Light in the Darkness

Wednesday in Holy Week

19 March 2008

Saint Mary’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

+ My friends in Christ, I speak to you in the name of God the Weaver, who through the shuttle of the Holy Spirit weaves us into the pattern of the Word made flesh. Amen.

I have a confession to make. There was a point at which I really did not want to go to Myanmar. When Bishop Cowan first called me to ask if I would be willing to go, I said ‘Yes’ in an almost automatic response. Then as the reality of the trip come closer, there were moments when I was hopeful that some obstacle would arise that would permit me to withdraw gracefully from the project.

The first opportunity came when I learned of the length of the trip, more than three weeks. Given that faculty members may only be away for no more than two weeks during term, a secret part of me hoped that the Principal would say ‘No’. I went to see Wendy Fletcher. She thought it was a wonderful opportunity and said ‘Yes’.

The second opportunity came when the government of Myanmar began to require more and more information from us regarding our visit. A month before we were scheduled to depart, the embassy asked that we write a letter, in our own handwriting, stating that we were travelling only as tourists and would not engage in any religious activities. As Bishop Cowan’s secretary said, such a letter would make saying one’s prayers in a hotel room a violation! So we wrote a letter stating that we were coming as tourists to attend the installation of the new Archbishop and to visit with other Anglicans. No other ‘religious activities’ were ‘planned’. The travel agent said she doubted a visa would be granted. Then two weeks before departure our visas arrived.

On the Friday before our departure my final opportunity presented itself. My long bout with a digestive problem flared up. I went to UBC Urgent Care. After a thorough interview where I indicated that I was due to go off to Myanmar and some basic diagnostic tests, the doctor said to me, “I don’t think you want to go to Myanmar.” I had to agree. I had become a prisoner of my own fears, some based on reasonable concerns, others arising from a deeply embedded fear of dying far away from home.

Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12.35-36)

For those who first heard the words of the gospel according to John darkness was a reality. The controversy regarding the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth had led to a full-blown conflict between those Jews who accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, who believed that in Jesus the Logos, the Wisdom of God, had come to dwell and those Jews who believed that Jesus was deluded at best and heretic at worst. This conflict was not resolved when, in the year 70 of the common era, a Jewish revolt had led the Roman army to destroy the Temple. Rather than calm things down, the theological conflict spread throughout the Empire, as refugees found their way into Jewish communities spread around the Mediterranean Sea.

We know that family fights tend to be more vicious than fights between strangers. While one can be angry at a stranger, conflict with a family member or a close friend can arouse feelings of betrayal even profound hatred. This depth of feeling is present throughout John’s gospel where the conflict between Jesus is always described as being with ‘the Jews’ --- this term used as if Jesus were not himself a Jew. In some ways John’s gospel, while upholding the image of Jesus as light, falls prey to the darkness of which Jesus speaks.

The darkness to which John’s community fell prey to, the darkness to which I fell prey to, has a name: fear. This fear extends to our present controversy over how gay and lesbian disciples of Christ are to live out their lives in fidelity. Paul Gibson, the retired Liturgical Officer of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church of Canada, has recently written the following comments:

The current controversy in the Communion over issues related to homosexuality appears to have created a mood or atmosphere of anxiety and fear, as though schism were the greatest evil that could befall the church and which should be avoided at all cost.

I am not afraid of schism. I am afraid of a church in which some leaders voted to commit themselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptized, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ (from the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 1998, Resolution I.10.c), but show little evidence of having acted on that promise.

Fear is a powerful force that can overcome our God-given faculties of rational thought and panic sets in rather than a cool appraisal of the situation and a re-assertion of our primary values and faith.

There is no doubt that there is a climate of fear in many places. In this diocese some Anglicans fear the ending of structures and patterns of Anglican life that have guided and nourished us for several generations but that can no longer sustain us. Throughout this country some Anglicans fear being wrong or on the wrong side of any of the controversies that beset us, whether issues of sexuality or issues of reconciliation with First Nations.

Many people in this country, whether they belong to communities of faith or not, fear for their own well-being. Will our health care system continue to provide the necessary services to meet the needs of a changing population? Will we outlive the resources we have managed to set aside for our retirements? Can we sustain the quality of life that we have become accustomed to over many years? Have we so damaged the environment that our only option is damage control rather than the reversal of the consequences of our poor stewardship?

If we speak the truth, we know that some of us are afraid of dying. Our society idolizes youth and bodily perfection; our consciousness tells us that the media ideal is not the reality the majority of human beings, either in this country or elsewhere, actually live. We all die, but coming to grips with this reality is a life project that evades many, whether young or old or in between.

