A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009. Given at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, WV and based on Zechariah 14:4-9:
On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. 5 And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
6 On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. 7 And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
Times aren't what they used to be...
Two clay tablets dating back to 2800 BC were recently unearthed at Babylon in an archaeological dig. They both commented on the trends of the day. One read: 'Times are not what they used to be". The other tablet reflected a major concern of the people of the time. Their complaint: "The world must be coming to an end. Children no longer obey their parents and every man wants to write a book."
Concern about the end of the world - Eschatology - seems to be an enduring topic of speculation. This past Wednesday evening, some of us were chatting about the movie 2012 - in which the Mayan calendar abruptly ends, bringing with it world-wide cataclysm - much to the delight of the movie's special effects people.
Other recent movies ranging from Independence Day to the Transformers to Wall-E treat this fascination in their own ways - all of them dystopic - the opposite of Utopic.
People just seem love to predict the End of everything. In 960 AD, Bernard, a visionary in the former German state of Thuringia, announced that the world would end on Good Friday in 992AD. It didn't.
Nor did the end time arrive as Mary Bateman of Leeds, England, said it
would. In 1806, Bateman claimed that her hen was laying eggs inscribed
with the words, "Christ is coming". When Bateman began selling
"tickets" to heaven for a shilling each, she was arrested, convicted
and hanged! (Think about that - some people actually bought a ticket!)
The world did not end - though it did for Mary.
The world didn't end all the times that the Jehovah's witness newspaper The Watchtower predicted it would.
And it didn't end in the 1970's when Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth created quite a stir, or in the 1980's when newspapers worldwide announced that Lord Maitrayea had arrived and would shortly usher in the End.
We are fascinated with the End. I think it may be in part that the Human Race remembers that we were created pure and whole, knows that we have made a hideous mess of things, and realizes that we will surely be judged accordingly.
Of course, for the last 2,000 years the words of Christ have echoed in our ears: “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." (Luke 21: 25-27)
Even the most complacent among us are given pause by such statements.
As a prophet, Jesus stood as one in a long line who spoke of the end of all things. Today we are reading about Zechariah's prophecy of the End, some 500 years before Christ. Zechariah was given a series of dreams and visions on three very specific dates. In our calendar they are: October/November 520 b.c, February 15, 519 and December 7, 518, during the time of King Darius of Persia. Darius' predecessor, Cyrus had allowed the exiles of Israel to return to their land and begin the rebuilding of the temple under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. But the Samaritans had objected to the work and there was a 14 year pause in building.
During that time, the people became discouraged and decided that building the temple was just not part of God's plan. Zechariah and his contemporary, Haggai, stirred up the people through their prophecies and the work was finally finished in 516 BC. Thematically, Zechariah's prophecies address the restoration of the Temple, the spiritual life of Israel at the time, but also the future events leading up to Messiah's return and reign - a vision of the End that places Christ on the throne.
For at least 2500 years then, this prophecy of the End of all things has been reverberating in the Judeo-Christian consciousness. It's obviously very different from the Mayan version of the End. But also very different from contemporary versions of the End, in which Global Warming or Cooling overwhelm the world - or in which a meteor crashes into the Earth, destroying everything.
Our understanding of the outcome of all things is very different from the world's various visions. And because of it, we live differently and have a different Hope for our lives. Just like the early Christians, we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord of our Lives and of the World. When we say "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his Kingdom will have no end"... we really mean it. We really believe that Jesus Christ will come to earth and reign.
In regard to Zechariah 14:4 and following, the Wycliffe Bible Commentary
says: "Words cannot express more plainly the personal, visible, bodily, literal return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power."
Zechariah said it this way:
"Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him." (v.5)
Yet, right before he comes in glory to set up His kingdom, there will be yet another sack of Jerusalem. The nations that hate Israel will be drawn by their hatred to the city for one last attempt to annihilate it. And apparently they will almost succeed. In vv. 1-3 of chapter 14, Zechariah tells of the city being taken, the spoil divided and the women violated. But at that very moment, "the Lord will go forth." The Mount of Olives will be split in two, allowing the people to flee. Messiah will then stand on the Mount with his saints and decisively defeat all the enemies.
At that time, there will be unusual phenomena. Verses 6 & 7: "On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
John Calvin translated verse 7 this way: "The light shall not be clear, but dark" (literally, "condensation," that is, thick mist); like a dark day in which you can hardly distinguish between day and night. English Version renders it: "There shall not be altogether light nor altogether darkness," but an intermediate condition in which sorrows shall be mingled with joys. (Wycliffe Bible Commentary).
Going on in verse 8: "On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one."What we are talking about of course is known as the Millennium - the 1000 year reign of Christ on earth. Although some try to deny that there will be a millennium and some say that we are currently in the millennium, passages such as Zechariah's cannot be explained away and really do point to a literal time of Christ reigning with his saints here on earth.
Please note that this period of time is NOT the "Blessed Hope" - that is our Resurrection at the very end of all things. The Millennium is a time when Christ will do what many people say they wish He would do: make things so that there will be no rebellion and that all the world will obey Him.
Because Satan will be bound (Rev.20:2) during this time, there will be no Adversary around to tempt people to rebellion, but note what Psalms 2 and 110 say about this time:
Psalm 2:7 I will tell of the decree:The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;today I have begotten you.8Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,and the ends of the earth your possession.9 You shall break them with a rod of ironand dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.”
Psalm 110:
The Lord says to my Lord:“Sit at my right hand,until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies
He will Rule with a Rod of Iron. That means that there will still be unbelievers present during the Millennium, but they will not be allowed to stir up trouble. Human society will be perfectly ordered here on earth as it is in Heaven -with Jesus being manifestly present.
Yet ultimately, this arrangement will not be adequate, because of the aspect of force involved - the mingling of joys and sorrows. God desires to dwell with his people in a loving relationship, not a coercive one. So to consummate everything, Satan will be released to rebel one final time. And one final time there will be a battle to end all battles.
God will decisively win this battle and the very End will come. All things will be burned up and the new Heaven and the new earth will come down out of Heaven. Believers will enter into the joy of their master and the Devil and all who follow him will be cast into the lake of fire - the second death. Thus will all things be summed up.
Eschatological Counterfeits
As you can imagine, the final state of things for the Devil is less than desirable. Although he knows his end is fixed he is fighting to the bitter end to take as many of us humans with him as possible. To that end, he counterfeits God's plan; he imitates what the Lord will do, and tries to make it seem as if the peaceable kingdom can be established here on earth by natural means.
