Not Seeing Yet Believing: Reflections on John 20.30-31 (The 2nd Sunday of Easter, 11 April 2021)

            Early in the pandemic, as many of us were beginning to learn the new art of working from home and using social technology to connect with others, behavioural experts were advising us to develop and maintain routines.  Without the structure provided by regular activities and rhythms of the day, we easily become prone to be tossed and turned by the seas of pandemic life.

            It has only been in the last few months that I have begun to find a rhythm that works and that seems, to the best of my knowledge, to serve the Parish, my family and myself relatively well.  Our dog and cats are earlier risers, so by 5.00 they’ve been fed and I’ve said morning prayer.  Then back to bed until 7.30 or so.  Then I’m up for the work day to begin.

            I admit to being a news junkie.  On my iPad I have applications for BBC, CBC and the Guardian.  Over a cup of coffee and my breakfast I digest the news that the editors decided I needed to know as the day begins.  Then it’s off to Holy Trinity Cathedral or, if the day is filled with on-line meetings, into my study to connect with my colleagues and others.

            Recently I’ve been drawn in my morning reading to stories, articles and features about the natural sciences, especially astronomy, astrophysics and physics.  Now, before you ask, I have no advanced expertise in any of these fields.  I am a truly curious amateur reader with enough scientific education to understand most of the jargon and to realize how exciting these fields are.  For example, this Wednesday NASA plans to fly the first extra-terrestrial drone on Mars.  I can hardly wait to see what happens!  Often the scientists speak of their work in the same tone as religious leaders speak of ours.  

            This early morning reading has led me in the week leading up to this Sunday’s reading from the Gospel according to John, especially the final two verses.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.  (John 20.30-31)

 

How do we know something?  Why do we believe something?

            Some things we believe in because we can see their direct effect upon us and upon our environment.  For example, we have never ‘seen’ gravity.  Yet we know its effects all too well.  As I preach this morning, I do not need to fear that at some point I will float up to the rafters.  We can measure the force of gravity and anyone who has ridden in a car or flown in a plane has experienced the sensation of being pressed into one’s seat upon acceleration or a sharp turn.

            None of us has ever ‘seen’ the wind, but few doubt its effect on us.  Living as I do near a forested park with many tall conifers, every wind storm creates a debris up and down our street for my neighbours and me to clear up.  Then there is the beauty of wind ruffling the fur of my Sheltie, something I never tire of watching.

            Then there are things we believe in because their existence explain broader theories about how our universe ‘works’.  We have never directly ‘seen’ a black hole, only glimpsed what we believe to be their ‘event horizons’, but their existence helps to explain galactic expansion and contraction.

            Most of us grew up with Pluto as the ninth planet of our solar system.  Then poor Pluto was demoted and joined a class of sub-planetary objects on the edges of the sun’s reach.  But the movement of some of these objects seems to defy current models of astronomical mechanics.  This has led some astronomers to posit a ‘Planet X’, ‘X’ for ten not ‘mysterious’, somewhere on the fringe, to explain the as-yet unexplained movement of Pluto’s neighbours.

            More than once in my life I have been asked to ‘prove’ that the resurrection really happened.  Perhaps you have been asked a similar question at some point in your lives.  My simple answer has been and remains that I cannot ‘prove’ the resurrection to the satisfaction of anyone who seeks a proof similar to an algebraic equation:  ‘X + Y = 4; X = 1; therefore Y =3.  As it was in the beginning, is now and will be for ever.  Amen.’  What I can do in ways similar to my certainty about gravity and the wind and to my relative confidence about black holes and to my intrigued imagination about the possibility of a ‘Planet X’ is to point to the undeniable effects of the resurrection of Jesus upon human history.

            In this I am not alone.  Repeatedly in the Gospel of John Jesus is challenged to ‘prove’ that he is who he says he is.  And time and time again, Jesus says, ‘If you don’t believe my words, then look around and see what I am doing.  Believe the works.’  (cf. John 10.25, 37, 38; 14.10, 11)

            Out of a group of the least usual suspects – women and men, literate and illiterate, rich and poor, slave and free – from the least likely region of the Roman Empire came a movement that has spread throughout the world and shaped our shared human history.  This movement is responsible for both acts of transforming love and compassion as well as acts of hate and injustice.  But its proclamation of the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has always let us 

. . . (to persevere) in resisting evil and, whenever (we) fall into sin, (to repent) and return to the Lord (and)

. . . (to strive) for justice and peace among all people (and to respect) the dignity of every human being.  (The Book of Alternative Services 159)

I have seen this happening and I continue to see it happening when a nun kneels before armed police to plead for children and young people and when people work tirelessly for reconciliation between settler, immigrant and Aboriginal communities.  I see this and I know that the Lord is risen.

