In Our Right Minds: Reflections on Philippians 2.1-12

 

In Our Right Minds

Reflections on Philippians 2.1-12

 

RCL Palm Sunday B

28 March 2021

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            In April of 2003 I turned fifty.  As many other people have no doubt done before me, I took stock of my life thus far.  Professionally I had done well:  a full professor with tenure, opportunities to travel, significant committee assignments and work that still interested me.

 

            On the personal side of things, however, I felt a little unease.  Paula and I had married later than either set of parents.  By the time my father was fifty, for example, I was in seminary, my sister married with the first grandchild on the way and my father had retired from his first career with the U.S. Air Force and was embarked on the first of two subsequent mini-careers.

 

            Here I was, the father of three children who were twelve, fourteen and sixteen and going through the biochemical changes of adolescence, just as I was beginning the biochemical changes of later middle age.  I remember saying to Paula, ‘It’s no wonder it seems like a madhouse around here.  We’re all under the influence of some chemical or another.  None of us are in our right minds!’

 

            What I said as a joke seventeen years ago is still true.  Being alive these days has a certain almost deranged character to it.  We know, despite all the nay-sayers, that climate change is real and that human activity contributes to its severity.  But we struggle to exercise the communal discipline and political will to make the necessary changes to protect our world for future generations.

 

            We know that we are all made in the image of God and are held precious by that same God.  But, despite our best intentions, we all have moments when we lapse back into ancient, almost genetic. ‘we/they’ attitudes when justice, dignity and full inclusion mean relinquishing our privileges in order to make room for others.

 

            Not being in our ‘right mind’ appears to be a sadly regular experience for all of us.  But it is not a state of mind in which God is willing to let us linger or stagnate.

 

            The third-century theologian, Irenaeus of Lyon, wrote that ‘the glory of God is a human being fully alive’.  He might well have added ‘ . . . and a fully alive human being lives in their right mind’.  Irenaeus did go further to point out to his readers that Jesus of Nazareth is just such a fully alive human being, one who is always in his right mind because he taps into that image of God at the core of his being.

 

            The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Christian community in Philippi, anticipates Irenaeus in describing Jesus as this unique embodiment of what it means to be fully human, fully alive, always in one’s right mind.  Paul won’t let the Philippians off the hook because he loves them so deeply.  They might want to wriggle off the hook by saying something like this:  ‘Well, Paul, Jesus was, after all, the Son of God.  What can we mere mortals be expected to do and to be?’  They might want to do the first-century equivalent of responding to gun violence by offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ by talking about how following Jesus is an aspirational goal rather than one that requires hard work and personal transformation.  But Paul won’t let them squirm away that easily from owning up to who they are as well as who they are called to become.

 

            In a few short verses Paul gives us the means to identify when we’re in our right mind and when we are deluded.

 

• Do we regard the well-being of others as the stimulus for our actions rather than being motivated by selfish ambition or conceit?  Then we’re likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.
• Do we act in the best interests of the whole community rather than pursuing self-interest or partisan advantage?  Then we’re likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.
• Do we strive to follow the model of Christ in each and every dimension of our lives?  Then we are likely in our right mind, our Christ-like mind, even when we fall short.

 

            Being right-minded, being Christ-minded, requires discipline and life-long commitment even as it exposes us to many risks, known and unknown.  But, in the end, it is the only way to be fully alive.

 

            Today we renew our commitment to strive to live in our right mind despite all that distracts us, confounds us and betrays us.  Should we find ourselves drifting from the path, we need only glance at the simple palm crosses that grace our homes and workplaces.  Their humility, leaves folded together in the shape of the symbol of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, will awake in us the example of our Servant Lord, lead us to life in its fullness and restore us to our right minds.