Thus we have seen numerous attempts over the last 100 years to bring in such a millennial kingdom: The League of Nations under Woodrow Wilson, The Eugenics Movement of the 1920s and beyond, Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, the establishment of the United Nations, the worldwide Communist movement, and most recently Eco-fascism: the attempt to bring all nations together under the banner of Climate Change in order to create some sort of Worldwide governing body which can finally right the inequalities brought on by capitalism and Christianity - those 'rapacious' forces which have created poverty for millions and the destruction of the natural environment - or that's how the critique goes anyway.
It's all an attempt to create a counterfeit Kingdom - a unified world community that will finally 'do the right thing' by the poor, minorities and the environment; an attempt to atone for the crimes of the past via economic sanctions and create a secular shining city set on a hill - a return to Babel, a restoration of the Garden of Eden. It's a millennial kingdom without the King - Jesus.
As Christians, we know that attempt will ultimately fail. It must, because it is not based on the Lordship of the King of Kings. As Christians, we are resident aliens, citizens of a heavenly country, who will bow to no one but Christ. At some point that might put us in hot water with the secular authorities. If past history is any indication, some of us might even be required to die for our faith. At the minimum, we can expect things to heat up before Christ returns. According to Zechariah, we can expect the nations to gang up on Israel in an attempt to destroy her.
In the meantime, we are waiting for the Return of the King. We long for his return - and while we long for him, we prepare our hearts to receive him. As John Paul II said: To prepare our hearts to welcome the Lord...we must learn to recognize his presence in the events of daily life. Advent then is a period of intense training that directs us decisively to the One who has already come, who will come and who continuously comes".
Practicing His Presence in our midst means loving one another as Christians - who after all, carry the Spirit of God within them. It means doing good to all, but especially to the household of faith (Gal. 6:10). It means that we actively seek the welfare of our city (Jer. 29:7) - because in doing so we find our own welfare as well, and we in so doing, we extend the love of Christ to our community.
Practicing the Presence means voluntarily limiting our consumption of goods and giving to the poor -- because it is in the poor that Christ is especially seen and honored (cf. RB and Mother Teresa).
Practicing the Presence of Christ means respecting the Earth as God's creation and ourselves as His stewards. We don't worship the earth as our Mother, but we do honor her has our sister. Ps 24 says The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. ...The Lord is present everywhere and his creation speaks to us night and day if we will but listen to it (Ps. 19). Saving the planet is not the 'Sumum bonum - the highest of all goods - but it is a matter of stewardship and we would do well to consider how best to take care of God's Creation.
Finally, as Christians, we Worship. We celebrate and give thanks for His presence in our midst now and we look forward to Christ's return. We worship the One who will come again in glory - not anyone or anything else. We proclaim our allegiance to the High King of Heaven every time we come to church, witnessing to our confident belief in the One who Rules in our hearts. Thus, we worship as a subversive political act, an act which says emphatically that we will accept no earthly substitutes - ever - even in the face of death.
And just as Jesus was taken, broken and given for us, so we offer ourselves to Jesus, to be taken, broken and given to the world all the while longing for the second advent of our Lord.
Augustine said, " Give me one who yearns;...give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man; he knows what I mean."
May we be people who know our End and who actively yearn for its revealing in Christ. AMEN.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Stars
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on November 15, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV, and based on Daniel 12:1-4
The Time of the End:
12:1 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.
2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Several weeks ago, we used the metaphor of a sponge to describe the condition of some soggy Christians, who, like a sponge, Sit Soak and Sour.
In a subsequent sermon, Fr. Mark modified this to describe real, active Christians, who:
Sit, Soak and SERVE
Today, we have two more S’s to add to our list.
The fourth S comes from our reading from Hebrews (10:32) today:
"But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,"
How does this suffering occur? By “ sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.” And by “joyfully accept[ing] the plundering of your property,” (vv.33,34).
We have quoted before the verse: All who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer – the ESV says ‘will be persecuted’ (2Tim. 3:12). The difficulty comes because (vs.1,2) in the last days … people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
They will not endure sound teaching, “but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2Tim 4:3,4).
Paul exhorts Timothy not to be discouraged by this, but rather to “be sober-minded, [to] endure suffering, [to] do the work of an evangelist, [and thus, to] fulfill [his] ministry.
Paul knew what he was talking about. Almost every time he opened his mouth to share the Gospel, somebody would throw rocks at him, beat him with rods, or start a riot. He knew that the World, the Flesh and The Devil would war against him and his message, and that it would be a fight to the death.
Going on in 2 Tim chapter 4, Paul says that he is ‘already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of [his] departure has come. He proclaims with confidence: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.’ (v.7) And he is looking forward to his reward: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. “(v.8).
Referencing our reading from Hebrews again:
Paul has endured the suffering, done the will of God, and is looking ahead to receiving what is promised (Heb. 10:35), namely, the crown of Righteousness.
But there is something else promised to him – and us - that comes from our Daniel reading.
Because he has ‘turned many to righteousness’ and because he is wise, he will shine like the brightness of the sky above…like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3).
Think of it! To shine like the stars forever and ever! How wonderful and amazing!
In medieval times, a legend developed that "falling stars' actually fell to earth and became human. This legend is reflected in the movie, Stardust – in which a shooting star falls to earth and becomes a beautiful blond-haired woman, who shines when she is happy, and whose essence can confer renewed youth. CS Lewis also uses the star legend in his Chronicles of Narnia series. The adventuresome party who takes a Voyage on the ship Dawn Treader finds themselves on the “Island of the World's End.” There, the ancient ‘Ramandu’, and his daughter live on this Island where Aslan's Stone Table is preserved until the end.
When the crew of the Dawn Treader expresses consternation over why Ramandu seems to shine, he tells them:
"I am a star at rest...When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fireberry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fireberry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again... and once more tread the great dance. Pg. 180
This is a picturesque treatment of our theme, but I think it does evoke some of the wonder of ‘shining like a star forever’. A little later in Ramandu’s narrative he tells the crew of the ship what they must do in order to un-enchant their mates, who have been put into a deep sleep. They will face great danger, but there is also the promise of Glory:
“Every man that comes with us shall bequeath the title ‘Dawn Treader’ to all his descendants - and when we land at Cair Paravel on the homeward voyage he shall have either gold or land enough to make him rich all his life” ( Pg. 185).
There is suffering ahead, but also the opportunity to Shine forever. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul echoes this heavenly theme, tying it to the Resurrection:
"The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable." (1 Corinthians 15:41-42 NIV)
Now recall Daniel 12:2, 3:
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
In the Resurrection, Shining like the stars forever and ever is the reward for being wise and turning many to righteousness. Even, better, by ‘holding fast to the word of life’ and acting faithfully, the children of God ‘shine like stars in the universe’ now. They (we) become “Luminaries of the Cosmos” (Philippians 2:15, 16). Paul tells the Philippians to hold on “so that in the day of Christ – the Resurrection - [he] may be proud that [he] did not run in vain or labor in vain. He is willing ‘to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of [their] faith (v.17) because of the reward he anticipates when Christ appears.
