I am off for a few weeks, and not posting. However, I did want to note a change in the most recent sermon title. My friend Rav Roy Tanenbaum commented that the word "terrible" did not really apply to the text, and gave it an inappropriate slant. Since these texts are first and foremost Hebrew, I felt he was right in his note. Hence the title has been changed to "Challenging Texts".
I took the original idea from a book by Phyllis Tribble, about women in the Bible, called "Texts of Terror". Clearly, using the word "terrible" here didn't work! Thanks Roy, for all your assistance in this sermon.
Fran
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
“Challenging Texts” a reflection based on Genesis 22:1-14 June 26, 2011 Humber United Church, Corner Brook, NL
Some time later God tested Abraham. God said, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” Abraham replied. God said, “Take your son, whom you love - Isaac - and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took two servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac to carry, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them walked together, Isaac said, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham replied, “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” The two of them went on together. When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he took the knife to slay his son. The angel of God called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked, and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He took the ram and sacrificed it instead of his son. Abraham called that place “The LORD Will Provide”. To this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
************************************************************************
The sky darkens, the wind howls as two people walk up a wild and windy mountain. The conversation had started early that morning. No wasted words. “Get up, old man. Take your son, your only son Isaac, and sacrifice him on Mount Moriah.”
So the old man and the boy walk on in the thinning mountain air. With each step the old man grows older. With each step he chills, but the boy doesn’t feel it. The boy hops three steps to each stride of the old man. Now stoop-shouldered from years of field work, the old man clutches fire and a razor-sharp flint knife. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way. “Must be another way,” the old man thinks. “Old woman,” he mutters to himself, “what will I tell her? Barren before. Barren again. Old woman, forgive me.”
Terror crouches in his throat; swallows his steps. Swallows his muttering. Now atop the mount, the old man stares at the ground. “Father, how can we worship without a lamb? Where’s the sacrifice?”The old man chooses his words cautiously. “So we have come without our lamb. I guess God will have to provide the lamb for us.”
On top of Moriah, Abraham sees his son, and then beyond his son to his own life that rewinds back through the years. He sees himself again as a kid - a foolish young man blinded by love and drunk with a passion for adventure. There he goes - Abraham meandering across the desert with his bride in tow. Off to no place in particular, just following what he takes to be the voice of his God. The years pass and he sees himself once again - a middle-aged man, living in goatskin tents, breathing sand and rearranging the dust. Childless. The conversation with God continues. More years pass, leaving him with cracked, leathery skin. He entertains strange guests who tell him a cock-and-bull story about his old woman becoming pregnant and he becoming a father. The years pass, no children. When the conversation breaks down and still no promised child, he and Sarah are so desperate that he has an affair with a household slave - so that his wife can at least have the child as soon as it descends the birth canal. Ishmael is born. But he is sustained by the conversation with God over the years and the impossible happens. He hears an old woman cackling at the newborn she has just birthed. He sees his life in the eyes of the boy. Abraham has lived a full life, a life of promise and miracle.
“But Father, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” The question is not mouthed; it’s the boy’s eyes talking. The altar waits, the child waits. Abraham waits for a moment as he searches the boy’s eyes, his hands clenching tight the razor-sharp flint knife. He knows! How? He knows! There’s no scene, no struggle, no wrestling to apprehend Isaac, to tie him to the pile of wood. He offers his arms to be tied. The old man fumbles with the ropes. “I must steady my hands, “ he thinks. The end will come suddenly. The boy watches the old man tremble in silence. The old man says aloud to the barren mountain: “So be it. But you hear me, demanding God. This death will not end my journey. You promised me a son. Nothing can take that promise from me, not even you.” The old man will hobble home, childless, to his old wife, twice barren.
***********************************************************************
When I was in seminary, one of my professors insisted that only the Gospel could be preached. I argued with him. Why do we have a lectionary which presents us with four possible texts each week, if none of them are worth preaching except the Gospel. He didn’t give a good grade in that class, but I didn’t care......because I have always believed that other texts sometimes offer much more, that we need to tackle the harder texts, even if they make us uncomfortable.
So - the bare bones of the story - we are told - is that God decides to test Abraham’s faith, by telling him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, as a burnt offering. The way the story is written, Abraham doesn’t tell Isaac what he is going to do, only that they will go into the hills to find an appropriate place to worship God. He loads Isaac up with wood, and he takes the spark of tinder and the knife.....
One of my online discussion groups is called “Midrash” - a Hebrew word, which describes a process of interpreting biblical stories, which goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the narrative - where we might only get a hint from the text. The simple explanation is that every text is evaluated for its simplest meaning, and then hidden meanings, hints, and even a revelation of meaning. So today is less a sermon and more of a series of possibilities.
One of my colleagues on Midrash wrote:
“I have little doubt that this story is so overlaid with mythologising and theologising by the time it reaches its final form around the time of the Babylonian Exile that it contains little of an ancient event and a lot of a "story". Abraham is challenged to love the relationship with God more than he loves whatever gain he gets out of that relationship. The problem for telling this story today is the way it presents God in the incarnation of the challenge. God is presented as one who deceives a man into believing he wants child sacrifice and puts a child through a terror from which he would most likely never recover. In ancient times when the rights of, and effect upon, a child would be disregarded, this story might have passed muster; but not today.”
So one way of looking at this text is that it is an early prophetic sanction against child sacrifice which was a serious issue in Israel, after the Canaanite settlement, as the later prophetic tradition notes. Child sacrifice was not unknown in almost all cultures - and perhaps this was a story designed to demonstrate that God was different.
Christians evaluate God in the light of the words of Jesus. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". So, if we hold Jesus as the example, we cannot get away with presenting a God who deceives someone into child sacrifice, who puts a child through such trauma.The "New Atheists" describe such a God as a moral monster. Perhaps the call in this passage is to re-evaluate some of our pet theories and theologies.
Reading this text from a Christian perspective, there are clear parallels between this and our belief that God required Jesus literally as a sacrifice - in atonement for all the sins of humanity. But if we read Genesis as a prohibition against child sacrifice, where does that put the death of Jesus and the theology of sacrificial atonement?
Right off, I have to tell you I simply cannot believe in a God who would require a sacrifice of any kind. Because I don’t subscribe to the sacrificial atonement theology, I decided to ask a friend, Rav Roy Tanenbaum, at the Canadian Yeshiva and Rabbinical School in Toronto - how this text would be read in his tradition.
Rav Roy responded: “Christianity gets it. Bringing a sacrificial animal or dove to the Jerusalem Temple was an act of expiation. One did not have to be forever stuck in sin. There is a way to get on with one's life. It is a powerful ceremony. The penitent places his hands on the animal and knows that there, but for the animal, goes him, because he is the one that is really deserving of this. When Christianity turns a personal sin into Sin, that is, Original Sin, faith in Jesus becomes the mode of expiation, and Jesus is the "sacrificial lamb" in that sense.”
However, I believe we got that original notion from Paul, and Christianity has run with it ever since. We forget that as a trained theologian - a rabbi who had a startling spiritual experience - Paul would have tried to fit that experience into his cultural and theological understanding at the time - and to me much of Paul's writing really feels like someone who is also wrestling with a way of explaining an experience. Then the question is - does this actually work today?
In the Hebrew understanding, sin was the state of being separated from God. So, in that context - I could understand a voluntary sacrifice as a way of confessing separation from God - and we also confess in the Christian church - and putting ourselves right with God again. That is different from God requiring an act of great barbarism in exchange for whatever sins all humans have committed. That, in my mind, is not only contrary to who I believe God is, but it also removes personal responsibility for actions. It is also quite different from God asking Abraham to break the law given by God in the first place.
Back to Abraham and Isaac. Rabbi Tanenbaum says the approach which “we DON'T have is (Soren) Kierkegaard's suspension of the ethical as the ultimate test of faith....... mostly, we say once there is Torah, G-d cannot command against it. So, in that sense, prophecy becomes redundant, and you can never get a prophecy to kill someone.”
So there’s a second thing for you to think on. Once there is the law, the Torah, as given by God to Moses, even God cannot go against the law. God cannot suspend the ethical.
He goes on to say “One of the explanations I like is that Abraham is challenging G-d, by going through with it and forcing G-d to respond. Remember, this is the man who challenged G-d at Sodom. Now, however, he is involved in the matter - not at arm's length - and therefore must frame the challenge differently.”
This I like. Abraham forces God’s hand - by actually preparing to go through with it. Abraham challenged God before, at Sodom. God announced the city will be destroyed; Abraham asked if God would spare the city if 50 righteous men could be found, and when God agreed, Abraham kept bargaining God down till they got to ten.
So Abraham goes through all the motions of preparing to sacrifice Isaac, right up to the moment of lifting the knife. - and when it comes to that moment, in this interpretation, God - or an angel of God - jumps in and says “Hang on, I didn’t really mean for you to DO it!!!”
Then there are more questions. How did Isaac react, as Abraham tied him up, and set him on the altar? Abraham says “we will come back.” Yet if we go further on into the story, Abraham comes back down alone. What happened to Isaac? And here is where we try to fill in some of the gaps in the story. What if Isaac were so terrified, he ran away? The story at the beginning has Isaac not frightened, but figuring out what Abraham is doing and going along with it. In the Jewish tradition, one midrash says that Isaac went off to a yeshiva to learn. He determines that if he is called upon to be the sacrifice, then he needs to know why that would be.
When Abraham comes back down alone, what does he tell Sarah? As we read the story, Abraham just goes off, and Sarah has no idea. But in the next chapter of Genesis, Sarah dies. There is a midrash which says that when Sarah hears what Abraham had gone off to do, she expires, and thus she never knows the real ending of the story. It raises this question - how often are there unintended consequences to our acts. Our actions have reactions - like ripples in a pond - and we can't always see how they will affect other things.
In both interpretations, there is to be a sacrifice. In one, God tests Abraham by asking him to set aside the law which was given by God in the first place. This presupposes that God is above God’s own law. In the other, Abraham is not willing to accept that God is above that law, and challenges God to carry through. Personally, I am with Abraham.
So what is the lesson in the story for us? We don’t literally practice human child sacrifice any more, but we do still sacrifice our children in so many ways. How many are condemned by starvation, or a lack of health care? How many have been sacrificed by abuse, sexual or otherwise - and a church which is willing to cover up? How many have been sacrificed to belief systems? I am thinking of native children ripped from their lives, and sacrificed on the altar of our religious beliefs. How many are sacrificed to our ambitions, or to war, or to ideologies which demand that they go willingly?
Perhaps the lesson in the story is that instead of the barbaric sacrifice, we instead have to sacrifice some of our own misplaced ideas. In the biblical text, just as Abraham was about to do the deed, he saw a ram caught in a thicket - and he then used the ram as the sacrifice instead of a child. It doesn’t say God provided the ram - but we assume that. An alternate way of resolving the issue was provided. Something else was sacrificed instead of the child. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Janet Weiblen, Greg Crawford, Rick McTeer, John Shearman, from the Midrash list, for their thoughts on this text.
2. Rav Roy Tanenbaum, Toronto Yeshiva and Rabbinical school, who was willing to help me engage the text from another perspective.
3. With material from “The Place of the God Who Provides” by Rev. Thomas Hall (including a story from William Willimon “On a Wild and Windy Mountain”, Nashville. Abingdon Press 1984.)
************************************************************************
The sky darkens, the wind howls as two people walk up a wild and windy mountain. The conversation had started early that morning. No wasted words. “Get up, old man. Take your son, your only son Isaac, and sacrifice him on Mount Moriah.”
