Writing Our Stories of Transformation: May 5, 2024

Year B, Easter 6                                    Acts 10:44-48                                                            

        Recently I was contacted a by radio station that wanted to talk about the history of Christ Church.  Of course, I know many of the highlights and I got a tour of the church when I interviewed here, but I wanted to hear what stories our educators were regularly telling.  I contacted one of our educators and asked him what the go-to stories were. They were all from the 1700s.  I said, “Don’t you have any from the 1800s or 1900s?”  And he said, “Well, there are some, but we mostly stick to the 1700s.”  I understand that.  People come to Philadelphia because they want to hear about the start of our nation…which was in the 1700s. 

In some ways, we do the same thing when we tell the story of Christianity. The New Testament basically covers 100 years. In the Easter season, we emphasize this even more by replacing the Old Testament reading with readings from the Book of Acts.  We do this is partly to distinguish the Easter season from other seasons.  Something big happened on Easter, something that changed the world for everyone (whether they know it or not).  For these 50 days after Easter, we look ahead instead of behind.  The Book of Acts tells the story of the beginning of the Christian Church.  In doing so, it tells of transformation of individuals and groups.  It doesn’t just tell the story of what happened before, it gives us a template for our future story. 

            The Acts reading we have for today seems rather innocuous.  The Holy Spirit fell on some people and Peter decided to baptize them.  This is chapter 10 of Acts.  In just a few weeks we will hear the Pentecost story from the 2^nd chapter of Acts where the Holy Spirit fell on people in the form of fire.  People who did not even know the language that the disciples were speaking, could suddenly understand the disciples as if they were speaking their own language.  It was quite a scene.  Therefore the scene this week is well…boring in comparison.

            The problem is that we missed a few critical chapters between last week’s story of the baptism and conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch and this week’s story.  Therefore, to fully appreciate the drama of what happens in this text, let me share a little about what happened in the previous chapters, particularly with Peter.  As most of us know, Peter had some rough moments in the Gospels.  He did not come out looking like a star disciple. However, after the resurrection, Peter truly shined.  In chapter 9, we hear a story of Peter healing a paralyzed man, and then, as if that was not impressive enough, he brought someone back from the dead.   This undoubtedly gave Peter some confidence in his abilities, as well as his connection to God.

            After Peter raised someone from the dead we hear stories of two visions from God.  One is for Cornelius, a Roman officer, and one is for Peter.  Cornelius’s vision was simply a command to find Peter.  Peter’s vision was a little more complicated.  It involved a command from God to eat animals that were considered unclean by the Jews.  Peter initially insisted that he could not eat these animals because he would never eat anything considered profane or unclean by Jewish law.  Finally God responded, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The God who raised Jesus from the dead had changed things.  God was telling Peter that it was time for him to change as well. 

            Shortly after this vision, Peter was called to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile and a Roman soldier.  Just the fact that Peter agreed to go to the home of a Gentile is remarkable.  There was something from that vision of the unclean animals---and perhaps even before that vision---that opened him up to this possibility. He met Cornelius, as well as Cornelius’ family and friends and heard the story of Cornelius’ vision from God.  Peter came to know Cornelius and his family as more than just Gentiles, but as people who God had called.

Peter proceeded to share this sermon: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”  This is a complete 180 from what Peter previously had thought.  Up until now, he had only preached to the Jews.  He had believed that only Jews could hear and receive the message of Jesus Christ.

            This turn around was partially due to the vision that God had sent, where he proclaimed that what God had made clean, no one could call profane.  But it also came from his interactions with Gentiles, the time he spent talking to them and eating with them. It was probably a more gradual change than it appears in these few chapters. It was no doubt a difficult change.  He didn’t just have a vision and fundamentally change his world view. He opened himself up to the movement of the Spirit.  He let down his guard enough to see that maybe things were not as clear as he once thought.

Wisps of the Holy Spirit had slowly whittled away at those beliefs that had been so sacred to him, so foundational to his faith.  It was not an easy transformation, as transformations rarely are.  But the transformation he made altered the course of history.  Without his willingness to be open to the Holy Spirit, we might not have a Christian faith today.