Now, like Paul, I am eager that every one of us Saints in All Saints Anglican Church should shine ‘like a luminaries of the Cosmos’ – both now and in the Resurrection. How is this to happen? By being faithful in our Christian walk and by ‘turning many to righteousness.”
And how are we to turn many to righteousness? Is it not through helping people to know and love Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? – Through fulfilling the Great Commission – through making disciples of all nations?
Yes it is! Isn’t that Great?! …
Yes – with the small little caveat that most of us Christians don’t know any non-believers.
It’s not that we may not know of some…It’s that we don’t know them well – spend time with them – or go where they go. And that’s generally because the longer we are Christians, the more likely it is that we hang out with other Christians - either because of our personal preference for like-minded, comfortable people like us – or because we are afraid of the influence of Worldlings – (which is not an unreasonable fear.)
We want to be ‘innocent and blameless’ like Paul says, but by segregating ourselves from the world, we don’t ‘turn many to righteousness.’ (God forbid that we don't do this because WE are Worldlings!)
We must have both if we are to receive the reward that Scripture promises. Just being innocent of evil is not enough to cause us to ‘shine like stars forever’. Our righteousness must result in service to the physical and spiritual needs of those in the world who are perishing – so that they may be ‘turned to righteousness”! Remember the third S in our series: ‘SERVE”?
And here, please understand that we’re not interested in a merely selfish reward – but we are striving for the pleasure of God – for knowing the joy of participating with Him in His redemptive purpose in this world – to bring many to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, to create a People for Himself, and to enjoy that People forever.
This is the GREAT DANCE that Ramandu was talking about: Bringing all things and people into the joy of knowing and serving God.
And this is where we have got to be willing to consider suffering for the Gospel.
In the United States of America, in 2009, so far, we still have great freedom to talk about our Faith. It’s true that there are some limitations: There are some circumstances in which we cannot speak openly. In the future there may be more. But for right now, the biggest threats we face are Inconvenience and Embarrassment.
It’s just too darn much trouble to go out there and spend time with the un-churched. We prefer to have cozy fellowship with each other, to study something nice – and then go home and live as if none of it matters!
Friends, unless they suddenly started going to First Baptist or Christ Temple last week and we don’t know about it, there are still 75,000 people at home this morning in Cabell County alone!
If we are going to be the Body of Christ, if we are really going to fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime, - even if we just want our little church to grow, this is UNACCEPTABLE!
We MUST devout ourselves to reaching the lost! Each of us personally MUST do this!
Why? Because each of us will be personally held responsible by the God of Heaven for this!
And because we have something Wonderful to offer! Jesus! Life with God! Eternal Life beginning RIGHT NOW! Resurrection Life! Peace Freedom!
If we’re not willing to suffer a little discomfort or embarrassment for the sake of Christ and our perishing neighbors can we really call ourselves faithful? Can we really expect to Shine Like Stars forever when our efforts here on Earth for Christ are lackluster?
We have simply got to devote more time to personally reaching out to those around us!
We must find ways of developing enough trust with the ‘church-free’ people out there so that they are willing to hear our story and become inspired to want a relationship with God for themselves. This is our job as Christians: to make disciples - to turn many to righteousness!
That is why I feel an urgent and pressing need to focus our attention during Advent on this very thing. While we are meeting together for fellowship and devotions leading up to Christmas, I challenge us to think of ways that we will begin personal outreach to our neighbors – those in our ‘oikos’ or circle of acquaintances.
This includes those who are already Christians but for some reason have no church, those who are completely lost and have never made Christ Lord of their lives - and perhaps harder, those who are 'Church-Free', disillusioned or fed up with 'Churchianity'. Each one of these groups is ripe for discipleship.
I will warn you that this project will require your time. In a culture like ours, busy and hurried by many pressures and demands on our time, it may actually feel like suffering to give up some of your time for the sake of reaching the lost. But we MUST do it! Reaching out to your neighbors will require getting out of your regular routine and patterns so that you can meet and get to know new people.
Friday a week ago, several of us were picking up trash around the Hope House block. While we were chatting among ourselves, a young woman came up and spontaneously engaged us in conversation. She saw what we were doing and connected with us because she had done something similar in her previous town before moving to Huntington two months prior.
She was very pleasant and talkative and volunteered her email and phone number. So we invited her to come over to Hope House during our work day to see what we are doing there.
Had we not gone out of our way to do something that put us out there beyond our regular routine and comfort zone, we would never have met her. Now, we have the opportunity to begin to know her - and possibly help her to foster a relationship with God. And we'll have to continue to go out of our way to follow-up and try to stay connected.
Of course, this is just an example. There are certainly an almost infinite number of ways to meet and engage the people around you. The point is to do it! In the words of Todd Hunter, newly ordained AMIA missionary Bishop, to become a 'Church for Others".
I am personally committed to helping you in whatever way I can to accomplish this mission. I know that Father Mark and Father Peter are as well. If you need help in writing out your testimony, or need some knowledge you don't have, or you would like to have home Eucharists with your neighbors who don’t go to church - or you want to have an outreach prayer group or bible study – you say the word and we'll do whatever we can to help you make it happen. We cannot do it for you, but we can do it with you!
I think if we are really going to reach out we must multiply the impact of our small groups. For the past three years we have met and talked and studied and fellowshipped together,building up one another and learning more about our Faith. But just as the believers in Jerusalem were forcibly thrust out of the city during the siege of Jerusalem in 69,70 AD so we too may need to be thrust out of our comfortable little groups in order to accomplish our mission.
During the upcoming Advent season, I ask you to seriously think about and pray about taking the season between Christmas and Lent to 'do something different' for the Lord. To fore go your small group meetings in order to devote more time to developing your own unique outreach to your neighbors.
Let's listen to what the Lord would have for us, making ourselves available to him, offering yourself to Jesus as an instrument of his love so that we may be wise and turn many to righteousness and so shine like Stars forever and ever!
May God help us and give us the Grace we need! AMEN.
The Time of the End:
12:1 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.
2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Several weeks ago, we used the metaphor of a sponge to describe the condition of some soggy Christians, who, like a sponge, Sit Soak and Sour.
In a subsequent sermon, Fr. Mark modified this to describe real, active Christians, who:
Sit, Soak and SERVE
Today, we have two more S’s to add to our list.
The fourth S comes from our reading from Hebrews (10:32) today:
"But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings,"
How does this suffering occur? By “ sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.” And by “joyfully accept[ing] the plundering of your property,” (vv.33,34).
We have quoted before the verse: All who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer – the ESV says ‘will be persecuted’ (2Tim. 3:12). The difficulty comes because (vs.1,2) in the last days … people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.
