TOUGH LESSONS

June 22, 2014

Pentecost 2

Genesis 21:8-21

Matthew 10:24-39

(prayer)

When Jesus was asked what he considered the greatest commandment in all of the Torah, he brought up two:

1.    Love God with all your heart, soul and strength;

2.   Love your neighbour as yourself.

He said that the entirety of the Torah hung on these two commandments.  Presumably that included the ten commandments, including Exodus 20:12 "Honour your mother and your father."

That being true, I have to admit that I find today's lesson from Matthew tough to understand.  Jesus says that he had come to set a son against his father, a daughter against her mother.  In fact, having a deep love for one's mother or father might making a person 'unworthy' of Jesus.

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I must admit that a lot of us clergy-types often choose to ignore such tough lessons when they come up in the Lectionary.  We look for easier options.  The psalm reading for today (Ps 86) is a prayer of praise and devotion that invites God to be gracious.  That would be a less tough lesson to preach on.  And the New Testament reading from Romans is a reminder that resurrection is the climax of Jesus' story, not suffering.  That's more hope-filled than tough.

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But avoiding...or ignoring... the tough lessons because they are tough can be seen as selling short the depth of our faith.

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So, I offer for our consideration this morning, tough lessons:

- the rejection of Ishmael and Hagar, and

- Jesus' insensitivity to the family unit.

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When Abraham was 75 years old, God called him to journey to the land of Canaan.  Although he and Sarah had never had any children, the call also included a promise that Abraham would have many descendants.

The family of Abraham prospered in this new land. 

About a decade after arriving in Canaan, Abraham had his first child: a son named Ishmael.  The mother was Hagar, Sarah's servant.  Now, before you assume that it was a soap-opera-type scandal, it was actually Sarah's idea.  She was just being pragmatic - Abraham was supposed to be this father of many and she was almost 80 years old and barren... some alternative plan was needed.  With Hagar, Abraham had his promised son.

End of story, right?

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At age 90, Sarah became pregnant, naturally, miraculously, laughably.  Abraham was almost 100 years old when Isaac, his second child, was born.

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That's where we picked up the story this morning.  Young Isaac (2 or 3 years old), playing with his teenage half-brother Ishmael.  There is nothing in the text of Genesis that indicates that Ishmael was anything but a devoted son to Abraham and brother to Isaac.

But... there was apparently a conflict among the mothers.  In fact, just after Hagar became pregnant, she 'rubbed' Sarah the wrong way - whether intentional or not, Sarah assumed Hagar as harbouring a 'look what I did that you couldn't do' attitude.  Sarah certainly still viewed Hagar as her slave-girl - not a sister wife. 

Sarah treated Hagar so badly, that the pregnant woman ran away.

In the wilderness an angel compelled her to return.

Now, in today's reading, sixteen (or so) years later, Sarah's anger and jealousy rose up again as she saw the brothers playing so well together.  And so, she forced Hagar (and Ishmael) out for good. Sarah wanted the family legacy to rest solely with her son.  She wanted Hagar's son to have nothing - now or in the future.

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It is hard to hear that one of the heros of faith, Sarah, could act with such malice and cruelty.  More so, it is presented as all part of God's plan.  What does it say about God to map out a situation where Hager and Ishmael  are banished to die in the wilderness: Hager - who was only dutifully following the wises of her mistriss, and Ishmael - who was only playing kindly playing with his little brother, are tossed aside so that the second-born son could lay claim to the inheritance and family legacy.

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Several decades after Jesus' resurrection, a Christian author would write that God is love, and that in our ability to be loving will allow us to know God (cf.1st John 4:7-8). How am I supposed to find love in God's plan requiring the near starving of Ishmael?  Or the near sacrificial stabbing of Isaac, for that matter (cf Genesis 22)? 

How is God 'love' in those times?

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How is God love when Jesus says there are limits to how much you can your family?

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My normal preaching style, at this point would be to delve into the precise context of each passage.  I would find the nuanced hope in some remote corner of the scripture and discover a glimpse of divine compassion.

I could do that with the Hagar and Jesus lessons - those glimpses are there (Hagar and Ishmael is rescued and Jesus is not saying hate your family as much as he is saying love your call to be a disciple at least as much), but I'm not going to do that today.

I want to sit with the discomfort for a while.