So the old man and the boy walk on in the thinning mountain air. With each step the old man grows older. With each step he chills, but the boy doesn’t feel it. The boy hops three steps to each stride of the old man. Now stoop-shouldered from years of field work, the old man clutches fire and a razor-sharp flint knife. Trust and obey, for there’s no other way. “Must be another way,” the old man thinks. “Old woman,” he mutters to himself, “what will I tell her? Barren before. Barren again. Old woman, forgive me.”
Terror crouches in his throat; swallows his steps. Swallows his muttering. Now atop the mount, the old man stares at the ground. “Father, how can we worship without a lamb? Where’s the sacrifice?”The old man chooses his words cautiously. “So we have come without our lamb. I guess God will have to provide the lamb for us.”
On top of Moriah, Abraham sees his son, and then beyond his son to his own life that rewinds back through the years. He sees himself again as a kid - a foolish young man blinded by love and drunk with a passion for adventure. There he goes - Abraham meandering across the desert with his bride in tow. Off to no place in particular, just following what he takes to be the voice of his God. The years pass and he sees himself once again - a middle-aged man, living in goatskin tents, breathing sand and rearranging the dust. Childless. The conversation with God continues. More years pass, leaving him with cracked, leathery skin. He entertains strange guests who tell him a cock-and-bull story about his old woman becoming pregnant and he becoming a father. The years pass, no children. When the conversation breaks down and still no promised child, he and Sarah are so desperate that he has an affair with a household slave - so that his wife can at least have the child as soon as it descends the birth canal. Ishmael is born. But he is sustained by the conversation with God over the years and the impossible happens. He hears an old woman cackling at the newborn she has just birthed. He sees his life in the eyes of the boy. Abraham has lived a full life, a life of promise and miracle.
“But Father, where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” The question is not mouthed; it’s the boy’s eyes talking. The altar waits, the child waits. Abraham waits for a moment as he searches the boy’s eyes, his hands clenching tight the razor-sharp flint knife. He knows! How? He knows! There’s no scene, no struggle, no wrestling to apprehend Isaac, to tie him to the pile of wood. He offers his arms to be tied. The old man fumbles with the ropes. “I must steady my hands, “ he thinks. The end will come suddenly. The boy watches the old man tremble in silence. The old man says aloud to the barren mountain: “So be it. But you hear me, demanding God. This death will not end my journey. You promised me a son. Nothing can take that promise from me, not even you.” The old man will hobble home, childless, to his old wife, twice barren.
***********************************************************************
When I was in seminary, one of my professors insisted that only the Gospel could be preached. I argued with him. Why do we have a lectionary which presents us with four possible texts each week, if none of them are worth preaching except the Gospel. He didn’t give a good grade in that class, but I didn’t care......because I have always believed that other texts sometimes offer much more, that we need to tackle the harder texts, even if they make us uncomfortable.
So - the bare bones of the story - we are told - is that God decides to test Abraham’s faith, by telling him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, as a burnt offering. The way the story is written, Abraham doesn’t tell Isaac what he is going to do, only that they will go into the hills to find an appropriate place to worship God. He loads Isaac up with wood, and he takes the spark of tinder and the knife.....
One of my online discussion groups is called “Midrash” - a Hebrew word, which describes a process of interpreting biblical stories, which goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the narrative - where we might only get a hint from the text. The simple explanation is that every text is evaluated for its simplest meaning, and then hidden meanings, hints, and even a revelation of meaning. So today is less a sermon and more of a series of possibilities.
One of my colleagues on Midrash wrote:
“I have little doubt that this story is so overlaid with mythologising and theologising by the time it reaches its final form around the time of the Babylonian Exile that it contains little of an ancient event and a lot of a "story". Abraham is challenged to love the relationship with God more than he loves whatever gain he gets out of that relationship. The problem for telling this story today is the way it presents God in the incarnation of the challenge. God is presented as one who deceives a man into believing he wants child sacrifice and puts a child through a terror from which he would most likely never recover. In ancient times when the rights of, and effect upon, a child would be disregarded, this story might have passed muster; but not today.”
So one way of looking at this text is that it is an early prophetic sanction against child sacrifice which was a serious issue in Israel, after the Canaanite settlement, as the later prophetic tradition notes. Child sacrifice was not unknown in almost all cultures - and perhaps this was a story designed to demonstrate that God was different.
Christians evaluate God in the light of the words of Jesus. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father". So, if we hold Jesus as the example, we cannot get away with presenting a God who deceives someone into child sacrifice, who puts a child through such trauma.The "New Atheists" describe such a God as a moral monster. Perhaps the call in this passage is to re-evaluate some of our pet theories and theologies.
Reading this text from a Christian perspective, there are clear parallels between this and our belief that God required Jesus literally as a sacrifice - in atonement for all the sins of humanity. But if we read Genesis as a prohibition against child sacrifice, where does that put the death of Jesus and the theology of sacrificial atonement?
Right off, I have to tell you I simply cannot believe in a God who would require a sacrifice of any kind. Because I don’t subscribe to the sacrificial atonement theology, I decided to ask a friend, Rav Roy Tanenbaum, at the Canadian Yeshiva and Rabbinical School in Toronto - how this text would be read in his tradition.
Rav Roy responded: “Christianity gets it. Bringing a sacrificial animal or dove to the Jerusalem Temple was an act of expiation. One did not have to be forever stuck in sin. There is a way to get on with one's life. It is a powerful ceremony. The penitent places his hands on the animal and knows that there, but for the animal, goes him, because he is the one that is really deserving of this. When Christianity turns a personal sin into Sin, that is, Original Sin, faith in Jesus becomes the mode of expiation, and Jesus is the "sacrificial lamb" in that sense.”
However, I believe we got that original notion from Paul, and Christianity has run with it ever since. We forget that as a trained theologian - a rabbi who had a startling spiritual experience - Paul would have tried to fit that experience into his cultural and theological understanding at the time - and to me much of Paul's writing really feels like someone who is also wrestling with a way of explaining an experience. Then the question is - does this actually work today?
In the Hebrew understanding, sin was the state of being separated from God. So, in that context - I could understand a voluntary sacrifice as a way of confessing separation from God - and we also confess in the Christian church - and putting ourselves right with God again. That is different from God requiring an act of great barbarism in exchange for whatever sins all humans have committed. That, in my mind, is not only contrary to who I believe God is, but it also removes personal responsibility for actions. It is also quite different from God asking Abraham to break the law given by God in the first place.
Back to Abraham and Isaac. Rabbi Tanenbaum says the approach which “we DON'T have is (Soren) Kierkegaard's suspension of the ethical as the ultimate test of faith....... mostly, we say once there is Torah, G-d cannot command against it. So, in that sense, prophecy becomes redundant, and you can never get a prophecy to kill someone.”
So there’s a second thing for you to think on. Once there is the law, the Torah, as given by God to Moses, even God cannot go against the law. God cannot suspend the ethical.
He goes on to say “One of the explanations I like is that Abraham is challenging G-d, by going through with it and forcing G-d to respond. Remember, this is the man who challenged G-d at Sodom. Now, however, he is involved in the matter - not at arm's length - and therefore must frame the challenge differently.”
This I like. Abraham forces God’s hand - by actually preparing to go through with it. Abraham challenged God before, at Sodom. God announced the city will be destroyed; Abraham asked if God would spare the city if 50 righteous men could be found, and when God agreed, Abraham kept bargaining God down till they got to ten.
So Abraham goes through all the motions of preparing to sacrifice Isaac, right up to the moment of lifting the knife. - and when it comes to that moment, in this interpretation, God - or an angel of God - jumps in and says “Hang on, I didn’t really mean for you to DO it!!!”
Then there are more questions. How did Isaac react, as Abraham tied him up, and set him on the altar? Abraham says “we will come back.” Yet if we go further on into the story, Abraham comes back down alone. What happened to Isaac? And here is where we try to fill in some of the gaps in the story. What if Isaac were so terrified, he ran away? The story at the beginning has Isaac not frightened, but figuring out what Abraham is doing and going along with it. In the Jewish tradition, one midrash says that Isaac went off to a yeshiva to learn. He determines that if he is called upon to be the sacrifice, then he needs to know why that would be.
When Abraham comes back down alone, what does he tell Sarah? As we read the story, Abraham just goes off, and Sarah has no idea. But in the next chapter of Genesis, Sarah dies. There is a midrash which says that when Sarah hears what Abraham had gone off to do, she expires, and thus she never knows the real ending of the story. It raises this question - how often are there unintended consequences to our acts. Our actions have reactions - like ripples in a pond - and we can't always see how they will affect other things.
In both interpretations, there is to be a sacrifice. In one, God tests Abraham by asking him to set aside the law which was given by God in the first place. This presupposes that God is above God’s own law. In the other, Abraham is not willing to accept that God is above that law, and challenges God to carry through. Personally, I am with Abraham.
So what is the lesson in the story for us? We don’t literally practice human child sacrifice any more, but we do still sacrifice our children in so many ways. How many are condemned by starvation, or a lack of health care? How many have been sacrificed by abuse, sexual or otherwise - and a church which is willing to cover up? How many have been sacrificed to belief systems? I am thinking of native children ripped from their lives, and sacrificed on the altar of our religious beliefs. How many are sacrificed to our ambitions, or to war, or to ideologies which demand that they go willingly?
Perhaps the lesson in the story is that instead of the barbaric sacrifice, we instead have to sacrifice some of our own misplaced ideas. In the biblical text, just as Abraham was about to do the deed, he saw a ram caught in a thicket - and he then used the ram as the sacrifice instead of a child. It doesn’t say God provided the ram - but we assume that. An alternate way of resolving the issue was provided. Something else was sacrificed instead of the child. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Janet Weiblen, Greg Crawford, Rick McTeer, John Shearman, from the Midrash list, for their thoughts on this text.
2. Rav Roy Tanenbaum, Toronto Yeshiva and Rabbinical school, who was willing to help me engage the text from another perspective.
3. With material from “The Place of the God Who Provides” by Rev. Thomas Hall (including a story from William Willimon “On a Wild and Windy Mountain”, Nashville. Abingdon Press 1984.)
Saturday, June 18, 2011
"Wrestling with the Trinity?" June 19, 2010 Trinity SundayHumber United Church, Corner Brook, NL Matthew 28:16-20, Revelation 4:8, Isaiah 6:3
Revelation
Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other: Holy, holy, holy! The Lord Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.
Isaiah
Each one of the four living creatures had six wings, and they were covered with eyes, inside and out. Day and night they never stopped singing: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.”
Matthew
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. Jesus said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in(to)** the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(**alt. Translation: “into”)
*************************************************************************
When I was a child - and probably when some of you were children - every single church service began with the hymn we used this morning - Holy, Holy, Holy. No one even thought about it - it was just the opening hymn. No one, even today, thinks about where it comes from. It is one of the most beloved hymns in the church, a part of our history. It is based, in part, on the readings of Isaiah and of Revelation.
When I was in seminary, taking classes in worship and liturgy, one of the questions we were asked was”What is the one thing you remember most about church when you were a child?” That was what I remembered - starting every week with the same hymn. The hymn reflected strongly the grounding in the Basis of Union of the United Church.
Another course we were required to take was called “Systematic Theology”. Everyone, even the professors, got a smile out of the term, because theology is really anything but systematic. I took two: one was the required first-year course, a history of the development of theology in the church - covering heavy stuff like Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Jurgen Moltmann - but also going back into the history of the beginning of the church’s creeds at the time of Constantine, through the Reformation and Martin Luther, and onward. The second course, called Confessing Our Faith, took us through the Articles of Faith, in our Basis of Union in the United Church.