They will not endure sound teaching, “but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2Tim 4:3,4).
Paul exhorts Timothy not to be discouraged by this, but rather to “be sober-minded, [to] endure suffering, [to] do the work of an evangelist, [and thus, to] fulfill [his] ministry.
Paul knew what he was talking about. Almost every time he opened his mouth to share the Gospel, somebody would throw rocks at him, beat him with rods, or start a riot. He knew that the World, the Flesh and The Devil would war against him and his message, and that it would be a fight to the death.
Going on in 2 Tim chapter 4, Paul says that he is ‘already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of [his] departure has come. He proclaims with confidence: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.’ (v.7) And he is looking forward to his reward: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. “(v.8).
Referencing our reading from Hebrews again:
Paul has endured the suffering, done the will of God, and is looking ahead to receiving what is promised (Heb. 10:35), namely, the crown of Righteousness.
But there is something else promised to him – and us - that comes from our Daniel reading.
Because he has ‘turned many to righteousness’ and because he is wise, he will shine like the brightness of the sky above…like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3).
Think of it! To shine like the stars forever and ever! How wonderful and amazing!
In medieval times, a legend developed that "falling stars' actually fell to earth and became human. This legend is reflected in the movie, Stardust – in which a shooting star falls to earth and becomes a beautiful blond-haired woman, who shines when she is happy, and whose essence can confer renewed youth. CS Lewis also uses the star legend in his Chronicles of Narnia series. The adventuresome party who takes a Voyage on the ship Dawn Treader finds themselves on the “Island of the World's End.” There, the ancient ‘Ramandu’, and his daughter live on this Island where Aslan's Stone Table is preserved until the end.
When the crew of the Dawn Treader expresses consternation over why Ramandu seems to shine, he tells them:
"I am a star at rest...When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fireberry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fireberry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again... and once more tread the great dance. Pg. 180
This is a picturesque treatment of our theme, but I think it does evoke some of the wonder of ‘shining like a star forever’. A little later in Ramandu’s narrative he tells the crew of the ship what they must do in order to un-enchant their mates, who have been put into a deep sleep. They will face great danger, but there is also the promise of Glory:
“Every man that comes with us shall bequeath the title ‘Dawn Treader’ to all his descendants - and when we land at Cair Paravel on the homeward voyage he shall have either gold or land enough to make him rich all his life” ( Pg. 185).
There is suffering ahead, but also the opportunity to Shine forever. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul echoes this heavenly theme, tying it to the Resurrection:
"The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable." (1 Corinthians 15:41-42 NIV)
Now recall Daniel 12:2, 3:
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
In the Resurrection, Shining like the stars forever and ever is the reward for being wise and turning many to righteousness. Even, better, by ‘holding fast to the word of life’ and acting faithfully, the children of God ‘shine like stars in the universe’ now. They (we) become “Luminaries of the Cosmos” (Philippians 2:15, 16). Paul tells the Philippians to hold on “so that in the day of Christ – the Resurrection - [he] may be proud that [he] did not run in vain or labor in vain. He is willing ‘to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of [their] faith (v.17) because of the reward he anticipates when Christ appears.
Now, like Paul, I am eager that every one of us Saints in All Saints Anglican Church should shine ‘like a luminaries of the Cosmos’ – both now and in the Resurrection. How is this to happen? By being faithful in our Christian walk and by ‘turning many to righteousness.”
And how are we to turn many to righteousness? Is it not through helping people to know and love Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? – Through fulfilling the Great Commission – through making disciples of all nations?
Yes it is! Isn’t that Great?! …
Yes – with the small little caveat that most of us Christians don’t know any non-believers.
It’s not that we may not know of some…It’s that we don’t know them well – spend time with them – or go where they go. And that’s generally because the longer we are Christians, the more likely it is that we hang out with other Christians - either because of our personal preference for like-minded, comfortable people like us – or because we are afraid of the influence of Worldlings – (which is not an unreasonable fear.)
We want to be ‘innocent and blameless’ like Paul says, but by segregating ourselves from the world, we don’t ‘turn many to righteousness.’ (God forbid that we don't do this because WE are Worldlings!)
We must have both if we are to receive the reward that Scripture promises. Just being innocent of evil is not enough to cause us to ‘shine like stars forever’. Our righteousness must result in service to the physical and spiritual needs of those in the world who are perishing – so that they may be ‘turned to righteousness”! Remember the third S in our series: ‘SERVE”?
And here, please understand that we’re not interested in a merely selfish reward – but we are striving for the pleasure of God – for knowing the joy of participating with Him in His redemptive purpose in this world – to bring many to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, to create a People for Himself, and to enjoy that People forever.
This is the GREAT DANCE that Ramandu was talking about: Bringing all things and people into the joy of knowing and serving God.
And this is where we have got to be willing to consider suffering for the Gospel.
In the United States of America, in 2009, so far, we still have great freedom to talk about our Faith. It’s true that there are some limitations: There are some circumstances in which we cannot speak openly. In the future there may be more. But for right now, the biggest threats we face are Inconvenience and Embarrassment.
It’s just too darn much trouble to go out there and spend time with the un-churched. We prefer to have cozy fellowship with each other, to study something nice – and then go home and live as if none of it matters!
Friends, unless they suddenly started going to First Baptist or Christ Temple last week and we don’t know about it, there are still 75,000 people at home this morning in Cabell County alone!
If we are going to be the Body of Christ, if we are really going to fulfill the Great Commission in our lifetime, - even if we just want our little church to grow, this is UNACCEPTABLE!
We MUST devout ourselves to reaching the lost! Each of us personally MUST do this!
Why? Because each of us will be personally held responsible by the God of Heaven for this!
And because we have something Wonderful to offer! Jesus! Life with God! Eternal Life beginning RIGHT NOW! Resurrection Life! Peace Freedom!
If we’re not willing to suffer a little discomfort or embarrassment for the sake of Christ and our perishing neighbors can we really call ourselves faithful? Can we really expect to Shine Like Stars forever when our efforts here on Earth for Christ are lackluster?
We have simply got to devote more time to personally reaching out to those around us!
We must find ways of developing enough trust with the ‘church-free’ people out there so that they are willing to hear our story and become inspired to want a relationship with God for themselves. This is our job as Christians: to make disciples - to turn many to righteousness!
That is why I feel an urgent and pressing need to focus our attention during Advent on this very thing. While we are meeting together for fellowship and devotions leading up to Christmas, I challenge us to think of ways that we will begin personal outreach to our neighbors – those in our ‘oikos’ or circle of acquaintances.