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It is fair to say that both of today’s scripture passages were written down and shared long after the events they describe.  Certainly that is true with Matthew - that gospel  was written in the mid 70s - more than 40 years after the life of Jesus.  And it is quite certain that (although an long oral tradition preceded it), the book of Genesis was written long, long after the life of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac.

One of the things we can glean from that knowledge is that these passages were written to present a lesson to the original readers/hearers of the stories they present.  These passages are not simply, dry history - they are messages for the people of faith reading them, based on part of the history they hold dear.

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For Genesis, let’s remember that it is written by (and for) the descendants of Isaac, not the descendants of Ishmael.  So, of course Isaac is the child that fulfills the promise.
There is a major religious movement in our world today that looks at the same stories from Ishmael’s point of view and their interpretation of history is that Hagar’s son, Abraham’s first born was the child of promise. 

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Matthew’s purpose is to teach the ‘church’ how to be The Church as much as it is to tell stories about Jesus.

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In Genesis, to move the story of the Hebrew history from Abraham to Isaac and on to Jacob and Joseph and eventually Moses, Joshua and the others (which is the way their history unfolded for them), there must be no doubt that Isaac is Abraham’s rightful heir.  And the way the story does that is to remove Ishamel from Abraham’s life and family.  The side-effect of telling the story that way is that God comes off looking really bad - insensitive, petty, cruel.

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In the mid 70s AD, one of the issues the Jesus Movement was having is that an entirely new generation of believers made up the church by that time - only the most senior members might have had personal memories of Jesus in the flesh.  And so the level of commitment to the movement was an issue - especially after the unsuccessful revolt against the roman occupation in Jerusalem that left the Temple in ruins.  As a result families were divided, discipleship was being tested.

Matthew needed to address the commitment of the people in the church.

That’s what the passage in chapter 10 is all about - how much do you love Jesus?  Today’s
passage reads like a threat:  If you are not 100% behind him, you need to admit that and make your choice.

Of course, the side effect of expressing that point makes Jesus look really bad - insensitive, cruel, dictatorial.

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I wonder if it was a conscious intent for the authors of Genesis and Matthew to put the character of God and Jesus in such questionable light - or if that was an un-intended side effect of trying to send a message to the readers about themselves and where they needed to see themselves in their time?

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I think that there is the tough lesson in that for us today.  We need to watch how we tell our stories, and how we relay our faith - to be sure we are not sending an unintentional message.

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It was a big issue 30, 40 years ago in the United Church as people began to appreciate the power of gender specific language when it comes to speaking about God and people.  Many of you lived through the struggles of the ‘inclusive language debates’.  It really began in the late 18^th century, but in the 1960s, 70s and 80s our culture really began to be challenged to move beyond millennia of patriarchy, where it made sense to use the word “man” when referring to the human species - both male and female, and to use exclusively male pronouns and images for God, as if God had male genitalia between God’s legs.

What message were we sending to people who could not see ‘father’ as a positive word because the father in their life was only a source of violence, cruelty and pain?  Did we not see the language conflict between talking about God as a mother hen, but then saying we are protected under “his” wings.

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Think of this - if you have had some great event happen in your life, maybe the birth of a
child or even having an illness go into remission, you might feel incredibly grateful and you might want to praise God for these fortunate experiences.  But, if our language is “God answered my prayer”, what are you saying to the mother who had a miscarriage or the family whose loved one lost the battle with cancer - are you really saying that God ignore prayers for them - or worse that God answered it with a flat out “no, not for you”.

When we appreciate the connection we have with our God through the wonder and mystery of Jesus and feel a deep faith in this means of experiencing the divine, are we really intending to discount every single other person, who may have brushed up against a thin place of spirit simply because it didn’t explicitly involve Jesus for them.

If we do want to profess that God loves my child more than yours or that my love one’s illness qualifies for prayerful healing and yours does not or that the holiness of God can only be known through an explicit appreciation for the Jesus, then that kind of language might make sense. 

But if we are just trying to express an appreciation for a moment of wonderful experience, we should be able to do so without discounting the experiences of others.

Learning how to share our faith; how to express our love for the spirit that binds us is a challenge and it may be a very tough lesson to learn, but… the tough lessons are often the most life changing and fulfilling.

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So, let is not shy away from the challenges to understand what it is we desire to know about God and how we can best share that good news with others.