But even in the grip of the darkness of his own community’s fear, the evangelist John records words of Jesus spoken in the midst of the tense and tragic events of this last week. These are not words about fear but words of confidence and reassurance.

Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.” (John 12.35-36)

My mentor in seminary and afterwards, Louis Weil, presently Professor of Liturgics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, tells this story about himself. Louis was born to a Jewish father and a Southern Baptist mother. During his growing up, Louis became an Anglican but never lost touch with his father’s rabbi. While he was serving as a member of the faculty of the Anglican seminary in Puerto Rico, Louis experienced a time of doubt, conflict and physical discomfort. On a visit home to Dallas, he went to see the rabbi and poured out to him all that had happened in Puerto Rico, all his anxieties and uncertainties. After a period of silence, the rabbi said to him, “Louis, if Jesus is who you say he is, the Messiah and the Hope that has come into the world, why do you have an ulcer?” The rabbi was not attempting to dissuade Louis from his Christian faith; he was challenging him to re-commit, to re-discover the wells of life, the sources of light, within the faith Louis had chosen as a younger man.

I tell this story not to suggest that any of us who have suffered anxiety or stress or any fear are unfaithful people. Rather I tell this story to remind myself and others that the darkness that we may sense around us is not now nor will it ever be greater than the Light which has come into the world. When you and I were baptized, we were given the potential to be ‘lucifers’ --- ‘light-bearers’ --- in the darkness that many of our brothers and sisters here and abroad find themselves wandering in uncertainty and fear.

There are times when I find myself reaching not only for the Bible or the Prayer Book or the Book of Alternative Services but for Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel, Dune. In the first volume of this multi-volume work, Herbert puts in the mouth of several characters a litany:

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little death

that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it

to pass over and through me.

And when it has gone past

I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

When fear has gone

there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

My friends, I do not doubt that there are places and moments of darkness for all of us. I do not doubt that there are places and moments when our fears overcome our rationality and our composure. But I know that we are not made for fear; we are made in the image and likeness of God. That image and likeness is light and hope. That image and likeness enables us to face controversies and conflicts without the fearful response of coercion and oppression that marks an all too frequent human response to controversy and conflict.

But not tonight. Tonight we hear the words of Jesus that remind us that we are not children of darkness, the darkness of fear; we are children of light who can enter the night confident of the light within and without. Even in the face of death we are free from the fear that burdens many.

I close tonight with the epistle for Wednesday in Holy Week found in Hebrews 12.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

Let us pray.

Most Holy One, grant that we may be counted as members of the great cloud of witnesses who live with justice and compassion, and reveal your divine glory before all people; through Jesus your Beloved, who with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns now and for ever. Amen.

Controversy, Conflict and Oppression

[Note: These reflections on John 12.1-11 were offered in the context of Compline at St Mary's Anglican Church, Vancouver, BC.]

+ My friends in Christ, I speak to you in the name of God the Weaver, who through the shuttle of the Holy Spirit weaves us into the pattern of the Word made flesh. Amen.

On my last full day in Yangon, the largest city and former capital of Myanmar, a country known to many of us as Burma, I had asked Johnny, our church-related tour guide and care-taker, if he could arrange a visit to the Jewish synagogue. This synagogue is known throughout the Jewish world as being tended by the ‘loneliest Jew’ in the world. Yangon had boasted a lively if small Jewish community for most of its history, but the turmoil that followed the independence of Myanmar from British colonial administration had caused a steady exodus of the Jewish community from Yangon. Now there are rarely enough Jews to constitute a minyan, the ten Jewish men, or in some communities, ten Jews regardless of gender, necessary for a prayer service.

So, two weeks ago this Tuesday, Johnny led me on a walk from the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, past the Scott Market and down several streets into what is a predominantly Muslim quarter of the city. There, on a street of Muslim shop-keepers and the decaying remnants of British colonial architecture, he brought me to the gate of the synagogue. We had just missed the rabbi who had left for lunch, leaving his travel agency and the synagogue under the watchful eyes of his neighbours. One of them unlocked the gate and allowed me a brief visit. Since the rabbi was gone, I was not allowed inside the building. By the door was a basket of kippahs, sometimes known as yarmulkas. I put one on my head and, asking for a moment of privacy, I stood at the door and recited the first and central part of the Shema, the Jewish confession of faith: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God: the Lord is one.” I then added those portions which we know as the ‘Summary of the Law’, but portions that are not at odds with the Jewish faith.

