A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on May 24, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV, based on John 17:11b-19:
"Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." (ESV)
Today’s gospel reading is a portion of Jesus’ last recorded prayer before going to Calvary. It is his only recorded extended prayer, his so-called “High Priestly” prayer for himself and his disciples before dying on the cross. This particular section pertains to the church itself and we learn several key things about ourselves as the church that we may summarize in the following statement:
God keeps, sanctifies and unifies his people who live in the world so that they may take the Truth of God to the world without becoming like the world.
Now, regarding the keeping power of God, we observe that in verse 11, Jesus hands his disciples back to God. God has given followers to Jesus and he has guarded and kept them while he was on earth (verse 12). None was lost except Judas, and this was ordained before hand.
This is a team effort in which The Father and The Son work together to birth and protect their creation, the church. Christ has faithfully imparted God’s Word to his disciples, and his desire for them is that they experience the same unity that He himself enjoys with the Father - that his people may have His joy as they live in the world. Jesus also asks God to ‘sanctify’ his people (v.17) – to make them holy or ‘set apart’ so that they may be kept as a unique and ‘otherworldly’ people, even while they are in the world.
Now, let’s ask ourselves a question. Up to this point, what is that the followers of Jesus do or accomplish? …. Nothing. This is a conversation a takes place within the Godhead in the Garden of Gethsemane – while the disciples are mostly sawing logs. (With the exception that someone must have been awake enough to overhear this prayer…). In a couple of sentences Jesus has spoken volumes. He has told us that Salvation is a Gift of God; that God protects His people so that they may continue in the faith, and that Joy is the result of being united to God and to one another. All this is pure Gift, pure Grace.
Salvation comes from God. Perseverance in the faith comes from God. Unity comes from God. Sanctification comes from God. They are all Gifts, which are wonderful in and of themselves but which have a purpose – to enable God’s people to accomplish something ‘in the world’.
Now another question: What is ‘the World’ ? In his commentary on John, William Barclay says the world is “human society organizing itself apart from God”. Again: human society organizing itself apart from God. Perhaps the most famous example of this from the Old Testament is the Tower of Babel story, in which the people take it upon themselves to build a tower ‘reaching to the heavens’ – totally without regard for whether or not God in Heaven wants to be reached by means of a tower – so that they might make a name for themselves and be great. This is what the Greeks would have called Hubris – overweening pride. So then, to be worldly, means that you yourself are in charge of your own life, completely apart from what God desires for you.
From this definition, I hope you can see that the essence of worldliness is not what you eat or drink, not what you wear, whether or not you wear makeup, or put rings on your fingers. The essence of worldliness is the tendency towards self-sufficiency and doing things ‘my way’.
Now having said that, it is also true that having the ‘stuff’ of the world has a tendency to seduce us into thinking that we are in charge of our lives. Having a regular job with a regular income gives me the illusion of control. Being able to buy things whenever I wish can divert me from discomfort so that rather than turning to God for my deepest needs, I settle for some new clothes, a toy or some passing entertainment to dull my pain. Stuff is not bad in itself, but stuff can lure me into thinking there is nothing higher than stuff – and this is worldliness: organizing my life as if God did not exist.
Jesus prays for us to avoid this fate. He wants us to be intimately connected with God, to be like branches on the vine which only bear fruit as they stay connected to the vine. This is holiness, sanctification, dedication to God. It’s the only thing in life that produces True Life. And Jesus wants this for us more than anything.
Our Mission
But while being connected to God is wonderful in itself, we have also been given a job to do – to share that Wonder with others. Verse 18: “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus expands upon this sending: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in 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.”
Now notice that he didn’t say “Give them informational brochures’ or ‘post a website’ with this information and let it go at that. No. The Commission is deeply personal and labor-intensive: Make disciples. Baptize them. Teach them. Do this for a long time – until the end of the age.
Friends, this is the Work of the Kingdom and every one of us is commissioned and expected to do it. This is what we are to do. And I’ll remind you again that most people come to church because they are invited. They’re invited by someone they know and they come because they know someone. What does this mean for you and I? It means that we have to be out there in the world getting to know people.
How are we going to do that? In one of our recent small group conversations, we agreed that most of us don’t really know any non-believers. Because of our busy work lives, and our participation in church activities, we don’t spend time with people in the world. We don’t know any Worldlings. Or if we do, we don’t want to spend time with them because their lives are worldly.
Often, churches look to the clergy to be the ‘evangelists’. Some clergy are indeed ‘evangelists by gifting, but certainly not all. Ephesians 4:11,12 gives us this model: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…” The work of the ministry belongs to each one of us. The Great Commission commissions every one of us as believers to do the work.
The work then, involves growing in holiness, being connected to The Vine so that when you go out into the world, the world does not co-opt you, but rather, you have Life to impart to the world.
Our 8th Day Life Groups are meant to help facilitate your growth in the faith and help you as you go out into the world ‘doing the stuff’.
In terms of our personal outreach, each one of us, me included, needs to think about how we meet our unchurched or unsaved neighbors and then how to engage them in an ongoing relationship. Mind you, I’m not just talking about inviting them to church – although that’s fine. But most likely, they won’t come unless they know you. So, logically, you have to get to know them. For the sake of reinforcing one method of doing this, I’d like to reiterate the SHOT Principle:
SHOT Principle for Growth:
Go Somewhere together.
Ask for Help with a ministry.
Share a meal at Our house.
Visit Their house; share Testimony.
I’ve got more of the SHOT card here today if you would like another one. Again, I recommend that you write down on the other side of this card the names of people you will personally pray for and personally engage by means of the SHOT approach.
Do you remember the figure 75,000? Do you recall that more than 80 percent of people in our area do NOT go to church on Sunday morning? And do you remember that 5 out of 10 people who do not go to church DO have some sort of church background?
When you seek the lost, you are not seeking total strangers. They are most likely church people who simply drifted away. These people need to be re-engaged as disciples and it’s our job to do it.
So, my prayer for us all is that God will indeed keep, sanctify and unify us who live in the world so that we may take the Truth of God to the world without becoming like the world. Amen.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mother's Day 2009
A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on May 10, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.
Last week, as Fr. Mark was preaching about Psalm 23, I had a very pleasant memory flood back into my mind – that of my mother teaching me the 23rd Psalm at night before I went to sleep. This was a regular occurrence at our house between the ages of about 7-11 or so. She would come in and say nighttime prayers with me and teach me various passages of Scripture, say the Lord’s Prayer, etc. It was sort of an informal catechism I suppose.
Growing up, we were Methodists, so Mom also told me about Susannah Wesley - how she taught her children Latin and Greek as well as classical studies, how she influenced her sons John and Charles, and how she became known as the Mother of Methodism. I think I was supposed to put it together that Mom was following in the great Methodist tradition by trying to get me to learn a few psalms and prayers before bedtime. And I guess to some extent I did, because I still remember the things she taught me before bed – evidence for the powerful impact of a mother on her children.
At any rate, today is Mother’s Day, and we want to spend some time lauding Mothers as they so richly deserve. As you likely know, Mother’s Day and West Virginia have a rich history.
According to the Mother’s Day Central web site:
“Anna Reeves Jarvis held the first official celebration of mothers, in her home state of West Virginia in 1858. She instituted Mothers' Work Day to raise awareness about local sanitation issues. During the Civil War, she expanded the scope of Mothers' Work Day to include sanitary conditions on both sides of the battlefield…”
In 1905, Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away and her daughter, Anna Jarvis, took up her mother's torch. Anna swore on her mother's gravesite that she would realize her lifelong dream of creating a national day to honor mothers. In 1907, Anna launched her campaign by handing out white carnations to congregants at her mother's church, St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal, in Grafton, West Virginia. In 1908, her mother's church acquiesced to Anna's request to hold a special Sunday service in honor of mothers - a tradition that spread the very next year to churches in 46 states. In 1909, Anna left her job and dedicated herself to a full-time letter-writing campaign, imploring politicians, clergymen and civic leaders to institute a national day for mothers.
In 1912 …West Virginia adopted an official Mother's Day; two years later, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing a national Mother's Day emphasizing the role of women in their families …Ever since, Mother's Day has been celebrated by Americans on the second Sunday in May.” (Mother’s Day Central.com).
So, I would like to help us celebrate Motherhood on this second Sunday of May by referencing some mothers who point to three typical characteristics of the godly mother: their capacity to teach, their role as defenders of righteousness, and their power in intercession.
The first characteristic we have already mentioned. Mothers are, of course, natural teachers. From the moment of birth, mothers teach their children intimately through a thousand small interactions – from learning to suck at the first hour of birth, to learning one’s alphabet before going to school – as Susannah Wesley taught her children, mothers are constantly teaching. Their influence is both didactic and moral in that a mother’s godly influence can sometimes carry an entire family.
Cindy’s grandmother was such a woman - someone who was very devout and who would go up on the hill to ‘pray through’ when she had something pressing on her mind. As an example, during World War Two, one of her sons was missing in action. Marthie went up on the hill and prayed loud and long until she finally got the answer she was looking for. She came down off the hill convinced that her son was coming home. – And sure enough – he did come home, being the only soldier from his company to survive because he was taken prisoner of war. Understandably, such as woman shows a formidable profile to her offspring – and even to this day, her faith inspires her extended family. Marthie, through her personal devotion to God, taught her family that God was the source of her being and her provision. He was the one to go to first, and the One to whom the family owed allegiance for providing all good things. She taught her family well and she was a powerful intercessor.
Moses’s mother Jochebed (Ex. 6:20) illustrates an aspect of motherly character - the capacity for fearless political resistance – but it is important to say that this political action is always activated by concern for one’s immediate family. And so there is another characteristic of godly womanhood at play here – the deeply personal nature of morality. While men tend to be consumed with abstract principles, women, and especially mothers seem to know intuitively what is right or wrong – always in the context of the family life. Jochebed knew the decree of Pharaoh that all the male children were to be killed, but she disobeyed this command because her flesh and bone were at stake. Instead she managed to find a way for her son to be adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter – and then given back to her to nurse! Pretty shrewd.
I think we can also see this trait evidenced in the midwives of Moses’ era. They too flaunted the commandment. They did not fear Pharaoh, but I imagine that he was very annoyed by them and may have even feared them as a determined lot. Their political action was based on the immediacy of the personal connection with children, not on some abstract principle.
The career of a mother is tinged by sadness. Her children are always going away from her. Mom gets 9 months to have her child all to herself, and after that it’s one major separation after the other; first birth, then being pulled away to go to school, then off they go to get married, and in some cases – notably Mary the mother of Jesus, her son goes off to be killed. It’s a trajectory of separation – and mothers suffer exquisitely from this constant experience of being separated from their children.
Along this same line, I’d like to mention that although this is a day of celebrating motherhood, this is also a day that is very, very difficult for many women who desire to be mothers, but have not been able to conceive, for those who have lost children due to miscarriage, and for those whose children have died before reaching the age of majority. This was brought home forcibly to me last week, when I sat with a woman who showed me an extensive scrapbook dedicated to her miscarried child.
The scrapbook detailed every step of this woman’s pregnancy, and included several poems describing her emotions along the way. In the book she chronicles her joy in becoming pregnant, her sense of anticipation and then her horror and devastation during the miscarriage and subsequent D&C she had to undergo. She wrote about her anguish and the challenge to her faith, her anger and her pain – but in the end she finds the grace to let go and give the child up to God. Reading through this scrapbook of remembrance was both a privilege and a prod to my own faith. It sensitized me anew to the pain associated with the loss of a child, and helped me realize that Mother’s Day is an occasion to remember and reach out to those who suffer because they have lost a child or yearn to have one.
Now in the Old Testament, Hannah is such a mother. She was, you’ll remember, a woman who had a hard time conceiving a child. Because she was one of two wives, her rival, Penninah tortured Hannah about being childless. Hanna was ashamed of this and decided to devote herself to prayer until she was able to conceive, making a vow to God that if she had a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. This she did, becoming the mother of Samuel the prophet. Hannah shows us a character that is desperate for God to answer, tenacious in prayer, and steadfast in carrying out her vows to the Lord. In Jewish teaching she is often considered a paradigm of the godly woman.
Then too we think about Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, who was a godly woman, married to a godly man, and who again illustrates the pain of being childless. She and her husband are chosen to come the parents of John the Baptist because of their righteousness before God, and their tenacious faith, even in their advanced years. They are emblematic of faithfulness in the face of a barren condition and thus are teachers to Israel. When Elizabeth conceives, she says, in Luke 1:25: “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” God comes to her as a representative of the Jewish nation. He sees her affliction and her groaning, and he comes to her to take away her reproach. Thus she teaches her nation how to look for Messiah.
Finally, we come to Mary, whom we have already mentioned briefly. Mary was, of course, an upright young woman. When Gabriel comes to her with the announcement of her impending pregnancy, he greets her by saying, “Greetings, (or “hail”) O favored one, the Lord is with you!” a foreshadowing of the child she would bear – Emmanuel – God with us.
I her response to Gabriel, Mary teaches us how to be Christians. “Be it done to me according to your will” she says. This is the response to God that ushers a person into the Kingdom, and it is the same response that keeps us on the path with God throughout our Christian lives. We will never go wrong if we say to God, “Be it done to me according to your will.”
Mary teaches us to be a defender of justice in her song of praise to God. She shows that she has a political consciousness when she says:
“He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)
By participating with God in the birth of Messiah, she becomes a defender of righteousness and an exponent for Justice.
Then too her intercessory capacity is illustrated in a very domestic way when she goes to Jesus at the wedding of Cana (John 2) and says to him, “They have no wine.” I love this simple statement because every son or husband knows immediately what was going on here. That simple statement was no mere observation, it was a demand! Jesus got it right away and he replies, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” He knew that his mother expected him to do something about it.