            That is what brings us to today’s reading.   He was at Cornelius’ house and a crowd formed.  It was a crowd of Gentiles.  Peter told the crowd the story of his vision and experience with Cornelius.  While Peter was speaking to these Gentiles, proclaiming the good news, the Holy Spirit fell upon every person who was listening to this good news. I love that the text says, “While Peter was still speaking…” The Holy Spirit interrupted Peter. It’s like it could not wait any longer. The Holy Spirit swept in and fell upon these Gentiles.  Surely Peter’s words had something to do with their transformation, but the text proves that there is something unpredictable about the Spirit, even to super apostles like Peter.  

While the Holy Spirit surprised Peter a little, it shocked the Jews who were the companions of Peter. They could not believe that the Holy Spirit would be poured onto these unbelievers, these Gentiles.  It is understandable that they were shocked.  After all, the Holy Spirit had been working on Peter for a while now.  He had seen visions. He had gotten to know faithful Gentiles.  But for Peter’s companions, this was new and shocking. 

Peter could have said, well, let’s prayerfully discern this. We can have some listening sessions, form a task force—then in a year or so we can decide whether we should start baptizing Gentiles. Nope, he simply asked the Jews in his midst, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.”  No one could.  They could have said no. They could have grumbled and said things under their breath (which they probably did).  But no one was willing to withhold water from people who had already received the Holy Spirit. 

            The Book of Acts does not merely tell us the history of the beginning of the church.  It tells us our purpose.  It tells us our potential as people of the risen Christ. Sometimes in the church, we focus far too much on what has happened as opposed to what can happen. We focus on stories that have already been told.  That is understandable as we have a lot of great stories. But we cheat ourselves when we act like our faith is one of history and not a story of how we live today and tomorrow. 

The only way that we can move forward as people of faith and as a congregation is if we ask ourselves where the Holy Spirit is moving us now…what change might be on the horizon? What walls can we break down? Who are the Gentiles today? Sometimes it seems like it’s anyone we don’t agree with because we have gotten so bad at seeing the humanity in the people who we perceive as wrong or not as enlightened as we are. There are so many opportunities for connection and transformation.

            Imagine if there were no stories of transformation in the Bible.  It is impossible to imagine because it would be mind numbingly boring.  So why is it that we do think we can live on the transformation of people who have come before us?  We can’t.  The stories of the Acts of the Apostles are 2000 years old. We need new stories.  That’s up to us.  Let’s make sure that when an educator gives a tour in 100 years, they are talking about not just the 1700s (or even the 1800s), but the 21^st century.  We can build those stories of transformation now.   

Fear and Love: April 28, 2024

Year B, Easter 5                                   1 John 4:7-21         

                    I am afraid of a lot of things: cockroaches, mice, large crowds, Philadelphia drivers, cancer, COVID, infections…just to name a few.  Some of these are rational fears.  Some, not so much.  Thus when I see this line from 1^st John that says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…”--- I want to know how I can get this kind of love. I am pretty sure I know God’s love.  I know that I am loved by God.  It’s something that I have felt certain of my whole life and has held me up, even when I doubted every other thing.  So why do I still have these fears? Unfortunately the author of 1^st John wasn’t talking about the more mundane fears like rodents and aggressive drivers, or even the serious fears like disease.  John was most likely talking about the fear of God’s judgment, which was a much more prevalent fear in this time period.

          Especially in our modern age, most Episcopal clergy tend to focus more on love than judgment.  Our presiding bishop, Michael Curry’s favorite thing to say is, “If it’s not about love, then it’s not about God.”  There is no doubt that Jesus talked a lot about love and that is an obvious theme in all of 1^st John. In the New Testament, you will find some version of the Greek word agape (translated to love), 140 times.   However, judgment also shows up a few times in the New Testament…not as much, but it’s definitely there.  While 1^st John was written a little later than most of the gospels and Paul’s letters, there were still a lot of people at that time who thought that Jesus was returning sooner, rather than later, and when Jesus returned people would be judged. That judgment would determine who was saved and who was not. That meant it was more on the forefront of people’s minds, this fear of God’s judgment. 