As we walked back to join the rest of our group in the Scott Market, Johnny began to quiz me about Judaism. It became quickly apparent that Johnny had little or no knowledge of the Jewish tradition. What he did know had passed through so many Christian lenses that it did not bear any resemblance to the Judaism that I know as a member of the Greater Vancouver Jewish-Christian Dialogue.

As I reflect on my brief visit to Myanmar, a visit during which I met the members of congregations, theological students, deacons, presbyters and bishops, I realized that I could have profitably spent my time teaching on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity, the relationship between the tradition which gave birth to Jesus of Nazareth and shaped his view of the world and the tradition of those who, in their earliest days, were simply known as ‘followers of the Way’, in Hebrew, halakah. Now that we have come to Holy Week I worry that my brothers and sisters in Myanmar will hear the familiar stories of the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry and leave with a distorted and potentially dangerous understanding of the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and the collaborationist Jewish leadership and the colonial Roman authorities who were responsible for the administration of what we now call the Holy Land.

I come into your midst this week at the confluence of three currents of time. The first of these currents is the immediacy of my visit to Myanmar where I was part of a delegation of Canadian Anglicans whose task was to strengthen the relationship between the Anglicans in Myanmar and those in the Diocese of British Columbia as well as to explore the possibility of a new relationship between the Church of the Province of Myanmar and Vancouver School of Theology. A second current arises from the celebration on this coming Friday by the Jewish community of the foiling by Queen Esther of Haman’s attempt to purge the Persian Empire of its Jewish population, a celebration known as the feast of Purim and described in the book of Esther. The final and more insistent current is our own annual journey through the events of the final week of Jesus of Nazareth’s earthly ministry, a journey that we have come to call Holy Week, the week that makes the year ‘holy’.

For me the invitation to be with you this week means the weaving of these three currents into some sort of coherent pattern, a tapestry constructed from the strands of controversy, conflict and oppression. Tonight I offer you a brief introduction to these currents in order to set the stage for what is to come and what I hope to say.

Our ritual celebration of Holy Week is rooted in the detailed exploration of the events leading to the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth found in all four canonical gospels. Some commentators have said that each gospel is an account of Holy Week with an extensive introduction. In these accounts we learn many things, but one aspect that stands out is the controversy surrounding Jesus of Nazareth and his ministry. If one were only to read the appointed lections for each day of Holy Week, then one could not help but note how often the Jewish authorities, sometimes simply called ‘the Jews’, are described as being confused by Jesus or as being threatened by his words and actions or as being actively engaged in a plot to arrange his judicial murder.

Over the centuries these accounts came to be ritually embodied on the days preceding Easter. The rise of Jerusalem as a pilgrimage destination in the fourth century of the common era meant that Christians from throughout the world could visit the sites associated with Jesus’ last days and could even participate in ritual re-enactments of the events of Holy Week. Just as you and I might record our visit to Jerusalem visually by taking photographs or making video recordings, so too did early Christians bring their memories home and create rituals influenced by what they had seen and experienced in Jerusalem. In the days ahead we shall take our own part in rites whose origins come from these travelogues.

One dimension of these rites is that the controversy between Jesus and his disciples and the Jewish and Roman authorities eventually gave rise to a focus on the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities. Over time the role played by the Roman authorities seemed to melt into the background, perhaps because most Christians were not Jews but Gentiles. The conflict between Jesus, a faithful Jew, and the Jewish authorities, concerned both about the integrity of the Jewish faith and the survival of the Jewish people under colonial rule, gradually evolved into a conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Well into the fifth century of the common era, Christian bishops would stand before their congregations on Sunday and harangue them for having attended synagogue services the day before. By the sixth century the conflict between Christians and Jews moved one step beyond controversy and conflict into oppression and persecution.

• Jews had to wear distinctive clothing.
• Jews were denied civic rights.
• Jewish property was confiscated or expropriated by governments.
• Jews were required to live in defined areas of cities.

The list goes on. But we all know how this story found its most tragic chapter in the events of the Holocaust of World War II. I have been to Dachau. I have seen the mountains of shoes and eyeglasses left behind by their owners. I have seen the ovens where some of these people, men, women and children, were incinerated.

In Myanmar I observed what can happen when any religion, even one as gentle in its origins and precepts as Buddhism, becomes the dominant or even the official religion of the state. Religious controversy, a reality in any and all religious traditions, can give rise to conflict, the attempt to coerce others to share the views of one’s own group. Conflict, particularly when one group gains the upper hand, can quickly turn to oppression and persecution as coercion turns to the eradication of opposing views and traditions from one’s society and culture.