She was interceding for her friends in that very personal way that only mothers manifest – the request that is no request, but rather an expectation. Her terse instruction to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” is a wonderfully multi-layered. It is really spoken to Jesus with an implied threat: “You better do something…” It is a statement that conveys a knowledge of Jesus that goes beyond faith and becomes certainty. It’s as if she is saying, “Look, we both know you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now do something!” Her ‘intercession’ for the newlyweds is based in her certainty about the true identity of Jesus.
And in that simple command, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary teaches us a wonderfully simple way to follow Jesus. Just listen up and do whatever he tells you!
I hope that in these reflections you can see that our observance of Mother’s Day isn’t just a greeting card holiday, but a profound acknowledgement of a mother’s role in teaching us, in defending righteousness, and in interceding before our God.
I’d like for us to respond by taking our your insert containing the Magnificat. Let’s honor Mary, the mother of our faith, and all other mothers by saying together this powerful song:
Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat (Luke 1:47-55)
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Last week, as Fr. Mark was preaching about Psalm 23, I had a very pleasant memory flood back into my mind – that of my mother teaching me the 23rd Psalm at night before I went to sleep. This was a regular occurrence at our house between the ages of about 7-11 or so. She would come in and say nighttime prayers with me and teach me various passages of Scripture, say the Lord’s Prayer, etc. It was sort of an informal catechism I suppose.
Growing up, we were Methodists, so Mom also told me about Susannah Wesley - how she taught her children Latin and Greek as well as classical studies, how she influenced her sons John and Charles, and how she became known as the Mother of Methodism. I think I was supposed to put it together that Mom was following in the great Methodist tradition by trying to get me to learn a few psalms and prayers before bedtime. And I guess to some extent I did, because I still remember the things she taught me before bed – evidence for the powerful impact of a mother on her children.
At any rate, today is Mother’s Day, and we want to spend some time lauding Mothers as they so richly deserve. As you likely know, Mother’s Day and West Virginia have a rich history.
According to the Mother’s Day Central web site:
“Anna Reeves Jarvis held the first official celebration of mothers, in her home state of West Virginia in 1858. She instituted Mothers' Work Day to raise awareness about local sanitation issues. During the Civil War, she expanded the scope of Mothers' Work Day to include sanitary conditions on both sides of the battlefield…”
In 1905, Anna Reeves Jarvis passed away and her daughter, Anna Jarvis, took up her mother's torch. Anna swore on her mother's gravesite that she would realize her lifelong dream of creating a national day to honor mothers. In 1907, Anna launched her campaign by handing out white carnations to congregants at her mother's church, St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal, in Grafton, West Virginia. In 1908, her mother's church acquiesced to Anna's request to hold a special Sunday service in honor of mothers - a tradition that spread the very next year to churches in 46 states. In 1909, Anna left her job and dedicated herself to a full-time letter-writing campaign, imploring politicians, clergymen and civic leaders to institute a national day for mothers.
In 1912 …West Virginia adopted an official Mother's Day; two years later, the U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution, signed by President Wilson, establishing a national Mother's Day emphasizing the role of women in their families …Ever since, Mother's Day has been celebrated by Americans on the second Sunday in May.” (Mother’s Day Central.com).
So, I would like to help us celebrate Motherhood on this second Sunday of May by referencing some mothers who point to three typical characteristics of the godly mother: their capacity to teach, their role as defenders of righteousness, and their power in intercession.
The first characteristic we have already mentioned. Mothers are, of course, natural teachers. From the moment of birth, mothers teach their children intimately through a thousand small interactions – from learning to suck at the first hour of birth, to learning one’s alphabet before going to school – as Susannah Wesley taught her children, mothers are constantly teaching. Their influence is both didactic and moral in that a mother’s godly influence can sometimes carry an entire family.
Cindy’s grandmother was such a woman - someone who was very devout and who would go up on the hill to ‘pray through’ when she had something pressing on her mind. As an example, during World War Two, one of her sons was missing in action. Marthie went up on the hill and prayed loud and long until she finally got the answer she was looking for. She came down off the hill convinced that her son was coming home. – And sure enough – he did come home, being the only soldier from his company to survive because he was taken prisoner of war. Understandably, such as woman shows a formidable profile to her offspring – and even to this day, her faith inspires her extended family. Marthie, through her personal devotion to God, taught her family that God was the source of her being and her provision. He was the one to go to first, and the One to whom the family owed allegiance for providing all good things. She taught her family well and she was a powerful intercessor.
Moses’s mother Jochebed (Ex. 6:20) illustrates an aspect of motherly character - the capacity for fearless political resistance – but it is important to say that this political action is always activated by concern for one’s immediate family. And so there is another characteristic of godly womanhood at play here – the deeply personal nature of morality. While men tend to be consumed with abstract principles, women, and especially mothers seem to know intuitively what is right or wrong – always in the context of the family life. Jochebed knew the decree of Pharaoh that all the male children were to be killed, but she disobeyed this command because her flesh and bone were at stake. Instead she managed to find a way for her son to be adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter – and then given back to her to nurse! Pretty shrewd.
I think we can also see this trait evidenced in the midwives of Moses’ era. They too flaunted the commandment. They did not fear Pharaoh, but I imagine that he was very annoyed by them and may have even feared them as a determined lot. Their political action was based on the immediacy of the personal connection with children, not on some abstract principle.
The career of a mother is tinged by sadness. Her children are always going away from her. Mom gets 9 months to have her child all to herself, and after that it’s one major separation after the other; first birth, then being pulled away to go to school, then off they go to get married, and in some cases – notably Mary the mother of Jesus, her son goes off to be killed. It’s a trajectory of separation – and mothers suffer exquisitely from this constant experience of being separated from their children.
Along this same line, I’d like to mention that although this is a day of celebrating motherhood, this is also a day that is very, very difficult for many women who desire to be mothers, but have not been able to conceive, for those who have lost children due to miscarriage, and for those whose children have died before reaching the age of majority. This was brought home forcibly to me last week, when I sat with a woman who showed me an extensive scrapbook dedicated to her miscarried child.
The scrapbook detailed every step of this woman’s pregnancy, and included several poems describing her emotions along the way. In the book she chronicles her joy in becoming pregnant, her sense of anticipation and then her horror and devastation during the miscarriage and subsequent D&C she had to undergo. She wrote about her anguish and the challenge to her faith, her anger and her pain – but in the end she finds the grace to let go and give the child up to God. Reading through this scrapbook of remembrance was both a privilege and a prod to my own faith. It sensitized me anew to the pain associated with the loss of a child, and helped me realize that Mother’s Day is an occasion to remember and reach out to those who suffer because they have lost a child or yearn to have one.
Now in the Old Testament, Hannah is such a mother. She was, you’ll remember, a woman who had a hard time conceiving a child. Because she was one of two wives, her rival, Penninah tortured Hannah about being childless. Hanna was ashamed of this and decided to devote herself to prayer until she was able to conceive, making a vow to God that if she had a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. This she did, becoming the mother of Samuel the prophet. Hannah shows us a character that is desperate for God to answer, tenacious in prayer, and steadfast in carrying out her vows to the Lord. In Jewish teaching she is often considered a paradigm of the godly woman.
Then too we think about Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, who was a godly woman, married to a godly man, and who again illustrates the pain of being childless. She and her husband are chosen to come the parents of John the Baptist because of their righteousness before God, and their tenacious faith, even in their advanced years. They are emblematic of faithfulness in the face of a barren condition and thus are teachers to Israel. When Elizabeth conceives, she says, in Luke 1:25: “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” God comes to her as a representative of the Jewish nation. He sees her affliction and her groaning, and he comes to her to take away her reproach. Thus she teaches her nation how to look for Messiah.
Finally, we come to Mary, whom we have already mentioned briefly. Mary was, of course, an upright young woman. When Gabriel comes to her with the announcement of her impending pregnancy, he greets her by saying, “Greetings, (or “hail”) O favored one, the Lord is with you!” a foreshadowing of the child she would bear – Emmanuel – God with us.
I her response to Gabriel, Mary teaches us how to be Christians. “Be it done to me according to your will” she says. This is the response to God that ushers a person into the Kingdom, and it is the same response that keeps us on the path with God throughout our Christian lives. We will never go wrong if we say to God, “Be it done to me according to your will.”
Mary teaches us to be a defender of justice in her song of praise to God. She shows that she has a political consciousness when she says:
“He has shown strength with his arm;he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;he has brought down the mighty from their thronesand exalted those of humble estate;he has filled the hungry with good things,and the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53)
By participating with God in the birth of Messiah, she becomes a defender of righteousness and an exponent for Justice.
Then too her intercessory capacity is illustrated in a very domestic way when she goes to Jesus at the wedding of Cana (John 2) and says to him, “They have no wine.” I love this simple statement because every son or husband knows immediately what was going on here. That simple statement was no mere observation, it was a demand! Jesus got it right away and he replies, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” He knew that his mother expected him to do something about it.
She was interceding for her friends in that very personal way that only mothers manifest – the request that is no request, but rather an expectation. Her terse instruction to the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” is a wonderfully multi-layered. It is really spoken to Jesus with an implied threat: “You better do something…” It is a statement that conveys a knowledge of Jesus that goes beyond faith and becomes certainty. It’s as if she is saying, “Look, we both know you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Now do something!” Her ‘intercession’ for the newlyweds is based in her certainty about the true identity of Jesus.
And in that simple command, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary teaches us a wonderfully simple way to follow Jesus. Just listen up and do whatever he tells you!
I hope that in these reflections you can see that our observance of Mother’s Day isn’t just a greeting card holiday, but a profound acknowledgement of a mother’s role in teaching us, in defending righteousness, and in interceding before our God.
I’d like for us to respond by taking our your insert containing the Magnificat. Let’s honor Mary, the mother of our faith, and all other mothers by saying together this powerful song:
Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat (Luke 1:47-55)
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
Thursday, May 07, 2009
A Prayer for Families
A Prayer delivered to those assembled at the West Virginia State Capitol at noon on the National Day of Prayer, May 7, 2009
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father: who created us in Your own image and set us in families to reflect your Image and nurture one another in love:
We commend to Your continual care the homes in which our people dwell. We confess before You that in our weakness and foolishness, we have failed to love one another as You loved us and gave Your own dear Son for us.
We have failed to impart to our children the knowledge and love of You, and instead have worshipped idols of our own making, reaping failure and brokenness - exposing our children to lives of futility and debt.
Forgive us Lord in Your mercy. Grant us grace to do your will and truly reflect your image – male and female – that we may raise up a godly heritage, steward your creation faithfully and enjoy Your Presence on earth as it is in Heaven.
For Your name’s sake, Lord, strengthen and revive us. Teach us to love one another. Give us courage to face our challenges, and wisdom to impart to our children. Pour out Your compassion, that we may reach out in love to those who are in trouble, need or affliction – that they may be comforted in their distress and know You as You are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread.
Lord we name before you the lonely, the homeless, the bereaved and the oppressed, those who have lost jobs and are idle, those who have jobs and are too busy, those who struggle and those who rejoice, those who seek companions and those content to be single. Remember and shield them all in your Love.
Lord, guide us and govern us in your grace, that in all the cares and occupations of our lives, we may not forget You but may remember that we are ever walking in Your sight. Hear our supplications Lord, and grant our prayers, not as we ask in our ignorance or , nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father: who created us in Your own image and set us in families to reflect your Image and nurture one another in love:
We commend to Your continual care the homes in which our people dwell. We confess before You that in our weakness and foolishness, we have failed to love one another as You loved us and gave Your own dear Son for us.
We have failed to impart to our children the knowledge and love of You, and instead have worshipped idols of our own making, reaping failure and brokenness - exposing our children to lives of futility and debt.
Forgive us Lord in Your mercy. Grant us grace to do your will and truly reflect your image – male and female – that we may raise up a godly heritage, steward your creation faithfully and enjoy Your Presence on earth as it is in Heaven.
For Your name’s sake, Lord, strengthen and revive us. Teach us to love one another. Give us courage to face our challenges, and wisdom to impart to our children. Pour out Your compassion, that we may reach out in love to those who are in trouble, need or affliction – that they may be comforted in their distress and know You as You are revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread.
Lord we name before you the lonely, the homeless, the bereaved and the oppressed, those who have lost jobs and are idle, those who have jobs and are too busy, those who struggle and those who rejoice, those who seek companions and those content to be single. Remember and shield them all in your Love.
Lord, guide us and govern us in your grace, that in all the cares and occupations of our lives, we may not forget You but may remember that we are ever walking in Your sight. Hear our supplications Lord, and grant our prayers, not as we ask in our ignorance or , nor as we deserve in our sinfulness, but as you know and love us in your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Our Response to Christ's Redemption
A Sermon Delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on April 26, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Hospital, Huntington, WV
Our opening collect for today includes the following phrase: “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work”…
We could ask, “What is all His redeeming work?”, or: “What does Jesus redeem?” and the basic answer is: ‘Everything that was lost in the Fall.”
What was lost in the Fall? First and most tragically, we lost fellowship with God. Human beings, who had been created for loving and covenantal relationship with the most High, fell out of intimacy with God through Sin. They – we – also fell out of fellowship with one another, with the physical environment, and even with our own selves. In short, through the Fall, we are alienated in every aspect of our lives.
But thanks be to God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, God has redeemed us – all of us. There is a slogan that goes: “God saves wholes not souls” – In other words He saves redeems ALL of life, not just disembodied spirits.
So what does it mean that God has redeemed me as a whole person? And how do I respond?
