy.” No, my friends, my trust and hope is based on something a bit firmer than that, it is based on the trust I place in our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.”

There is a powerful comfort in these words, in the assurance that our future fate does not rest primarily upon how well we’ve done in minding our P’s and Q’s, but rather on how much we have loved our Lord and each other. This is, after all, what he told us he wanted us to do — to love him with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and to love each other as much as we love ourselves, doing to others as we would be done by. That’s it. That’s how we come to Christ — there is no other way. Remember Jesus doesn’t say to us, It’s my way or the highway. He says, I am the highway! And anyone who follows that royal road, he will never turn away.

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We are here today, some of us perhaps in a church — any church — for the first time in a while. Bear in mind the importance of what you do, and how best you might honor the man we commemorate here, the man we commend to the God he served so faithfully, week by week, here in this choir, and there by that altar. He was no stranger to God, and God will be no stranger to him. He is not one of those to whom God might say, “Why don’t you ever call?” He is not one of those to whom God might say, “Long time no see.” He is certainly not one of those to whom God might say, indeed has promised to say, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.”

Rather he is one who served his Lord and God and sought him out, who worshiped him here on earth and will rejoice to worship him in Heaven. He is one who relied on the firm promise of God that he will never drive away one who seeks him out.

You may remember the story of Saint Thomas More, who was condemned to death during the reign of Henry VIII over his disagreement with the king about his divorce and second marriage, and the succession to the English throne. Perhaps you saw the film of some years ago, A Man for All Seasons. As Thomas stood on the scaffold he kept the tradition of giving the executioner a tip — this had the practical consequence of helping ensure that he would chop off your head with a clean, neat cut, rather than hacking at you. As Thomas gave him the coin, he said, “Do not fear, you send me to God.” One of the clergy standing by said, “Are you so sure, Sir Thomas?” And Thomas replied, “He will not refuse one who is so eager to go to him.”

Thomas, you see, rested his hope upon that same promise, that anyone who comes to God, he will never drive away. I’m sure some of you remember how the old hymn goes: “The soul that to Jesus hath fled for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes; that soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”

That is the promise my friends, the promise from Jesus himself. “What more can he say than to you he hath said, to you that for refuge to Jesus hath fled.”

There is nothing more to say. Nothing more than his word is needed, my friends. If you don’t trust him, who can you trust? If you do not place your hope in him, in whom can you hope? Jesus’ word was good enough for Saint Thomas More, it was good enough for Saint John the Divine, was good enough for Ken Francis, and it’s good enough for me! Is it good enough for you? I hope it is. I hope that this day will not simply be a day that marks the end of the life of a good friend, but a day that renews your connection with an old friend, a friend who has longed to hear from you, a friend who has longed to see you in his house, and at his table. You know who I mean.

Our hope and trust is that our Lord will welcome Ken Francis into the eternal dwellings. May we too — all of us — one day rejoice to hear the words of welcome, the words of comfort, when we rise at the last day may we enter together into his temple where wewill hunger no more, and thirst no more; where the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat; where the lamb will be our shepherd and will lead us to the water of life and wipe every tear from our eyes; and together, clothed in white, with all the blessed ones who have gone before and who shall yet come upon this blessed earth, we will worship him night and day before his throne, and give him glory for ever and ever.+

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The Choice

SJF • Proper 24a 2005 • Tobias S Haller BSG
For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

Beginning today and for the next four weeks we will be reading portions from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians. This gives us the opportunity to explore aspects of Saint Paul’s teaching in relation to a specific congregation, as he addressed its needs and concerns, and shared his vision of the gospel.

It is important to bear in mind that we are receiving these writings secondhand; that we are in a very real sense reading someone else’s mail. The early church collected these documents and circulated them because of the teaching they contained, and the apostolic authority they expressed. But for us to understand them it is helpful for us to remember that Saint Paul, and in this case his colleagues Silvanus and Timothy, originally intended these letters for the specific congregations to whom they wrote. In fact, this First Letter to the Thessalonians ends with the admonition, “I solemnly command you by the Lord that this letter be read to all of [the brothers and sisters].” We in the present day are hearing letters written nearly two thousand years ago, and to persons other than ourselves — and yet still we find them meaningful.