Frankly, I think that would be better to focus on that fear rather than all the others fears that preoccupy our minds because there is a clear solution to that fear.  All these earthly worries don’t have clear solutions, but there is an answer to the fear that we hear about in 1^st John.  That answer is God’s love.  John wrote: “perfect love casts out fear.”  Perfect love is God’s love. God casts out fear.

I wonder if we were really confident in God’s love for us and we felt that love, then maybe we would not worry as much about the concerns of this life.  So often we find we worry about how others might be judging us or we might even be pre-occupied by our own self judgment.  While few people like to contemplate God’s judgement, that would be a more productive thing to worry about—because God can help us in very tangible ways to find freedom from that judgment. That is what God’s love can do. It can free us.  Yet it is really hard to free ourselves from these other worldly concerns, probably because they are our own creation.  It’s hard to let go of what we create.

          While I love the Episcopal Church, I worry that we have watered down God’s love a bit too much. We have allowed it to evolve into a Hallmark emotion.  God’s love isn’t an emotion.  God’s love is action.  This text from John spells it out: “God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  I would like to get into a long discussion on what the “atoning sacrifice” means, but I am pretty sure that would only be interesting to about 5 of you.  (You can let me know on the way out who you are.) 

What I would rather focus on is the act of God sending his son to this world…this world that had disappointed God over and over again.  God sent God’s son to be with us, to live with us, and then die on a cross so that we might understand the depth of God’s love.  According to John, that is how God’s love was revealed to us.  God wanted us to see his love in action, up close and personal so that we could then show that love to others.

          I fear many things, but I don’t fear God’s judgment. And that’s not because I am perfect.  It’s not because I am an extraordinary Christian.  It’s because I know that God’s rooting for me.  God is rooting for all us.  In sending God’s son, God was saying, “I’m all in.”  And you don’t do that for a people you intend to damn to hell.  No, you do that for people you are intent of saving…in this world and the next. 

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Romans and reads, “If God is for us, who is against us?” Honestly, when I think of that text, or quote that text, that is the only part that I remember.  However it popped into my head while writing this sermon and I looked it up to make sure I had the quote correct. Then I looked at the lines right after. ^“He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.”

          I realize that there are so many things that weigh on each of your hearts.  Even those of you who may not be prone to worry, still has something that burdens you.  I feel like the majority of my adult life, I have labored over the juxtaposition of my anxiety, versus my confidence of God’s love. That’s right, I worry about my proclivity to worry. So here is what I am going to try and I commend it to you as well.  I am going to try to dwell in God’s love, rest in the assurance of God’s love for me and God’s love for all of us.  Because God’s love is so much greater than the sum of all of our concerns.  I am going to remind myself that it’s ok if there is still fear in my love because my love is not the axis on which this world turns.  God’s love is the axis on which this world turns. That is the love I choose to dwell in. One day, I hope that my love and you love might look a bit more like God’s love…but for now, we can dwell in God’s love.