Throughout all of our history in the church, people have been trying to explain the Trinity. There isn’t one satisfactory explanation. When I came out of the exam for Systematic Theology, and the professor asked how it went, I answered “I felt like I answered the same question three times and three different ways, and all of them were right.” My professor answered “That’s it!!!”
Well, most of us in our lifetime in the church never read the Articles of Faith, let alone try to rewrite them in modern language. So here - for your edification, is some of what we have.
"We believe in the one only living and true God, a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being and perfections; the Lord Almighty, who is love, most just in all His ways, most glorious in holiness, unsearchable in wisdom, plenteous in mercy, full of compassion, and abundant in goodness and truth. We worship Him in the unity of the Godhead and the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons of the same substance, equal in power and glory."
"We believe in and confess the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, who, being the Eternal Son of God, for us men and for our salvation became truly man, being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin. Unto us He has revealed the Father, by His word and Spirit, making known the perfect will of God. For our redemption, He fulfilled all righteousness, offered Himself a perfect sacrifice on the Cross, satisfied Divine justice, and made propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where He ever intercedes for us. In the hearts of believers He abides forever as the indwelling Christ; above us and over us all He rules; wherefore, unto Him we render love, obedience, and adoration as our Prophet, Priest, and King."
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who moves upon the hearts of men to restrain them from evil and to incite them unto good, and whom the Father is ever willing to give unto all who ask Him. We believe that He has spoken by holy men of God in making known His truth to men for their salvation; that, through our exalted Saviour, He was sent forth in power to convict the world of sin, to enlighten men's minds in the knowledge of Christ, and to persuade and enable them to obey the call of the Gospel; and that He abides with the Church, dwelling in every believer as the spirit of truth, of power, of holiness, of comfort, and of love."
Everything clear? Sure. Except. The concept of the Holy Trinity didn’t even exist in the Bible. We are *told* that Jesus sent the disciples to baptise “in the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit. It can also be translated as "baptise "into" ..... But that wasn't a reference to the Trinity. In fact, any actual reference to a doctrine of the Trinity came along 325 years after the death of Jesus, in the time of the Emperor Constantine. Historically, for all of his life, Constantine was NOT a Christian - but he recognised that using that faith to unite his empire would be a smart idea. People under his rule became Christian or lost their lives! A prominent theologian of the time, Arias, was executed because he didn’t agree with the proposed ideas of the newly formed state church.
For Jesus, raised in the Jewish rabbinical tradition, God was One. Remember the Sh’ma? “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is ONE.” One God. The Spirit existed - the ‘ruach’, the “breath” or “wind” of God, Holy Wisdom. Proverbs tells us Wisdom was present at the beginning, at creation. So either Wisdom, the breath of God, was present separately, or not.
The Proverbs passage says Wisdom was created before the earth was formed, before the mountains and the fields. Some people equate this "Wisdom" with the Holy Spirit, but if the Holy Spirit is God, it cannot be a created being. But if Wisdom is a part of God, as it must be, because God did all the creating, and has all wisdom and knowledge, then wisdom is not a created being. See how twisted around these studies can be?!
Confused? Good. I hope so. I confess, I wrestle with the concept of Trinity all the time. In seminary I was accused of being a “closet Unitarian”, because I believed in God, Jesus and the Spirit - but not that they were all one and the same. I still wrestle with it. I suspect that some of you do too. I'm here to tell you it's OK not to be too sure.
Years ago, Abbot and Costello had a wonderful riff on the Trinity. Judith Stark in BC worked it into a sermon with some alterations to fit our context.
“So, one Trinity Sunday at church this curious man who wanted to see me squirm, came up to me demanding a personal explanation of the Trinity, and this is what happened:
I said, “Now listen closely. There is one God.”
He said: “Okay, one God. What do you call this God?”
I said: “We call this God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”
He said: “Hey! You said there is one God, right?”
I said: “Right.”
He asked: “And this God has THREE NAMES?”
Me: “Correct.”
Him: “So which is it?”
Me: “The one I gave you.”
Him: “But you gave me three names!”
Me: “That’s right.”
Him: “What’s right?”
Me: “God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?”
Him: “You have THREE Gods?!!”
Me: “No, one God. “
Him: “So which IS it?”
Me: “Which is what?”
Him: “Father, Son or Holy Spirit?!!”
Me: “Yes!”
Him: “Yes to what?”
Me: “That’s God’s name.”
Him: “WHICH God?”
Me: “Our ONE GOD!”
Him: “But you gave me three names!”
Me: “Three names, one God!”
Him: “But why three names, why not just ONE name?”
Me: “Because they’re not all the SAME!”
Him: “But you just TOLD me, there is ONE God.”
Me: (patronizing/sarcastic chuckle) “Now there we have a wonderful mystery, don’t we?”
Him: “So which is it?”
Me: “Which is WHAT?”
Him: “The name of your God.”
Me: “I told you. Father, Son and Holy Spirit!”
Him: “But that’s three!”
Me: “But there’s only ONE God!”
Him: “I was thinking of joining the United Church of Canada, but don’t think I want to now.”
Me: “Well, lots of other churches say the same thing, so what’s the problem?”
Him: Well, okay, so you say there’s only one God. Is it God the Father?”
Me: “Yup. And God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!”
Him: “So how can this be, three in one, separate, yet together, all in one God?”
Me: (chuckle) “Hey, that’s very GOOD! Maybe you should become a minister!”
HIm: “Who, me?”
Me: “Yup. Some things we just need to accept, in faith.”
Him: “Faith?”
Me: “Faith!”
Him: “Hey, maybe we should take a break from this discussion, and head out to the baseball diamond, okay? And by the way, who’s on first?”
Me: “That’s right, Who’s on first!”
Him: “What?”
Me: “No, what’s on second!”
***********************************************************************
So here’s what some wrestling with this concept produces. God is energy, a creative force of love and grace. We were created in God’s image, so we are part of that. Jesus showed us how to liberate love and grace so we can become more like God. The Holy Spirit empowers us in the liberation of that love and grace, and sustains us as a community!
For me, the Trinity is not about whether they are all one, and all from the same substance, but the relationship implied among the three. God is Creator, Jesus is Liberator, the Holy Spirit is Sustainer.
The Eastern Orthodox church uses the word "perichoresis" -- the Persons of the Trinity dancing around together, joyfully participating as community in all the acts of creation, redemption and sanctification, and inviting us into the dance.
It’s a lovely metaphor, but even then we still fall short. The simple answer is, for all of our human language, we cannot adequately explain - because if we could adequately explain God, then God would no longer BE God!
So, we live with mystery. At the bottom of that mystery is that each of us has a relationship with God which calls us to teach others what Jesus taught - love and compassion for everyone, regardless of who they are; human relationship in living creation. That’s what we have. And mystery. May it be so.
Sources:
1. The Lord Our God is One…or Three? John 16:12-15 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 by Rev. Janet in CNY
2. ‘Three Gods in One’ a sermon by Rev. Judith Stark, Abbotsford, British Columbia
3. The Manual 2010 Basis of Union Articles of Faith
Around him flaming creatures were standing, each of which had six wings. Each creature covered its face with two wings, and its body with two, and used the other two for flying. They were calling out to each other: Holy, holy, holy! The Lord Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.
Isaiah
Each one of the four living creatures had six wings, and they were covered with eyes, inside and out. Day and night they never stopped singing: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.”
Matthew
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. Jesus said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in(to)** the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(**alt. Translation: “into”)
*************************************************************************
When I was a child - and probably when some of you were children - every single church service began with the hymn we used this morning - Holy, Holy, Holy. No one even thought about it - it was just the opening hymn. No one, even today, thinks about where it comes from. It is one of the most beloved hymns in the church, a part of our history. It is based, in part, on the readings of Isaiah and of Revelation.
When I was in seminary, taking classes in worship and liturgy, one of the questions we were asked was”What is the one thing you remember most about church when you were a child?” That was what I remembered - starting every week with the same hymn. The hymn reflected strongly the grounding in the Basis of Union of the United Church.
Another course we were required to take was called “Systematic Theology”. Everyone, even the professors, got a smile out of the term, because theology is really anything but systematic. I took two: one was the required first-year course, a history of the development of theology in the church - covering heavy stuff like Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, and Jurgen Moltmann - but also going back into the history of the beginning of the church’s creeds at the time of Constantine, through the Reformation and Martin Luther, and onward. The second course, called Confessing Our Faith, took us through the Articles of Faith, in our Basis of Union in the United Church.
Throughout all of our history in the church, people have been trying to explain the Trinity. There isn’t one satisfactory explanation. When I came out of the exam for Systematic Theology, and the professor asked how it went, I answered “I felt like I answered the same question three times and three different ways, and all of them were right.” My professor answered “That’s it!!!”
Well, most of us in our lifetime in the church never read the Articles of Faith, let alone try to rewrite them in modern language. So here - for your edification, is some of what we have.
"We believe in the one only living and true God, a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being and perfections; the Lord Almighty, who is love, most just in all His ways, most glorious in holiness, unsearchable in wisdom, plenteous in mercy, full of compassion, and abundant in goodness and truth. We worship Him in the unity of the Godhead and the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons of the same substance, equal in power and glory."
"We believe in and confess the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man, who, being the Eternal Son of God, for us men and for our salvation became truly man, being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, yet without sin. Unto us He has revealed the Father, by His word and Spirit, making known the perfect will of God. For our redemption, He fulfilled all righteousness, offered Himself a perfect sacrifice on the Cross, satisfied Divine justice, and made propitiation for the sins of the whole world. He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where He ever intercedes for us. In the hearts of believers He abides forever as the indwelling Christ; above us and over us all He rules; wherefore, unto Him we render love, obedience, and adoration as our Prophet, Priest, and King."
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who moves upon the hearts of men to restrain them from evil and to incite them unto good, and whom the Father is ever willing to give unto all who ask Him. We believe that He has spoken by holy men of God in making known His truth to men for their salvation; that, through our exalted Saviour, He was sent forth in power to convict the world of sin, to enlighten men's minds in the knowledge of Christ, and to persuade and enable them to obey the call of the Gospel; and that He abides with the Church, dwelling in every believer as the spirit of truth, of power, of holiness, of comfort, and of love."
Everything clear? Sure. Except. The concept of the Holy Trinity didn’t even exist in the Bible. We are *told* that Jesus sent the disciples to baptise “in the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit. It can also be translated as "baptise "into" ..... But that wasn't a reference to the Trinity. In fact, any actual reference to a doctrine of the Trinity came along 325 years after the death of Jesus, in the time of the Emperor Constantine. Historically, for all of his life, Constantine was NOT a Christian - but he recognised that using that faith to unite his empire would be a smart idea. People under his rule became Christian or lost their lives! A prominent theologian of the time, Arias, was executed because he didn’t agree with the proposed ideas of the newly formed state church.
For Jesus, raised in the Jewish rabbinical tradition, God was One. Remember the Sh’ma? “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is ONE.” One God. The Spirit existed - the ‘ruach’, the “breath” or “wind” of God, Holy Wisdom. Proverbs tells us Wisdom was present at the beginning, at creation. So either Wisdom, the breath of God, was present separately, or not.
The Proverbs passage says Wisdom was created before the earth was formed, before the mountains and the fields. Some people equate this "Wisdom" with the Holy Spirit, but if the Holy Spirit is God, it cannot be a created being. But if Wisdom is a part of God, as it must be, because God did all the creating, and has all wisdom and knowledge, then wisdom is not a created being. See how twisted around these studies can be?!