In the days ahead I shall try to weave a coherent tapestry using my recent experience in Myanmar, my engagement in Jewish-Christian dialogue and my role as a liturgist whose task is not simply to repeat ancient rituals but to find within them the resources to subvert them if these rituals lend themselves to controversy, conflict and oppression.

I sympathize with the Pharisees who say to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!” What can one do about a rabbi who brings the dead to life and who preaches liberation to the poor? What can we do about those in our own time who challenge our own understandings of the world and how God acts within it? We know one way to deal with controversy and conflict: oppression. But perhaps there is another way, one embodied in the One who comes in the name of the Lord, not with an army, not with a retinue of powerful and wealthy retainers, but on a donkey’s colt.

Let us pray.

God of steadfast love, light of the blind and liberator of the oppressed, we see your holy purpose in the tender compassion of Jesus, who calls us into new and living friendship with you. May we, who take shelter in the shadow of your wings, be filled with the grace of his tender caring; may we, who stumble in selfish darkness, see your glory in the light of his self-giving. We ask this through him whose suffering is victorious, Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

(Revised Common Lectionary Prayers)

One Small Word

This afternoon I was reading an essay by the English Roman Catholic theologian, James Alison. In it he reflects on the passage in John's gospel, "For God so loved the world that . . . ".

He suggests that we commonly read 'so' to be an expression of intensity, i.e., God really, really loves the world. An alternative reading might be this: "For God loved the world in this fashion . . .". When read this way we do not engage in theo-psychology but rather we come to know God by what God does.

One small word but one that opens up a possibility of greater reflection.

Thoughts to a Friend on an Anglican Covenant

A central dimension of Anglican theological method has been to discover the Word amidst the words that are used to describe the human encounter with the living God.

Some Anglicans have relied primarily on the Scriptures as plainly understood and taught as the guide to discern the Word amidst the words. Given their commitment to the notion that the Scriptures speak plainly and are to be understood in their plain sense, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended to distrust any other approach to the knowledge of God.

Other Anglicans have relied primarily on tradition as the means by which we come to discern the Word. Given their commitment to the catholicity of the church and to the notion of apostolic continuity, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended to look to what they understand to be the consensus of the faithful.

A minority of Anglicans have relied primarily on reason as the means by which we come to discern the Word. Given their commitment to the belief that we are made in the image and likeness of God, that reason and free will are characteristics of the divine stamp on human identity, these Anglicans have, over the centuries, tended towards an appreciation of ambiguity; not the ambiguity of not knowing what they are seeking or discussing, but the ambiguity of recognizing the provisional character of all human knowing.

The roots of the present Anglican crisis are deeper than are general acknowledged. I have come to wonder whether our present difficulties are not the product of the twentieth century but rather of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. At the restoration of the monarchy, the traditionalists, i.e., those who have relied primarily on continuity, whether institutional or apostolic, became the ascendant party in the Church of England. However, this party could not replace the desire of many within the Church of England for a plain Christianity, open to every Christian, whether learned or not. For this reason, the early eighteenth century saw the rise of the evangelical renewal, a movement more scripturalist in its approach and, at times, genuinely hostile to the traditionalist party.

These two parties vied for dominance in the English church and their partisanship extended far beyond the borders of England. While the American and Scottish churches tended to adopt a traditionalist position, the Irish church tended to the scripturalist as a natural reaction to the dominant Roman Catholicism of Ireland. The existence of the Church Mission Society (scripturalist) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (traditionalist) speaks to the efforts of these two parties to assert their positions into the British colonies.

On many levels these two parties did not feel the necessity to divide the church; they shared, in some ways, an uncritical approach to the Scriptures and to the tradition. The small group of Anglicans committed to reason, embodied in Hooker, Great Tew, the Cambridge Platonists and the Noetics, while respected in some circles, were, for the most part, marginalized given the relative unity of thought on the part of the scripturalists and traditionalists.

In the nineteenth century the rise of modern critical approaches to the Scriptures and to the tradition upset the relative balance between the two dominant parties. Beginning with the publication of Essays Modern and Critical in 1860, the two dominant parties recognized a genuine threat to the entente cordiale that had characterized the previous two centuries. The Gorham and Colenso controversies added more fuel to the fire; Lux Mundi and Essays Catholic and Critical, coming as they did from the catholic wing of the traditionalists (the other wing being the old Latitudinarians) caused even more concern.

What began to emerge was what some historians call the Broad Church movement, but I prefer to see it as a loose confederation of Anglicans with roots in the various wings of the scripturalist and traditionalist parties who came to see that Hooker was right: We understand the Logos primarily through the agency of God’s wisdom which, in turn, operates primarily through the faculty of human reason.