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Let us pray:

Holy God, we will not forget that you are love and that your greatest commandment is for us to love.  Guide us to share this in all we say and do.  Amen.

#684VU “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace”

AND IT WAS GOOD

June 15, 2014

Pentecost 1

Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a

(prayer)

I want to make something clear from the start of this sermon: I do NOT believe that God created the world in seven days.  I do NOT believe that the first two homo sapiens emerged instantly as God played in the dirt - plus or minus a rib. 

I do not believe that things happened literally the way it is described in Genesis chapters one and two.  In fact, I find the dogma of so-called "creationism" - based on a literal reading of these biblical texts - unbelievable (at best) and laughable (at worst)... and ultimately distractingly sad.

If you were expecting me to take our passage from Genesis today and argue against what our collective scientific knowledge has discerned about the universe... I am sorry - you might want to play Candy Crush or Angry Birds on your phone for the next fifteen minutes or so.

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The debate about our origins is not as simple as saying it is Science versus Religion - I don't view religion and science as polar opposites.  I believe that the knowledge gained through scientific discovery and the processes of theory and observation are part of the way we understand our place (theologically) in the grand schemes of existence. 

Just because I am not a creationist does not also mean that I believe that God has nothing to do with the nature of the universe and our place in it.  The way I see it, the current scientific explanations about the nature of the universe do not preclude the existence or creative abilities of God.

The truth is: good science does not try to do theology - science tries to explain how the universe is, not why it is - that is a function of philosophy and theology.

True scientists will freely admit that what they know as true right now may only be true for a while.  New theories have always challenged old ones and often lead us to realize that what we once thought was true - in fact, isn’t... anymore.

People who limit the possibilities of how we came to be to the literal words on the early pages of Genesis, will always have to assert that the scientific method must be wrong, because it concludes something other than the details of the Genesis account - regardless of whether it makes logical sense or not.

Personally, I am not so burdened.  And, I suspect, that the same goes for the vast majority of modern people of faith.  Gone are the days that we are forced to choose between reason and faith.  We allow science and spirituality to intermingle.

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Virtually every ancient culture told stories of the origins of the world - the origins of life.  They are almost always mystical and involve some supernatural divine involvement.  All creation myths attempt to explain how the world was formed and most explore where humanity came from.  Some examples are:

·        The Japanese creation myth is a story that describes the legendary birth of the celestial and earthly world, the birth of the first gods and the birth of the Japanese archipelago. At the beginning, the universe was immersed in a beaten and shapeless kind of matter, sunk in silence. Later there were sounds indicating the movement of particles. With this movement, the light and the lightest particles rose but the particles were not as fast as the light and could not go higher. Thus, the light was at the top of the Universe, and below it, the particles formed first the clouds and then Heaven. The rest of the particles that had not risen formed a huge mass, dense and dark, to be called Earth.

·        In Hinduism, earlier Vedic thinking explained that the universe was created as a golden embryo from a golden womb. The creator was later identified with the god, Brahma. Other gods (Indra, Varuna and Vishnu) are credited with acts of creation, primarily the act of propping apart the sky and the Earth.

·        In Norse mythology, the first living being (formed in the primeval chaos of the great void) was an enormous giant named Y'mir - created as a result of the coming together of extreme cold and extreme heat.  The giant, Y'Mir, was slain by the AllFather god, Odin. The Norwegian tradition is... that from Y'mir's dead flesh, the earth was formed; his bones became the rocks; his skull, the sky; and his blood poured out as the sea.

·        The scientific tradition (and the Crosby, Stills Nash and Young song of the 60s) says that 'we are stardust'.

·        The Ojibway tradition is that (some time after Kitchi-Manitou populated the world with people) a great flood was sent to purify the earth.  And so the earth sank to the bottom of the great water created by the flood. After several creatures tried (and failed) to bring the earth back to the surface, it was the Turtle who bore the weight of creation and brought the earth back above the waters where it exists today.  Thus, in the Ojibway tradition, the earth is called Turtle Island.

I could go on and on - there are literally hundreds of creation stories from many, many world cultures - all trying to explain (within their context) how the world got to be the way it is: - they typically only try to explain the world as it was known to them; note that the Japanese tradition only explains the origin of the islands of Japan.  There is no need to explain the creation of Africa - Africa didn't exist in the worldview of the ancient Japanese.

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Hebrew culture was no different.  What was read this morning is one of the ancient Hebrew creation stories.