Confused? Good. I hope so. I confess, I wrestle with the concept of Trinity all the time. In seminary I was accused of being a “closet Unitarian”, because I believed in God, Jesus and the Spirit - but not that they were all one and the same. I still wrestle with it. I suspect that some of you do too. I'm here to tell you it's OK not to be too sure.
Years ago, Abbot and Costello had a wonderful riff on the Trinity. Judith Stark in BC worked it into a sermon with some alterations to fit our context.
“So, one Trinity Sunday at church this curious man who wanted to see me squirm, came up to me demanding a personal explanation of the Trinity, and this is what happened:
I said, “Now listen closely. There is one God.”
He said: “Okay, one God. What do you call this God?”
I said: “We call this God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.”
He said: “Hey! You said there is one God, right?”
I said: “Right.”
He asked: “And this God has THREE NAMES?”
Me: “Correct.”
Him: “So which is it?”
Me: “The one I gave you.”
Him: “But you gave me three names!”
Me: “That’s right.”
Him: “What’s right?”
Me: “God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?”
Him: “You have THREE Gods?!!”
Me: “No, one God. “
Him: “So which IS it?”
Me: “Which is what?”
Him: “Father, Son or Holy Spirit?!!”
Me: “Yes!”
Him: “Yes to what?”
Me: “That’s God’s name.”
Him: “WHICH God?”
Me: “Our ONE GOD!”
Him: “But you gave me three names!”
Me: “Three names, one God!”
Him: “But why three names, why not just ONE name?”
Me: “Because they’re not all the SAME!”
Him: “But you just TOLD me, there is ONE God.”
Me: (patronizing/sarcastic chuckle) “Now there we have a wonderful mystery, don’t we?”
Him: “So which is it?”
Me: “Which is WHAT?”
Him: “The name of your God.”
Me: “I told you. Father, Son and Holy Spirit!”
Him: “But that’s three!”
Me: “But there’s only ONE God!”
Him: “I was thinking of joining the United Church of Canada, but don’t think I want to now.”
Me: “Well, lots of other churches say the same thing, so what’s the problem?”
Him: Well, okay, so you say there’s only one God. Is it God the Father?”
Me: “Yup. And God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!”
Him: “So how can this be, three in one, separate, yet together, all in one God?”
Me: (chuckle) “Hey, that’s very GOOD! Maybe you should become a minister!”
HIm: “Who, me?”
Me: “Yup. Some things we just need to accept, in faith.”
Him: “Faith?”
Me: “Faith!”
Him: “Hey, maybe we should take a break from this discussion, and head out to the baseball diamond, okay? And by the way, who’s on first?”
Me: “That’s right, Who’s on first!”
Him: “What?”
Me: “No, what’s on second!”
***********************************************************************
So here’s what some wrestling with this concept produces. God is energy, a creative force of love and grace. We were created in God’s image, so we are part of that. Jesus showed us how to liberate love and grace so we can become more like God. The Holy Spirit empowers us in the liberation of that love and grace, and sustains us as a community!
For me, the Trinity is not about whether they are all one, and all from the same substance, but the relationship implied among the three. God is Creator, Jesus is Liberator, the Holy Spirit is Sustainer.
The Eastern Orthodox church uses the word "perichoresis" -- the Persons of the Trinity dancing around together, joyfully participating as community in all the acts of creation, redemption and sanctification, and inviting us into the dance.
It’s a lovely metaphor, but even then we still fall short. The simple answer is, for all of our human language, we cannot adequately explain - because if we could adequately explain God, then God would no longer BE God!
So, we live with mystery. At the bottom of that mystery is that each of us has a relationship with God which calls us to teach others what Jesus taught - love and compassion for everyone, regardless of who they are; human relationship in living creation. That’s what we have. And mystery. May it be so.
Sources:
1. The Lord Our God is One…or Three? John 16:12-15 Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 by Rev. Janet in CNY
2. ‘Three Gods in One’ a sermon by Rev. Judith Stark, Abbotsford, British Columbia
3. The Manual 2010 Basis of Union Articles of Faith
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Wind of Change Pentecost Sunday June 12, 2011 Acts 2:1-21, 1 Cor. 12:1-12 Humber United Church, Corner Brook, NL
Acts
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came and filled the whole house. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.
There were in Jerusalem Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in confusion, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); those from Crete and Arabs - we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own languages!” Amazed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Then Peter stood up and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews, and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what the prophet Joel said:
“‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. On my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great day of God. Everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved.’
Corinthians
Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you followed mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who determines which to give to each person.
****************************************
A colleague of mine, Thom Shuman, once posted a version of modern church development, from a humourous point of view - the “Disciple Model Church Kit”. This kit comes complete with:
(1) Perfect Pastor (Paula or Paul, depending on who you order);
(1) Highly efficient, totally organized, fully mature governing board, representing the diversity of the congregation;
(273) Members, divided into
(48) 55 years and older (but extremely healthy)
(95) ages 40-55 (they all work 60+ hours a week, but give 10 hours or more to the church)
(85) ages 25-40 (most raising bright, well-behaved children who sit quietly in worship)
(45) ages 18-25 (mostly single, but they all love traditional music and the old hymns)
In addition, the kit contains (27) 15-17 year-olds, (33) 12-14 year-olds, (49) 6-12 year-olds,
(43) 2-5 year-olds and 32 kids in the nursery
A supplemental kit contains modular pieces which allow you to build the sort of physical plant you wish: including a sanctuary with both immovable pews and chairs on wheels; a fellowship hall that can convert into a home theater complete with stadium seating; classrooms which can only expand; the pastor's office has wireless internet. For a small additional cost, a pastor's study can be included, providing a place for the pastor to engage in those seemingly arcane practices like prayer, study, and meditation. The kits require some assembly. If you order within 30 minutes of seeing the ad, one of the four easy payments of $29.99 will be dropped and the Holy Ghost Prayer Shawl will be included free of charge.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the first century, the churches of Peter and Paul were small splinter groups in the larger Jewish church. They were barely tolerated by the religious authorities, who thought that with Jesus gone, everything was over. The environment was multi-cultural and multi-faith, so they struggled to find their place in a much larger mosaic of cultural and religious difference. They struggled with what it meant to be Jews who were followers of Jesus, in that context of pluralism.
In fact, it wasn’t until the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion that the faith really began to grow - largely because people had no other choice. They had to agree to be Christian or die.
The church today is looking at this phenomenon from the other side. We have had 1700 years of the Constantinian model of the church. Christianity was until recently the largest world faith, but it is that way no longer. With the advent of large-scale immigration, more and more different faith groups live in many more countries; the church finds itself becoming again, a small group in a pluralistic, multi-cultural and multi-faith society. So we struggle with what it means to be followers of Jesus, with integrity and with faith, in this multi-cultural, multi-faith society.
Although Thom Shuman’s story was intended to be a joke, there’s more than a little truth in it. What we want is the Disciple Model Church - just the right demographics, and people whose taste in preaching, music and justice issues will be completely compatible with ours. We want to see more people in church, we want to be welcoming, we want to offer innovative programming, we want new and different music, but without giving up the hymns or anything else we love. The list goes on - and it’s understandable. In a rapidly changing world, the church has been the one constant where we felt at home. So in our heads we recognise the need for change; in our hearts we have more difficulty doing it. We want it, and we’re afraid of it, all at the same time.
Change is a death of one way of being, and the birth of a new way of being. But death frightens us, and in daily life we have trouble with resurrection. So as we face change, we see only the death, instead of the multitude of possibilities for resurrection. The disciples faced the same - they had seen the death of Jesus, and the resurrection - yet were still worried about being “left alone”, orphaned, reduced to their own devices.
As I have worked with congregations, I find that faith in the future is the hardest thing for a congregation to develop. When I raise the role of faith - believing that the Spirit is at work, even if we cannot see the outcome - most people smile tolerantly. The minister is supposed to say that, but isn’t living in the real world. It’s hard for us, in this post-post-modern time, to think in terms of having faith.
The real question for the disciples is can they still love Jesus after he is gone - and the answer is probably not something they want to hear. John tells them they cannot love Jesus by clinging to a cherished memory, nor by retreating into their private experience, nor by trying to keep things the same as they were before. They can continue to love Jesus by emulating his example.
Author and preacher Fred Craddock tells about a lecture he gave on the US west coast speaking at a seminary. A student stood up and said, "Before you speak, I need to know if you are Pentecostal." The room grew silent. Craddock looked around for the Dean of the seminary, who was nowhere to be found. The student continued to ask. Craddock replied, "Do you mean do I belong to the Pentecostal Church?" The student said, "No, I mean are you Pentecostal?" Craddock said, "Are you asking me if I am charismatic?"The student said, "I am asking you if you are Pentecostal." Craddock said, "Do you want to know if I speak in tongues?" He said, " I want to know if you are Pentecostal." Craddock said, "I don't know what your question is." The student said, "Obviously, you are not Pentecostal." And he left.
Pentecost is based on the Greek word meaning ‘50 days’ - it was Shavuot - the Feast of Weeks - marking the end of Passover season. In Leviticus 23, upon entering the promised land, the Israelites were instructed to bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest, and from the day the sheaf is brought, count seven weeks. Pentecost was also the commemoration of God’s will revealed in the commandments which formed the basis of Torah, the Law. In the Jewish prayer book, it is zman matan torateinu, the “season of the giving of our Torah”. The Feast of Shavuot recognises that while the giving of Torah is commemorated, Torah must be received every day. The Jews understood that the Spirit of God was alive and active in the world Torah was given through the Spirit.
Christians have tended to see Pentecost as the "coming of the Holy Spirit”- a linear progression in which God came first, then Jesus, then the Holy Spirit. John gets himself into trouble - in my mind - by declaring that Jesus was around from the beginning of time, along with the other two. But even the most cursory reading of the Bible will reveal that the Holy Spirit was always present. The Spirit moved on the face of the water at creation; God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, used wind to part the sea. When the Israelites are giving Moses the headache of a lifetime, God instructs Moses to bring seventy elders, and the Spirit is poured out on them. So what we celebrate at Pentecost is the moment of new openness and receptivity to the same Spirit which was always present. The Spirit did not come to the disciples for the first time, it was revealed again, when they had lost the connection. This is a reading which is consistent with the Hebrew understanding of the Spirit.
While we say Pentecost is the birthday of the church, I think we need to be careful that we don’t try to make it more than it was, or more than it is. We cannot bind the Spirit to the Word, or to the sacraments and authority of the church. The church does not control the Spirit, nor can the church command its presence. The Spirit moves where and when it will - all our theology and regulation cannot contain the movement of the Spirit. The Spirit existed before the church, and continues to move in its own way, regardless of what the church does.
Jurgen Moltmann, the German theologian, says "The Holy Spirit is not simply the subjective side of God’s revelation...faith is not merely the echo of the Word of God in the human heart. The Holy Spirit is.... the power that raises to new life, the power of the new creation of all things..faith is the beginning of the rebirth of human beings. This means that the Holy Spirit .... has to do with life and its source. The Holy Spirit is called Holy because it sanctifies life and renews the face of the earth."
In the early Hebrew texts, the word for Spirit was ‘ruach’, breath or wind - the Greek ‘pneuma’ - where we get words like ‘pneumonia’. The Spirit of God was not a peaceful and quiet dove coming into violent and wild circumstances - the Spirit of God was what brought the violent and wild circumstances. In the early Celtic churches, the symbol of the Spirit was a wild goose - untamed, loud, raucous.
The power of wind and fire terrify - because they are wild. We talk about things spreading “like wildfire”. A flash of lightning starts a forest fire. Wind spreads the fire, and the fires can become so extensive they create their own winds which fan the flames further. Fire can hop from the top of one tree to another - or it can burrow underground and come up somewhere else.