The problem faced by the scripturalists and the traditionalists as a result of this loose confederation was the loss of a genteel absolutism, i.e., an absolutism of infallible Scriptures or the absolutism of a romanticized tradition. The ‘reasonalists’, with their ‘courtesy of ignorance’, i.e., the recognition that all human knowing is provisional, could not be trusted. They were and are willing to consider that they might be wrong, that ‘time makes old truths uncouth’. In his message to the American Congress in 1862 as the Civil War raged and the Union forces were failing, Abraham Lincoln said

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

In these words I find an expression of the ‘reasonalist’ position that I believe has upset the balance.

I have come to place my hope for the future of a compassionate and balanced Anglicanism upon the ‘reasonalists’ rather than the scripturalists or the traditionalists. So long as the two dominant parties seek a false security in a covenant that cannot help but become a strait jacket and that undoes generations of synodical development in the majority of Anglican provinces, I will oppose any and all efforts to develop a covenant. I will not sacrifice my reason to satisfy the consciences of the scripturalists nor will I sacrifice my reason to satisfy the traditionalists. In my reason and the obligation to exercise informed free will lie my participation in the divine and life-giving Trinity. They are my birthright as a human being made in God’s image and likeness.

I am not unaware of the cost of this position. I hold no hope that the division of the Anglican Communion can be averted. Since the scripturalists and the traditionalists hold to positions that, in the end, are essentialist and authoritarian, there is little or no room for conscience nor for the legitimate search for the Word in the midst of the words that constitute human cultures and experience. I am confident, however, that I am Christ’s and that no one, whether primate, bishop or council, can rob me of that.

So, what does this ‘reasonalist’ say to someone to whom the responsibility has been given to participate in a process which he thinks is so fundamentally flawed and wrong-headed? Hold out for the Lambeth Quadrilateral unadulterated by attempts to tighten its language.

I believe the Old and New Testaments to be the word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation.

I believe that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds to be the sufficient statements of that doctrine necessary to salvation.

I believe that baptism and holy communion, administered in recognizable fidelity to antiquity, are the only sacramental rites necessary for full life in the Body of Christ.

I believe that the apostolic continuity of the ēkklesia, episcopally-led and synodically-governed, embodying episkopē, koinōnia and diakonia expressed in communal, collegial and personal modes, is the normative polity of the catholic church.

Any Christian body, whether presently Anglican or not, that embodies these four principles is or should be in communion with the See of Canterbury.

These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial communities that do and do not permit the remarriage of divorced persons. These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial communities that do and do not ordain women. These four principles permit the communion of ecclesial bodies that do and do not permit the blessing of the life-long exclusive covenants of gay and lesbian persons. These four principles permit the communion of Christians who are scripturalist, traditionalist and reasonalist.

Any covenant that seeks to establish extra-provincial forms of government must be resisted without surcease. Just as I oppose the interference of the Archbishop of the Southern Cone in the affairs of the Anglican Church of Canada, so would I oppose with equal force the interference of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada in the affairs of the Church of the Southern Cone. The Anglican Communion is built upon bonds of affection not legislative structures, especially any that privilege the episcopal office. Our life together is characterized by respect and persuasion rather than condemnation and coercion.

I apologize if my remarks are not ones that prove to be of value to my friends in the Communion who are engaged in the Covenant process. I am writing as one friend to another without the benefit of mature reflection and adequate research to support my case. I know that others have done far more reflection than I and are more aware of the various cases that have been made for and against the covenant process. I am not a moderate voice, a calm voice, a reasoned voice in what I see as the greatest threat to the compassionate and balanced Anglicanism I have written of above. I am an overly passionate and intemperate voice defending the costly and uncomfortable via media that the so-called ‘instruments of communion’ are, in my opinion, colluding to undermine. The only international body that I have any confidence in is the Anglican Consultative Council, but it may be that it, too, will be brought down by the spiritual greed of ‘unaccountable foreign prelates’.

A Second New Servant Song

RCL Proper 2A
20 January 2008

Holy Trinity Cathedral
New Westminster BC

About two thousand and fifty years ago a rumour swept through the Jewish exiles living in Babylon. A new power had arisen in the east, the Persians, and their king, Cyrus, was proving to be a far different ruler than the present king of Babylon, Nabonidus. Cyrus had defeated a number of surrounding states and incorporated them into the Persian empire. The word was out: Babylon’s days were numbered. Even better news was that the Persian ruler, Cyrus, had a different policy regarding subject peoples. He allowed them a degree of political autonomy. It might be possible that, if he were to conquer Babylon, the Jewish exiles would be allowed to return to Jerusalem.