Did you know that our Bibles contain two different versions of how the world came into being?  Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25.  The best biblical scholarship indicates that these are separate and distinct stories - independent of each other, with different authors, written at different times and in different places.  The easiest evidence of this assertion is the word(s) the authors use for The Creator: Genesis One uses 'elohim'; Genesis Two uses 'yahweh elohim'.

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In the first Genesis story (read today), creation is described as a week of divine creative activities - seven days. The second one describes God as having crafted the world like an artisan - molding with dirt (and other raw materials) in a garden.  I could spend all my time today comparing and contrasting Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, but I do want to focus on delving into the version where "in the beginning... the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters".

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Bereshit bara elohim et ha'shamium ve'et ha'artez.

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The verb in Genesis 1:1 is bara': it's almost always translated as 'created', but also carries the connotation of the act of shaping, forming, fabricating.  In our Bibles, the verb bara' is used in the context of divine actions (not exclusively, but usually).  Here, the subject of the verb bara' is elohim (God).  The duel objects in the first sentence of Genesis 1 are ha'shamium (the heavens) and ha'aritz (the earth).  And this is all described as happening 'in the beginning' (berashit).

Bereshit bara elohim et ha'shamium ve'et ha'artez.

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

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I said earlier that I don't think that it is wise to read this passage literally, so it follows that we should appreciate the metaphoric meaning.  We need to see the creation story (as Marcus Borg calls it) as more than literal.  We should be looking beyond the words - to discover the purpose and meaning of what's being said.

Genesis One's imagery and poetry is absolutely beautiful.  So, let's appreciate that in that way and look for what it can tell us about God as the source of all that is and about our place in the world we know.

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Sometimes we assume that the creation accounts in Genesis present God as having created everything out of nothing.  That's not true.  In Genesis Two, the starting place is a dry landscape - a lifeless desert: before there were any plants because "yahweh elohim (the LORD God) had not caused it to rain upon the earth".  

And... as we read in Genesis One: in the beginning, there is a dark, formless void, described as a chaotic ocean ("The Deep").  Even the Big Bang creation narrative doesn't start with nothing: it begins with a pre-existing quantum singularity that was infinitely small and infinitesimally heavy.  In this evidence-based creation story, the singularity mysteriously explodes and spreads out... creating the universe. 

I would love to get into a conversation of why it might be that we, as humans, have trouble with imagining a time of pre-existent nothingness, but... not today, at least not at this moment.  Let's just accept that (in almost every attempt to describe it) 'Creation' is preceded by something: the current version of scientific truth says it is a singularity; in Genesis Two it is a desert; Genesis One, it is dark, unordered waters.

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Now... to the beauty of Genesis One!

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The story is made up of seven days - six days of creative work and one day of sabbath rest (coincidentally, a routine life-experience of the ancient Hebrews).  
One of the wonderful poetic characteristics of Genesis One is that the days are paired together - days 1, 2 and 3 are directly connected to days 4, 5 and 6.

Day One: into the dark formless void (where the Spirit blows like a wind over the face of the primordial waters of chaos), God introduces "light".  The method of creation in chapter one is not like the hands-on descriptions of chapter two: here God creates with... a word: God said, let there be light. And there was light.  Just 'cause God said so.

It is not the case that the light replaced the darkness or even superseded it.  Light was created to interact with darkness.  Alone, blinding light is just as inhospitable as complete darkness. 

On day one, God mixes light and darkness and the result is the first bit of order in the chaos - on day one, there is perspective: the opportunity to appreciate depth - as light and shadow interact.  Day and night, by definition, cannot exist apart from each other.  The one is needed to appreciate (and understand) the other.

And it was good (tov).

The first night came, followed by morning: day one!

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The corresponding day four has God speak even more order into the light and dark of creation: great and lesser lights are introduced - the sun, the moon, the stars: the discernible movement and patterns of which make possible the understandings of the seasons and cycles of daily life - something the original hearers of this story knew to be true.

And it was good.

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At the end of day one, the universe is simply water (an ocean - the deep) moving from night into day.  On day two, the water is divided, as God creates a barrier called "sky" (King James Bible = firmament). This is the picture Genesis creates: water, water everywhere and God creates an air bubble: with waters above the firmament and waters below it.  We know there is water must above the sky, because it occasionally leaks down as rain.

And it was good.