Well, firstly, through the work of Christ, God redeems our relationship with Him. The blood of Christ takes away sin, not just covers it. Therefore, we now have fellowship with God and this enables us to enter into the Holy of Holies and to freely Worship Him in spirit and in truth. The dividing veil is gone and we enter in as the People of God – his very plan for human beings all along. In Response to Christ’s redemption of our relationship with God, we practice the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; we Worship. This is what defines us Christians: as the people of God, we are a worshipping community.
Then too, Christ redeems us from our own selves. Because we have been reconciled with God, our sins are forgiven and we can be at peace with our selves once more. There is healing for our deepest personal wounds in the blood of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. His plan for us is to look like Jesus – to transform us daily by the renewing of our minds and hearts. (Rom 12:2). In Response, we present ourselves before God in private devotion and in personal Bible study and reflection, as well as with other spiritual disciplines that lead to our transformation into the image of Christ. We practice Formation.
Next, we note that Jesus has redeemed our relationships with others. He came to bind up the wounds of the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom to prisoners and release to captives. (is. 61:1). This applies to the world of interpersonal and societal relations. Jesus redeems our relationships with other people.
In Response we enjoy the fellowship of other believers and we reach out to others with the healing power and Grace of Christ. This is really an overlapping of Community and Mission.
Through our 8th Day Life Groups, and other types of fellowship in the body, we practice Community with the Body of Christ. We eat together and share our lives. We encourage one another personally and in the Lord. We interact as Family, as the people of God, as a Community of believers. We pray for one another and we attempt to build up one another in our faith. We respond to Christ’s redemptive work by practicing Community with one another.
But we also respond by going to our larger Community in Mission, to wherever the world is hurting. We attempt to bring the “those who do not know Christ to the knowledge and love of Him’, as one of our collects for mission states. We respond by noticing the things that hurt in our Community.
For instance, here in the Tri-State region people are suffering horribly through their addictions to drugs and alcohol – which in turn leads to all manner of crimes affecting all manner of people, from the arrest of prominent physicians for drug running, to thefts, to the murder of innocent – and not so innocent people.
Every one who suffers and dies as a result of drug or alcohol involvement is a victim of the Devil. As Christians, we ought not to stand for this, but aggressively take the Gospel to our world and reclaim everything that the Devil tries to claim for his own. Our response to Christ’s redemption of human society is to practice Mission.
Our Mission even extends to the very ground itself.
Last year, when we participated in the Four Corners Blessings, we poured out the Body and Blood of Christ onto the ground, proclaiming healing of the very environment by the sacrifice and life of Christ. We did the same thing at our first Memorial Eucharist at Hope House. We buried the bread and poured out the wine of Christ’s body and blood on the ground to redeem it and take it back from the Devil.
When we did this, we proclaimed Christ’s death and we also proclaimed his transformative life, which renews the very Earth.
Because we responded to Christ’s redemption of sin and death, Hope House is no longer a drug house and place of death, but a place of prayer and life.
This ought to excite us greatly. Death is swallowed up in Life and the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Our Response to Christ’s Redemption of the World then, is to reach out in Mission.
So again, we Respond in the four basic areas because Christ Redeems all of our lives. I remind you of one of the definitions of prayer: Our response to God, whether with words or without words, with deeds or without deeds.
Friends, let’s make our lives a prayer to God by responding to God’s grace and mercy in all our actions. By His Grace, let us live out our calling as the People of God, and as All Saints Anglican Church. AMEN.
Our opening collect for today includes the following phrase: “Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work”…
We could ask, “What is all His redeeming work?”, or: “What does Jesus redeem?” and the basic answer is: ‘Everything that was lost in the Fall.”
What was lost in the Fall? First and most tragically, we lost fellowship with God. Human beings, who had been created for loving and covenantal relationship with the most High, fell out of intimacy with God through Sin. They – we – also fell out of fellowship with one another, with the physical environment, and even with our own selves. In short, through the Fall, we are alienated in every aspect of our lives.
But thanks be to God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross, God has redeemed us – all of us. There is a slogan that goes: “God saves wholes not souls” – In other words He saves redeems ALL of life, not just disembodied spirits.
So what does it mean that God has redeemed me as a whole person? And how do I respond?
Well, firstly, through the work of Christ, God redeems our relationship with Him. The blood of Christ takes away sin, not just covers it. Therefore, we now have fellowship with God and this enables us to enter into the Holy of Holies and to freely Worship Him in spirit and in truth. The dividing veil is gone and we enter in as the People of God – his very plan for human beings all along. In Response to Christ’s redemption of our relationship with God, we practice the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; we Worship. This is what defines us Christians: as the people of God, we are a worshipping community.
Then too, Christ redeems us from our own selves. Because we have been reconciled with God, our sins are forgiven and we can be at peace with our selves once more. There is healing for our deepest personal wounds in the blood of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit. His plan for us is to look like Jesus – to transform us daily by the renewing of our minds and hearts. (Rom 12:2). In Response, we present ourselves before God in private devotion and in personal Bible study and reflection, as well as with other spiritual disciplines that lead to our transformation into the image of Christ. We practice Formation.
Next, we note that Jesus has redeemed our relationships with others. He came to bind up the wounds of the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom to prisoners and release to captives. (is. 61:1). This applies to the world of interpersonal and societal relations. Jesus redeems our relationships with other people.
In Response we enjoy the fellowship of other believers and we reach out to others with the healing power and Grace of Christ. This is really an overlapping of Community and Mission.
Through our 8th Day Life Groups, and other types of fellowship in the body, we practice Community with the Body of Christ. We eat together and share our lives. We encourage one another personally and in the Lord. We interact as Family, as the people of God, as a Community of believers. We pray for one another and we attempt to build up one another in our faith. We respond to Christ’s redemptive work by practicing Community with one another.
But we also respond by going to our larger Community in Mission, to wherever the world is hurting. We attempt to bring the “those who do not know Christ to the knowledge and love of Him’, as one of our collects for mission states. We respond by noticing the things that hurt in our Community.
For instance, here in the Tri-State region people are suffering horribly through their addictions to drugs and alcohol – which in turn leads to all manner of crimes affecting all manner of people, from the arrest of prominent physicians for drug running, to thefts, to the murder of innocent – and not so innocent people.
Every one who suffers and dies as a result of drug or alcohol involvement is a victim of the Devil. As Christians, we ought not to stand for this, but aggressively take the Gospel to our world and reclaim everything that the Devil tries to claim for his own. Our response to Christ’s redemption of human society is to practice Mission.
Our Mission even extends to the very ground itself.
Last year, when we participated in the Four Corners Blessings, we poured out the Body and Blood of Christ onto the ground, proclaiming healing of the very environment by the sacrifice and life of Christ. We did the same thing at our first Memorial Eucharist at Hope House. We buried the bread and poured out the wine of Christ’s body and blood on the ground to redeem it and take it back from the Devil.
When we did this, we proclaimed Christ’s death and we also proclaimed his transformative life, which renews the very Earth.
Because we responded to Christ’s redemption of sin and death, Hope House is no longer a drug house and place of death, but a place of prayer and life.
This ought to excite us greatly. Death is swallowed up in Life and the Kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ. Our Response to Christ’s Redemption of the World then, is to reach out in Mission.
So again, we Respond in the four basic areas because Christ Redeems all of our lives. I remind you of one of the definitions of prayer: Our response to God, whether with words or without words, with deeds or without deeds.
Friends, let’s make our lives a prayer to God by responding to God’s grace and mercy in all our actions. By His Grace, let us live out our calling as the People of God, and as All Saints Anglican Church. AMEN.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday 2009
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Medical Center, Huntington, WV.
Welcome to our Easter Celebration – the time when we recognize the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is a glorious day for the church and the world. It’s the day when God turned the world’s religious thoughts and ideas on their heads by fulfilling what He said He was going to do all along – namely redeeming a people for Himself by defeating the power of sin and death.
This is the most important day of the year for Christians because without the Resurrection, we have no faith – only a failed Charismatic leader and his ragtag movement. This is the day when everybody was surprised because nobody actually could imagine somebody coming back from the dead the way Jesus did.
Let my explain by relating an argument advanced by NT Wright in his book “Surprised by Hope”: Wright says that amongst the Jewish people in Jesus’ day there was an understanding that there would be a general resurrection at the consummation of all things. Everybody would be resurrected at once. Martha the sister of Lazarus referred to this when she said to Jesus, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (Jn 11:24). Most Jews, except the Sadducees, believed in this view.
In contrast, the Greeks and Romans of Jesus’ day mostly believed in life after death, but they did not believe in a bodily resurrection. Nobody, including the disciples, thought that one person would be resurrected ahead of everyone else. They simply had no categories for believing that.
When Jesus was crucified then, all hope for the disciples effectively ended. They didn’t say, “Oh, that’s alright, he’ll be back in three days”. They didn’t say, “Oh, that’s alright, he’s in heaven with God.” Nope. They thought the Romans had won again and that all was lost.
So when Jesus rose on the morning of the third day and then began appearing to the disciples, they had a real hard time understanding exactly what was going on. One thing they did get pretty quickly was that Jesus was not a spirit or a spook. He wasn’t an ectoplasm or an esoteric energy field. He was real. He could be touched. He talked to them in their own language, and after a little squinting he could be recognized as “the Master”. But he had a different sort of body than the disciples - one that could appear and disappear at will or walk through walls without trouble. It was a Resurrected body, one that was alive again but Transformed.
Now if you had never heard this story, your initial reaction to it might be: “No Way!”, or “I’ll be…”, or “Cool!” Your response might be the same as when we recently heard about a St. Albans woman who died at CAMC and then some hours came back to life. It was a neat story, and it lifted our spirits. I understand some people even got saved out of it… but in the big scheme of things, the event didn’t really lay any Claim upon us. We just heard it and went on.
Not so with the resurrection of Jesus. With Christ’s rising on the third day, his earlier statements and predictions about himself come crashing in on us. When he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:13-25), he wasn’t just speaking in metaphor. The Resurrection means that he was speaking literally. When he said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn. 14:6), the Resurrection provides hard physical evidence as to the veracity of that statement. And when we think about the formerly defeated disciples suddenly becoming globe-trotting evangelists willing to die for their newfound faith, the Resurrection of Christ provides the only sensible motive for such a shocking abandonment of every worldly comfort.
In a word, the Resurrection makes demands of us. It demands that we recognize that everything has changed, that Jesus’ rising is not just a very strange event within the present world, but ‘the defining event of the new creation.’ (Wright, pg. 73.) – it is the Kingdom of God breaking into our world and beginning to make all things new.
What we are talking about is not ‘pie in the sky by and by”. This is very much a here and now message. The Second Person of the Godhead died a criminal’s death in payment for our sins. He beat death. He was resurrected and is now the Ruler of All. In this position he now desires to bring the blessings of resurrection first to his people, and then to all of the cosmos. Having dealt with the rebellion that defaced and distorted the world, He now desires to enlist us in this project as co-laborers, and to begin remaking the entire creation, In short, He desires to bring the Future into the Present.
What is this future? …That we will go to heaven to be with God when we die and live there with him as disembodied spirits, happily playing our harps while lounging on puffy white clouds? No, the Future for Christians is living in the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven and in which we live as Resurrected people with the same sort of resurrected body as Jesus has.
This notion of bodily resurrection implies that the present moment has something to do with the future, that what we do here on earth has a recognizable continuity with what will come.
As most of you know, my father, Walt Counts died on the morning of March 27. His was a good life, a life of unbroken faithful worship and service to his world. I think my father was ‘good’ enough simply to have engaged in works of service because it was the right thing to do. But I also believe strongly that all those hours he spent working in the church, volunteering at Helping Hand, or with the Roane General Hospital Auxiliary, or giving to many individuals secretly will not be lost. These acts of love and service to the world are not in vain (I Cor 15:58). They have continuity with the world to be created, the sort of continuity that allows us to recognize the Resurrected Christ as the same Jesus that walked this earth. If this is the case, we will also recognize the works done on earth now in the future Resurrected world.
Translation: What you do now for God endures forever.
But through our good works, we are not simply making our world a little better “every day in every way” by political and social means. It’s that we are incarnating Christ, carrying His Presence to our world and helping to redeem it. Our work here on earth is sacramental, showing outwardly an inward and spiritual reality and serving as a means of grace to those affected by our works. These works are stored up as jewels in God’s treasure chest and preserved into the coming world. The future reality is brought into the present through our works of love and service.
But there is even something better. God doesn’t value us just for the hired labor he gets from us. No, we get to be family. We get to sit down at the table with God every Sunday and enjoy his Presence. Isaiah foresaw this when he prophesied that “the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples, a feast of rich food”… I think Peter alluded to this also when he said that Jesus appeared to those “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” He was speaking there about Christ appearing to the disciples, but if you think about it, we are also those who eat and drink with Christ after he rose from the dead. In fact, this feasting is what sustains us and nourishes us in this world.
It’s like when my wife was growing up. Every Sunday after church the whole crew would pile into the family sedan and trundle back ‘home’ to Grandma Marthy’s house in Three Mile Bluecreek near Clendenin. “Marthy” would always cook a big meal and other family members would come over and everyone would sit down to this big family meal. There at the table, they would eat together and renew their family ties, becoming again what they had always been – family. And if some of the family members didn’t come home often enough, they would be scolded for not coming in. Being a part of the family meant that you came home to eat Sunday dinner.
That’s an illustration of Resurrection Life for us here and now as Christians. Each Sunday, at the Lord’s Table, we Lift up our hearts to Heaven. We “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). We go up to Heaven and we sit down to eat and drink with God and the whole family of believers from all generations. We renew our Covenant with God, we catch a glimpse of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb to come, and we receive refreshment for our work of service in the world.