This includes those who are already Christians but for some reason have no church, those who are completely lost and have never made Christ Lord of their lives - and perhaps harder, those who are 'Church-Free', disillusioned or fed up with 'Churchianity'. Each one of these groups is ripe for discipleship.
I will warn you that this project will require your time. In a culture like ours, busy and hurried by many pressures and demands on our time, it may actually feel like suffering to give up some of your time for the sake of reaching the lost. But we MUST do it! Reaching out to your neighbors will require getting out of your regular routine and patterns so that you can meet and get to know new people.
Friday a week ago, several of us were picking up trash around the Hope House block. While we were chatting among ourselves, a young woman came up and spontaneously engaged us in conversation. She saw what we were doing and connected with us because she had done something similar in her previous town before moving to Huntington two months prior.
She was very pleasant and talkative and volunteered her email and phone number. So we invited her to come over to Hope House during our work day to see what we are doing there.
Had we not gone out of our way to do something that put us out there beyond our regular routine and comfort zone, we would never have met her. Now, we have the opportunity to begin to know her - and possibly help her to foster a relationship with God. And we'll have to continue to go out of our way to follow-up and try to stay connected.
Of course, this is just an example. There are certainly an almost infinite number of ways to meet and engage the people around you. The point is to do it! In the words of Todd Hunter, newly ordained AMIA missionary Bishop, to become a 'Church for Others".
I am personally committed to helping you in whatever way I can to accomplish this mission. I know that Father Mark and Father Peter are as well. If you need help in writing out your testimony, or need some knowledge you don't have, or you would like to have home Eucharists with your neighbors who don’t go to church - or you want to have an outreach prayer group or bible study – you say the word and we'll do whatever we can to help you make it happen. We cannot do it for you, but we can do it with you!
I think if we are really going to reach out we must multiply the impact of our small groups. For the past three years we have met and talked and studied and fellowshipped together,building up one another and learning more about our Faith. But just as the believers in Jerusalem were forcibly thrust out of the city during the siege of Jerusalem in 69,70 AD so we too may need to be thrust out of our comfortable little groups in order to accomplish our mission.
During the upcoming Advent season, I ask you to seriously think about and pray about taking the season between Christmas and Lent to 'do something different' for the Lord. To fore go your small group meetings in order to devote more time to developing your own unique outreach to your neighbors.
Let's listen to what the Lord would have for us, making ourselves available to him, offering yourself to Jesus as an instrument of his love so that we may be wise and turn many to righteousness and so shine like Stars forever and ever!
May God help us and give us the Grace we need! AMEN.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Seeing Being and Doing
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on All Saints Day, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV and based on Ecclesiasticus 2: 1-11
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Because there was Benedict, there was Gregory. Because there was Gregory, there was Augustine. Because there was Augustine, there was Canterbury. there was Canterbury, there was Anglicanism – and us, All Saints Anglican Church. But it was nearly not so. For it seems that Augustine got cold feet on the way to the land of the Angles.
Author Albert Holtz tells the story in his book “A Saint on Every Corner”: “as Augustine and his little band traveled overland through Gaul, they began to hear disturbing tales of the savage and murderous English natives. They heard graphic details of the strange customs and the unpronounceable tongue that awaited them. There were sailor's hair-raising reports of the treacherous currents and killer storms that lay in wait for them in crossing the English Channel. It seemed the list of hazards grew longer by the day.”
Finally the “missionaries' enthusiasm evaporated and they held a meeting to discuss whether their mission was really such a good idea after all. [Apparently] their caution won out and they elected to send Augustine back to Rome to explain to Pope Gregory how impossible their mission was and to ask for permission to return to their monastery in Italy.”
Fortunately for us, Gregory was having none of it and told Augustine to high- tale it back to England and not come back until he had accomplished his mission! ... Today, says Holtz, “these monks are venerated as great pioneers and saints”, but it's somehow comforting to know that “they too, were subject to an occasional case of cold feet! Like the rest of us, they were susceptible at times to discouragement and doubt”.
I can relate! I've told you all before – only half in jest, that I'd almost rather do anything but trust God... meaning that following God and doing things His way requires that I 'Trust in him" (Eccl.2:6). As I do so, "he will help me and make my ways straight". Sounds a lot like Prov. 3:5,6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." But trusting the Lord often brings trials, and we should be prepared for this.
The writer of Ecclesiasticus admonishes us:
“My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be impetuous in time of calamity...(2:1,2) One wonders if Augustine had ever heard these words – and if he had, did he just forget them momentarily – or did he really not know that he had to be prepared for hardship in the service of the Lord? ... I tend to think he just got cold feet momentarily.
Surely he would have read Paul's letter to the Ephesians – just as we read it together today – and he most likely would have known the Beatitudes by heart. His knowledge of God's Word would have given him a Vision of Life in the Kingdom.
This vision of the Kingdom is one which sees that God the Father loves us and has sent Jesus Christ his Son, to reconcile us to Him, to unite all things in him, to give us an inheritance sealed in the Holy Spirit, and to accompany that inheritance with wisdom, enlightenment about God, and immeasurable power coming from the right hand of God the Father, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Eph 1:1-23).
Only a Great Vision could have inspired Augustine and his little band to set off to England in the first place. And only a Great Vision could have stiffened up their backbones to go back once they had doubts. Because they saw something the World did not see, they were willing to forsake all and give themselves to a seemingly impossible mission. Because they did, we are sitting here today.
So we thank God for the Saints who went before us, who made it possible for us to worship God in Spirit and in truth. And we look to their courageous example as a challenge to See what they saw, to Be what they were and to Do what they did. Appropriately enough then, we are focusing today on Seeing, Being and Doing as Saints of God.
Seeing
In their book, Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon challenge us to think about the Beatitudes that we read today as a 'vision of the 'in-breaking of a new society' – a picture of the way God IS. The Beatitudes, they say, are not a strategy for achieving a better society, they are a Picture, a Promise, an imaginative example of life in the Kingdom of God. (pg. 84)
The Beatitudes show us a picture of blessedness diametrically opposed to the wisdom of the World. Jesus says that we are blessed when we are poor, sad hungry and hated. The World says we are blessed when we are rich, happy sated and well-connected. Jesus shows us a Vision of blessedness that depends upon God for sustenance; the World demands that we be Self-Sufficient. The Picture Jesus shows us is a picture of what heaven on earth would look like. It's a foreshadowing of how things will be when all is summed up in Christ, but it's also a picture of how the Church is to look now. It's a picture of a peculiar people, living in a peculiar way because they See something the World does not see. In Sum: they see that 'in Christ, God has already made history come out right.” (Resident Aliens, pg. 87)
In other words, Christians see that God is moving history towards fulfillment and redemption, reconciliation of all things in the Beloved – and ultimately to a New Heaven and a New Earth. We, as the Saints, or 'called-out' ones of God, know that we have been called out of seeing the World as our all-in-all. We are a community - a 'resident alien colony' that affirms a different reality than the World.