Walking in the Light -- Or Not: Reflections on John 3.14-21 (14 March 2021)

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            In the latter half of 2007 Bishop Jim Cowan, then Bishop of British Columbia, invited me to join him on a trip to Myanmar.  Since his diocese had a ‘companion diocese’ relationship with the Anglican Church in Myanmar, Bishop Cowan had been asked to lead a small delegation for four people to represent the Anglican Church of Canada at the installation of the newly-elected Archbishop of Myanmar in mid-February 2008.  The Archbishop-elect had requested that a seminary professor be included in our delegation.  I lived on the Pacific coast and had a reputation for travelling well in overseas climes, so off I went.

 

            I must say that I went with some apprehension.  The military junta was still in power and there was a growing movement of Buddhist fundamentalists who were hostile to both the tiny Christian and Muslim minorities.  To these Buddhists Christians and Muslims represented religious practices and ideas alien to the majority Buddhist society and culture.  For example, Christians and Muslims were forbidden to use the Burmese-language word for ‘God’ in worship.  But despite my fears I went.  Although it was a relatively short trip, about two weeks or so, I am still processing a life-time’s worth of memories.

 

            My thoughts and prayers have returned to Myanmar over the last weeks.  The military coup is a tragic miscalculation which will hurt all the people of Myanmar, including those who believe that the coup will benefit their entrenched interests and bolster their power.  The violent repression of civil protest can only add more wounds to a country that seemed to be healing, even if that healing was slow and the persecution and expulsion of the Rohingya people in the western part of Myanmar has been a blot on recent democratic government.

 

            What gripped my attention was the photograph of Sister Ann Rose, a Roman Catholic nun in the northern city of Myitkyina (mitchinar).  When police arrived to disperse a crowd of protesters, including a number of children, Sister Ann Rose approached the police.  She knelt before them with her arms outstretched as if she were on the cross.  ‘Shoot me, not the children,’ she is reported to have said.  The police hesitated.  Two officers knelt in front of her, their hands held in a Buddhist prayer gesture.  The other officers stood with their weapons lowered, uncertain of what to do in the face of her courageous witness.

 

            I wish that I could tell you that all went well, but I cannot.  A short time later the police used force against the crowd.  Some protesters were injured by projectiles, whether rubber bullets of live ammunition is not known.  There are reports of deaths.  Faced with a witness to the Light, the police chose the shadows.

 

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 

            “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.” (John 3.16-21 NRSV)

 

            What God offers us through the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, is eternal life.  Eternal life is not just a future promise; it is a present reality made available to all.  It is a quality of life that renders impotent our fear of death.  Eternal life is what enables us to live with both the sorrows and joys of our mortal lives.  Eternal life is what empowers us to face our challenges, even when they seem insurmountable, with hope and commitment.  Eternal life is what refreshes us when we are tired, discouraged and uncertain.

 

            Eternal life comes from knowing that we are made in the image of God, each and every one of us.  At the heart of that image is the ability to love as God loves, unselfishly, generously, passionately.  Because of that image indelibly imprinted upon us, Paul is able to write that 

 

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8.38-39 NRSV).

 

These words, so often read at funerals, are written to living disciples of Christ who are facing the same potential of persecution and oppression that the people of Myanmar face daily.  I cannot help but think that these words empowered Sister Ann Rose to walk so confidently towards the police.  She was walking in the Light and she offered the police officers a choice.

 

            This Light is not only known by Christians.  We believe that the whole kosmos ‘declares the glory of God and the heavens the handiwork of the Lord’ (Psalm 19).  Every human being, made in the image of God, is drawn naturally to this Light, this pattern of behaviour.  What our baptismal liturgy calls ‘ . . . Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God’, ‘ . . . the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God’ and ‘ . . . the sinful desires that draw [us] from the love God’ (BAS 154) can attempt to hide the Light, to block the Light and to cast shadows to confuse us, but they cannot overcome the Light.  All of the so-called ‘great’ religions know this truth and teach it.

 

            But being made in the image of God has an inherent risk.  Just as God is free to choose, so are we.  We can love or we can hate.  We can heal or we can wound.  We can give life or we can take life.  We can build one another up or we can tear one another down.  The choice is ours.  Last week Sister Ann Rose chose life.  Last week the military and police chose death.