Among the exiles was a prophet whose words were later incorporated into the great prophetic book we call Isaiah. He was not the Isaiah of the first forty chapters of the present book, but his words stood in continuity with the first Isaiah’s message to the people. This later prophet is often called Second Isaiah.

"(The oracles of Second Isaiah) date from c. 540 BCE, about 45 years after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire and the subsequent deportation of many Israelites to Babylon. This deported community doubted its status as God’s chosen people and even doubted the sovereignty of God. Second Isaiah’s oracles seek to assure the exiles both that the LORD still has compassion for them and that the LORD, despite the triumph of Babylon, is still LORD of the heavens and over history. The proof is that the LORD [956] will act soon to allow the exiles to return home, a journey that will be even more glorious than the Israelites’ journey out of Egypt at the time of the exodus.” (The New Interpreter's Bible, 955-956)

Second Isaiah goes even further and suggests that “ . . . the exile was a necessary punishment for the people’s sins but further proposes, especially in the so-called ‘Servant songs,’ that Israel suffered vicariously on behalf of the nations in order to redeem them and restore them to wholeness or shalom.” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, 956)

One of the constant themes of Second Isaiah is that God has a preference for working out God’s purposes through an agent, whether an individual or a people. There are four passages in Second Isaiah where the prophet describes what God is doing through an agent whom the prophet calls ‘the Servant’. Last week’s reading from Isaiah 42 was the first of these so-called ‘Servant Songs’. Today’s reading from Isaiah 49 is the second.

In the four ‘Servant Songs’, all found in this second section of Isaiah, the prophet speaks words of encouragement but also words of challenge. It is a call to remember what God expects of those who have been called into relationship with the creator of the universe, the Holy One of Israel. Despite any and all appearances of rejection and failure, the God who entered into covenant with Israel is still the creator and sustainer of the whole world (The HarperCollins Study Bible, 1071).

Isaiah’s Servant is not, however, some messianic individual who will restore the people. The servant is a corporate image that describes not an individual but a people. It is Israel as the covenant people who will be a sign to the nations and whose covenant loyalty will result in bringing many peoples into this covenant. The people of Israel will achieve the mission entrusted to them by God not by preaching nor by coercion but by being a community whose life manifests justice.

"’Justice’ (mishpat) is one of the most fundamental categories in the prophetic tradition. It characterizes the fair and equitable behavior of human beings in society, established with due process in law, administered without discrimination, and based on the just will of Yahweh. To establish justice is to establish the reign of God." (Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year A, 79)

In the latest English translation undertaken by Jewish scholars of Isaiah, the Hebrew word translated into English as ‘justice’ in most Christian translations is translated into ‘true way’. To do justice is to follow the ‘true way’, the covenant path established by God.

In every generation it is the task of the leadership of the community of faith to instruct its members in the responsibilities of living a covenant life, living a life which manifests God’s reign. For the Jewish people this way of life is found in the Torah, the patterns of life that enable the community to be a sign of justice in a world where injustice is more common.

For Christians our Torah, our way of walking in faithfulness with God, is a life lived following the example of Jesus of Nazareth. In him we believe the Torah of God, the Wisdom of God, came among us in human form so that we, being human ourselves, might see with our eyes, touch with our hands and hear with our ears the ‘true way’, the way that leads to fullness of life. In today’s gospel John speaks of Jesus as ‘the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’ and ‘the Son of God’. Two of John’s disciples turn from John to follow Jesus and subsequently call Peter to follow this man whom John called ‘the Lamb of God’.

When you and I were baptized, we entered into a relationship with God through a community committed to following the ‘true way’, to being light in the darkness, to liberating those who are enslaved, to do justice. In other words, baptism is not primarily about saving us from eternal damnation nor about having a self-serving personal relationship with Jesus, a relationship that turns Jesus into a personal possession, a piece of spiritual jewellery to dazzle the eyes.

In baptism we commit ourselves and our children to being God’s agents to bring light into the darkness of our world. There are those who are blinded to the needs and concerns of others and the planet by the extensive possession and personal wealth they have accumulated. There are those who are blinded to the possibilities of change and responsible living by various addictions, whether to chemicals or money or sexual gratification or success or alcohol. We, the Christian people who follow the ‘true way’, the just way, shown in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, live to cast the light of God into those dark recesses that exist even or perhaps especially in affluent communities such as ours here in Greater Vancouver.