Instead of worshiping money, power, position and security; instead of accepting the world's claim to be all there is and accepting its demand that we worship It as Ultimate Reality, we, as the Saints of God, worship the One who IS Provision, Peace, Shalom and Victory. Instead of trusting in what we can SEE with our physical eyes, we as the Saints of God, see a true Vision of Reality with the eyes of our heart.
We look up to Christ crucified and see One who was willing to give up everything worldly for the JOY set before him. We see in Christ God's self-giving LOVE and we learn that freedom comes from doing the will of another, peace comes from submitting to a violent death, and power is perfected in weakness. What we see looks like foolishness or madness to the world. What we see is the END of the world and the beginning of the Kingdom of God established here and now.
We are a people who See something different than the world sees.
Being
We are also a people who understand our Being differently than the worldlings around us. The people of the World see themselves as having erupted out of a primordial soup by chance over the course of unimaginably long periods of time. Religions and traditions of the past developed to help people deal with their ignorance and superstitions, but through the rise of Science and Technology, belief in the supernatural or the miraculous has largely been discredited. Old sources of Authority have been shrugged off and people have been set free to pursue their own understandings of life and morality.
The average person has become so thoroughly independent that it is now a secular 'sin' to suggest that there is something called Truth that is bigger than myself and which demands my allegiance. Since all 'truths' are equally valid it has now become 'hateful' to proclaim that some things are right and some things are wrong.
This past week, our President signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which creates additional penalties for violent crimes motivated by the victim's "actual or perceived" gender, "gender identity," sexual orientation, or disability" - all of which sounds upright, until you realize that "evangelist Michael Marcavage, director of Philadelphia-based Repent America, was one of 11 Christians who were jailed and charged with a hate crime for carrying Bible verse banners and preaching at a 2004 homosexual pride event in Philadelphia. The charges were later dismissed -- and in 2008, the state's Supreme Court ruled the law had been passed illegally by the Pennsylvania legislature. (Jim Brown, OneNewsNow, 10/29/2009)
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the recent federal legislation is a new incarnation of the Pennsylvania law and is, as Marcavage says, 'an effort to silence Christians.' In an ironic twist then, those who seek freedom for themselves are willing to imprison those who use their freedom to dissent from the demand for absolute license.
Granted, not everyone is so militant. The basic attitude of most folks towards Truth today is that of someone who has a not-too-compelling hobby that they dabble at once in a while. Moral behavior has been so privatized that almost everything is now merely a lifestyle choice – with the exception of murder, child molestation, being a Nazi or a wife-beater, or listening to the Great Satan himself, Rush Limbaugh.
The only trouble with this radical sort of Freedom is that life becomes rather trivial and meaningless. The World cannot affirm an essential meaning and goodness in human Being because it thinks it arose by accident. Religion and Spirituality are essentially props to secular existence; they have value only insofar as they 'help' us – or assist us to feel more comfortable in our Worldly life, keeping the despair at bay.
But our understanding of ourselves as Christians is fundamentally different from the World's. We believe that God had us in mind when he began the Creation and that we as the Church embody God's highest plan for Creation – to have intimate fellowship with those He has created and to bring them up into himself in a Love relationship – to create a community of Saints if you will. We understand that the physical world and everything in it was created to facilitate our love relationship with God – and thus we have a sense of security and Meaning in our Being.
We ARE because God made us. We live and move and have our being because we live and move and have our being IN GOD. We understand that we were made to love God and thus Worship is central to WHO we are in Christ. We believe that in worshiping God we are most truly ourselves and that in the Eucharist that we BECOME what we already are: the Body of Christ. As we worship God around his table, we come together with all the Saints who have ever lived and we cry out Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of heaven and earth. We cast down our crowns before him and He receives our love and worship, giving us Himself in return – most especially in the Body and the Blood of his own dear Son.
Thus, our worship of God can be thought of as part of our essence as Human Beings. We exist to Worship and to receive back God's love in return. Since the Eucharist embodies the self-giving love, we are most truly ourselves at the moment of Communing with our God. The Eucharist is the wellspring of our existence and we cannot live without it. At this table, we become what we are: God's people, created before the foundation of the world to be Saints - those 'called out' of the World.
Doing
Our fundamental identity as the Saints of God is to be a worshiping community. Thus, Worship is the fulfillment of the first great Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength.
The second commandment gives us our marching orders in the world: love your neighbor as yourself. God loves us and gives Himself to us through the Incarnation and the Sacraments. He now commands us to give Christ to the world the same way he did: Incarnationally and Sacramentally.
Look around you Saints. You are the Presence of Christ in the World. Because God has placed His Holy Spirit within you, you are Sacramental - an outward sign of an inward and spiritual reality, and a means of communicating God's Grace – you are the living, moving means of God's grace to this world. God incarnates you with Himself and Communicates Himself to the world through You! That means that your basic vocation as a Christian is to be a minister and missionary. You are the hands and feet of Christ. You are the A team. That's all, there ain't no B Team. If the world is to know Christ, it will come to know Him through YOU. Just like Augustine and his little band, You are to Tell what you know and Give what you Got.
It's an exciting and daunting challenge. Especially when we face so many struggles ourselves. We're surrounded by family problems, problems at work, financial problems, sickness and death. Each day seems a struggle just to keep body and soul together, much less run around and save the world!
And yet, this is what we are called to do: to love and serve God by loving and serving the world. We are to embody Christ and to communicate His love to the world through our words and our work. If we fail to do so, we have simply and basically failed to be what we are – Christ's body on earth.
This is why we need to celebrate All Saints Day. We need to remember exemplars of the faith who have demonstrated how to pour themselves out in the world for love of God and their neighbors. We also need to remember that the good we do in the world is not simply Social Work. The good works we do are done 'to a person' as Mother Teresa used to say -that is, to Christ.
If we See correctly – if we have a right Vision of the World, we will see ourselves as Christ's body, ministering to Christ in all people. We will seek the welfare of our city, our nation, and the world, not so much to prop up the the man-made structures of the world, but to bring God's love into the world, so that all people may know Him and enjoy Him forever.
This is a tough job because the World is fundamentally opposed to God. The world doesn't want to submit itself to the Lordship of Christ- and it especially doesn't want you to remind it that there is a God to worship apart from the World. That's why the world will persecute you and tell you to SHUT UP! Go Away! Leave us to pursue our path of destruction! We're Happy that way!
The Bible tells us that all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And so we shall. Friends, we are coming into a time, when Christians will more and more be pressured to shut up, go along, and get along with the World. If we love our God and we want to be faithful to Him, we cannot do this. And that will mean difficulty for us.