This Eucharistic Worship is the center of one of four basic Christian “practices’ we have identified to enable us to live out our Resurrection Life here on earth– life lived in the new 8th Day of Creation. The other three practices are: Spiritual Formation, Community and Mission.
For Christians, these Four Practices are the four points of our Spiritual Compass. We call them practices, but having said this we do not mean ‘works of the law’. Rather, we mean that these four areas are functions of the Body of Christ that both Make the body what it is and Build it up at the same time. God uses these Four basic practices to form us into the image of the Resurrected Christ.
Easter challenges us to live out that New Life. In the ancient church Lent was devoted to teaching believers more about the faith and Easter was set aside for Baptisms. This year, we have imitated this pattern as we met together and studied the 39 Articles of religion and considered how to walk out the Four Practices as our Rule of Life.
At this time, we will now ask you to pledge yourselves to walking out this Resurrection 8th Day life by publicly committing to the Four Practices for 8th Day Life. Each of you has been given a copy of the Liturgy of Public commitment and a Flow Chart representing the ‘Spiritual DNA of All Saints Anglican Church. As a sign of your desire to renew your Baptismal vow to follow Christ as a disciple, I ask you now to stand and affirm your intention in the Liturgy of Public Commitment.
Celebrant Do you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Candidate I do, by God’s help.
Celebrant Have you been baptized in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
Candidate I have.
Celebrant Do you believe the Christian faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and as set forth and summarized in the Apostles Creed?
Candidate I do, by God’s help.
Celebrant Do you take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ as his disciple?
Candidate I do, with God’s help
Celebrant Do you desire to embrace the 4 Practices of Worship, Community, Formation and
Mission as your Rule of Life?
Candidate I do, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Worship; committing yourself to participate well in the public worship of All Saints Anglican Church?
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Community: intending to know, serve and love other participants in
All Saints Anglican Church?
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Formation; intending to use spiritual disciplines to cooperate with the
Holy Spirit in order to grow into Christ-like character.
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Mission; committing yourself to love and serve God’s world in word
and deed.
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant As rector of All Saints Anglican Church and on behalf of our whole worshipping
community, I receive your affirmations and declare that they are a sign of hope to all the
Church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us pray
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, and especially for these who have committed themselves here today, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Welcome to our Easter Celebration – the time when we recognize the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is a glorious day for the church and the world. It’s the day when God turned the world’s religious thoughts and ideas on their heads by fulfilling what He said He was going to do all along – namely redeeming a people for Himself by defeating the power of sin and death.
This is the most important day of the year for Christians because without the Resurrection, we have no faith – only a failed Charismatic leader and his ragtag movement. This is the day when everybody was surprised because nobody actually could imagine somebody coming back from the dead the way Jesus did.
Let my explain by relating an argument advanced by NT Wright in his book “Surprised by Hope”: Wright says that amongst the Jewish people in Jesus’ day there was an understanding that there would be a general resurrection at the consummation of all things. Everybody would be resurrected at once. Martha the sister of Lazarus referred to this when she said to Jesus, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (Jn 11:24). Most Jews, except the Sadducees, believed in this view.
In contrast, the Greeks and Romans of Jesus’ day mostly believed in life after death, but they did not believe in a bodily resurrection. Nobody, including the disciples, thought that one person would be resurrected ahead of everyone else. They simply had no categories for believing that.
When Jesus was crucified then, all hope for the disciples effectively ended. They didn’t say, “Oh, that’s alright, he’ll be back in three days”. They didn’t say, “Oh, that’s alright, he’s in heaven with God.” Nope. They thought the Romans had won again and that all was lost.
So when Jesus rose on the morning of the third day and then began appearing to the disciples, they had a real hard time understanding exactly what was going on. One thing they did get pretty quickly was that Jesus was not a spirit or a spook. He wasn’t an ectoplasm or an esoteric energy field. He was real. He could be touched. He talked to them in their own language, and after a little squinting he could be recognized as “the Master”. But he had a different sort of body than the disciples - one that could appear and disappear at will or walk through walls without trouble. It was a Resurrected body, one that was alive again but Transformed.
Now if you had never heard this story, your initial reaction to it might be: “No Way!”, or “I’ll be…”, or “Cool!” Your response might be the same as when we recently heard about a St. Albans woman who died at CAMC and then some hours came back to life. It was a neat story, and it lifted our spirits. I understand some people even got saved out of it… but in the big scheme of things, the event didn’t really lay any Claim upon us. We just heard it and went on.
Not so with the resurrection of Jesus. With Christ’s rising on the third day, his earlier statements and predictions about himself come crashing in on us. When he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:13-25), he wasn’t just speaking in metaphor. The Resurrection means that he was speaking literally. When he said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn. 14:6), the Resurrection provides hard physical evidence as to the veracity of that statement. And when we think about the formerly defeated disciples suddenly becoming globe-trotting evangelists willing to die for their newfound faith, the Resurrection of Christ provides the only sensible motive for such a shocking abandonment of every worldly comfort.
In a word, the Resurrection makes demands of us. It demands that we recognize that everything has changed, that Jesus’ rising is not just a very strange event within the present world, but ‘the defining event of the new creation.’ (Wright, pg. 73.) – it is the Kingdom of God breaking into our world and beginning to make all things new.
What we are talking about is not ‘pie in the sky by and by”. This is very much a here and now message. The Second Person of the Godhead died a criminal’s death in payment for our sins. He beat death. He was resurrected and is now the Ruler of All. In this position he now desires to bring the blessings of resurrection first to his people, and then to all of the cosmos. Having dealt with the rebellion that defaced and distorted the world, He now desires to enlist us in this project as co-laborers, and to begin remaking the entire creation, In short, He desires to bring the Future into the Present.
What is this future? …That we will go to heaven to be with God when we die and live there with him as disembodied spirits, happily playing our harps while lounging on puffy white clouds? No, the Future for Christians is living in the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven and in which we live as Resurrected people with the same sort of resurrected body as Jesus has.
This notion of bodily resurrection implies that the present moment has something to do with the future, that what we do here on earth has a recognizable continuity with what will come.
As most of you know, my father, Walt Counts died on the morning of March 27. His was a good life, a life of unbroken faithful worship and service to his world. I think my father was ‘good’ enough simply to have engaged in works of service because it was the right thing to do. But I also believe strongly that all those hours he spent working in the church, volunteering at Helping Hand, or with the Roane General Hospital Auxiliary, or giving to many individuals secretly will not be lost. These acts of love and service to the world are not in vain (I Cor 15:58). They have continuity with the world to be created, the sort of continuity that allows us to recognize the Resurrected Christ as the same Jesus that walked this earth. If this is the case, we will also recognize the works done on earth now in the future Resurrected world.
Translation: What you do now for God endures forever.
But through our good works, we are not simply making our world a little better “every day in every way” by political and social means. It’s that we are incarnating Christ, carrying His Presence to our world and helping to redeem it. Our work here on earth is sacramental, showing outwardly an inward and spiritual reality and serving as a means of grace to those affected by our works. These works are stored up as jewels in God’s treasure chest and preserved into the coming world. The future reality is brought into the present through our works of love and service.
But there is even something better. God doesn’t value us just for the hired labor he gets from us. No, we get to be family. We get to sit down at the table with God every Sunday and enjoy his Presence. Isaiah foresaw this when he prophesied that “the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples, a feast of rich food”… I think Peter alluded to this also when he said that Jesus appeared to those “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” He was speaking there about Christ appearing to the disciples, but if you think about it, we are also those who eat and drink with Christ after he rose from the dead. In fact, this feasting is what sustains us and nourishes us in this world.
It’s like when my wife was growing up. Every Sunday after church the whole crew would pile into the family sedan and trundle back ‘home’ to Grandma Marthy’s house in Three Mile Bluecreek near Clendenin. “Marthy” would always cook a big meal and other family members would come over and everyone would sit down to this big family meal. There at the table, they would eat together and renew their family ties, becoming again what they had always been – family. And if some of the family members didn’t come home often enough, they would be scolded for not coming in. Being a part of the family meant that you came home to eat Sunday dinner.
That’s an illustration of Resurrection Life for us here and now as Christians. Each Sunday, at the Lord’s Table, we Lift up our hearts to Heaven. We “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). We go up to Heaven and we sit down to eat and drink with God and the whole family of believers from all generations. We renew our Covenant with God, we catch a glimpse of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb to come, and we receive refreshment for our work of service in the world.
This Eucharistic Worship is the center of one of four basic Christian “practices’ we have identified to enable us to live out our Resurrection Life here on earth– life lived in the new 8th Day of Creation. The other three practices are: Spiritual Formation, Community and Mission.
For Christians, these Four Practices are the four points of our Spiritual Compass. We call them practices, but having said this we do not mean ‘works of the law’. Rather, we mean that these four areas are functions of the Body of Christ that both Make the body what it is and Build it up at the same time. God uses these Four basic practices to form us into the image of the Resurrected Christ.
Easter challenges us to live out that New Life. In the ancient church Lent was devoted to teaching believers more about the faith and Easter was set aside for Baptisms. This year, we have imitated this pattern as we met together and studied the 39 Articles of religion and considered how to walk out the Four Practices as our Rule of Life.
At this time, we will now ask you to pledge yourselves to walking out this Resurrection 8th Day life by publicly committing to the Four Practices for 8th Day Life. Each of you has been given a copy of the Liturgy of Public commitment and a Flow Chart representing the ‘Spiritual DNA of All Saints Anglican Church. As a sign of your desire to renew your Baptismal vow to follow Christ as a disciple, I ask you now to stand and affirm your intention in the Liturgy of Public Commitment.
Celebrant Do you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Candidate I do, by God’s help.
Celebrant Have you been baptized in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
Candidate I have.
Celebrant Do you believe the Christian faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and as set forth and summarized in the Apostles Creed?
Candidate I do, by God’s help.
Celebrant Do you take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ as his disciple?
Candidate I do, with God’s help
Celebrant Do you desire to embrace the 4 Practices of Worship, Community, Formation and
Mission as your Rule of Life?
Candidate I do, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Worship; committing yourself to participate well in the public worship of All Saints Anglican Church?
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Community: intending to know, serve and love other participants in
All Saints Anglican Church?
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Formation; intending to use spiritual disciplines to cooperate with the
Holy Spirit in order to grow into Christ-like character.
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant Will you practice Mission; committing yourself to love and serve God’s world in word
and deed.
Candidate I will, with God’s help
Celebrant As rector of All Saints Anglican Church and on behalf of our whole worshipping
community, I receive your affirmations and declare that they are a sign of hope to all the
Church. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us pray
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers, which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, and especially for these who have committed themselves here today, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Good Friday 2009
A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on Good Friday evening at Hope House, 1410 Charleston Ave., Huntington, WV.
At this hour of the evening, Christ would have already been taken down off the cross and laid in the tomb, so that his body would not have remained on the cross on the Sabbath, which started at 6pm in the evening by the Jewish reckoning of time.
At the request of the Jewish leaders Pilate’s soldiers had broken the legs of the two criminals so that they would die quickly. But Jesus was already found to be dead, so they pierced his side with a spear just to make sure. At that moment, when blood and water came out of Jesus’ side, the Church was born.
You see, God the Father had it in his mind from the very beginning to create a people for himself – a people that would live in close community with Him and who would delight in obedience to their Lord. We read in Genesis about the Creation of Adam and Eve, and how they fell away from their high calling by virtue of their disobedience. We witness God promising them a Savior and then calling Abraham into covenant with Him in order to be a blessing to all the world. We see the covenant renewed in God’s dealings with Jacob (Israel). And in the Exodus, Moses leads the people out of Egypt after the various plagues which culminated in the Passover.
As the people of Israel leave Egypt and make their way into the desert, they are given the Law and the sign of the circumcision to mark their covenant with God. And while the Law demanded sacrifices in order to cover the sin of the people, yet God’s heart was not so much interested in sacrifice as He was in finding a people with whom he could fellowship – a covenant people.
Now according to something called ‘The Standard Canonical Narrative’, biblical history should be understood in terms of a linear ‘creation –fall-redemption-consummation narrative. In other words, “The Fall disrupted God’s original purpose, while the work of Christ is to redeem the fallen creation and bring to final consummation God’s original purpose in creation.” (Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology, pg. 21.)
Author Simon Chan calls this an ‘instrumentalist’ view of the church – the church is only an ‘instrument of God’s will”. Within this view the church is a means to an end and our value as Church is the extent to which we fulfill or mission. You meet your quota and God likes you, miss the quota, and you’re in trouble.
However, there is another way to understand the Bible’s narrative, and that is to start with the realization that “The church precedes Creation…” (Chan pg. 23). Creation forms the backdrop for God’s elective grace and covenant relationship rather than vice versa.:” (Chan pg. 22). In this view…”The church does not exist in order to fix a broken creation; rather, creation exists to realize the church” (Chan pg. 23).
“God’s highest intention for the world should be seen as [being] the means by which God’s grace of election could be realized. (pg. 22). Alexander Schmemann says it this way: “The Church is not for the world, the world is for the church.”(For the Life of the World). “God made the world in order to make the church. (Chan pg. 23). This means that our basic identity as the church is to be found not in what we do, but in what we are.
So think with me now about Heb. 10:5,6:
“… when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.”
This body that is mentioned is usually understood as Christ’s Human body, but I can’t also help but think of the church. Jesus is called the Head and the Church his Body; we are held together by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is an organic unity between head and body and this unity is designated by the term totus Christus- the total Christ.