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Day one brought about light and darkness; day two sees the separation of water and sky.  Like how, on day four, things were created to fill the environment of day one, the parallel on day five brings things into the sky and water: birds and fish, creatures of the air and creatures of the sea.

And it was good.

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Day three is a further separation of the waters below the sky as dry land (filled with vegetation) appears in some places.  Dry land does not replace the water, but only separates it into various lakes, rivers and seas.  The ancient Hebrews knew that the waters of 'the deep' were still below the land because if you dug a deep enough hole, you would find it.

And it was good.

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Again, (like before) the environment created on day three is filled on day six - living creatures of the land appear: included a special creation made in the image of God.  So God created humankind in God's image... male and female God created them.  There is no inherent male superiority here - no woman being created out of man.  The first mention of the human species in the bible is centered in gendre equality.

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The text says that the creation of the land animals was good, but it doesn't say it again after humans are created (interesting...), but presumably all of day six was good, as well.

What Genesis One does say is that (after these six days), God surveyed everything that had been made and it was more-than-good: it was VERY good! (tov me'od)

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The world we know is created in goodness.

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Now, I know some will say, that this is before Adam and Eve and the apple and the fall of humanity into 'sin'.  I remind you that Genesis One and Two are distinct and separate stories. 

The original telling of the seven day Hebrew creation story did not lead into Adam and Eve.  It ended with... God resting, looking over a world that was good!

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Yes, over time, other stories would emerge and evolve the larger cultural and religious tradition away from the world (including its human beings) as good.  But, let's appreciate that there was a time and a place where the world (even with all of its hardships and problems) was viewed as... good.

For me, that is the beauty and wonder of Genesis, chapter one.

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What difference would it make in our world today, if we saw everything and everyone around us as being founded in goodness?  There is so much suspicion and fear projected into our lives based on a premise that this world is a harsh and cruel place.  This perspective puts us in competition with each other - it makes the natural world a commodity to be exploited for its bounties before someone else does it.

I suggest that we need the perspective of "and it was good" again. 

If this has any chance as a successful worldview, it has to take hold in the hearts and minds of enough of those creatures who bear the image of God: you and I (and...)

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My hope is that we will appreciate the wonder of the world, we know and understand and appreciate the mystery that continues to elude us.

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The 'how' of creation described in Genesis One may not be real, but those words (those seven days) are filled with profound truth.

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And it is good... really, very good.

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Let us pray:

Wonderful God, as we take in stories of creation, we are marveling at the amazing gift that is 'this existence'.  Thank you, Creator, for this life and for the challenge to live up to the goodness you endow in creation.  Amen.

#291VU “All Things Bright and Beautiful”

SEEKING UNDERSTANDING

June 8, 2014

Pentecost Sunday

Numbers 11:24-30

Acts 2:1-21

(prayer)

Shavuot
(sha-vu-ot), the Feast of Weeks occurred every year - seven 'weeks' after Pesach (pe-shaCH), Passover. 

Passover is the annual commemoration of the Israelite people's liberation from slavery to the Egyptian Pharaoh, under the leadership of Moses. 

Weeks commemorates the giving of the law (Torah) to the people by Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of the ten commandments, seven weeks after the Exodus began - as it evolved, the feast of weeks expanded to celebrate not just the 10 Commandments, but the gift of the five books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) traditionally attributed to Moses' authorship.  In Israel, the Festival of Weeks also happens to coincide with the spring wheat harvest.  All in all, Weeks was a joyous time of celebration for the goodness of
God made manifest in the people's lives.

That was certainly true in New Testament times.

In the greek-speaking world of the 1st century, the Festival of Weeks was also called Pentecost, because 7 weeks is (essentially) fifty days: pente = five.

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When the day of Pentecost came, [the disciples and other followers of Jesus] were all together in one place. (Acts 2:1) 
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It started with a sound: difficult to explain - it was like the sound of wind (a strong violent wind), but it wasn't coming from outside... it was in the house!

The followers of Jesus sat there stunned, startled, and I suspect worried and afraid. 

Then the moment got even stranger: out of nowhere, an unusual sight - again hard to explain - some "thing" filled the room.  It was both tangible and fluid.  It moved as if it were alive.  It divided into various strands that settled on and around each one of then.  So hard to explain - these strands were like the leaping tongues of a fire.