            When people give sacrificially of their financial resources, their time and their skills to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to reach out to those held in physical, emotional and spiritual bonds, whether these selfless people are Christians or not, I see and know that the Lord is risen.

            In these and so many other ways, we see the effects of the resurrection, the ripples from the dramatic events of that week in Jerusalem two thousand years upon untold numbers of women and men, communities throughout the known world, century upon century of transformation.  Christ has died.  This we know.  Christ is risen.  This we believe.  Christ will come again.  This we hope.

            And so we see and come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we – and all creation – may have life in his name, full and abundant life, eternal life.

 

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).

The Truth Shall Set Us Free: Reflections on the Last Sunday after Epiphany (14 February 2021)

 

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Creativity as Liberation

            The story is told of a patron of the arts asking Michelangelo how he created the beauty found in his sculptures.  Michelangelo is said to have responded by telling the patron that he did not create his sculptures.  He liberated them from the marble.

 

            Since seminary I have often talked about the relationship between redemption and sanctification.  Every human being has been made in the image of God; it is, so to speak, our existential DNA.  Christ redeems us by re-awakening our minds, our souls and our hearts to this truth.  But our life-long task is to grow into the likeness of Christ who is the image of the invisible and eternal God.  Our strength has to be moulded through the work of the Holy Spirit so that who we are by God’s gift in creation becomes how we live in the times and places of our lives.  Becoming who are is an act of liberation from the delusions, illusions and counterfeits that claim our loyalty but seek our enslavement not our freedom as God’s children.

 

            In his transfiguration on the mountain top, Jesus is liberated from the expectations of his followers.  Here is it useful to hear what Mark describes as happening just before Jesus, Peter, John and James climb the high mountain of the transfiguration.

 

            Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”  And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”  He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”  And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

            Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”  (Mark 8.27-33 NRSV)

 

            Imagine poor Jesus for a moment.  His followers are all over the map in their descriptions of who he is:  John the Baptist who died two chapters previously; Elijah who is supposed to be the harbinger of the coming of the Messiah; perhaps the prophet whom Moses foretold God would send.  Peter throws into the mix the theological and political hand grenade:  You are the Messiah.  Is it any wonder Jesus tells them to keep their opinions to themselves?

 

            Then Jesus takes time to explain to his followers exactly what is going to happen to ‘the Son of Man’, Jesus’ own description of who he is.  Dear old Peter can’t bear what he’s hearing and dares to take Jesus aside to tell him that this is not helpful in building up the confidence of Jesus’ followers.  Who, after all, wants to follow someone who is telling you that he’s going to die and then, marvels of marvels, rise again?  It’s as if Peter is telling Jesus to be a good fellow and follow the expectations of the crowd.

 

            Then they go up the mountain.  Jesus is liberated from the marble prison Peter, John, James and so many others want him to be safely contained.  This liberation frightens Peter, James and John and rightly so.  Freedom from the unreasonable or mistaken expectations of others is life-giving, life-renewing, but it is also an invitation to embark on a journey of self-discovery, world-confronting, death-risking, future-hoping.

 

The Freedom of the Children of God

            In baptism the Holy Spirit begins a life-long effort to liberate all the children of God from all that obstructs us from becoming who we truly are and are struggling to become.  Lent, the season whose inviting gate lies open before us, is a time when we intensify our own efforts, with the help of the Spirit, the companionship of Christ and the gifts of the Creator, to collaborate in the divine project of transfiguring the entire human race.

 

            We begin through self-examination as we identify our strengths and our growing edges.  We acknowledge our failures and pray that we might look at the world through God’s perspective, to see with new eyes the glories of the promised reign of justice and peace.  We enter into regular conversation with God and listen for the quiet voice that can lead us into paths untrod.  We fast from that which diverts us from wholeness, whether physical or spiritual.  We share our resources so that all God’s beloved can live more fully.  We study the Scriptures and the tradition to learn more about the paths taken by our ancestors.

            

Changed Not Ended

            We are not alone in this journey of liberating transfiguration.  We are accompanied at all times and in all places with those beloved who have gone before us in faith.  Although Christians have had different understandings of the communion of saints we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed, we are agreed that the faithful departed and those whose faith is known to God alone continue to be present to us.  When I spoke of a life-long process of transfiguration, I mean an eternally life-long process which death does not bring to an end.  As Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Rome:

 

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)

 

            Those whom we love but see no longer in this life continue to be liberated from the unreasonable and mistaken expectations placed upon them.  With each story we tell about them we have an opportunity to see them in a clearer light so that both their successes and their failures can inform us.  Each time we are sensible to their presence in moments when we miss them the most we have an opportunity to listen more carefully so that their wisdom may guide us and their follies forewarn us.  Every crossroad in our lives gives us a moment to pause to consider the path our beloved might have chosen or did choose and then ponder whether we shall travel the same road.  Together we, the living and those asleep in the Lord, continue to be liberated by God’s transfiguring love to become more truly ourselves.