The total Christ is not something external to God, but internal. It is a ‘divine-humanity’. The church precedes Creation because it is the body of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity. The historical existence of the church begins with the Passion of Christ, but again, God is not so much interested in the sacrifice as sacrifice, but in Christ’s willing obedience. As Christ dies in his liturgy of Passover Lamb, His obedience creates the promised Covenant People of God, who are the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit – what God had in mind all along.
Simon Chan again: “We are not saved as individual first and then incorporated into the church; rather to be a Christian is to be incorporated into the church by baptism and nourished with the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Failure to understand this fact has led to a reduction of the church’s role to a largely sociological one of a service provider catering to individual believer’s spiritual needs.” (pg. 24.)
Application
Going back to our text in Hebrews: Since we are the covenant people of God, we are admonished to … draw near with a true heart …to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, to stir up one another to love and good works, and to encourage one another …
The Four Practices
This past fall, I introduced the Four Practices, which were based on Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Now we can also tie this in with our scripture for today: Hebrews 10: 22-25: The Four Practices were: Worship, Formation, Mission and Community.
Again, it’s important to remember that it is because we are organically linked to Christ that these practices are not ‘works of the law’, but functions of the body –activities which both make the body and build it up.
I’d like to hand out a (see attached) chart that shows how all this links together in our life as All Saints Anglican Church.
At the bottom of the page we show Company of Jesus, meaning that the monastic spirituality of Benedict and Francis are the wellsprings of spiritual vitality for Anglicanism in general and this congregation in particular.
Our Formation as disciples is based on the Apostle’s teaching as guided by the wisdom of generations of monastics, and over the next several months, we will be studying this more in depth.
We have talked previously about Hope House becoming the center of an Urban Third Order ‘mother House” of the CoJ, in which Company members would move into the immediate area and gather at Hope House for prayer and spiritual friendship (Anam Chara). Our small groups will come to function as ‘priories’ as it were, small communities devoted to encouragement, intercessory and healing prayer, fellowship and Mission.
Worship in this Community centers around the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread in which we ‘draw near’ to God and ‘become what we are” – the body of Christ in our public worship services. The Offices of prayer will also be held at Hope House daily and our Memorial Services reach out to the community to heal the wounds of violence and oppression.
That of course, is Mission. We don’t normally think of it this way, but our Worship is Mission. But Hope House is the focus of our outreach. The Neighboring Initiative is centered here and our outreach to the young people of our community and Victims’ families will take place from this location.
This is the Spiritual DNA of All Saints Anglican Church.
And it’s all because of what happened on Good Friday, some 2000 years ago at Calvary, when Jesus bled and died for us, His body.
I said at the beginning of Lent that on Easter we would ask ourselves to stand and make a Public Commitment to these Four Practices. I do apologize to everyone as I was overly optimistic about visiting with you all individually and developing your own Rule of Life. But that can come in the days ahead. For now, let’s review what it is we are asking you to commit to. Here are the questions I will ask you on Sunday:
Liturgy of Public Commitment
Do you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Have you been baptized in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
Do you believe the Christian faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and as set forth and summarized in the Apostles Creed?
Do you take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ as his disciple?
Do you desire to embrace the 4 Practices of Worship, Community, Formation and Mission as your Rule of Life?
Will you practice Mission; committing yourself to love and serve God’s world in word
and deed.
Will you practice Community: intending to know, serve and love other participants in
All Saints Anglican Church?
Will you practice Formation; intending to use spiritual disciplines to cooperate with the
Holy Spirit in order to grow into Christ-like character?
Will you practice Worship; committing yourself to participate well in the public worship of All Saints Anglican Church?
As we voice our commitment to these practices, may God confirm and strengthen us as His body, His very presence here on earth, born through his blood and nourished at His Table. May he renew His covenant with Him, and may we be found faithful stewards of the Grace of life found within us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
At this hour of the evening, Christ would have already been taken down off the cross and laid in the tomb, so that his body would not have remained on the cross on the Sabbath, which started at 6pm in the evening by the Jewish reckoning of time.
At the request of the Jewish leaders Pilate’s soldiers had broken the legs of the two criminals so that they would die quickly. But Jesus was already found to be dead, so they pierced his side with a spear just to make sure. At that moment, when blood and water came out of Jesus’ side, the Church was born.
You see, God the Father had it in his mind from the very beginning to create a people for himself – a people that would live in close community with Him and who would delight in obedience to their Lord. We read in Genesis about the Creation of Adam and Eve, and how they fell away from their high calling by virtue of their disobedience. We witness God promising them a Savior and then calling Abraham into covenant with Him in order to be a blessing to all the world. We see the covenant renewed in God’s dealings with Jacob (Israel). And in the Exodus, Moses leads the people out of Egypt after the various plagues which culminated in the Passover.
As the people of Israel leave Egypt and make their way into the desert, they are given the Law and the sign of the circumcision to mark their covenant with God. And while the Law demanded sacrifices in order to cover the sin of the people, yet God’s heart was not so much interested in sacrifice as He was in finding a people with whom he could fellowship – a covenant people.
Now according to something called ‘The Standard Canonical Narrative’, biblical history should be understood in terms of a linear ‘creation –fall-redemption-consummation narrative. In other words, “The Fall disrupted God’s original purpose, while the work of Christ is to redeem the fallen creation and bring to final consummation God’s original purpose in creation.” (Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology, pg. 21.)
Author Simon Chan calls this an ‘instrumentalist’ view of the church – the church is only an ‘instrument of God’s will”. Within this view the church is a means to an end and our value as Church is the extent to which we fulfill or mission. You meet your quota and God likes you, miss the quota, and you’re in trouble.
However, there is another way to understand the Bible’s narrative, and that is to start with the realization that “The church precedes Creation…” (Chan pg. 23). Creation forms the backdrop for God’s elective grace and covenant relationship rather than vice versa.:” (Chan pg. 22). In this view…”The church does not exist in order to fix a broken creation; rather, creation exists to realize the church” (Chan pg. 23).
“God’s highest intention for the world should be seen as [being] the means by which God’s grace of election could be realized. (pg. 22). Alexander Schmemann says it this way: “The Church is not for the world, the world is for the church.”(For the Life of the World). “God made the world in order to make the church. (Chan pg. 23). This means that our basic identity as the church is to be found not in what we do, but in what we are.
So think with me now about Heb. 10:5,6:
“… when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.”
This body that is mentioned is usually understood as Christ’s Human body, but I can’t also help but think of the church. Jesus is called the Head and the Church his Body; we are held together by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is an organic unity between head and body and this unity is designated by the term totus Christus- the total Christ.
The total Christ is not something external to God, but internal. It is a ‘divine-humanity’. The church precedes Creation because it is the body of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity. The historical existence of the church begins with the Passion of Christ, but again, God is not so much interested in the sacrifice as sacrifice, but in Christ’s willing obedience. As Christ dies in his liturgy of Passover Lamb, His obedience creates the promised Covenant People of God, who are the Body of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit – what God had in mind all along.
Simon Chan again: “We are not saved as individual first and then incorporated into the church; rather to be a Christian is to be incorporated into the church by baptism and nourished with the spiritual food of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Failure to understand this fact has led to a reduction of the church’s role to a largely sociological one of a service provider catering to individual believer’s spiritual needs.” (pg. 24.)
Application
Going back to our text in Hebrews: Since we are the covenant people of God, we are admonished to … draw near with a true heart …to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, to stir up one another to love and good works, and to encourage one another …
The Four Practices
This past fall, I introduced the Four Practices, which were based on Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Now we can also tie this in with our scripture for today: Hebrews 10: 22-25: The Four Practices were: Worship, Formation, Mission and Community.
Again, it’s important to remember that it is because we are organically linked to Christ that these practices are not ‘works of the law’, but functions of the body –activities which both make the body and build it up.
I’d like to hand out a (see attached) chart that shows how all this links together in our life as All Saints Anglican Church.
At the bottom of the page we show Company of Jesus, meaning that the monastic spirituality of Benedict and Francis are the wellsprings of spiritual vitality for Anglicanism in general and this congregation in particular.
Our Formation as disciples is based on the Apostle’s teaching as guided by the wisdom of generations of monastics, and over the next several months, we will be studying this more in depth.
We have talked previously about Hope House becoming the center of an Urban Third Order ‘mother House” of the CoJ, in which Company members would move into the immediate area and gather at Hope House for prayer and spiritual friendship (Anam Chara). Our small groups will come to function as ‘priories’ as it were, small communities devoted to encouragement, intercessory and healing prayer, fellowship and Mission.
Worship in this Community centers around the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread in which we ‘draw near’ to God and ‘become what we are” – the body of Christ in our public worship services. The Offices of prayer will also be held at Hope House daily and our Memorial Services reach out to the community to heal the wounds of violence and oppression.
That of course, is Mission. We don’t normally think of it this way, but our Worship is Mission. But Hope House is the focus of our outreach. The Neighboring Initiative is centered here and our outreach to the young people of our community and Victims’ families will take place from this location.
This is the Spiritual DNA of All Saints Anglican Church.
And it’s all because of what happened on Good Friday, some 2000 years ago at Calvary, when Jesus bled and died for us, His body.
I said at the beginning of Lent that on Easter we would ask ourselves to stand and make a Public Commitment to these Four Practices. I do apologize to everyone as I was overly optimistic about visiting with you all individually and developing your own Rule of Life. But that can come in the days ahead. For now, let’s review what it is we are asking you to commit to. Here are the questions I will ask you on Sunday:
Liturgy of Public Commitment
Do you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Have you been baptized in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?
Do you believe the Christian faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and as set forth and summarized in the Apostles Creed?
Do you take up your cross daily and follow Jesus Christ as his disciple?
Do you desire to embrace the 4 Practices of Worship, Community, Formation and Mission as your Rule of Life?
Will you practice Mission; committing yourself to love and serve God’s world in word
and deed.
Will you practice Community: intending to know, serve and love other participants in
All Saints Anglican Church?
Will you practice Formation; intending to use spiritual disciplines to cooperate with the
Holy Spirit in order to grow into Christ-like character?
Will you practice Worship; committing yourself to participate well in the public worship of All Saints Anglican Church?
As we voice our commitment to these practices, may God confirm and strengthen us as His body, His very presence here on earth, born through his blood and nourished at His Table. May he renew His covenant with Him, and may we be found faithful stewards of the Grace of life found within us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Peregrination
A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on March 15, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.
During the reign of Alfred the Great, the first true King of England (849-899), three Irishman arrived in Cornwall after having drifted for seven days across the sea from Ireland in a boat made of hides. They had few provisions and they were without oars. They were brought before the king and when asked their motive, they replied, “We stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where.” (quoted in Every Earthly Blessing, by Esther deWaal, pg. 39).
Today, since we are celebrating a ‘Celtic Eucharist”, I thought it would be well for us to talk about one of the more interesting aspects of Celtic Spirituality: Peregrination, or Holy Wandering, also known as Exile, or Pilgrimage.
Esther de Waal explains that ‘over a period of five hundred years, thousands of Celtic monks set out to wander the face of Europe, leaving homeland and friends, and all of life’s securities in order that they might set out into the unknown and journey for God. They called themselves pilgrims, or peregrinati and they dedicated themselves to go on pilgrimage for Christ’s sake - wherever that might take them. Although most of these monks remain anonymous, a few names stand out:
St. Columba who founded the Iona Community in the sixth century,
St. Columbanus, abbot of Bangor in the sixth century, who set out for France, and then eventually founded the monastery at Bobbio Italy, where St. Francis was one day to spend time.
St. Aidan who went from Iona to Lindisfarne in the seventh century, and whose monks converted Northumbria to Christ
St. Columbanus called Christians ‘guests of the world’ - “hospites mundi”. He spoke of what it means to be a pilgrim, describing it as going into exile, seeking the place of one’s resurrection, the pilgrimage to heaven, the true home. (deWaal pg. 40).
The Celtic pilgrims were like Abraham, who set out from his own country at God’s command. In the book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, we read that “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Speaking of others in the so-called Hall of Faith, we read:
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (ESV)
Spiritual Homelessness vs. Holy Wandering
The other day, I heard someone use the phrase ‘Spiritual Homlessness’ to describe the millions of people today who view themselves as spiritually minded, but yet have no church home, and have no apparent desire for one. Spiritual homelessness is essentially rootlessness being adrift just because you want to take your own way. St. Benedict described monks he called‘Gyrovagues. Listen to his description and see if it doesn’t apply to many people today:
“All their lives they wander in different countries staying in various monasteries [churches, clubs, etc] for three or four days at a time. They are restless, servants to the seduction of their own will and appetites…It is better to be silent as to their wretched life style than to speak…” (RB Ch. 1)
In contrast to this, being a Pilgrim involves an inner stability and can even be an expression of an ascetic discipline.
As Christian pilgrims we know who we are: sinners redeemed by God’s grace We also know our eventual destination: the new heaven and earth, where believers will dwell with God in face to face union – the heavenly country spoken of in Hebrews 11.
We find this country in the Resurrection, which is why the Celts used this phrase, ‘seeking the place of one’s resurrection’. The paradox inherent in this thinking is that while the peregrinati moved out into unknown geography, they were actually seeking a spiritual inheritance – this was really a spiritual quest to find God. Here again, however, the rub is that unless we carry within our hearts the God whom we are seeking, we will not find him. (de Waal, pg42).
To put it another way, the grass really is not greener on the other side – unless perhaps you look directly over the septic system.