Souls Need Other Souls: April 21, 2024

Year B, Easter 4                                John 10:11-18 and Psalm 23
This Sunday is often referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the imagery that we find in both the gospel reading and the psalm.  Psalm 23 is one of the most beloved psalms in the Book of Psalms.  I have planned many funerals over the years and 90% of the time, the family will choose psalm 23. I have often wondered why. Why that psalm? What is it about the image of the shepherd that brings people such comfort?  Part of the choice comes from the familiarity. For people who don’t know the psalms, they will gravitate to what is most familiar. There is comfort in familiarity.  It’s the reason that so many of us have a movie, a book, or a show that we return to again and again. Just knowing something can make us feel better, even when we can’t articulate what it is about that thing that makes it so comforting.  Yet there must be a reason that this psalm and the image of Jesus as a shepherd has become such a familiar and popular image.  Of course it’s more than just the shepherd imagery.  It’s the words of the psalm.
                How many of you have a soul that needs reviving?  How many have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, or any valley of darkness?  How many are tortured by wants and needs and would give anything not to be in want?  How many long to rest and find a comfortable place to lie down? These are longings that would have resonated with those who first heard this psalm thousands of years ago and continue to resonate with so many of us.  The answer to these longings is found not in ourselves or those around us, but in the Lord, who is our shepherd. But that is easier said than done. Because I think we have lost our familiarity with God---with any image of God.
                In our Gospel reading, Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd, the one who lays down his life for the sheep, the one who knows the sheep and is known by the sheep.  Even here we can see how important it is to Jesus to know and be known.  He understands the importance of familiarity in both a savior and a community. 
If you were to just read this passage without looking at what comes before and after, one might assume that he is speaking to his disciples or other followers…a crowd of people who are lost and beleaguered…the same kind of people who need to hear the words of Psalm 23.  No doubt whoever heard these words did need them. But it wasn’t just his disciples. Jesus was also speaking to people who were very critical of him and suspicious of his message.  In that crowd were the Pharisees, the religious elite of the Jewish faith.  We know they were there because they had been part of the previous conversation in chapter 9.
                Right before describing himself as a shepherd, Jesus had healed a blind man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees were not happy that he was doing work on the Sabbath as that was against their rules.   The Pharisees questioned the man who had been born blind, trying to figure out how and why Jesus did what he did. They tried to get the man who could now see to say that Jesus was not a man from God.  The man refused and said: “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes… Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’”  The Pharisees didn’t like this answer and cast the formerly blind man out of the community.  He was no longer welcome.
When Jesus heard the man had been cast out, he returned to find him, even though this would almost surely create another confrontation with the Pharisees.  However, Jesus knew that this man had already led his whole life marginalized and ostracized and he didn’t want that to continue.  He had already given him his sight, but he wanted him to know the source of the healing.  The blind man had never actually seen Jesus because Jesus had made the healing contingent on him washing in the pool of Siloam.  By the time he did that, Jesus had moved on.  By finding him again, Jesus not only brought him back into the community that the Pharisees pushed him out of, Jesus gave the man the opportunity to see him, to know him.
Jesus knew that physical healing was incomplete if this man was still ostracized.  It’s not just that this man just could not see before, when someone had a disability, it was assumed that they were being punished for their sin or the sin of their parents.  So not only did this man have to live in a world with no accommodation for someone who couldn’t see, he had to live with people assuming his disability was actually a punishment from God.  Jesus knew this wasn’t true and he didn’t want this man to suffer any more judgment or shaming than he already had.  Jesus understood how important it was to have people belong to a community.
That is why he said in our reading for today, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  He sought this formerly blind man out and now in our reading for today, we hear him telling the Pharisees and disciples that this was the kind of messiah he would be. He would be the shepherd who would always be calling new people into the fold, who would call the marginalized and cast out into the fold.
For so long the Christian faith was about who was in and who was out.  Who was saved and who was not. Who was a sinner and who was forgiven.  Yet Jesus wanted everyone to know him and know his voice.  It was not about who would be part of his club, it was about those who would hear his voice.  We have gotten better at welcoming people. We have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for our churches.  But if we were to model ourselves off of Jesus (which is what we are supposed to do), we would know that being welcoming isn’t good enough.  When Jesus heard that man was cast out, he went and found him.  Because he wanted not just to be a familiar voice or a comforting figure. He wanted to be his shepherd and his savior.   It wasn’t enough to heal his body, he wanted to revive his soul.  Jesus understood that a soul needs other souls.
Our world is full of people with parched souls who still see Christianity as a private club that they are not welcome to.  Since we don’t have Jesus in the flesh searching for the lost and the weary, we have to be those people.  We, who know the voice of Jesus, must carry that voice out so that other souls can be restored and people can know that there is a place where they are not merely welcome, but a place where they can belong. 
You might think, oh I don’t know the voice of Jesus well enough to introduce others to it.  And I understand that.  Even as a priest, there are times when I think, who am I to share this message? How do I know I am saying the right thing?  Am I even hearing God’s voice?  Here’s what you can do.  You can reacquaint yourself with the voice of God.  Take this gospel reading or this psalm and read it every day.  Find a verse and make it a mantra. The more you read it, the more you internalize it, the more you will hear God’s voice and be able to share it with others.  People should not have to wait until there is a funeral to be reminded of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  People should not have to wait for a tragedy to hear about the God who wants them and all people to know that they deserve to be part of something holy, something good and something that brings healing and love. People should not have to wait because we have that beautiful message.