 

            The consequences of such choices touch the soul as well as the body.  With each act of violence and oppression, the souls of the perpetrators are diminished.  They become increasingly distorted and reclamation becomes ever more difficult – but never impossible.  Despite the damage done to the image of God embedded in each one of us, the Spirit of God and the Light of God can cleanse and renew our birthright.  God’s condemnation is not eternal; it is the consequence of our choices and it can be remedied.  Why?  Because God’s love is eternal and is more powerful than evil, hate, darkness and death.  Nothing can erase the image of single nun, kneeling with arms outstretched, pleading with her brothers to come to their senses.  That image continues to plead for them and for us.  Why?  Because that image was of Christ himself pleading for all of us to walk in the Light.

Where Does God's Glory Dwell? Reflections on the 3rd Sunday of Lent (7 March 2021)

 

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Where does God’s glory dwell?

            Some years ago I had the privilege of being one of three presenters with Herbert O’Driscoll and John Bell at a conference sponsored by Christ Church Cathedral in Victoria.  Very quickly the word among the participants was that the conference should have been called, ‘The Three Celts’, Herbie an Irishman, John a Scot and me an Anglo-Norman-Welshman.  Our heritages could not help but emerge in the talks we gave and it was one of most enjoyable professional experiences of my life.

            During the conference we sang a lot of John Bell’s hymns and other music from the Iona Community.  Among them was a hymn that is found in our hymnal and which we’ve sung from time to time here at Holy Trinity Cathedral, ‘Today I Awake’.  The first verse goes like this:

Today I awake and God is before me.

At night, as I dreamt, he summoned the day;

for God never sleeps, but patterns the morning

with slithers of gold and glory in grey. [2]

It’s the last line that gives us a glimpse of John’s Celtic spirituality:  “ . . . with slithers of gold and glory in grey”.

            In the Celtic spiritual tradition one frequently hears the phrase, ‘thin places’.  ‘Thin places’ are places and times when the membrane between the material world and the spiritual world is so thin that the boundary seems to dissolve.  John’s hymn describes that ‘thin place’ as dawn begins to break and even grey skies can reveal the glory of God coming upon us.  Every time I hear this hymn, I realize how often I have failed to appreciate this ‘thin place’, this drawing near of seen and unseen.  Perhaps tomorrow, when my dog and cats wake me up at four o’clock in the morning, I will pause and give thanks for the opportunity to witness God’s “glory in grey”.

            In today’s readings from the Scriptures we are invited to explore the question, ‘Where does God’s glory dwell?’  I think this is the question to help us wrestle with the story of Jesus’ outburst in the Temple and to free us from false understandings of what the Law means to the people of Israel, past and present.  This is the question that opens the Psalm to us as well as Paul’s words to the Christians in Corinth.

 

. . . in creation

            In the opening words of today’s Psalm we hear an affirmation which, if the truth be told, is not always perceived by human beings:  “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows the handiwork of the Lord.” [3]  Despite the efforts of some voices in both the scientific and religious communities that want to create a division between science and religious faith, the Psalmist is having none of this nor should we.  

            At the risk of over-simplifying this on-going debate, scientists and people of faith come to the contemplation of creation with two different guiding question.  Scientists are guided by the question, ‘How did creation come into being and how does it work?’  People of faith are guided by the question, ‘Why did creation come into being and why are we here?’  Neither question trumps the other.  The wise person is intrigued by both, sustained by both and daily confounded and astonished by their “glory in grey”.

 

. . . in the Torah

            If there is any more dangerous misunderstanding of Judaism than Christian misrepresentation of how Judaism understands the Law, the Torah, I do not know.  This misrepresentation has literally coloured Christian art, influenced Christian theology and empowered anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.  We talk about the conflict between law and grace and speak about Judaism as a religion of law and Christianity a faith of grace.  it’s a false but stubborn distinction.