Now, lest you think that St. Benedict is entirely opposed to the notion of pilgrimage, listen to the language he uses in the Prologue of his Rule. He exhorts us ‘to rise from sleep,…to open our eyes and to hear with attentive ears, to run while we have the light of life, to tread the path He has cleared for us as we are guided by the Gospel. He admonishes us to ‘encompass ourselves with faith and the practice of good works, to seek peace and pursue it, to keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking guile. And, after the Psalmist (34:13-14), he promises us that ‘If you do this, My[God’s] eyes will see you, and my ears will hear your prayers (34:17). With Isaiah, Benedict reminds us that the Lord says, “before you can call out to Me, I will say to you: Behold I am here.”. (Is.58:9).
So, we talk about going on a pilgrimage to seek God. But that God is right here, right now, and he will answer our prayers even before we call on him. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to ask, “Who is seeking whom?” A famous slogan states, “The Whole Christ is seeking the whole person.” Thus it is that although we are on journey to find Christ, he wants to find us more than we want to be found.
But on with our story about the Celtic Pilgrims.
Three Grades of Pilrimage, or Exile.
The most famous of the peregrinati was St. Brendan, who was born in 489 and died between 570 and 583. He was the abbot of the monastery in Clonfert in East Galway. His story, ‘The Voyage of St. Brendan, is subtitled, “Journey to the Promised Land” because Brendan resolves to seek this Promised Land after listening to a certain Barrind tell of having visited this place himself and encountering an angel, who tells them “…The Lord has revealed to you the Land, which he will give to his saints… an island that ‘has been from the beginning of the world. Where one needs no drink or clothing, where one year seems to pass as a day, where sleep never overtakes you or night envelops you, “For here it is always day, without blinding darkness. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the light of this island.” (VSB, pg. 4, 5). Sure sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?
Brendan and his companions were engaged in the ‘perfect pilgrimage’ – they had left their home body and soul to find the Lord’s country –just as Abraham had. Thus they were exemplars of the highest grade of pilgrim. There were also two other grades of pilgrims:
Grade two pilgrim was someone who was detained in his own country, even though in the zeal of his heart and spirit he had left. The following quote encapsulates the feeling here: “Being under restraint, under authority…[or obligation] leaves a man free only to travel in spirit.
The Grade one pilgrim was one who only traveled in body. Just walking around served no spiritual purpose unless one were to draw near to God and practice virtue and good deeds along the way. The temptation with this is to become a mere Gyrovague.
Pilgrimage and Mission.
The original aim of the peregrini was simply to wander for God. This wandering was not motivated primarily by mission. But in the course of their wandering the Celtic pilgrims became missionaries, preaching the Gospel as they went, and establishing monastic houses along the way. St. Patrick is, of course, the example par excellence of this missionary journeying. He was the first actual cross-cultural missionary in Christian history and the progenitor of a Transformation that lasted many hundreds of years. In his lifetime, virtually the whole of Ireland was Evangelized and the practice of slavery was all-but eliminated.
Because of his example, other Celtic pilgrims successfully planted Christian churches and communities all over Europe, and even today, there remain some 250 places in Europe that bear the name of some Celtic saint.
One of the reasons why Patrick and the other Celtic pilgrims were so successful was because they had completely renounced power and security. They had nothing but God, and because of it they were completely free to go wherever God lead them. You might say that when they got in their boats to go wandering they pushed off the EDGE and entrusted themselves into the care of Almighty God. And because of this radical trust, these saints accomplished marvelous works for the Lord and are remembered in place names and history books today.
Application
So what do we make of all this, and how do we apply it in our lives today?
The first thing to acknowledge is simply that most of us will be type two pilgrims. In other words, we are tied obligated to family and to work, and so most likely will not be pushing off into the Ohio River in a coracle anytime soon. In this sense our lives are going to be much more ‘Benedictine’ – that is committed to a particular place for the rest of our lives.
But having said that we can still practice an internal and spiritual pilgrimage in our lives. We can cast off from the shore of certainty and launch out into the great deep, into the unknown of God’s will and provision for us. We can practice non-control in our lives and welcome the uncertainty of where God will lead us.
Just as Jesus sent out the 70 disciples without money or tunics or GPS systems or hotel reservations, we trust God radically and learn to listen closely to him, confident that we will get it wrong at times, but that our heavenly Father in his infinite mercy will correct us and help us get back on the path.
Then too, we can learn that “I don’t know.” is an acceptable answer to the question, “What then…” God seems to work on a ‘need to know” basis – just like the military. You get your orders for now and you have to wait for the next set of orders up ahead. And just like the military, you best follow the current set of orders right now, because if you don’t there will certainly be consequences. You go with what you know to do and let God be in charge of the next thing. Another slogan for this is “God knows” – as in Your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.” (Mt 6:32).
Yogi Berra once quipped, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”. That’s funny but not really helpful. If you get stuck on the journey, just stop. Wait, look and listen for the Lord. Don’t go ahead until you here His voice telling you what to do.
If you happen to be traveling on sea, of course, you don’t get the luxury of sitting still and waiting. You might be like the disciples on the sea of Galilee, caught in a huge storm and scared out of your mind. At such a time, it’s really OK to do what they did, which was to cry out to God to help them. Just try not to get too spooked when Jesus comes to you walking on the water.
Don’t wander aimlessly without knowing who you are. Remember that Jesus is the destination and also the Way. He is the Truth and the Life, and all our wandering should lead back to Him. If it doesn’t, we are definitely gong the wrong way.
Finally be a white martyr. Tell others what you have witnessed God do in your life. Don’t be afraid to “tell of all the Lord’s marvelous works”. You are just telling your story. You don’t have to produce any specific result. That’s up to God.
If you carry Jesus in your heart, you will be successful on your journey, for He is much more willing to found than we are to seek Him. May God grant us the grace to be fearless pilgrims, willing exiles and Bold Martyrs for his sake. AMEN.
During the reign of Alfred the Great, the first true King of England (849-899), three Irishman arrived in Cornwall after having drifted for seven days across the sea from Ireland in a boat made of hides. They had few provisions and they were without oars. They were brought before the king and when asked their motive, they replied, “We stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where.” (quoted in Every Earthly Blessing, by Esther deWaal, pg. 39).
Today, since we are celebrating a ‘Celtic Eucharist”, I thought it would be well for us to talk about one of the more interesting aspects of Celtic Spirituality: Peregrination, or Holy Wandering, also known as Exile, or Pilgrimage.
Esther de Waal explains that ‘over a period of five hundred years, thousands of Celtic monks set out to wander the face of Europe, leaving homeland and friends, and all of life’s securities in order that they might set out into the unknown and journey for God. They called themselves pilgrims, or peregrinati and they dedicated themselves to go on pilgrimage for Christ’s sake - wherever that might take them. Although most of these monks remain anonymous, a few names stand out:
St. Columba who founded the Iona Community in the sixth century,
St. Columbanus, abbot of Bangor in the sixth century, who set out for France, and then eventually founded the monastery at Bobbio Italy, where St. Francis was one day to spend time.
St. Aidan who went from Iona to Lindisfarne in the seventh century, and whose monks converted Northumbria to Christ
St. Columbanus called Christians ‘guests of the world’ - “hospites mundi”. He spoke of what it means to be a pilgrim, describing it as going into exile, seeking the place of one’s resurrection, the pilgrimage to heaven, the true home. (deWaal pg. 40).
The Celtic pilgrims were like Abraham, who set out from his own country at God’s command. In the book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, we read that “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
Speaking of others in the so-called Hall of Faith, we read:
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (ESV)
Spiritual Homelessness vs. Holy Wandering
The other day, I heard someone use the phrase ‘Spiritual Homlessness’ to describe the millions of people today who view themselves as spiritually minded, but yet have no church home, and have no apparent desire for one. Spiritual homelessness is essentially rootlessness being adrift just because you want to take your own way. St. Benedict described monks he called‘Gyrovagues. Listen to his description and see if it doesn’t apply to many people today:
“All their lives they wander in different countries staying in various monasteries [churches, clubs, etc] for three or four days at a time. They are restless, servants to the seduction of their own will and appetites…It is better to be silent as to their wretched life style than to speak…” (RB Ch. 1)
In contrast to this, being a Pilgrim involves an inner stability and can even be an expression of an ascetic discipline.
As Christian pilgrims we know who we are: sinners redeemed by God’s grace We also know our eventual destination: the new heaven and earth, where believers will dwell with God in face to face union – the heavenly country spoken of in Hebrews 11.
We find this country in the Resurrection, which is why the Celts used this phrase, ‘seeking the place of one’s resurrection’. The paradox inherent in this thinking is that while the peregrinati moved out into unknown geography, they were actually seeking a spiritual inheritance – this was really a spiritual quest to find God. Here again, however, the rub is that unless we carry within our hearts the God whom we are seeking, we will not find him. (de Waal, pg42).
To put it another way, the grass really is not greener on the other side – unless perhaps you look directly over the septic system.
Now, lest you think that St. Benedict is entirely opposed to the notion of pilgrimage, listen to the language he uses in the Prologue of his Rule. He exhorts us ‘to rise from sleep,…to open our eyes and to hear with attentive ears, to run while we have the light of life, to tread the path He has cleared for us as we are guided by the Gospel. He admonishes us to ‘encompass ourselves with faith and the practice of good works, to seek peace and pursue it, to keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking guile. And, after the Psalmist (34:13-14), he promises us that ‘If you do this, My[God’s] eyes will see you, and my ears will hear your prayers (34:17). With Isaiah, Benedict reminds us that the Lord says, “before you can call out to Me, I will say to you: Behold I am here.”. (Is.58:9).
So, we talk about going on a pilgrimage to seek God. But that God is right here, right now, and he will answer our prayers even before we call on him. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to ask, “Who is seeking whom?” A famous slogan states, “The Whole Christ is seeking the whole person.” Thus it is that although we are on journey to find Christ, he wants to find us more than we want to be found.
But on with our story about the Celtic Pilgrims.
Three Grades of Pilrimage, or Exile.
The most famous of the peregrinati was St. Brendan, who was born in 489 and died between 570 and 583. He was the abbot of the monastery in Clonfert in East Galway. His story, ‘The Voyage of St. Brendan, is subtitled, “Journey to the Promised Land” because Brendan resolves to seek this Promised Land after listening to a certain Barrind tell of having visited this place himself and encountering an angel, who tells them “…The Lord has revealed to you the Land, which he will give to his saints… an island that ‘has been from the beginning of the world. Where one needs no drink or clothing, where one year seems to pass as a day, where sleep never overtakes you or night envelops you, “For here it is always day, without blinding darkness. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the light of this island.” (VSB, pg. 4, 5). Sure sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?
Brendan and his companions were engaged in the ‘perfect pilgrimage’ – they had left their home body and soul to find the Lord’s country –just as Abraham had. Thus they were exemplars of the highest grade of pilgrim. There were also two other grades of pilgrims:
Grade two pilgrim was someone who was detained in his own country, even though in the zeal of his heart and spirit he had left. The following quote encapsulates the feeling here: “Being under restraint, under authority…[or obligation] leaves a man free only to travel in spirit.
The Grade one pilgrim was one who only traveled in body. Just walking around served no spiritual purpose unless one were to draw near to God and practice virtue and good deeds along the way. The temptation with this is to become a mere Gyrovague.
Pilgrimage and Mission.
The original aim of the peregrini was simply to wander for God. This wandering was not motivated primarily by mission. But in the course of their wandering the Celtic pilgrims became missionaries, preaching the Gospel as they went, and establishing monastic houses along the way. St. Patrick is, of course, the example par excellence of this missionary journeying. He was the first actual cross-cultural missionary in Christian history and the progenitor of a Transformation that lasted many hundreds of years. In his lifetime, virtually the whole of Ireland was Evangelized and the practice of slavery was all-but eliminated.
Because of his example, other Celtic pilgrims successfully planted Christian churches and communities all over Europe, and even today, there remain some 250 places in Europe that bear the name of some Celtic saint.
One of the reasons why Patrick and the other Celtic pilgrims were so successful was because they had completely renounced power and security. They had nothing but God, and because of it they were completely free to go wherever God lead them. You might say that when they got in their boats to go wandering they pushed off the EDGE and entrusted themselves into the care of Almighty God. And because of this radical trust, these saints accomplished marvelous works for the Lord and are remembered in place names and history books today.
Application
So what do we make of all this, and how do we apply it in our lives today?
The first thing to acknowledge is simply that most of us will be type two pilgrims. In other words, we are tied obligated to family and to work, and so most likely will not be pushing off into the Ohio River in a coracle anytime soon. In this sense our lives are going to be much more ‘Benedictine’ – that is committed to a particular place for the rest of our lives.
But having said that we can still practice an internal and spiritual pilgrimage in our lives. We can cast off from the shore of certainty and launch out into the great deep, into the unknown of God’s will and provision for us. We can practice non-control in our lives and welcome the uncertainty of where God will lead us.
Just as Jesus sent out the 70 disciples without money or tunics or GPS systems or hotel reservations, we trust God radically and learn to listen closely to him, confident that we will get it wrong at times, but that our heavenly Father in his infinite mercy will correct us and help us get back on the path.
Then too, we can learn that “I don’t know.” is an acceptable answer to the question, “What then…” God seems to work on a ‘need to know” basis – just like the military. You get your orders for now and you have to wait for the next set of orders up ahead. And just like the military, you best follow the current set of orders right now, because if you don’t there will certainly be consequences. You go with what you know to do and let God be in charge of the next thing. Another slogan for this is “God knows” – as in Your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.” (Mt 6:32).
Yogi Berra once quipped, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”. That’s funny but not really helpful. If you get stuck on the journey, just stop. Wait, look and listen for the Lord. Don’t go ahead until you here His voice telling you what to do.