Wildness is not a phrase that I would use for United churches: our Presbyterian side shows up when we worship; everything decent and in order. Worship services well-structured and familiar, so that no one is disturbed; and exactly one hour. A few minutes over and we’re checking our watches. We all have our places: the organist on the bench, preacher in the pulpit, congregation in the pews, and some in the same pew every week. So it really does make us uneasy to hear about the Spirit and change, because we have trouble even giving one hour a week to something which we *claim* is vitally important to our lives.
Yet, in our liturgies, we ask the Holy Spirit to come and ‘inspire’ us. The word ‘inspire’ means ‘breathe in’ - and if we want to be ‘inspired’ then we are asking for energy, wind, fire, the blood racing in our veins. To be inspired by the Spirit means to breath in wildness.
Spirit is a gift, enabling us to live differently. It involves affirmation and the exercise of the gifts of each person - it is the energies, the powers, the ‘charismata’. The disciples had not figured this one out. They sat around, generally doing little, for 50 days - a motley group of depressed and somewhat disoriented people. Finally, they decided to pray - and the Spirit inspired them - on a rush of wind and in flames which had them up and shouting - and all the many nationalities understood what they were saying, in their own language. Some people thought they were drunk - today we’d assume they were high on some drug. We certainly wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them, in any event. That kind of behaviour is certainly not United Church.
The story of a different Pentecost in the first century, and our stories in the 21st century, have grown apart. There was an urgency and intensity among the Pentecost crowd to gather for prayer. We have lost any urgency and intensity we might feel. We are happy to say the words “Come, Holy Spirit, inspire us.” - but we really don’t want it to happen.
Yet there is a truth we can’t avoid. The Spirit continues to blow where it will. It may blowing among us . . . out of control, out beyond liturgies that have settled in, out beyond our little packages of truth. It’s the blowing, the not being in control that scares us - and as soon as things begin to get different, we agitate to make them go back to the way we like. But if the church is going to live - and I mean really LIVE - then they have to open ourselves to the Spirit.
In Corinthians, Paul tells us that where the Spirit blows, there will emerge people that have extraordinary power to turn the world right side up. Imagine what would happen if we invited that kind of Spirit into our congregation each Sunday, and let that Spirit have free rein?
Sources:
1. Overcoming Pentecost or: What Do We Do When the Spirit Starts Messing with our Worship?
A sermon based on Acts 2:1-21 by Rev. Thomas Hall
2. The Advocate, 6th Sunday of Easter 2009 Rev. Fran Ota
3. Wind and Flame, Pentecost Sunday 2006 Rev. Fran Ota
4. Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit. New York: Harper & Rowe, 1977.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came and filled the whole house. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them.
There were in Jerusalem Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in confusion, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); those from Crete and Arabs - we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own languages!” Amazed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Then Peter stood up and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews, and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what the prophet Joel said:
“‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. On my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great day of God. Everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved.’
Corinthians
Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you followed mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, who determines which to give to each person.
****************************************
A colleague of mine, Thom Shuman, once posted a version of modern church development, from a humourous point of view - the “Disciple Model Church Kit”. This kit comes complete with:
(1) Perfect Pastor (Paula or Paul, depending on who you order);
(1) Highly efficient, totally organized, fully mature governing board, representing the diversity of the congregation;
(273) Members, divided into
(48) 55 years and older (but extremely healthy)
(95) ages 40-55 (they all work 60+ hours a week, but give 10 hours or more to the church)
(85) ages 25-40 (most raising bright, well-behaved children who sit quietly in worship)
(45) ages 18-25 (mostly single, but they all love traditional music and the old hymns)
In addition, the kit contains (27) 15-17 year-olds, (33) 12-14 year-olds, (49) 6-12 year-olds,
(43) 2-5 year-olds and 32 kids in the nursery
A supplemental kit contains modular pieces which allow you to build the sort of physical plant you wish: including a sanctuary with both immovable pews and chairs on wheels; a fellowship hall that can convert into a home theater complete with stadium seating; classrooms which can only expand; the pastor's office has wireless internet. For a small additional cost, a pastor's study can be included, providing a place for the pastor to engage in those seemingly arcane practices like prayer, study, and meditation. The kits require some assembly. If you order within 30 minutes of seeing the ad, one of the four easy payments of $29.99 will be dropped and the Holy Ghost Prayer Shawl will be included free of charge.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the first century, the churches of Peter and Paul were small splinter groups in the larger Jewish church. They were barely tolerated by the religious authorities, who thought that with Jesus gone, everything was over. The environment was multi-cultural and multi-faith, so they struggled to find their place in a much larger mosaic of cultural and religious difference. They struggled with what it meant to be Jews who were followers of Jesus, in that context of pluralism.
In fact, it wasn’t until the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion that the faith really began to grow - largely because people had no other choice. They had to agree to be Christian or die.
The church today is looking at this phenomenon from the other side. We have had 1700 years of the Constantinian model of the church. Christianity was until recently the largest world faith, but it is that way no longer. With the advent of large-scale immigration, more and more different faith groups live in many more countries; the church finds itself becoming again, a small group in a pluralistic, multi-cultural and multi-faith society. So we struggle with what it means to be followers of Jesus, with integrity and with faith, in this multi-cultural, multi-faith society.
Although Thom Shuman’s story was intended to be a joke, there’s more than a little truth in it. What we want is the Disciple Model Church - just the right demographics, and people whose taste in preaching, music and justice issues will be completely compatible with ours. We want to see more people in church, we want to be welcoming, we want to offer innovative programming, we want new and different music, but without giving up the hymns or anything else we love. The list goes on - and it’s understandable. In a rapidly changing world, the church has been the one constant where we felt at home. So in our heads we recognise the need for change; in our hearts we have more difficulty doing it. We want it, and we’re afraid of it, all at the same time.
Change is a death of one way of being, and the birth of a new way of being. But death frightens us, and in daily life we have trouble with resurrection. So as we face change, we see only the death, instead of the multitude of possibilities for resurrection. The disciples faced the same - they had seen the death of Jesus, and the resurrection - yet were still worried about being “left alone”, orphaned, reduced to their own devices.
As I have worked with congregations, I find that faith in the future is the hardest thing for a congregation to develop. When I raise the role of faith - believing that the Spirit is at work, even if we cannot see the outcome - most people smile tolerantly. The minister is supposed to say that, but isn’t living in the real world. It’s hard for us, in this post-post-modern time, to think in terms of having faith.
The real question for the disciples is can they still love Jesus after he is gone - and the answer is probably not something they want to hear. John tells them they cannot love Jesus by clinging to a cherished memory, nor by retreating into their private experience, nor by trying to keep things the same as they were before. They can continue to love Jesus by emulating his example.
Author and preacher Fred Craddock tells about a lecture he gave on the US west coast speaking at a seminary. A student stood up and said, "Before you speak, I need to know if you are Pentecostal." The room grew silent. Craddock looked around for the Dean of the seminary, who was nowhere to be found. The student continued to ask. Craddock replied, "Do you mean do I belong to the Pentecostal Church?" The student said, "No, I mean are you Pentecostal?" Craddock said, "Are you asking me if I am charismatic?"The student said, "I am asking you if you are Pentecostal." Craddock said, "Do you want to know if I speak in tongues?" He said, " I want to know if you are Pentecostal." Craddock said, "I don't know what your question is." The student said, "Obviously, you are not Pentecostal." And he left.
Pentecost is based on the Greek word meaning ‘50 days’ - it was Shavuot - the Feast of Weeks - marking the end of Passover season. In Leviticus 23, upon entering the promised land, the Israelites were instructed to bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest, and from the day the sheaf is brought, count seven weeks. Pentecost was also the commemoration of God’s will revealed in the commandments which formed the basis of Torah, the Law. In the Jewish prayer book, it is zman matan torateinu, the “season of the giving of our Torah”. The Feast of Shavuot recognises that while the giving of Torah is commemorated, Torah must be received every day. The Jews understood that the Spirit of God was alive and active in the world Torah was given through the Spirit.
Christians have tended to see Pentecost as the "coming of the Holy Spirit”- a linear progression in which God came first, then Jesus, then the Holy Spirit. John gets himself into trouble - in my mind - by declaring that Jesus was around from the beginning of time, along with the other two. But even the most cursory reading of the Bible will reveal that the Holy Spirit was always present. The Spirit moved on the face of the water at creation; God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, used wind to part the sea. When the Israelites are giving Moses the headache of a lifetime, God instructs Moses to bring seventy elders, and the Spirit is poured out on them. So what we celebrate at Pentecost is the moment of new openness and receptivity to the same Spirit which was always present. The Spirit did not come to the disciples for the first time, it was revealed again, when they had lost the connection. This is a reading which is consistent with the Hebrew understanding of the Spirit.
While we say Pentecost is the birthday of the church, I think we need to be careful that we don’t try to make it more than it was, or more than it is. We cannot bind the Spirit to the Word, or to the sacraments and authority of the church. The church does not control the Spirit, nor can the church command its presence. The Spirit moves where and when it will - all our theology and regulation cannot contain the movement of the Spirit. The Spirit existed before the church, and continues to move in its own way, regardless of what the church does.
Jurgen Moltmann, the German theologian, says "The Holy Spirit is not simply the subjective side of God’s revelation...faith is not merely the echo of the Word of God in the human heart. The Holy Spirit is.... the power that raises to new life, the power of the new creation of all things..faith is the beginning of the rebirth of human beings. This means that the Holy Spirit .... has to do with life and its source. The Holy Spirit is called Holy because it sanctifies life and renews the face of the earth."
In the early Hebrew texts, the word for Spirit was ‘ruach’, breath or wind - the Greek ‘pneuma’ - where we get words like ‘pneumonia’. The Spirit of God was not a peaceful and quiet dove coming into violent and wild circumstances - the Spirit of God was what brought the violent and wild circumstances. In the early Celtic churches, the symbol of the Spirit was a wild goose - untamed, loud, raucous.
The power of wind and fire terrify - because they are wild. We talk about things spreading “like wildfire”. A flash of lightning starts a forest fire. Wind spreads the fire, and the fires can become so extensive they create their own winds which fan the flames further. Fire can hop from the top of one tree to another - or it can burrow underground and come up somewhere else.
Wildness is not a phrase that I would use for United churches: our Presbyterian side shows up when we worship; everything decent and in order. Worship services well-structured and familiar, so that no one is disturbed; and exactly one hour. A few minutes over and we’re checking our watches. We all have our places: the organist on the bench, preacher in the pulpit, congregation in the pews, and some in the same pew every week. So it really does make us uneasy to hear about the Spirit and change, because we have trouble even giving one hour a week to something which we *claim* is vitally important to our lives.
Yet, in our liturgies, we ask the Holy Spirit to come and ‘inspire’ us. The word ‘inspire’ means ‘breathe in’ - and if we want to be ‘inspired’ then we are asking for energy, wind, fire, the blood racing in our veins. To be inspired by the Spirit means to breath in wildness.
Spirit is a gift, enabling us to live differently. It involves affirmation and the exercise of the gifts of each person - it is the energies, the powers, the ‘charismata’. The disciples had not figured this one out. They sat around, generally doing little, for 50 days - a motley group of depressed and somewhat disoriented people. Finally, they decided to pray - and the Spirit inspired them - on a rush of wind and in flames which had them up and shouting - and all the many nationalities understood what they were saying, in their own language. Some people thought they were drunk - today we’d assume they were high on some drug. We certainly wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them, in any event. That kind of behaviour is certainly not United Church.