In baptism we commit ourselves and our children to being God’s agents to liberate those who are enslaved. There are those who are enslaved by economic forces that create poverty and homelessness even in as prosperous a city as ours. There are those who are enslaved by centuries of systemic injustice even in a country such as ours with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We, the Christian people who follow the ‘true way’, the just way, shown in the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, live to break those chains, to speak the truth to the powerful on behalf of the powerless, to risk condemnation as ‘do-gooders’ in a society dominated by ‘take care of number 1’ thinking.

In Second Isaiah’s songs there is not ‘a dramatic day when all things will be transformed suddenly’ but a reign of God brought about by the perseverance of God’s people in doing acts of justice (Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year). Just as the Servant of Isaiah will not break or quench or crush the people of the world, even those who oppose the ‘true way’, neither will the Servant be broken or quenched or crushed. The God who began to work on the first day of creation continues to work and will not be thwarted. We who have been baptized have been grafted into the mission first entrusted to the Jewish people, so that we might work with them and all people who seek justice in witnessing to and working for the reign of God.

Just as the people to whom Second Isaiah addressed his message were in difficult times, imprisoned by an imperial power that had destroyed their homeland, uncertain about the future, so you and I live in a time when Christians may wonder whether we are imprisoned by the challenges of being Christians in a society that seems antagonistic to our message, uncertain whether there is a future for this wonderfully rich and seemingly fragile community we call the Anglican Church of Canada. To us the prophet of Second Isaiah speaks words of hope, words of challenge to remind us of who we are and what it is that God has called us to do as people marked by the sign of the cross and grafted into the covenant established so long ago on Mount Sinai. “Be faithful to your covenant,” the prophet sings, “and be a light to the nations by the manner of your life.”

To advocate for the hungry and the homeless is not a matter of politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To work for reconciliation between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians is not a matter of politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To make choices in order to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’ and to ‘green’ our homes and businesses is not politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To work to make the Church a safe and just place for all people whether gay or straight, young or old, rich or poor is not a matter of politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant.

We do not need to look far for the Servant through whom God will work to establish justice. Look to your right. There is the Servant of whom Isaiah speaks. Look to your left. There is the Servant of whom Isaiah speaks. Look at your hands. They are the hands of the Servant of whom Isaiah speaks. There is work to be done and we are the agents God has chosen.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, we give you thanks and praise that by water and the Holy Spirit you have made us a holy people to love and to serve you. May we, who share Christ’s body, live his risen life; we, who drink his cup, bring life to others; we, whom the Spirit lights, give light to the world. Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so that we and all your children shall be free, and the whole earth live to praise your name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Courtesy of Ignorance

As I was driving home from the first session of Diaconal Studies Seminar 102 'From Text to Sermon: An Introduction to Biblical Exegesis', I listened to an interview with the American author, Wendell Berry, on CBC One's programme 'Ideas'. I was struck by his phrase, 'the courtesy of ignorance'. When one acknowledges ignorance, one exercises a form of humility, a key dimension of courtesy.

During tonight's session we explored briefly the topic of textual criticism, the effort to discover, as best as one is able, the 'best' text of a given scriptural passage. Berry's remarks put the evening's exercise in perspective. When one engages the search for the 'best' text, a 'courtesy of ignorance' is a desirable characteristic to be found in the one who seeks.

Because we are seeking to understand the divine mystery, humility is a primary quality. We will not 'know'; we will only approach the mystery. This humility does not mean we should remain silent, but it does mean we should hold the provisionality of our understanding.

A New Servant Song

RCL Proper 1A: Baptism of Christ
13 January 2008

St Faith's Anglican Church
Vancouver BC

God has a preference for working God’s purposes through an agent, whether an individual or a people. There are four passages in Isaiah where the prophet describes what God is doing through an agent whom the prophet calls ‘the Servant’. Today’s reading from Isaiah 42 is the first of these songs.

I have commented before on the context in which this portion of Isaiah is written, but I shall take the risk of repeating myself. The book of Isaiah is actually three books, one written during the dramatic events that led up to the Assyrian domination of Israel and Judah, a second section written after the leadership of the Jewish people had been taken into exile in Babylon and a final section written some time after the people had returned to their devastated homeland.

The first ‘Servant Song’ comes from the second section of Isaiah, written during a time when the leadership of the Jewish people was still in exile but seeing signs that the new imperial power, Babylon, was open to restoring a degree of autonomy to Judah so long as Babylonian power was acknowledged. It was a time of aching hope, a promise just over the horizon that some would not live to see, but a promise worth giving thanks.