If you happen to be traveling on sea, of course, you don’t get the luxury of sitting still and waiting. You might be like the disciples on the sea of Galilee, caught in a huge storm and scared out of your mind. At such a time, it’s really OK to do what they did, which was to cry out to God to help them. Just try not to get too spooked when Jesus comes to you walking on the water.
Don’t wander aimlessly without knowing who you are. Remember that Jesus is the destination and also the Way. He is the Truth and the Life, and all our wandering should lead back to Him. If it doesn’t, we are definitely gong the wrong way.
Finally be a white martyr. Tell others what you have witnessed God do in your life. Don’t be afraid to “tell of all the Lord’s marvelous works”. You are just telling your story. You don’t have to produce any specific result. That’s up to God.
If you carry Jesus in your heart, you will be successful on your journey, for He is much more willing to found than we are to seek Him. May God grant us the grace to be fearless pilgrims, willing exiles and Bold Martyrs for his sake. AMEN.
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The Role of Temptation in our Spiritual Lives
A Sermon Delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on March 1, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV
Intro:
How many of you realized that when you made your profession of faith, you were signing up for temptation? How many of you might have changed your mind if you knew that temptation would be part of your Christian life?
Temptation starts the day we sign on to God’s covenant with us. Just like Jesus, the moment we are baptized, we become fair game for the evil one’s temptations. In fact, temptation is allowed by God in order to advance us in the spiritual life, to test our character and to help us know what areas of our life need work.
Temptation is allowed by God to sift us – just like Jesus told Peter, that Satan had asked permission to sift him life wheat. This sifting allows for the purification process and is a normal part of our covenant life with God. Temptation is used by God for the ultimate purpose of winnowing out the imperfections in us that keep us from being unified with God. Without Temptation and the struggle with it, we become like Oscar Wilde, who famously quipped, “I can resist anything but Temptation.” However, those who face temptation well become pure of heart and ultimately enjoy intimate union with God – even before going to be with Him in heaven.
Today, we’re going to look at briefly at the stages of the Spiritual Life and talk about the the unique temptations that come to us especially in the second phase.
Let’s pray. Father we ask that your Holy Spirit would come now to open our hearts and minds to your Word and your Will for us. Help us to understand your purposes in our lives and draw us ever closer to you through your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.
Exposition
Today is the first Sunday of Lent. On Wednesday last week, we gathered at Hope House to mark the beginning of this season of prayer and fasting, and to receive the ashes of death, assisting us to know that our time on earth is limited. We are imitating Jesus and his time of forty days in the wilderness. We have forty days of fasting – and six Sundays of feasting in the midst of it, making for the entire period of Lent.
Again, the purpose of Lent is to offer us a time of reflection, self-examination and purification leading up to the celebration of Easter. However, even though we observe the season of Lent, there is a sense in which our entire lives should be, as St. Benedict pointed out, a perpetual observance of Lent, the purpose of which is to help us advance in our spiritual lives.
The Stages of Spiritual Growth
It has been observed by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and many others that write about spiritual growth, the there are three basic stages to our growth:
I. The Purgation
II. The Illuminative Way
III. The Unitive Way
Purgation
Purgation is the first step and happens quickly after our profession of faith. Before I became a Christian I swore like a sailor, was arrogant and self-centered, and used others for my own devices. After God invaded my life, these grosser sins were quickly purged out of me in such a dramatic way that people who knew me recognized that Something had happened to me.
Purgation often gets rid of driven needs. In this stage, we renounce serious sin gladly and put away deliberate sins. Then we begin to become aware of sins of Omission as well as the sins of Commission. The prayer of confession in the Book of Common Prayer addresses this: “We have sinned in thought, word and deed, by things we have done, and by things we have left undone…” The initial purgation stage introduces us to the concept of dying to ourselves, and we learn the joy of doing God’s will, not our own. As we grow in Grace the old defenses fall away and we become more open and vulnerable as people. Ironically, the end of this stage may lead to rejection and persecution by others.
When I became a Christian, my former roommate rejected me with scathing criticism and ridiculed me for being such a ‘weakling’ and hypocrite. When I got baptized, my parents were happy for me. I think they thought that I would finally begin to settle down and live a ‘normal’ life. But as I pressed into following Christ wholeheartedly, they began to worry for me. They expressed doubt about my fanaticism and regarded my newfound joy as another one of my crazy enthusiasms. Needless to say that was very painful. But it was a sign of the fact that I had entered the second phase of spiritual Growth, Illumination.
The Illuminative Way
As we enter the Illuminative Way, we begin to grow into the light of knowing God and the Scriptures and to live a truly Christian lifestyle. Obedience comes easily and we begin to really Trust Christ. Our prayer life begins to flow, we learn to enjoy Silence and listening, and Good Works flow out of our love for God. Yet at the same time, we become aware of finer levels of disobedience, of character flaws and of challenges to follow Christ. The Scriptures exhort us to press on towards the prize and to leave behind the simpler teachings, so each of us must press into this illuminative stage of growth and the challenges that await us there. I think this is the place where we can most relate to
Jesus as he was tempted in the Desert Wilderness.
Two Approaches to the Desert
There are two ways of approaching the Desert experience: Cooperating with it, and resisting it. Jesus of course, was completely obedient to the Father and so cooperated with this important stage of his ministry. The result of his time in the desert was confirmation of his obedience and being launched into his earthly ministry.
The Scriptures however, tell of another cautionary example of people going out into the desert – the Hebrew Children, who left Egypt and were led by God into the desert of Sinai. This example has relevance to us as a church because Rhonda Hughey has pointedly said that the Divine Experiment was a vehicle to get us out of Egypt and into the desert.
The ironic thing about this comment is that the people of Israel, who were delivered from Egypt were given an opportunity to cooperate with what God wanted to do - namely taking them into the Promised Land - and then rejected it! As a result, all of them except two, Joshua and Caleb, died without entering the Canaan. You’ll remember from Psalm 95 this tale of woe:
Harden not your hearts,as your forebears did in the wilderness, at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,when they tempted me.
They put me to the test, though they had seen my works.
Forty years long I detested that generation and said, "This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter into my rest."
For Forty years they were fed by the very hand of God and they lived with the visible presence of God – the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night. But it didn’t matter. The people still complained and rebelled. They whined because they missed the meat and vegetables of Egypt and were subsequently punished by receiving meat quails that made them sick They got fiery serpents to rebuke their disobedience. They received the manna and got sick of it. They were given the Law of God by His very finger, and they turned to idolatry after only a few days of being left to their own devices. They tempted God at Meribah, when they complained to Moses about the water. And they failed to enter His rest!
So here’s the caution: When you go out into the desert, it’s possible to live with the manifest presence of God in your backyard and still die in the wilderness!
The Christlike Way into the Desert
In Ps. 95:7, God calls out to us …”Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!”
And in Psalm 32 we read “I will instruct you and teach you, the way you should go, I will give you counsel with my eye upon you.” And we receive the caution, “Be not like horse and mule unintelligent, needing bridle and bit, Else they will not come near you”…Psalm 32:9
In other words, don’t be like the children of Israel, who were unintelligent and willful. Heed the call of God in your life. Be like Christ, who obediently went out into the desert and cooperated with the Holy Spirit as he submitted to Temptation from the Evil One.
St. Anthony
Around the year 285, St. Anthony heard the Gospel message to abandon all, sell everything and follow Christ. He then went out into the desert – of Egypt! He went there to practice his faith – to follow Christ literally and to practice Ascesis – spiritual training and discipline. He went to a place of emptiness to leave behind the world and all its temptations in order to be tempted by his internal and external demons. This is called apostatsis - the ascetic renunciation of the world.
The desert of Anthony’s Egypt was not the same as the desert of Sinai. Anthony’s quest was to find a way to voluntarily do battle with these internal and external demons and thus attain unity with God. The demonic here represents not only all that is hostile to man but also what is anomalous and incomplete in man. Anthony went out into the desert and submitted to Temptation in order to confront these demons in the utter stillness of the desert.
He lived a life that was, as it were, suspended in timelessness. He was also utterly self-sufficient and ‘autarkic’ (self-ruling). He achieved a ‘vertical’ existence with God that most other people only dream about, attaining the highest level of spiritual development in which he actually was able to become ‘All –fire’ as we mentioned several weeks ago.
“Anthony wished to invade and reclaim the devil’s territory in the name of Christ. It was an offensive maneuver on his part in order to transform the desert into a ‘land of devotion and justice’ thus making it into heavenly commonwealth where all the mores of contemporary society might be inverted.” Desert Father, pg. 34. James Cowan
Unlike the Children of Israel who were continuously resisting God, 34 years of ascetic practice turned Anthony into a living image of Christ. This temptation resulted in increased holiness, just like Jesus, who was tempted in the desert. His message was the same as Christ’s: obedience coupled to abstinence leads to holiness.
The means to Holiness
Just like Jesus, Anthony practiced fasting. Isaac of Ninevah, one of the later desert fathers, said, “Fasting is the champion of every virtue…” (Quoted in ‘Desert Father; A journey in the wilderness with St. Anthony’ by James Cowan.)
Cowan points out that “Hunger is the arbiter of the ascetic life.”
So we fast in order to bring our bodies into control and to allow God to highlight areas for purification by means of Temptation.
The Dangers of the Illuminative Stage
So, speaking of areas to highlight, here are some of the peculiar dangers of this second phase of the spiritual life, which virtually all of us find ourselves in:
Benedict Groeschel cautions that, ‘The greatest dangers of the illuminative way are spiritual ‘greed,’ a driven self-righteousness, and a conviction that one has been elected to carry out a special mission. Also problematic are Sensuality and Acedia. Let’s look at each of them in turn:
Spiritual Greed: when we become so intrigued with the spiritual journey that we forget or minimize other responsibilities. As opposed to the experience of many saints who find like Benedict that God is found in the fulfillment of life’s ordinary duties.
Self-Righteousness or Bitter Zeal. St. Benedict made reference to this in his Rule. Bitter zeal can result when others, who do not share our interests are not impressed with our insights or reject us. We can become angry and then bitter zeal is a thinly veiled form of aggression. There is a strong temptation to spiritual pride at this stage of development. It’s tempting to become frustrated with others who take a different approach to the spiritual life, and we may become competitive with others who are skilled spiritual directors.
Pride rears its ugly head when we know that we possess a certain level of ability and confidence in what we know and think we know better than everybody else.
The Dangerous Illusion of a Special Call: Rhonda Hughey warned of this in her remarks at the kick- off of the Divine Experiment. She specifically cautioned us not to anticipate or prophecy things such as: our area would become a Beacon to others, that we would draw others to ourselves and that all manner of grandiose things would come our way. The bare fact is that very few of us will progress beyond the second stage of growth and go on to the highest level of attaining Unity with God.
Sensuality. Yesterday at the pastor’s prayer meeting, there was talk about a man named Todd Bentley, of the Pesecola revival. He was being signally used of God but ended up falling into adultery because he ‘tried to keep ahead” of the Holy Spirit, taking too much on himself and folding under the great pressure of many responsibilities. King David is certainly an example from the Old Testament of someone who succumbed to sensuality in his prime.
Yet another danger at this stage is Acedia, or spiritual sloth, inability to care about anything. Kathleen Norris has written a wonderful book about this called Acedia and Me, a marriage, monks, and a writer’s life…. She calls this the temptation of mid-day. One can become bored when there are no spiritual fireworks. I have seen this personally in working with pastors. One client, a pastor, said that he was so burned out and lackluster that his great ambition in life was to become a greeter at Wal-Mart. This is the danger of not caring anymore, of falling into a funk and giving up in the struggle.
These temptations are all afflictions of the Illuminative phase, when one has moved beyond the elementary things and has progressed quite a ways in the Christian Life. God uses these increasingly finer levels of temptation to purify us and to eventually bring us into Union with Him.
Here is a [random] litany of things we can fall prey to in the Illuminative phase:
The Temptation to weakness,
The Temptation to strength,
The Temptation to control things,
The Temptation to fear lack of control,
The Temptation that Satan puts before us just before something good is about to happen.
The Temptation that Satan attacks us with just after something good has happened.
The Temptation that comes during prayer
The Temptation that comes because of lack of prayer
The Temptation to settle for a lesser good – not the very best
The Temptation to Spiritual Pride and spiritual snobbery,
The Temptation to Sloth and Mediocrity,
Temptation in the morning, temptation in the evening., Temptation when the sun goes down- There are temptations on every side – most of them coming to us in the disguise of something good. But God intends a good result in our lives as a result of Temptation.
The Godly Result of Temptations
John the Baptist exhorted his hearers: “prepare ye the way of the Lord…” Just as Jesus submitted to the time of temptation in order to prepare the way of the Lord and his earthly ministry, so to we can submit to testing in order to purify us for more fruitful ministry and for eventual Union with God. We don’t have time to address this last aspect today, but our eventual destiny is to become like God in every way.
Conclusion:
If, through the training of fasting and prayer, we allow God to confront and refine weakness within we will grow ever more like Christ and become ever more useful to His kingdom. Therefore we use the opportunity of Lent to develop a spiritual plan – giving up things – and also taking on New things as part of our journey. I encourage you all to actually write down your plan.
Certainly that plan will include reading Packer’s book The Thirty Nine Articles. I also urge you to utilize the booklet we have prepared: The Four Practice for Eighth Day Life. If anyone needs an extra copy I have them available. Both Fr. Mark and I are available to hear your confessions and we would very much like to schedule time with all of you individually to discuss your spiritual plans, so that on Easter Sunday we can all stand up and affirm our devotion to God in the Liturgy of Public commitment.
Friends, God is calling us up to Himself. He wants us to be Holy but this Holiness is not a burden – because He wants us to be like Him. Let us pray that God will grant us the grace to participate with his program for us, especially in times of Temptation. AMEN.