The story of a different Pentecost in the first century, and our stories in the 21st century, have grown apart. There was an urgency and intensity among the Pentecost crowd to gather for prayer. We have lost any urgency and intensity we might feel. We are happy to say the words “Come, Holy Spirit, inspire us.” - but we really don’t want it to happen.
Yet there is a truth we can’t avoid. The Spirit continues to blow where it will. It may blowing among us . . . out of control, out beyond liturgies that have settled in, out beyond our little packages of truth. It’s the blowing, the not being in control that scares us - and as soon as things begin to get different, we agitate to make them go back to the way we like. But if the church is going to live - and I mean really LIVE - then they have to open ourselves to the Spirit.
In Corinthians, Paul tells us that where the Spirit blows, there will emerge people that have extraordinary power to turn the world right side up. Imagine what would happen if we invited that kind of Spirit into our congregation each Sunday, and let that Spirit have free rein?
Sources:
1. Overcoming Pentecost or: What Do We Do When the Spirit Starts Messing with our Worship?
A sermon based on Acts 2:1-21 by Rev. Thomas Hall
2. The Advocate, 6th Sunday of Easter 2009 Rev. Fran Ota
3. Wind and Flame, Pentecost Sunday 2006 Rev. Fran Ota
4. Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit. New York: Harper & Rowe, 1977.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
“All for One” a sermon based on Acts 1:1-11, and Luke 24:44-53 Humber United Church June 5, 2011
Acts 1:1-11
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift God has promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Then they gathered around and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Luke 24:44-53
Jesus said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still here on earth: Everything that is written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he begna to teach them again, so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what God has promised; but stay in the city until you have received that power.” When he had led them to Bethany, he raised his hands and blessed them, and even while he was blessing, he was taken up into heaven.
John 17: 11 “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me honour. Now I am leaving the world; they are staying here. I am coming to you. God, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be one, just as we are one.
*****************************************************************************
There is a tradition in painting which shows the followers of Jesus gathered on a hilltop, necks craned backwards, peering up at a cloud where a pair of feet are just disappearing. It is enough to make us smile, of course - except that it is a quite legitimate attempt on the part of early artists to convey something which cannot be explained - and maybe doesn’t need to be. Maybe what happened is less important than what comes after.
Well, what do we do with today? It’s one of those really weird times in the church - a between-time, between Easter and Pentecost - it often gets neglected, for one reason because it falls on a Thursday in the church calendar - because of the note in Acts that Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after the resurrection. You’ve probably already noticed that 40 days is a figure which pops up often in the Bible - and it’s just ten days before the celebration of Pentecost, which marks 50 days after the Passover. I think it also gets neglected because frankly we really don’t know how to preach it. In terms of biblical writing, it’s a cosmic event - in this case, almost truly cosmic. Jesus was talking to his followers, and right in the middle, Luke says he went up through a cloud and out of sight. I think Luke probably had an insight that it was more important for the followers to look ahead to “what next”, than to look up, or look back.
The question is what one earth does it mean? For them, at that time - for us now? What’s the benefit of Jesus’ departure, leaving the disciples alone? I am sure the disciples were probably more confused than before. Jesus died - they saw it happen. Then, there they were talking with him again, and then he was gone again - and all he said was, someone else will come to be with you. I can see them all, standing there totally dumfounded, looking at each other and going “Yeah right!”
Luke is the only Gospel which tells this story. None of the others do. Now, one would think if it was that important, they would have noted it. Right at the beginning of the book, Luke says he is reporting what he has been told by others - so someone told him this story. Luke doesn’t exactly paint the followers in a great light. He carries the story on in Acts 1. Luke was reporting only what he had been told - and he was told that Jesus left on a cloud, riding up to heaven. And he was told that the followers just stood there, gawking and squinting to catch the last glimpse, the question which makes everyone squirm: "Why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky?"
Rev. Thomas Hall says “ascension is an interruption. A break in the action. It’s the half-time break in a football game, the intermission between the Brahms and Beethoven symphonies, the period between December 25th and January 1st, the summer interlude between 8th and 9th grade, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.” Essentially, Ascension is absence - painful, wrenching absence when we stand about wondering what next, gawking into an empty space.
But perhaps there is much more going on in this text. Luke may have wanted to answer the unvoiced question of the early Christians: Where is Jesus? Good question. Where is he? So Luke takes a stab at filling in the blank with this short account of Jesus’ departure. Unfortunately this has become a textbook answer to anyone since the early days who even wonders about where Jesus went.
Well, Luke wasn’t the only one either. An unknown writer in BCE 90 also wrote about this awkward time. Scholars call it "The Didache," but I like the original longer title: The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. The idea behind this early work was to suggest what Jesus taught the disciples during the 40 days between Easter and just prior to Ascension Day. Inquiring minds wanted to know what in the world Jesus could have taught his disciples during that hiatus.
Ascension Sunday is a time to think about the movement from presence and absence. That’s a frightening shift. When someone is present to us our space is filled, we not alone. We have conversations and sharing and communion. But whenever someone leaves us in a final way, there is a crisis.
Well, we fear absence - because it often means silence, a void - and we aren’t sure what will fill the void.....and I think that’s why John has Jesus saying “unify them, make them one.”
Jesus, the one who had walked with them, eaten with them, slept in the same room, crawled out cranky some mornings - patiently and sometimes not so patiently taught them about life - is really and truly gone - and just like us when faced with absence - we ask "What are we supposed to do now?”
Something deep down in us resists the move from presence to absence. When someone is present to us, our space is filled, we are not alone. There is conversation and communion. When someone leaves us, there is crisis. Absence means silence--lonely, gaping silence. Jesus said, in so many words - “This is goodbye.”
But wait a minute - where does the word “goodbye” comes from? It literally comes from the phrase “God be with you.” - and as time passed, it got squashed down into “goodbye”....
There’s an old Beatles song, “Goodbye, Hello” - in which the chorus goes “I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.”
Jesus left saying that there was a Spirit which would remain. Not a Spirit which would come, which had never been before. Remember, Jesus was a Jew - God and the Spirit were part of that belief. He reassured them that the Spirit never really left. Also, because God says “hello again” with the Spirit, it means that we can say goodbye. We can say goodbye to our attempts to live as if we never die, we can say goodbye to those we love, we can say goodbye to clinging to the past, to structures, to old ways of thinking and doing, and even to our comfort zones.
But there’s another piece to this story. Remember John has Jesus saying at the end “Make them one.” Well, there it is. They say goodbye, but then the next piece is that they have to go out - we have to go out - and start saying hello. Hello to a different life, hello to different places, hello to different people - and to say that hello in the confidence that there is a spirit which lives within us, around us - which gives us the strength to live, through the absences as well as the presences. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Bishop William Willimon, “Good-Bye,” Pulpit Digest (May/June 1991), page 19
2. “Goodbye, Hello”, by The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton May 24, 2009
3. “You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye”, a sermon by Rev. Frank Schaefer and Rev. Thomas Hall
In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift God has promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Then they gathered around and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Luke 24:44-53
Jesus said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still here on earth: Everything that is written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he begna to teach them again, so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what God has promised; but stay in the city until you have received that power.” When he had led them to Bethany, he raised his hands and blessed them, and even while he was blessing, he was taken up into heaven.
John 17: 11 “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me honour. Now I am leaving the world; they are staying here. I am coming to you. God, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be one, just as we are one.
*****************************************************************************
There is a tradition in painting which shows the followers of Jesus gathered on a hilltop, necks craned backwards, peering up at a cloud where a pair of feet are just disappearing. It is enough to make us smile, of course - except that it is a quite legitimate attempt on the part of early artists to convey something which cannot be explained - and maybe doesn’t need to be. Maybe what happened is less important than what comes after.
Well, what do we do with today? It’s one of those really weird times in the church - a between-time, between Easter and Pentecost - it often gets neglected, for one reason because it falls on a Thursday in the church calendar - because of the note in Acts that Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after the resurrection. You’ve probably already noticed that 40 days is a figure which pops up often in the Bible - and it’s just ten days before the celebration of Pentecost, which marks 50 days after the Passover. I think it also gets neglected because frankly we really don’t know how to preach it. In terms of biblical writing, it’s a cosmic event - in this case, almost truly cosmic. Jesus was talking to his followers, and right in the middle, Luke says he went up through a cloud and out of sight. I think Luke probably had an insight that it was more important for the followers to look ahead to “what next”, than to look up, or look back.
The question is what one earth does it mean? For them, at that time - for us now? What’s the benefit of Jesus’ departure, leaving the disciples alone? I am sure the disciples were probably more confused than before. Jesus died - they saw it happen. Then, there they were talking with him again, and then he was gone again - and all he said was, someone else will come to be with you. I can see them all, standing there totally dumfounded, looking at each other and going “Yeah right!”
Luke is the only Gospel which tells this story. None of the others do. Now, one would think if it was that important, they would have noted it. Right at the beginning of the book, Luke says he is reporting what he has been told by others - so someone told him this story. Luke doesn’t exactly paint the followers in a great light. He carries the story on in Acts 1. Luke was reporting only what he had been told - and he was told that Jesus left on a cloud, riding up to heaven. And he was told that the followers just stood there, gawking and squinting to catch the last glimpse, the question which makes everyone squirm: "Why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky?"
Rev. Thomas Hall says “ascension is an interruption. A break in the action. It’s the half-time break in a football game, the intermission between the Brahms and Beethoven symphonies, the period between December 25th and January 1st, the summer interlude between 8th and 9th grade, the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.” Essentially, Ascension is absence - painful, wrenching absence when we stand about wondering what next, gawking into an empty space.
But perhaps there is much more going on in this text. Luke may have wanted to answer the unvoiced question of the early Christians: Where is Jesus? Good question. Where is he? So Luke takes a stab at filling in the blank with this short account of Jesus’ departure. Unfortunately this has become a textbook answer to anyone since the early days who even wonders about where Jesus went.
Well, Luke wasn’t the only one either. An unknown writer in BCE 90 also wrote about this awkward time. Scholars call it "The Didache," but I like the original longer title: The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. The idea behind this early work was to suggest what Jesus taught the disciples during the 40 days between Easter and just prior to Ascension Day. Inquiring minds wanted to know what in the world Jesus could have taught his disciples during that hiatus.
Ascension Sunday is a time to think about the movement from presence and absence. That’s a frightening shift. When someone is present to us our space is filled, we not alone. We have conversations and sharing and communion. But whenever someone leaves us in a final way, there is a crisis.
Well, we fear absence - because it often means silence, a void - and we aren’t sure what will fill the void.....and I think that’s why John has Jesus saying “unify them, make them one.”
Jesus, the one who had walked with them, eaten with them, slept in the same room, crawled out cranky some mornings - patiently and sometimes not so patiently taught them about life - is really and truly gone - and just like us when faced with absence - we ask "What are we supposed to do now?”
Something deep down in us resists the move from presence to absence. When someone is present to us, our space is filled, we are not alone. There is conversation and communion. When someone leaves us, there is crisis. Absence means silence--lonely, gaping silence. Jesus said, in so many words - “This is goodbye.”
But wait a minute - where does the word “goodbye” comes from? It literally comes from the phrase “God be with you.” - and as time passed, it got squashed down into “goodbye”....
There’s an old Beatles song, “Goodbye, Hello” - in which the chorus goes “I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.”
Jesus left saying that there was a Spirit which would remain. Not a Spirit which would come, which had never been before. Remember, Jesus was a Jew - God and the Spirit were part of that belief. He reassured them that the Spirit never really left. Also, because God says “hello again” with the Spirit, it means that we can say goodbye. We can say goodbye to our attempts to live as if we never die, we can say goodbye to those we love, we can say goodbye to clinging to the past, to structures, to old ways of thinking and doing, and even to our comfort zones.