 

The Already But Not Yet

            Every year as we prepare to begin our Lenten journey towards the celebration of the resurrection, I give thanks that we live in what some Christian teachers have called ‘the already but not yet’ of Christian hope.  In the transfiguration of Christ we see who he truly is and who we are called to become.  While we can regret and even mourn how short of this identity we have fallen, we have more reason to give thanks that, over the past year, a few more pieces of marble have been chipped away from what encases us.  Each time we remember those whom we love who have gone before us, we can see them more clearly and they are freed to be more fully present to us.  And all of us, living and asleep, are being freed by the truth we see revealed on the mountain top, Jesus of Nazareth, the glory of God, a human being fully alive.

Left in the Boat with the Hired Help: Reflections on Mark 1.14-20 (24 January 2021)

 

            For Christmas this year my children bought me a boxed set of the entire Foyle’s War, a British crime drama set in Hastings and London during the years of and directly following the Second War.  As Paula and I watched one episode, we noticed a young actor who played a small role.  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ asked Paula.  ‘It is,’ said I, ‘it’s a very young James McAvoy.’  McAvoy has progressed into more prominent roles since that episode, but at that moment he was simply a young actor playing a supporting role.

 

            Paula and I often watch movies with an eye for who we might find in the supporting cast.  Sometimes a now well-known actor will show up in a walk-on role with no particular importance or perhaps in a supporting role that really does move the plot of the entire film.  Then there are those actors who we call ‘character’ actors who play villains, simpletons, thugs or the hapless companions of the main characters.

 

            One of the things that I’ve noticed about so-called ‘character’ actors and others who tend to play supporting roles is that they’re never out of work.  Leading men and women sometimes have a shelf-life that causes them to fade out of the picture after a period of time.  Some of the great stars of the silent screen could not make the transition to ‘talkies’, while there are actors who become so identified with a particular character that they find it difficult to play any other role.

 

            In preparing for today my eye fell on Zebedee, the father of James and John.  From what the Gospels tell us, we can deduce a few things.  He’s fairly well-off if he can hire other people to work his fishing boat or even boats.  He’s fortunate to have at least two sons who can keep the family business going when Zebedee grows too old to do so himself.  But he hadn’t counted on Jesus of Nazareth coming along and drafting his sons into Jesus’ growing but itinerant ministry along the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

 

            We find him in the boat, working with his sons and hired help, providing food for his family, his employees and food to sell to the local populace.  He’s minding his own business, in the precise meaning of the phrase, when Jesus decides to turn everything upside down.  Although it’s difficult for us from the distance of two thousand years to put ourselves in Zebedee’s place, let’s give it a try.  Zebedee watches his sons leave everything, including their social and cultural obligations to support their father and family, to follow another messianic figure among the many who had come before, who were active then and who would likely come later.  Off they go and Zebedee is left in the boat with the hired help.  

 

            We will hear about James and John again and again, but we will never hear about Zebedee again.  His sons will become lead members of the cast of characters who will change the world.  Zebedee will only be mentioned in the end credits and recognized only if we’re looking closely for him.

 

            Throughout our lives we have all likely had an experience or two like Zebedee.  We’re working hard, doing what we need to do, when a friend or a family member or a co-worker is suddenly called away and becomes a ‘star’.  We still have nets to weave, fish to sort, boats to repair and staff to direct, but they leave everything to us and move on to ‘greater’ things.  They have been ‘called’; they have a ‘vocation’; we just have jobs and the humdrum of ordinary life.

 

            Such experiences can generate a variety of feelings.  Jealousy and envy can raise their poisonous heads and cause us to become bitter and to adopt a ‘only if’ attitude to almost every dimension of our lives.  We can become active opponents of everything our ‘stars’ represent and do our best to tear them down and to diminish whatever good they may be trying to achieve.  But there is an alternative.

 

            The alternative, I think, is to recognize the gift of being a member of the supporting cast.  Supporting actors provide depth to the dramatic action.  Without us the stars can become two-dimensional and their gifts only reflections in a mirror.  Yesterday we celebrated the ordination of John Stephens as our Bishop Coadjutor and, in a month’s time, he will become our Diocesan Bishop.  He is quite rightly the ‘star’ of the show.  But he knows that without the full and active participation of all the members of this Diocese, regardless of the role they are called to exercise, the work God has given us to do in this time and in this place will falter and fail.

 

            In his letter to the Christian community at Rome, Paul writes about what it means to be a member of the supporting cast in God’s powerful and on-going drama of re-creation, reconciliation and renewal.

 

            For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.  (Romans 13.3-8 in the Common English Bible)

 

I remember a young reader once misreading ‘extorter  for  ‘exhorter and ‘extortion’ for ‘exhortation’.  Not one member of the congregation laughed nor mentioned it to the young person afterwards.  When I remarked on the slip of the tongue, one older member replied, ‘Well, Paul wanted us to do what we do best!’