• “To be bound in covenant with God is to be set free to live as God’s people.  God’s gift of the law to Israel is a means of protecting the community, now that they are no longer slaves, and opening a path to the flourishing of life, both communal and individual.” [4]
• “There is an internal logic to the commandments that is both compelling and beautiful:  The way we attend to God . . . shapes the way we attend to our neighbor . . . . “ [5]

            And in the life of faithfulness to Torah, to God’s wisdom, we will find “glory in grey”.

 

. . . in holy places

            Recently I received two queries about the possibility of using Holy Trinity Cathedral for filming.  One was from a commercial enterprise specializing in arranging and filming ‘life events’ such as weddings and funerals, the other from a television production company.  Filming can be a lucrative source of income for churches and we have had a number of productions here.  But this time I said ‘no’ to both.

            In the case of the first, I felt we could not seem in any way to endorse the business interests of this company.  While there are congregations that ‘rent out’ their spaces for these ‘life event’, we Anglicans do not.  We understand these to be moments in life when community, real community, is vital.  Our holy place is holy because of the holy community that gathers here to nurture and sustain our lives.

            In the case of the second, the violence planned for the scenes to be filmed here was such that I could not allow it in our building.  Even though the setting was fictional and fantastical, it was still violence in our place of worship.  I could not and would not risk the possibility of anyone associating Holy Trinity Cathedral with such scenes.  This is a ‘thin place’ where God’s ‘glory in grey’ comes daily.

            If our misrepresentation of the Torah has been harmful to Jews and to Christians, then today’s story of Jesus in the Temple at Passover is another.  For Jesus the temple in Jerusalem is a holy place that points worshippers to the Holy One whose shekinah, whose glory, radiates from its very stones.  But in the shopkeepers, animal vendors and money changers, Jesus sees that the temple has been turned into an end in itself, a self-sustaining business.  It is ceasing to be a ‘thin place’ and is becoming dense, opaque and misleading.  

            This is a risk that all holy places run.  Human beings tend to forget that holy places are made holy not by some intrinsic value, but by what they point to and by what people do when they are gathered in these places.  It is because here in this place we have celebrated baptisms, weddings, funerals, times of joy and times of celebration, that holiness radiates from its walls.  Holy living has left its imprint here, just as incense lingers well after the smoke has cleared.

 

. . . in holy living

            At the centre of the Christian gospel is the conviction that the more love that one gives away, the more love grows in the universal.  This counter-intuitive confession of faith is what Paul speaks of in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth.  For many of Paul’s Jewish contemporaries, a messiah who does not bring liberation from the oppression of Rome is a poor one.  For Paul’s Gentile audience, a divine son who allows himself to be crucified by the Roman authorities is not an attractive object of piety.

            But it is in the example of Jesus’ life and death that we, his disciples, find the path to holy living.  During this holy season of Lent we are bent on “ . . . a journey of deepening holiness shaping [our] lives in the image of Christ to praise God and live in friendship with one another”. [6]  To lose sight of the ‘thin places’ we find in creation, divine wisdom and holy places “ . . . is to wander into the ways of death instead, where God’s faithfulness can be of little use”. [7]  Because, my friends, you and I are ‘thin places’ where God’s “glory in grey” can be found as surely as it’s found elsewhere.

 

. . . in all times and in all places and in all that is, seen and unseen

            Tomorrow morning, when the creatures of my household wake from sleep and pester me into action, I pray that I might remember to look closely for God’s “glory in grey” in the dawning light from the east.  In that morning ‘thin place’ God offers to all of us a moment to give thanks for creation, for divine wisdom, for holy places and for the call to holy living.  

Today I enjoy the Trinity round me,

above and beneath, before and behind;

the Maker, the Son, the Spirit together –

they called me to life and call me their friend.

 

 

---

[1] Exodus 20.1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1.18-25; John 2.13-22.

 

[2] ‘Today I Awake’ in Common Praise (1998) #9.

 

[3] Psalm 19.1 in The Anglican Church of Canada, Inclusive Language Liturgical Psalter (2019).

 

[4] Feasting on the Word, vol. 2 (2008).

 

[5] Feasting on the Word (2008).

 

[6] Feasting on the Word (2008).

 

[7] Feasting on the Word (2008).