Again, this does not sound comforting.  Being surrounded by the sound of destructive winds and being touched by something that resembled leaping fire, must have been absolutely terrifying.

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And then the scene got even stranger... the followers of Jesus began to speak in (what the text describes as) other languages.  The author of Acts attributed this to the work of the Spirit, although I doubt that anyone in the room was thinking about it that way.  The presumption is that the languages they were able to suddenly speak were not languages they knew - and perhaps these were new languages, known to no one.

It is in hindsight that the Acts author says that these disciples must have been filled with the Holy Spirit and that is why they were able to speak as they did.  The implication is (of course) that the wind sound and the tongues of fire were manifestations of the Spirit.

Then the scene got even stranger... it turns out the wind-like sound was audible beyond the house where the disciples were.  A crowd gathered to see what was going on.  They arrived in time to hear Jesus' followers speaking in those strange tongues.  Only the words weren't sounding strange at all.

Stranger still, this crowd was not homogeneous: they included people from all over the jewish diaspora, many with different native languages.

Okay, let's recap this scene - the followers of Jesus are together in Jersusalem about 50 days after the sorrow of his crucifixion and the glory of his resurrection.  The have a sudden frightening experience that culminates with their ability to speak in languages that not one of them understands but the people in street seem to comprehend just fine - as if the disciples were speaking directly to them in their own native tongue.

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This is the Christian Pentecost story!

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Seven weeks after the multi-layered experiences of the unimaginable grief-joy of Jesus' death and resurrection, the followers of Jesus are faced with a new encounter with the holy that was nothing like anything they had known before.

It was so new that they had trouble finding the words for what was going on.

But... they had to try.  This experience could not be ignored - it had to be talked about - the wanted to make sense of what they had been through.

"This new, different experience:  What does this mean?  How should I react?  Scared, excited, discouraged, encouraged?  Is God saying something in all of this?"

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I think this is not an isolated reaction.  Many of us find ourselves asking those questions as we move through this life - particularly times of hightened emotions.

We are curious-creations: our minds have evolved to want to discover and understand.  And so, we don’t often feel comfortable in times of uncertainly and mystery.

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And yet, mystery seems to be normal-place when it comes to the Spirit of God.  We find glimpses to peak our curiosity and then it’s gone making us wonder what it was we had just experienced. 

Think about Jesus on the mountain top with Peter, James and John.  It was the last story we read before we entered the season of Lent a few months ago (The so-called Transfiguration: cf. Mark 9:2-8).  For a fleeting moment, the disciples saw Jesus in a scene of dazzling white, standing alongside with heroes of the faith.  It was not just their eyes that feasted on this glory, but their ears also.  “This is my beloved son.  Listen to him.”  And then, as quickly as it arose… it was gone.

The story goes that the disciples didn’t talk about that day much until much later - we might wonder: did they ever make sense of it?

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And here we go again, during the Festival of Weeks.

As Simon Peter listened to the speculation of the crowd on that Pentecost day, he drew on the traditions of his faith: while it may have looked to an outsider that the manifestation of the Spirit that day was simply the odd behaviour of inebriated festival goers, Peter knew that it began in the sobriety of the disciples’ morning prayers: the wind-like sound, the flame-like presence, the confusion and unity of language brought Peter's thoughts to the oracle of an ancient prophet. 

Joel spoke to the people of Judah who had experienced the tragedy of a season of crops lost to a severe drought and an infestation of locusts.  They worried about their relationship with God. The prophet assured them that the locusts may have caused a temporary hardship, but that they would again know blessing.  Therefore, the prophet encouraged even deeper faith in God's promises. 

The words that Peter keyed on centuries later in Jerusalem were the prophet's promise of God's Spirit being made manifest: "the days are coming... when God's Spirit will be poured out on all people".  We are witnessing that today, Peter suggested to the curious crowd.

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I think it is human nature to be curious in the midst of mystery.  We desire more than the experience - we want to understand.

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And yet, a wise prophet once reminded us that one of the things required of us is to walk humbly with God (cf. Micah 6:8). 

Reinhold Niebuhr eloquently espoused that it is a gift of serene wisdom to know the difference between the things we can change and those we can't.  Perhaps, it is equally wise to be able to appreciate where the limit of our understanding is at significant times of this life - when our 'desire to understand' butts up against 'the need to live with the mystery'.