The witness of the Saints who have gone before us is that they persevered – sometimes under fair conditions, often under persecution. We must do what they did if we are to be found faithful - we must share our Vision that God is All in all, and that He is reconciling all things to Himself in Christ. We must pray for those who can't see this vision. We must minister to a hurting world as if we are ministering to Christ Himself. And we must always remember who we are: Creatures of God, our Father, created in Christ Jesus for Love and Good Works (Heb. 10:24).
We may struggle with difficulty and doubt. We may even try to turn around and go back like Father Augustine. But we must go forward for Christ and we must trust Him as we go.
I don't think I can do better than to repeat today's admonishment from Ecclesiasticus:
My Child,when you come to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for testing.
Set you heart right and be steadfast,
and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.
Cling to him and do not depart,
so that your last days may be prosperous.
Accept whatever befalls you,
and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire,
and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.
Trust in him, and he will help you;
make your ways straight, and hope in him.
You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;
do not stray, or else you may fall.
You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
for lasting joy and mercy.
Consider the generations of old and see:
has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken?
Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected?
For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;
he forgives sins and saves in time of distress.
May God help us in our Seeing, our Being and our Doing. AMEN.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Because there was Benedict, there was Gregory. Because there was Gregory, there was Augustine. Because there was Augustine, there was Canterbury. there was Canterbury, there was Anglicanism – and us, All Saints Anglican Church. But it was nearly not so. For it seems that Augustine got cold feet on the way to the land of the Angles.
Author Albert Holtz tells the story in his book “A Saint on Every Corner”: “as Augustine and his little band traveled overland through Gaul, they began to hear disturbing tales of the savage and murderous English natives. They heard graphic details of the strange customs and the unpronounceable tongue that awaited them. There were sailor's hair-raising reports of the treacherous currents and killer storms that lay in wait for them in crossing the English Channel. It seemed the list of hazards grew longer by the day.”
Finally the “missionaries' enthusiasm evaporated and they held a meeting to discuss whether their mission was really such a good idea after all. [Apparently] their caution won out and they elected to send Augustine back to Rome to explain to Pope Gregory how impossible their mission was and to ask for permission to return to their monastery in Italy.”
Fortunately for us, Gregory was having none of it and told Augustine to high- tale it back to England and not come back until he had accomplished his mission! ... Today, says Holtz, “these monks are venerated as great pioneers and saints”, but it's somehow comforting to know that “they too, were subject to an occasional case of cold feet! Like the rest of us, they were susceptible at times to discouragement and doubt”.
I can relate! I've told you all before – only half in jest, that I'd almost rather do anything but trust God... meaning that following God and doing things His way requires that I 'Trust in him" (Eccl.2:6). As I do so, "he will help me and make my ways straight". Sounds a lot like Prov. 3:5,6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." But trusting the Lord often brings trials, and we should be prepared for this.
The writer of Ecclesiasticus admonishes us:
“My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing. Set your heart right and be steadfast, and do not be impetuous in time of calamity...(2:1,2) One wonders if Augustine had ever heard these words – and if he had, did he just forget them momentarily – or did he really not know that he had to be prepared for hardship in the service of the Lord? ... I tend to think he just got cold feet momentarily.
Surely he would have read Paul's letter to the Ephesians – just as we read it together today – and he most likely would have known the Beatitudes by heart. His knowledge of God's Word would have given him a Vision of Life in the Kingdom.
This vision of the Kingdom is one which sees that God the Father loves us and has sent Jesus Christ his Son, to reconcile us to Him, to unite all things in him, to give us an inheritance sealed in the Holy Spirit, and to accompany that inheritance with wisdom, enlightenment about God, and immeasurable power coming from the right hand of God the Father, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (Eph 1:1-23).
Only a Great Vision could have inspired Augustine and his little band to set off to England in the first place. And only a Great Vision could have stiffened up their backbones to go back once they had doubts. Because they saw something the World did not see, they were willing to forsake all and give themselves to a seemingly impossible mission. Because they did, we are sitting here today.
So we thank God for the Saints who went before us, who made it possible for us to worship God in Spirit and in truth. And we look to their courageous example as a challenge to See what they saw, to Be what they were and to Do what they did. Appropriately enough then, we are focusing today on Seeing, Being and Doing as Saints of God.
Seeing
In their book, Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon challenge us to think about the Beatitudes that we read today as a 'vision of the 'in-breaking of a new society' – a picture of the way God IS. The Beatitudes, they say, are not a strategy for achieving a better society, they are a Picture, a Promise, an imaginative example of life in the Kingdom of God. (pg. 84)
The Beatitudes show us a picture of blessedness diametrically opposed to the wisdom of the World. Jesus says that we are blessed when we are poor, sad hungry and hated. The World says we are blessed when we are rich, happy sated and well-connected. Jesus shows us a Vision of blessedness that depends upon God for sustenance; the World demands that we be Self-Sufficient. The Picture Jesus shows us is a picture of what heaven on earth would look like. It's a foreshadowing of how things will be when all is summed up in Christ, but it's also a picture of how the Church is to look now. It's a picture of a peculiar people, living in a peculiar way because they See something the World does not see. In Sum: they see that 'in Christ, God has already made history come out right.” (Resident Aliens, pg. 87)
In other words, Christians see that God is moving history towards fulfillment and redemption, reconciliation of all things in the Beloved – and ultimately to a New Heaven and a New Earth. We, as the Saints, or 'called-out' ones of God, know that we have been called out of seeing the World as our all-in-all. We are a community - a 'resident alien colony' that affirms a different reality than the World.
Instead of worshiping money, power, position and security; instead of accepting the world's claim to be all there is and accepting its demand that we worship It as Ultimate Reality, we, as the Saints of God, worship the One who IS Provision, Peace, Shalom and Victory. Instead of trusting in what we can SEE with our physical eyes, we as the Saints of God, see a true Vision of Reality with the eyes of our heart.
We look up to Christ crucified and see One who was willing to give up everything worldly for the JOY set before him. We see in Christ God's self-giving LOVE and we learn that freedom comes from doing the will of another, peace comes from submitting to a violent death, and power is perfected in weakness. What we see looks like foolishness or madness to the world. What we see is the END of the world and the beginning of the Kingdom of God established here and now.
We are a people who See something different than the world sees.
Being
We are also a people who understand our Being differently than the worldlings around us. The people of the World see themselves as having erupted out of a primordial soup by chance over the course of unimaginably long periods of time. Religions and traditions of the past developed to help people deal with their ignorance and superstitions, but through the rise of Science and Technology, belief in the supernatural or the miraculous has largely been discredited. Old sources of Authority have been shrugged off and people have been set free to pursue their own understandings of life and morality.