 

            Friends, all of us have roles to play in what God is doing in the world.  Every once and a while, one of us is called into some leading role or another.  For the rest of us, the everyday work of ministry continues, each one of us doing what we do best, cheerfully, hopefully, faithfully, so that the full depth and breadth of God’s love for us becomes known.

 

            I’m pretty sure that Zebedee felt let down by his sons and not a little unhappy with Jesus.  But I hope he lived out one possible meaning of his name – ‘God bestows gifts’.  I have this fantasy that Jesus and his disciples, as they went about Galilee, never lacked for fresh fish provided by the man whom they left behind in the boat with the hired help.  After all, without the Zebedees of the world, who will weave the nets, sort the fish, repair the boats and direct the hired help so that the drama of salvation continues to win the hearts, minds and souls of God’s children?

 

May We, Whom the Spirit Lights, Give Light to the World: Reflections for the Baptism of Christ (10 January 2021)

 

            When my father was growing up, he aspired to be a pilot.  He built balsa airplanes and flew them, went to university to study engineering and, when his studies were cut short, joined the U.S. Air Force in the hopes of pilot training.  But his eyesight did not meet the required standards, so he spent the next twenty years as a graphic artist and draftsman.  And he continued to build models – airplanes and later boats.

            I was seven when he bought for me my first plastic model kit.  As I opened the box, I saw an array of parts, numbered and attached to plastic ‘branches’.  My dad taught me how paint the parts, then remove them from the ‘branches’ and trim any irregularities before gluing the parts together.  More importantly he taught me to read the instructions through before starting, to follow them during construction and to be patient.           

            If I fell prey to the temptation to skip the instructions, I could doom the process of completing the model successfully.  Not waiting for the paint or the glue to dry could be disastrous to the finished product.  

 

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 

the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, 

while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 

And God saw that the light was good; 

and God separated the light from the darkness. 

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. 

And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

 

            When God began to create, the universe resembled a newly-opened model box filled with all the pieces necessary for ‘the stars and planets in their courses’ and ‘this fragile earth, our island home.’  Over billions of years, God has lovingly and patiently taken the pieces out of the box and assembled them to bring life-giving, life-sustaining and life-enriching order and shape to creation.  The pattern to this creation has been revealed to us in God’s covenants with Noah, Abraham and Moses and in the Word made flesh, Jesus of Nazareth.  God’s agent in bringing about this life-giving, life-sustaining and life-enriching order and shape is the Holy Spirit, the wind blowing over the as-yet unordered creation, the dove-like manifestation appearing to Jesus at the River Jordan, the great voice declaring that Jesus is the Beloved.

            For more than two thousand years Christians have struggled to understand and to describe how the Holy Spirit ‘works’.  Some of our earliest confessions of faith have long paragraphs expressing what we believe about the Father and the Son only to end with a brief ‘And in Holy Spirit’.

            During my adolescence and early adulthood Anglicans energetically embraced the charismatic renewal only to fall prey to self-righteous distinctions between ‘real’ and ‘church’ Christians.  Some Anglicans opened derided others as ‘charis-maniacs’ and openly mocked the enthusiasm of charismatic congregations.

            But we still face the same question:  How do we discern the genuine work of the Holy Spirit from its counterfeits?  And there are many counterfeits – racism, nationalism, sexism, cults of personality to name a few.

            We know we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit when life is  being given at those times when we believe our hopes, our aspirations and even our lives are disordered, dying or dead.

            We know we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit when our lives, both personal and corporate, are receiving the sustenance they need to persevere in the face of real or imagined obstacles, threats and disappointments.

            We know we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit when our lives are enriched, not at the expense of others but in genuine communion with others, so that justice and peace arise and the dignity of every, every human being is respected, nurtured and celebrated.

            We know we are in the presence of the Holy Spirit when we discern a Christ-like pattern of self-giving love and action is being shaped in us and around us, modelled and brought into being.

            My friends, there will always be powerful people and movements that are life-stealing, life-draining and life-denying, people and movements that believe that evil is stronger than goodness, hate stronger than love, darkness stronger than light and death stronger than life.  We’ve experienced them in the distant and recent past.  We saw them at work on Wednesday.  We shall see them at work tomorrow.

            But never doubt that God is working to bring order and shape to our lives and world as year succeeds to year.  All the necessary parts are in the box.  We have the instructions.  Life will be given where only death seemed to reign.  Life will be sustained where hopes and resources seemed scarce.  Life will be enriched where diversity was thought a curse.  The Holy Spirit continues what God began with a ‘big bang’ billions of years ago:  the creation of a Christ-shaped and Christ-centred universe where we and all God’s children shall be free and the whole kosmos shall live to praise God’s holy name.