But there’s another piece to this story. Remember John has Jesus saying at the end “Make them one.” Well, there it is. They say goodbye, but then the next piece is that they have to go out - we have to go out - and start saying hello. Hello to a different life, hello to different places, hello to different people - and to say that hello in the confidence that there is a spirit which lives within us, around us - which gives us the strength to live, through the absences as well as the presences. May it be so.
Sources:
1. Bishop William Willimon, “Good-Bye,” Pulpit Digest (May/June 1991), page 19
2. “Goodbye, Hello”, by The Very Rev. Sherry Crompton May 24, 2009
3. “You Say Hello, I Say Goodbye”, a sermon by Rev. Frank Schaefer and Rev. Thomas Hall
Saturday, May 14, 2011
“Shepherd, Table and Church” A sermon based on Psalm 23 and John 10:1-10, 16 Humber United Church Corner Brook, NL , May 2011
Psalm 23
God is my shepherd; I have all that I need.
God lets me rest in green meadows and leads me beside peaceful streams.
My strength is renewed. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.
Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.
Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.
You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies.
You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.
Surely your goodness and love will go with me all the days of my life,
and I will live in God’s house always.
John 10:1-10
“I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! The one who enters through the gate is the shepherd. The gatekeeper opens the gate, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.” Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
“I have other sheep who are not of this flock.”
In the summer of 1994, I was sent to a small town in southern Alberta, for one of my two internships. My apartment was in a seniors complex, on the ground floor corner, and had windows on two sides of the living room, looking out over a lake surrounded by low hills and a few trees. Every morning, I would be out of bed, and sit in a rocking chair looking at the lake; the surface changed almost every hour it seemed; the colour was different depending on the sky. Some days it was wild in the winds, other days the surface was like glass. It was never the same blue, either. Some days it was a bright blue, others it was a steely grey, and yet other days looked like pearl. One particularly beautiful and sunny morning, as I sat with my coffee, the words of this psalm came into my head: “He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.”
A friend of mine in the US reflected on this Psalm, and here is the story she tells:
“There are times when I wish you could sit in the holiest of my holy grounds, the sanctuary. There are beautiful huge stained glass windows; my favorite is the smallest. It stands tall and slender, tucked in a corner, looking over the shoulders of those who come in and leave by a side door.
My father was abusive, and enjoyed quietly torturing me during worship services. It was painful emotionally and physically, and took all the inner strength a little girl could scrape up not to flinch or to move away from him. Each Sunday, after the service, while my parents were speaking with friends, I would curl up tightly in the corner of the pew and stare at this Good Shepherd holding a little lamb. The 5-year-old wanted so much to be that lamb, safe, secure, sought after, and beloved. Sunday after Sunday, I would look the way of the Good Shepherd and wish that the lamb in his arms was me.
My youth found me sitting in a pew with the Good Shepherd behind me. To be honest, I didn't want to be in church, so sitting with the Good Shepherd behind me seemed the best. You know how it is when someone is near you. You feel a presence, whether or not you see the person. That "feeling" causes you to turn, and search for that "presence". So, even with the Good Shepherd to my back, I turned and looked. He remained. I assumed that if I didn't look the Good Shepherd's way, he wouldn't notice me. I sat with the Good Shepherd behind me for a very long time. He heard my "bleating", saw me become tangled in the thorns of life, and this gentle Good Shepherd of my childhood was persistent. On the day that I gave my life to God, I was strangely pulled back to this sanctuary, alone, in the darkness brought by the rain that day. I sat in that pew, again curled up in the corner as tightly as a grown woman could. I looked, and saw the shepherd of my life; the shepherd who wept with me in my childhood, the shepherd who waited for me in the apathy of my youth, the shepherd whose feet were blistered, robes torn and hands bloodied as he looked for me, through the thorns and thickets, over the rocky roads, and holding onto a tree as he leaned forward to pull me back.”
One of my favourite parts of the Harry Potter movies, is the scenes at the beginning of each school year, where all the students and staff sit down to a feast together. The tables are more than loaded. What is significant to me, is that everyone – friend and enemy – sits down to the table together. Everyone is always welcome. It has echoes for me of the last meal Jesus shared with his friends – knowing someone was at the table who was not a friend, knowing it was Judas – yet the feast was given and everyone was welcomed, regardless of who they may be.
When we read the line “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”, I think we tend to believe that this is God taking sides. I don’t believe it is. I believe this Psalm talks completely about the very nature of God as a shepherd who - one way or the other – finds a way to look after all the sheep, making sure every is inclusive. Rather than being an *exclusive* statement of faith – it is a totally inclusive description of the realm of God and how God operates.
John’s Gospel, at first read, seems quite exclusive. But then we go on and read more in-depth – but it is a confusing message. Jesus says anyone who doesn't enter the sheepfold by the gate is a thief and a bandit. The reasonable way to enter any place would be to go to the gate, and enter openly, right? Then he says, the only one likely to enter a sheepfold is a shepherd; the gatekeeper opens the gate, the shepherd enters. This shepherd calls the sheep, and they know his voice and follow him out. They won’t ever follow a stranger; they do not know the voice of strangers. Then, we are told that Jesus used this figure of speech with his followers, but they didn’t understand what he was saying!
In Jesus’ time, a sheepfold was made of a wall of rocks. Briars were placed on top of the wall to prevent any wild animal, robber or thief to enter. The only way into the sheepfold was by the gate. The shepherd would have a legitimate reason, so he would go in, gather his sheep and lead them out. Jesus continues in a surprising way: "I am the gate for the sheep.”
...and he says something even more difficult...”I have other sheep who are not of this fold.”
Sheepholds....sometimes, there were temporary holds built for the sheep, in the wilderness, away from the larger village holds where many different shepherds might bring sheep for the night. The temporary sheep holds had no gate, just a narrow opening of a foot or two. To keep the sheep safe from predators, the shepherd lay down in the opening, guarding the sheep with his own body. Thus the shepherd was also the gate.
Jesus says thieves and bandits seek to enter into the sheep hold another way. These do not offer life, but carry spiritual death with them. Swindlers who want us to trust them with our hopes and dreams. Or those who claim the church of prosperity, the temple of fame, placing their trust in riches, notoriety, and getting ahead of others. They say everything we need to be happy is found by joining a sports team, or a club, or by endless entertainment. They want us to trust them to show us the way to happiness. There are those who preach from the pulpit that God’s wish for you and me is to be rich, that God has chosen us above others to amass all the wealth we can, or that God loves us, but hates our enemies!
These thieves and bandits try to draw us away from the sheep hold, and tempt us. They tell us that we must think of ourselves first; don't let anyone take advantage of you. Look after number one! They may even look or sound like the shepherd. But the shepherd's voice calls our name and tells us: “You shall love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself."
The gate is a two-way passage. It leads outward to a world where we can sit down to eat, in a world of God’s love, even with those who would waylay and harm. The gate offers us a way in to a place of sustenance and protection, and a way out to engage with confidence. We go in and out, confident, because with Jesus as the shepherd, we have nothing to fear. Even if we walk the dark paths of the shadow of death, God is with us. So we can't have abundant life if we remain locked inside the fold. Because then, we are in a prison of our own making.
So we come, full circle, back to the table. The shepherd who is willing to lie down across the opening into the sheepfold is also the one who prepares a feast where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are.
My friend Anna writes:
‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.’
It was when you asked me to help, O God, that I truly understood ... or at least understood
in the way that you asked me to understand.
You handed a chalice to me from the table you prepared and whispered, "For all." I gulped. "Oh God... really? For all?"
You whispered again, "Look into their eyes, offer to them what I have prepared. Some might be your enemies, but none are mine."
And so I stood, at the end of an aisle, with chalice in hand and wept at the thoughts
of my enemies welcomed in such a generous way. The table was not mine, the guest list certainly wasn't mine and the chalice never ran dry ... nor did the grace and mercy. Once again, I heard, "Do this in remembrance ...and remember, these are not my enemies."
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, and then you say "All sit ... together." And still the chalice never runs dry for those around the table - not even for me.
The way of Jesus unlocks the gate, making it a passage to a new way of living. The way of Jesus calls us to leave the safety of the sheep hold and risk; but then we have the confidence of the Psalmist; the shepherd leads us to quiet waters, green fields, restored souls, cared for, protected even as we are out in the real world. A nourishing table and a full cup are prepared for us, so that we are fed and strengthened. We are able to go with the confidence that there is nothing we lack. The shepherd is with us, at all times. May it be so.
Sources:
- “My Story” by Anna Murdock.
- “The Good Shepherd” – a sermon by Fran Ota, April 2008.
- “In the presence of my enemies”, reflection by Anna Murdock, May 14, 2011.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
“Recognition” A sermon based on Luke 24:13-35 Easter 3 2011 Humber United Church, Corner Brook, Newfoundland
That day two of the followers were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything. As they talked, Jesus came up and walked along with them; but they did not recognise him.
He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know what happened there in these last days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; we had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. What is more, it is the third day since this happened, and some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn’t find his body. They told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning the coming Messiah.
As they approached Emmaus, Jesus made as if to continue. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay overnight. When he was at the table, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and shared it with them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked on the road and spoke of the Scriptures to us?”
They returned at once to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and those with them, saying, “It is true! Jesus has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how they recognised Jesus when he broke the bread.
***********************************************************************
So there are two people walking slowly, back along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They have walked this road many times before - always with a spring in their step and always anticipating either the celebrations in Jerusalem, or the return to their own home and their own bed.
This time is different. They went to Jerusalem for the Passover celebrations, and how that turned out. They had never seen Jesus really angry before, but when he ripped into the religious leaders in the temple, for selling animals for sacrifice at an exorbitant price, changing Roman coins into temple money and making a profit, literally taking whatever they could from the poorest people, and doing it on holy ground - well, frankly they were frightened. He was really, really angry. No one got hurt, of course. The animals were let loose, the money changers were on their knees chasing every denarius, and the religious leaders were more than offended 9even if they knew Jesus was right.) And then, following the Passover meal, the sudden arrest, the secret trial - the collusion to ensure Jesus was crucified. The whole thing was more than they could bear; all they could think of to do was get out of the city and head back to Emmaus. So they are not in Jerusalem when Jesus appears to the followers, and they know nothing of the sightings or stories of the resurrection.
And their spirits are gone. They walk slowly, sadly, holding on to each other - tears coming up time and time again as they remember something about him, some word or phrase, some teaching - the way he held his head, or how he sat when he was tired. Now that he is gone, they see no hope any more. Life has gone out of them too, and they feel like empty shells.
A stranger picks up with them along the road, and notices their grief - and begins to talk. Soon they are into discussion about Scriptures, and he talks with the knowledge and understanding of a rabbi.Their hearts burn within them, he knows and understands. Yet they do not really see him
As they reach their home in Emmaus, dark falls. Everyone knows the roads are dangerous after dark, especially for someone alone, so they persuade him to stay for a meal and overnight. They sit down to the table, light the ceremonial candles - and then he takes the bread and with the familiar words of blessing and breaking, suddenly their eyes are opened, and they *know* him. They recognise him.
Imagine if it were you. That kind of emptiness, numbness in your soul? Can you imagine being so crushed by despair and weighed down by hopelessness that your mind, your heart, your eyes of faith are closed, and there’s no possible way you’d recognize Jesus, even if he joined you on your journey?