The average person has become so thoroughly independent that it is now a secular 'sin' to suggest that there is something called Truth that is bigger than myself and which demands my allegiance. Since all 'truths' are equally valid it has now become 'hateful' to proclaim that some things are right and some things are wrong.
This past week, our President signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which creates additional penalties for violent crimes motivated by the victim's "actual or perceived" gender, "gender identity," sexual orientation, or disability" - all of which sounds upright, until you realize that "evangelist Michael Marcavage, director of Philadelphia-based Repent America, was one of 11 Christians who were jailed and charged with a hate crime for carrying Bible verse banners and preaching at a 2004 homosexual pride event in Philadelphia. The charges were later dismissed -- and in 2008, the state's Supreme Court ruled the law had been passed illegally by the Pennsylvania legislature. (Jim Brown, OneNewsNow, 10/29/2009)
But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the recent federal legislation is a new incarnation of the Pennsylvania law and is, as Marcavage says, 'an effort to silence Christians.' In an ironic twist then, those who seek freedom for themselves are willing to imprison those who use their freedom to dissent from the demand for absolute license.
Granted, not everyone is so militant. The basic attitude of most folks towards Truth today is that of someone who has a not-too-compelling hobby that they dabble at once in a while. Moral behavior has been so privatized that almost everything is now merely a lifestyle choice – with the exception of murder, child molestation, being a Nazi or a wife-beater, or listening to the Great Satan himself, Rush Limbaugh.
The only trouble with this radical sort of Freedom is that life becomes rather trivial and meaningless. The World cannot affirm an essential meaning and goodness in human Being because it thinks it arose by accident. Religion and Spirituality are essentially props to secular existence; they have value only insofar as they 'help' us – or assist us to feel more comfortable in our Worldly life, keeping the despair at bay.
But our understanding of ourselves as Christians is fundamentally different from the World's. We believe that God had us in mind when he began the Creation and that we as the Church embody God's highest plan for Creation – to have intimate fellowship with those He has created and to bring them up into himself in a Love relationship – to create a community of Saints if you will. We understand that the physical world and everything in it was created to facilitate our love relationship with God – and thus we have a sense of security and Meaning in our Being.
We ARE because God made us. We live and move and have our being because we live and move and have our being IN GOD. We understand that we were made to love God and thus Worship is central to WHO we are in Christ. We believe that in worshiping God we are most truly ourselves and that in the Eucharist that we BECOME what we already are: the Body of Christ. As we worship God around his table, we come together with all the Saints who have ever lived and we cry out Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of heaven and earth. We cast down our crowns before him and He receives our love and worship, giving us Himself in return – most especially in the Body and the Blood of his own dear Son.
Thus, our worship of God can be thought of as part of our essence as Human Beings. We exist to Worship and to receive back God's love in return. Since the Eucharist embodies the self-giving love, we are most truly ourselves at the moment of Communing with our God. The Eucharist is the wellspring of our existence and we cannot live without it. At this table, we become what we are: God's people, created before the foundation of the world to be Saints - those 'called out' of the World.
Doing
Our fundamental identity as the Saints of God is to be a worshiping community. Thus, Worship is the fulfillment of the first great Commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength.
The second commandment gives us our marching orders in the world: love your neighbor as yourself. God loves us and gives Himself to us through the Incarnation and the Sacraments. He now commands us to give Christ to the world the same way he did: Incarnationally and Sacramentally.
Look around you Saints. You are the Presence of Christ in the World. Because God has placed His Holy Spirit within you, you are Sacramental - an outward sign of an inward and spiritual reality, and a means of communicating God's Grace – you are the living, moving means of God's grace to this world. God incarnates you with Himself and Communicates Himself to the world through You! That means that your basic vocation as a Christian is to be a minister and missionary. You are the hands and feet of Christ. You are the A team. That's all, there ain't no B Team. If the world is to know Christ, it will come to know Him through YOU. Just like Augustine and his little band, You are to Tell what you know and Give what you Got.
It's an exciting and daunting challenge. Especially when we face so many struggles ourselves. We're surrounded by family problems, problems at work, financial problems, sickness and death. Each day seems a struggle just to keep body and soul together, much less run around and save the world!
And yet, this is what we are called to do: to love and serve God by loving and serving the world. We are to embody Christ and to communicate His love to the world through our words and our work. If we fail to do so, we have simply and basically failed to be what we are – Christ's body on earth.
This is why we need to celebrate All Saints Day. We need to remember exemplars of the faith who have demonstrated how to pour themselves out in the world for love of God and their neighbors. We also need to remember that the good we do in the world is not simply Social Work. The good works we do are done 'to a person' as Mother Teresa used to say -that is, to Christ.
If we See correctly – if we have a right Vision of the World, we will see ourselves as Christ's body, ministering to Christ in all people. We will seek the welfare of our city, our nation, and the world, not so much to prop up the the man-made structures of the world, but to bring God's love into the world, so that all people may know Him and enjoy Him forever.
This is a tough job because the World is fundamentally opposed to God. The world doesn't want to submit itself to the Lordship of Christ- and it especially doesn't want you to remind it that there is a God to worship apart from the World. That's why the world will persecute you and tell you to SHUT UP! Go Away! Leave us to pursue our path of destruction! We're Happy that way!
The Bible tells us that all who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And so we shall. Friends, we are coming into a time, when Christians will more and more be pressured to shut up, go along, and get along with the World. If we love our God and we want to be faithful to Him, we cannot do this. And that will mean difficulty for us.
The witness of the Saints who have gone before us is that they persevered – sometimes under fair conditions, often under persecution. We must do what they did if we are to be found faithful - we must share our Vision that God is All in all, and that He is reconciling all things to Himself in Christ. We must pray for those who can't see this vision. We must minister to a hurting world as if we are ministering to Christ Himself. And we must always remember who we are: Creatures of God, our Father, created in Christ Jesus for Love and Good Works (Heb. 10:24).
We may struggle with difficulty and doubt. We may even try to turn around and go back like Father Augustine. But we must go forward for Christ and we must trust Him as we go.
I don't think I can do better than to repeat today's admonishment from Ecclesiasticus:
My Child,when you come to serve the Lord,
prepare yourself for testing.
Set you heart right and be steadfast,
and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.
Cling to him and do not depart,
so that your last days may be prosperous.
Accept whatever befalls you,
and in times of humiliation be patient.
For gold is tested in the fire,
and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.
Trust in him, and he will help you;
make your ways straight, and hope in him.
You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;
do not stray, or else you may fall.
You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
for lasting joy and mercy.
Consider the generations of old and see:
has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord and been forsaken?
Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected?
For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;
he forgives sins and saves in time of distress.
May God help us in our Seeing, our Being and our Doing. AMEN.
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