In the four ‘Servant Songs’, all found in this second section of Isaiah, the prophet speaks words of encouragement but also words of challenge. It is a call to remember what God expects of those who have been called into relationship with the creator of the universe, the Holy One of Israel. Despite any and all appearances of rejection and failure, the God who entered into covenant with Israel is still the creator and sustainer of the whole world (The HarperCollins Study Bible, 1071).

Isaiah’s Servant is not, however, some messianic individual who will restore the people. The servant is a corporate image that describes not an individual but a people. It is Israel as the covenant people who will be a sign to the nations and whose covenant loyalty will result in bringing many peoples into this covenant. The people of Israel will achieve the mission entrusted to them by God not by preaching nor by coercion but by being a community whose life manifests justice.

“’Justice’ (mishpat) is one of the most fundamental categories in the prophetic tradition. It characterizes the fair and equitable behavior of human beings in society, established with due process in law, administered without discrimination, and based on the just will of Yahweh. To establish justice is to establish the reign of God. The word in the present context refers primarily to the administration of justice, the promulgation of a just order in society. NJPSV translates in all three instances ‘true way’.” (Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year: Year A, 79)

It is the task of the leadership of the community of faith to instruct its members in the responsibilities of living a covenant life, living a life which manifests God’s reign rather than talking about the covenant. For the Jewish people this way of life is found in the Torah, the patterns of life that enable the community to be a sign of justice in a world where injustice is more common.

For Christians our Torah, our way of walking in faithfulness with God, is a life lived following the example of Jesus of Nazareth. In him we believe the Torah of God, the Wisdom of God, came among us in human form so that we, being human ourselves, might see with our eyes, touch with our hands and hear with our ears the ‘true way’, the way that leads to fullness of life. In today’s celebration of the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan we commemorate the public inauguration of the ministry of Jesus, a ministry that revealed this way to us.

Christian baptism is the sacramental rite by means of which an individual enters into a relationship with God through a community committed to following the ‘true way’, to being light in the darkness, to liberating those who are enslaved, to do justice. In other words, baptism is not about saving an individual from damnation nor about a self-serving personal relationship with Jesus, turning Jesus into a personal possession, a piece of spiritual jewellery to dazzle the eyes.

In baptism we commit ourselves and our children to being God’s agents to bring light into the darkness of our world. There are those who are blinded to the needs and concerns of others and the planet by the extensive possession and personal wealth they have accumulated. There are those who are blinded to the possibilities of change and responsible living by various addictions, whether to chemicals or money or sexual gratification or success or alcohol. The Christian people live to cast the light of God into those dark recesses that exist even or perhaps especially in affluent communities such as ours here in Kerrisdale.

In baptism we commit ourselves and our children to being God’s agents to liberate those who are enslaved. There are those who are enslaved by economic forces that create poverty and homelessness even in as prosperous a city as ours. There are those who are enslaved by centuries of systemic injustice even in a country such as ours with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Christian people live to break those chains, to speak the truth to the powerful on behalf of the powerless, to risk condemnation as ‘do-gooders’ in a society dominated by ‘take care of number 1’ thinking.

In Isaiah’s song there is not ‘a dramatic day when all things will be transformed suddenly’ but a reign of God brought about by the perseverance of God’s people in doing acts of justice (Craddock). Even though the Servant of Isaiah will not break or quench or crush, neither will the Servant of Isaiah be broken or quenched or crushed. The God who began to work on the first day of creation continues to work and will not be thwarted. We who have been baptized have been grafted into the mission entrusted to the Jewish people, not to replace them but to work with them in witnessing to and working for the reign of God.

To advocate for the hungry and the homeless is not politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To work for reconciliation between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians is not politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To make choices in order to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’ and to ‘green’ our homes and businesses is not politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant. To work to make the Church a safe and just place for all people whether gay or straight, young or old, rich or poor is not politics but a living out of our baptismal covenant.

We do not need to look far for the Servant through whom God will work to establish justice. Look to your right. Look to your left. There is the Servant. Look at your hands. They are the hands of the Servant. As the Servant People let us stand and reaffirm our covenant to be light and liberty and just.

Dear friends, through the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ we have been buried with Christ in baptism, so that we may rise with him to a new life. Now that we have come to the celebration of his baptism in the Jordan by John, let us renew the promises we made in baptism, when we rejected Satan and all the works of evil, and promised to serve God faithfully as members of the holy catholic Church.

Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil and renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?
I do.

Do you believe in God the Father?
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God’s help.

Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
I will, with God’s help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?
I will, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself?
I will, with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God’s help.

God the creator, the rock of our salvation, has given us new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and bestowed upon us the forgiveness of sin, through our Lord Jesus Christ. May he keep us faithful to our calling, now and for ever. Amen.