And then you’re joined by a stranger. Your faith is shattered, and your hope is destroyed, and you have no future, so you don’t recognize who it is who has joined you. The stranger begins talking. Incredibly, he has no idea, what you’ve experienced. All of Jerusalem knows, but the stranger seems clueless. So you tell him about your heartache, and your shattered hopes, and your empty future, all because a dearest companion has died. The stranger starts talking about the Hebrew Scriptures, the only scriptures you would have known. He invites you to remember the stories about God– the suffering of people like Moses, and the prophets, and the mysterious suffering servant of Isaiah. “Hasn’t God brought victory and redemption through that suffering?” the stranger asks. “Couldn’t God do that again?”
There are all kinds of speculations about who this couple might have been. One we know was named Cleopas, but the other is a mystery. Some assume the second person was the wife of Cleopas, which would make sense. The unidentified traveller could also have been the son of Cleopas. The Church historian, Eusebius, tells us that Cleopas had a son named Simeon, also an eyewitness of Jesus. After James, the brother of Jesus was martyred, Simeon was elected the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. But here is a quote which I like, from a very old historian,
Epiphanius, the Bishop of Salamis, who wrote around the year 403:
"The learned cannot come to any agreement who the other disciple was. I will give you this counsel: Let each of you take his place. You are the unidentified traveller on the Road to Emmaus.”
You are the unidentified traveller with Cleopas. You are walking the road to Emmaus. In all of your *life*, you are walking the road to Emmaus, and Jesus walks with you. Did you know that the word companion comes from two Latin words “con” and “pan”, meaning *with bread*. A companion is someone with whom we will break and eat bread. So, a stranger sitting down to a table and engaging in the Hebrew ritual of bread-breaking is not by itself unusual - but the recognition of that stranger as the bread is broken is of total significance to Christian faith.
A companion is someone on the road with whom you will eat bread.
In the TV series “M*A*S*H,” Major Charles Winchester hid behind a snobbish and aloof shell in an effort to ward off the pain, emptiness, suffering and death that haunt him every day amid the horror of war. In despair at one point, Winchester leaves the operating room and goes to visit the wounded as they’re first brought to the unit for triage. He is called to the bedside of a dying soldier. The soldier says, “I can’t see anything. Hold my hand.” Winchester replies, “I am.” “I’m dying,” the soldier moans, and Winchester asks, “Can you see anything? Feel anything? I have to know.” The dying soldier simply says, “I smell bread.”[1] To the soldier, he is going home, where there is warmth and comfort, and the aroma of fresh bread in the oven.
Jesus gives us bread. And when he does, we are home. Companions, walking together, giving each other strength and courage, breaking bread at the table, and in that breaking, reminding each other that as Jesus joins us on the road, and comes into our home, our tables become the table of God, and Jesus becomes our host.
“Walking together”–did you know that’s the literal translation of one of those odd Greek words the church uses: “synod”. Walking together with. The late French philosopher Albert Camus, said this:
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.[2]
This inscription is found on the Plaque of The Church of the Manifestation at Emmaus:
Emmaus: The morning dawns.
Emmaus: All cares are banished.
Emmaus: Our hearts burn within us.
Emmaus: Our sorrows have vanished.
Emmaus: Jesus is here to break bread with us.
Rev. Frank Schaefer wrote this lovely prayer for the Emmaus Road:
Meet us, Lord, on the road to Emmaus, guide us on the path toward our destination,
and renew our strength as we continue to walk and commune with you.
Open our eyes, so we see the signs of your presence around us; open our hearts, so we may receive your peace and love; and empower us to pass on to others the grace you have shared with us so freely. Amen.
Walk beside me, be my companion on the way, break and share bread with me, and together we are nourished and strengthened. We no longer grieve, but celebrate new life. We are companions on the Way, with Jesus. Together, with bread.
(Sing “Stay with Us”)
Sources:
1. Sermon “We Are The Church—Walking Together!” Psalm 116:12-19, Luke 24:13-35 by Rev. Richard Thompson
[1].Brett Blair, ed., Sermon Illustrations for April 6, 2008, adapted from George Bass,
The Tree, the Tomb and the Trumpet: Sermons for Lent and Easter, CSS Publishing.
[2].Quoted in Brett Blair, ed., Sermon Illustrations for April 6, 2008.
2. Together with Bread, Sermon by Fran Ota, Easter 3 2005, Luke 24:13-35. Then at Trinity United Church, Newmarket, ON.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphanius_of_Salamis
4. http://www.westegg.com/etymology/#companion
5. “Stay with Us”, by Very Rev. Walter Farquharson (words) and Ron Klusmeier (music). C. 1986.
6. Emmaus Road Prayer, by Rev. Frank Schaefer Easter 2011.
He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know what happened there in these last days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; we had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. What is more, it is the third day since this happened, and some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn’t find his body. They told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning the coming Messiah.
As they approached Emmaus, Jesus made as if to continue. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay overnight. When he was at the table, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and shared it with them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked on the road and spoke of the Scriptures to us?”
They returned at once to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and those with them, saying, “It is true! Jesus has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how they recognised Jesus when he broke the bread.
***********************************************************************
So there are two people walking slowly, back along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They have walked this road many times before - always with a spring in their step and always anticipating either the celebrations in Jerusalem, or the return to their own home and their own bed.
This time is different. They went to Jerusalem for the Passover celebrations, and how that turned out. They had never seen Jesus really angry before, but when he ripped into the religious leaders in the temple, for selling animals for sacrifice at an exorbitant price, changing Roman coins into temple money and making a profit, literally taking whatever they could from the poorest people, and doing it on holy ground - well, frankly they were frightened. He was really, really angry. No one got hurt, of course. The animals were let loose, the money changers were on their knees chasing every denarius, and the religious leaders were more than offended 9even if they knew Jesus was right.) And then, following the Passover meal, the sudden arrest, the secret trial - the collusion to ensure Jesus was crucified. The whole thing was more than they could bear; all they could think of to do was get out of the city and head back to Emmaus. So they are not in Jerusalem when Jesus appears to the followers, and they know nothing of the sightings or stories of the resurrection.
And their spirits are gone. They walk slowly, sadly, holding on to each other - tears coming up time and time again as they remember something about him, some word or phrase, some teaching - the way he held his head, or how he sat when he was tired. Now that he is gone, they see no hope any more. Life has gone out of them too, and they feel like empty shells.
A stranger picks up with them along the road, and notices their grief - and begins to talk. Soon they are into discussion about Scriptures, and he talks with the knowledge and understanding of a rabbi.Their hearts burn within them, he knows and understands. Yet they do not really see him
As they reach their home in Emmaus, dark falls. Everyone knows the roads are dangerous after dark, especially for someone alone, so they persuade him to stay for a meal and overnight. They sit down to the table, light the ceremonial candles - and then he takes the bread and with the familiar words of blessing and breaking, suddenly their eyes are opened, and they *know* him. They recognise him.
Imagine if it were you. That kind of emptiness, numbness in your soul? Can you imagine being so crushed by despair and weighed down by hopelessness that your mind, your heart, your eyes of faith are closed, and there’s no possible way you’d recognize Jesus, even if he joined you on your journey?
And then you’re joined by a stranger. Your faith is shattered, and your hope is destroyed, and you have no future, so you don’t recognize who it is who has joined you. The stranger begins talking. Incredibly, he has no idea, what you’ve experienced. All of Jerusalem knows, but the stranger seems clueless. So you tell him about your heartache, and your shattered hopes, and your empty future, all because a dearest companion has died. The stranger starts talking about the Hebrew Scriptures, the only scriptures you would have known. He invites you to remember the stories about God– the suffering of people like Moses, and the prophets, and the mysterious suffering servant of Isaiah. “Hasn’t God brought victory and redemption through that suffering?” the stranger asks. “Couldn’t God do that again?”
There are all kinds of speculations about who this couple might have been. One we know was named Cleopas, but the other is a mystery. Some assume the second person was the wife of Cleopas, which would make sense. The unidentified traveller could also have been the son of Cleopas. The Church historian, Eusebius, tells us that Cleopas had a son named Simeon, also an eyewitness of Jesus. After James, the brother of Jesus was martyred, Simeon was elected the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. But here is a quote which I like, from a very old historian,
Epiphanius, the Bishop of Salamis, who wrote around the year 403:
"The learned cannot come to any agreement who the other disciple was. I will give you this counsel: Let each of you take his place. You are the unidentified traveller on the Road to Emmaus.”
You are the unidentified traveller with Cleopas. You are walking the road to Emmaus. In all of your *life*, you are walking the road to Emmaus, and Jesus walks with you. Did you know that the word companion comes from two Latin words “con” and “pan”, meaning *with bread*. A companion is someone with whom we will break and eat bread. So, a stranger sitting down to a table and engaging in the Hebrew ritual of bread-breaking is not by itself unusual - but the recognition of that stranger as the bread is broken is of total significance to Christian faith.
A companion is someone on the road with whom you will eat bread.
In the TV series “M*A*S*H,” Major Charles Winchester hid behind a snobbish and aloof shell in an effort to ward off the pain, emptiness, suffering and death that haunt him every day amid the horror of war. In despair at one point, Winchester leaves the operating room and goes to visit the wounded as they’re first brought to the unit for triage. He is called to the bedside of a dying soldier. The soldier says, “I can’t see anything. Hold my hand.” Winchester replies, “I am.” “I’m dying,” the soldier moans, and Winchester asks, “Can you see anything? Feel anything? I have to know.” The dying soldier simply says, “I smell bread.”[1] To the soldier, he is going home, where there is warmth and comfort, and the aroma of fresh bread in the oven.
Jesus gives us bread. And when he does, we are home. Companions, walking together, giving each other strength and courage, breaking bread at the table, and in that breaking, reminding each other that as Jesus joins us on the road, and comes into our home, our tables become the table of God, and Jesus becomes our host.
“Walking together”–did you know that’s the literal translation of one of those odd Greek words the church uses: “synod”. Walking together with. The late French philosopher Albert Camus, said this:
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.
Walk beside me and be my friend.[2]
This inscription is found on the Plaque of The Church of the Manifestation at Emmaus:
Emmaus: The morning dawns.
Emmaus: All cares are banished.
Emmaus: Our hearts burn within us.
Emmaus: Our sorrows have vanished.
Emmaus: Jesus is here to break bread with us.
Rev. Frank Schaefer wrote this lovely prayer for the Emmaus Road:
Meet us, Lord, on the road to Emmaus, guide us on the path toward our destination,
and renew our strength as we continue to walk and commune with you.
Open our eyes, so we see the signs of your presence around us; open our hearts, so we may receive your peace and love; and empower us to pass on to others the grace you have shared with us so freely. Amen.
Walk beside me, be my companion on the way, break and share bread with me, and together we are nourished and strengthened. We no longer grieve, but celebrate new life. We are companions on the Way, with Jesus. Together, with bread.
(Sing “Stay with Us”)
Sources:
1. Sermon “We Are The Church—Walking Together!” Psalm 116:12-19, Luke 24:13-35 by Rev. Richard Thompson
[1].Brett Blair, ed., Sermon Illustrations for April 6, 2008, adapted from George Bass,
The Tree, the Tomb and the Trumpet: Sermons for Lent and Easter, CSS Publishing.
[2].Quoted in Brett Blair, ed., Sermon Illustrations for April 6, 2008.
2. Together with Bread, Sermon by Fran Ota, Easter 3 2005, Luke 24:13-35. Then at Trinity United Church, Newmarket, ON.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphanius_of_Salamis
4. http://www.westegg.com/etymology/#companion
5. “Stay with Us”, by Very Rev. Walter Farquharson (words) and Ron Klusmeier (music). C. 1986.
6. Emmaus Road Prayer, by Rev. Frank Schaefer Easter 2011.
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