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In every era, there can be the prophetic voices who seem to discern a level of understanding beyond what most people are capable of.  The tradition of the prophets is one of finding a window into the heart of God that speaks to the 'experience of now'.

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The urge to understand what happened was a desire to know the Spirit, Peter proposes.  The message is that the Spirit moves indiscriminately: that the mysteries of the holy are available to all - young and old, male and female, slave and free: the typical dividing lines within the first century Hebrew culture.

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Sometimes, it is the gift of humility that opens us up to the presence of the Holy in our midst. 

Even if we don't fully understand, the promise remains: in the Spirit, we are one.

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Let us pray;

Holy Spirit, who came as wind and flames of fire, unite us in creative loves that unites us, celebrates differences, ans brings glory to God.
Amen.

#625VU "I Feel the Winds of God"

MOVING ON

June 1, 2014

Easter 7

John 17:1-11

Acts1:6-14

(prayer)

Last week, I
spoke at length on the modern creed where someone would lay claim to a spirituality, but shun an association with religion: "I'm spiritual, but not religious".  The notes from the sermon can be found through the St. David's website.  One of my main points was that modern people of faith seek ways to be connected to the holy, without carrying the baggage of 2000 years of church traditions, behaviours and rigidness.

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Another angle on the whole "spiritual, not religious" language that I didn't address very much last week is that for some people, 'religion' has to do with the group faith experience and 'spirituality' is all about a personal (even private) faith.  Now for me those distinctions aren't so clear - I have known deeply spiritual experiences within the community of the church and I have been engrossed by the rituals and traditions in a very personally impactful way.

While I greatly appreciate the personal aspects of faith and spirituality (and I think everyone needs to know faith this way to some degree), I have also come to believe that there are levels of spiritually that can only be reached corporately.

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Both the prayer of Jesus in John, chapter 17 and the disciples reaction to the Risen Christ leaving them speak to the value of community.  Jesus prays that "they all may be one".  And Acts reports that the eleven disciples along with several women and members of Jesus' family (his mother and brothers) constantly devoted themselves to prayer.  The language is plural.  This is not personal, private worship - they are corporate prayers of the people.

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Being "church" is not easy.  Unanimity is rare in any group.  Unity is easy in communities of one.  But we are called to be true to our earliest traditions - prayers shared in community.  That begins with acknowledging a humility that not one of us has a full experience of God.  We learn more about God though the sharing of story, through the blending of personal spirituality within the ritual and practice of the religion we hold together.

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This is not a difficult concept to understand.  I could give you my 12 players working together football metaphor or even quote 1st Corinthians 12 and talk about the body with many parts.  But, today, I will illustrate the pount by referencing one of my favorite modern stories:

In the 1987 movie adaptation of William Goldberg's 1973 book The Princess Bride, Miracle Max and his wife, Valarie assist Wesley and his companions in preparing to confront the evil Prince Humperdink intent on marrying Wesley's true love.  Their task is risky: "Have fun storming the castle", Max yells to Wesley, Inigo and Fessik, before Valarie whispers to him, "Do you think it'll work?" "It'll take a miracle." "Bye, bye!"

The miracle was this:  Alone, Wesley, Inigo and Fessik didn't have what was necessary to get into the castle, find and rescue the princess (after Inigo kills Count Rugen, the six fingered man as revenge for the death of his father 20 years earlier). 

The needed to pool their resources: it would take Indigo's steel, Fessik's strength and Wesley's mind for strategy.

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"I am asking on their behalf... Holy Father.  Protect them in your name... so that they may be one."

"You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

The earliest community of faith in Jesus valued their togetherness and the unity of their mission to help others experience good news.

Even as we nurture our personal spirituality, we also seek to be the best combination of our gifts for the common good.

And so the followers of Jesus moved on from their personal experiences with Jesus to a more communal one - the prayer of Jesus and the voices of angels encouraged them - they would care for each other and the world - even as they pursued a nurturing of their own spirit.

It is true that we can do different things together than we can alone.

We do this (in part) through acts of corporate church - being the community of faith:

***love God*** (those corporate acts of prayer)

***encourage and uplift each other***

***prayer shawls***

***communion***

***as we move beyond this community, love neighbour as ourselves***

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Let us pray:

Holy God, we celebrate Jesus, our Christ, who would stop at nothing - not even death - to proclaim your love for all.  He passed that mission on to his followers.  We pray that we can be faith to that tradition.  Amen.

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