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So what do these early apostles have to say to this early congregation — and to us? The first thing that is clear in the passage we heard today is that Saint Paul is busting his buttons with pride over this congregation. (Let me add that I know how he feels!) Not only have these people been faithful in spite of persecution but they have spread the word of God far beyond their own little world, and word of them, and of their faith in God, has resounded to such an extent that Paul is hearing echoes of it from every corner of the church. So this congregation of Thessalonians, like the Philippians about whom we’ve heard in the last few weeks, was among Saint Paul’s success stories — unlike the troublesome and troubled Corinthians and Galatians! Paul sums this up in a wonderful phrase: that this congregation is “beloved by God.” God has, he assures them, “chosen you.”

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What a wonderful thing it is to be chosen. And I don’t just mean as in “God’s chosen people.” I mean the more everyday human things, like being chosen by your boss to do a difficult task because only you have the skills to do it. Or think of the joy that blossoms in the heart of a young person at the school party, when the one you’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask to dance comes up to you and does the asking.

Being chosen is wonderful; and it forms a crucial element in the history of God’s people. But as I said a moment ago, it goes beyond God’s chosen people. In our reading from Isaiah today, God does a very astonishing thing. He chooses Cyrus the king of Babylon to be his agent of deliverance. And he doesn’t only choose him, he anoints him — a privilege normally reserved to the Jewish kings. And God does this to show just how far he will go to save and deliver his original chosen ones, the people of Jacob, the people of Israel.

Now in theological terms this kind of being chosen is called election. That sounds a little cold, a little technical, and certainly I might say, as we approach election day, a little too political! Still, the point is made: God chooses whom he pleases; he elects to select, and his chosen ones belong to him and cannot be taken from him. There is no impeachment from this kind of election!

God’s chosen ones belong to him and to no one else. This truth is what lies behind the incident in our gospel passage today. “Give to the emperor the things thatare the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus is making a fundamental point here: money may belong to Caesar — after all its got his picture on it! But people belong to God — and God’s image is not just stamped on the surface, but goes down deep to the depths of the heart, where the capacity to love finds its resting place. As Saint John would say, “God is love,” and our resemblance to God shines forth most clearly when we draw upon that capacity to set aside our own needs and desires, and give of ourselves for others.

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Now you might well ask, how do we know that God has chosen us? And the answer for us is the same as the answer for the Thessalonians. We know that God has chosen us because we have chosen him. After all, we are here, aren’t we? There are hundreds of other things any of us could be doing on a Sunday morning other than gathering here to be together and to be with God. And yet, here we are.

It was the same with the Thessalonians. When Saint Paul came to them they welcomed him and his message warmly. And what is more important they turned their backs on the countless idols of their culture, the manufactured gods and goddesses of wood and stone that did nothing for them but asked nothing of them. They turned away from these lifeless, empty things, to serve the living and true God. They chose God, and God chose them. And oh, the blessedness and the comfort of that choosing.

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Some years ago a psychologist in Jerusalem undertook an experiment to test how well mothers know their newborn infant children. She selected 46 mothers all of whom had given birth from between five hours and three days before, and all of whom had breast-fed their child. The mothers weren’t told ahead of time that they were going to be tested, so they didn’t have a chance to study up— they were just ordinary mothers chosen at random from the maternity ward. The psychologist blindfolded each mother and then brought her into a room where there were three sleeping infants, to see if she could tell which was hers. And perhaps you will not be surprised to hear that nearly 70 percent of the time the mothers made the correct choice — they could tell which child was theirs simply by feeling the infant’s hand.

Well, what I want to say to you today, is that God does better than 70 percent. God knows his own, and his own know him — 100 percent of the time! The bond that connects us with God is deeper even than the bond between a mother and her child. As the prophet Isaiah said, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” Let’s face it, mothers do sadly sometimes neglect their children; it is one of the tragedies of life. But God is different; God will never — “no never, no never forsake!” — those whom he has chosen.

So let us rejoice today, my brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us rejoice that we have been chosen by God even as we have chosen him. Let us rejoice that God surprises us by choosing us even as he surprised Cyrus of Babylon and equipped him to do great things. Let us rejoice with Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, and the church of the Thessalonians, with whom we share the fellowship in Christ that transcends time and space. Let us rejoice that when all that belongs to Caesar and to Caesar’s world has decayed and rusted and crumbled, we who belong to God will be with God forever, the King of kings and Lord of lords, to whom all glory is most justly due, henceforth and for evermore.+

The story of the psychologist’s experiment with mothers and their newborns is from Craig Brian Larson’s Contemporary Illustrations.

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