Intro:
How many of you realized that when you made your profession of faith, you were signing up for temptation? How many of you might have changed your mind if you knew that temptation would be part of your Christian life?
Temptation starts the day we sign on to God’s covenant with us. Just like Jesus, the moment we are baptized, we become fair game for the evil one’s temptations. In fact, temptation is allowed by God in order to advance us in the spiritual life, to test our character and to help us know what areas of our life need work.
Temptation is allowed by God to sift us – just like Jesus told Peter, that Satan had asked permission to sift him life wheat. This sifting allows for the purification process and is a normal part of our covenant life with God. Temptation is used by God for the ultimate purpose of winnowing out the imperfections in us that keep us from being unified with God. Without Temptation and the struggle with it, we become like Oscar Wilde, who famously quipped, “I can resist anything but Temptation.” However, those who face temptation well become pure of heart and ultimately enjoy intimate union with God – even before going to be with Him in heaven.
Today, we’re going to look at briefly at the stages of the Spiritual Life and talk about the the unique temptations that come to us especially in the second phase.
Let’s pray. Father we ask that your Holy Spirit would come now to open our hearts and minds to your Word and your Will for us. Help us to understand your purposes in our lives and draw us ever closer to you through your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.
Exposition
Today is the first Sunday of Lent. On Wednesday last week, we gathered at Hope House to mark the beginning of this season of prayer and fasting, and to receive the ashes of death, assisting us to know that our time on earth is limited. We are imitating Jesus and his time of forty days in the wilderness. We have forty days of fasting – and six Sundays of feasting in the midst of it, making for the entire period of Lent.
Again, the purpose of Lent is to offer us a time of reflection, self-examination and purification leading up to the celebration of Easter. However, even though we observe the season of Lent, there is a sense in which our entire lives should be, as St. Benedict pointed out, a perpetual observance of Lent, the purpose of which is to help us advance in our spiritual lives.
The Stages of Spiritual Growth
It has been observed by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and many others that write about spiritual growth, the there are three basic stages to our growth:
I. The Purgation
II. The Illuminative Way
III. The Unitive Way
Purgation
Purgation is the first step and happens quickly after our profession of faith. Before I became a Christian I swore like a sailor, was arrogant and self-centered, and used others for my own devices. After God invaded my life, these grosser sins were quickly purged out of me in such a dramatic way that people who knew me recognized that Something had happened to me.
Purgation often gets rid of driven needs. In this stage, we renounce serious sin gladly and put away deliberate sins. Then we begin to become aware of sins of Omission as well as the sins of Commission. The prayer of confession in the Book of Common Prayer addresses this: “We have sinned in thought, word and deed, by things we have done, and by things we have left undone…” The initial purgation stage introduces us to the concept of dying to ourselves, and we learn the joy of doing God’s will, not our own. As we grow in Grace the old defenses fall away and we become more open and vulnerable as people. Ironically, the end of this stage may lead to rejection and persecution by others.
When I became a Christian, my former roommate rejected me with scathing criticism and ridiculed me for being such a ‘weakling’ and hypocrite. When I got baptized, my parents were happy for me. I think they thought that I would finally begin to settle down and live a ‘normal’ life. But as I pressed into following Christ wholeheartedly, they began to worry for me. They expressed doubt about my fanaticism and regarded my newfound joy as another one of my crazy enthusiasms. Needless to say that was very painful. But it was a sign of the fact that I had entered the second phase of spiritual Growth, Illumination.
The Illuminative Way
As we enter the Illuminative Way, we begin to grow into the light of knowing God and the Scriptures and to live a truly Christian lifestyle. Obedience comes easily and we begin to really Trust Christ. Our prayer life begins to flow, we learn to enjoy Silence and listening, and Good Works flow out of our love for God. Yet at the same time, we become aware of finer levels of disobedience, of character flaws and of challenges to follow Christ. The Scriptures exhort us to press on towards the prize and to leave behind the simpler teachings, so each of us must press into this illuminative stage of growth and the challenges that await us there. I think this is the place where we can most relate to
Jesus as he was tempted in the Desert Wilderness.
Two Approaches to the Desert
There are two ways of approaching the Desert experience: Cooperating with it, and resisting it. Jesus of course, was completely obedient to the Father and so cooperated with this important stage of his ministry. The result of his time in the desert was confirmation of his obedience and being launched into his earthly ministry.
The Scriptures however, tell of another cautionary example of people going out into the desert – the Hebrew Children, who left Egypt and were led by God into the desert of Sinai. This example has relevance to us as a church because Rhonda Hughey has pointedly said that the Divine Experiment was a vehicle to get us out of Egypt and into the desert.
The ironic thing about this comment is that the people of Israel, who were delivered from Egypt were given an opportunity to cooperate with what God wanted to do - namely taking them into the Promised Land - and then rejected it! As a result, all of them except two, Joshua and Caleb, died without entering the Canaan. You’ll remember from Psalm 95 this tale of woe:
Harden not your hearts,as your forebears did in the wilderness, at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,when they tempted me.
They put me to the test, though they had seen my works.
Forty years long I detested that generation and said, "This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways."
So I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter into my rest."
For Forty years they were fed by the very hand of God and they lived with the visible presence of God – the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night. But it didn’t matter. The people still complained and rebelled. They whined because they missed the meat and vegetables of Egypt and were subsequently punished by receiving meat quails that made them sick They got fiery serpents to rebuke their disobedience. They received the manna and got sick of it. They were given the Law of God by His very finger, and they turned to idolatry after only a few days of being left to their own devices. They tempted God at Meribah, when they complained to Moses about the water. And they failed to enter His rest!
So here’s the caution: When you go out into the desert, it’s possible to live with the manifest presence of God in your backyard and still die in the wilderness!
The Christlike Way into the Desert
In Ps. 95:7, God calls out to us …”Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!”
And in Psalm 32 we read “I will instruct you and teach you, the way you should go, I will give you counsel with my eye upon you.” And we receive the caution, “Be not like horse and mule unintelligent, needing bridle and bit, Else they will not come near you”…Psalm 32:9
In other words, don’t be like the children of Israel, who were unintelligent and willful. Heed the call of God in your life. Be like Christ, who obediently went out into the desert and cooperated with the Holy Spirit as he submitted to Temptation from the Evil One.
St. Anthony
Around the year 285, St. Anthony heard the Gospel message to abandon all, sell everything and follow Christ. He then went out into the desert – of Egypt! He went there to practice his faith – to follow Christ literally and to practice Ascesis – spiritual training and discipline. He went to a place of emptiness to leave behind the world and all its temptations in order to be tempted by his internal and external demons. This is called apostatsis - the ascetic renunciation of the world.
The desert of Anthony’s Egypt was not the same as the desert of Sinai. Anthony’s quest was to find a way to voluntarily do battle with these internal and external demons and thus attain unity with God. The demonic here represents not only all that is hostile to man but also what is anomalous and incomplete in man. Anthony went out into the desert and submitted to Temptation in order to confront these demons in the utter stillness of the desert.
He lived a life that was, as it were, suspended in timelessness. He was also utterly self-sufficient and ‘autarkic’ (self-ruling). He achieved a ‘vertical’ existence with God that most other people only dream about, attaining the highest level of spiritual development in which he actually was able to become ‘All –fire’ as we mentioned several weeks ago.
“Anthony wished to invade and reclaim the devil’s territory in the name of Christ. It was an offensive maneuver on his part in order to transform the desert into a ‘land of devotion and justice’ thus making it into heavenly commonwealth where all the mores of contemporary society might be inverted.” Desert Father, pg. 34. James Cowan
Unlike the Children of Israel who were continuously resisting God, 34 years of ascetic practice turned Anthony into a living image of Christ. This temptation resulted in increased holiness, just like Jesus, who was tempted in the desert. His message was the same as Christ’s: obedience coupled to abstinence leads to holiness.
The means to Holiness
Just like Jesus, Anthony practiced fasting. Isaac of Ninevah, one of the later desert fathers, said, “Fasting is the champion of every virtue…” (Quoted in ‘Desert Father; A journey in the wilderness with St. Anthony’ by James Cowan.)
Cowan points out that “Hunger is the arbiter of the ascetic life.”
So we fast in order to bring our bodies into control and to allow God to highlight areas for purification by means of Temptation.
The Dangers of the Illuminative Stage
So, speaking of areas to highlight, here are some of the peculiar dangers of this second phase of the spiritual life, which virtually all of us find ourselves in:
Benedict Groeschel cautions that, ‘The greatest dangers of the illuminative way are spiritual ‘greed,’ a driven self-righteousness, and a conviction that one has been elected to carry out a special mission. Also problematic are Sensuality and Acedia. Let’s look at each of them in turn:
Spiritual Greed: when we become so intrigued with the spiritual journey that we forget or minimize other responsibilities. As opposed to the experience of many saints who find like Benedict that God is found in the fulfillment of life’s ordinary duties.
Self-Righteousness or Bitter Zeal. St. Benedict made reference to this in his Rule. Bitter zeal can result when others, who do not share our interests are not impressed with our insights or reject us. We can become angry and then bitter zeal is a thinly veiled form of aggression. There is a strong temptation to spiritual pride at this stage of development. It’s tempting to become frustrated with others who take a different approach to the spiritual life, and we may become competitive with others who are skilled spiritual directors.
Pride rears its ugly head when we know that we possess a certain level of ability and confidence in what we know and think we know better than everybody else.
The Dangerous Illusion of a Special Call: Rhonda Hughey warned of this in her remarks at the kick- off of the Divine Experiment. She specifically cautioned us not to anticipate or prophecy things such as: our area would become a Beacon to others, that we would draw others to ourselves and that all manner of grandiose things would come our way. The bare fact is that very few of us will progress beyond the second stage of growth and go on to the highest level of attaining Unity with God.
Sensuality. Yesterday at the pastor’s prayer meeting, there was talk about a man named Todd Bentley, of the Pesecola revival. He was being signally used of God but ended up falling into adultery because he ‘tried to keep ahead” of the Holy Spirit, taking too much on himself and folding under the great pressure of many responsibilities. King David is certainly an example from the Old Testament of someone who succumbed to sensuality in his prime.
Yet another danger at this stage is Acedia, or spiritual sloth, inability to care about anything. Kathleen Norris has written a wonderful book about this called Acedia and Me, a marriage, monks, and a writer’s life…. She calls this the temptation of mid-day. One can become bored when there are no spiritual fireworks. I have seen this personally in working with pastors. One client, a pastor, said that he was so burned out and lackluster that his great ambition in life was to become a greeter at Wal-Mart. This is the danger of not caring anymore, of falling into a funk and giving up in the struggle.
These temptations are all afflictions of the Illuminative phase, when one has moved beyond the elementary things and has progressed quite a ways in the Christian Life. God uses these increasingly finer levels of temptation to purify us and to eventually bring us into Union with Him.
Here is a [random] litany of things we can fall prey to in the Illuminative phase:
The Temptation to weakness,
The Temptation to strength,
The Temptation to control things,
The Temptation to fear lack of control,
The Temptation that Satan puts before us just before something good is about to happen.
The Temptation that Satan attacks us with just after something good has happened.
The Temptation that comes during prayer
The Temptation that comes because of lack of prayer
The Temptation to settle for a lesser good – not the very best
The Temptation to Spiritual Pride and spiritual snobbery,
The Temptation to Sloth and Mediocrity,
Temptation in the morning, temptation in the evening., Temptation when the sun goes down- There are temptations on every side – most of them coming to us in the disguise of something good. But God intends a good result in our lives as a result of Temptation.
The Godly Result of Temptations
John the Baptist exhorted his hearers: “prepare ye the way of the Lord…” Just as Jesus submitted to the time of temptation in order to prepare the way of the Lord and his earthly ministry, so to we can submit to testing in order to purify us for more fruitful ministry and for eventual Union with God. We don’t have time to address this last aspect today, but our eventual destiny is to become like God in every way.
Conclusion:
If, through the training of fasting and prayer, we allow God to confront and refine weakness within we will grow ever more like Christ and become ever more useful to His kingdom. Therefore we use the opportunity of Lent to develop a spiritual plan – giving up things – and also taking on New things as part of our journey. I encourage you all to actually write down your plan.
Certainly that plan will include reading Packer’s book The Thirty Nine Articles. I also urge you to utilize the booklet we have prepared: The Four Practice for Eighth Day Life. If anyone needs an extra copy I have them available. Both Fr. Mark and I are available to hear your confessions and we would very much like to schedule time with all of you individually to discuss your spiritual plans, so that on Easter Sunday we can all stand up and affirm our devotion to God in the Liturgy of Public commitment.
Friends, God is calling us up to Himself. He wants us to be Holy but this Holiness is not a burden – because He wants us to be like Him. Let us pray that God will grant us the grace to participate with his program for us, especially in times of Temptation. AMEN.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Give Compassion a SHOT
A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on February 15, 2009 at St. Mary's Medical Center, Convent Chapel. Huntington, WV.
Mark 1:40-45 Jesus Cleanses a Leper
40 And a leper [1] came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus [2] sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
The Compassion of Jesus to Heal
Did you ever think that we seem to trust our friends and their willingness to help us more than we trust God to help us?
Ask yourself which you believe more: That God has the POWER to heal or that He is WILLING to heal. You see, most of us today would agree with the former statement. We believe that God is powerful – in theory. But we have a real problem believing that God is WILLING to heal us – or even to answer our prayers!
But as FF Bosworth points out in his book “Christ the Healer”, this is really backward because it doesn’t take into account the essential goodness and Compassion of God. When the leper comes to Jesus, he expresses this same sort of split. He believes that Jesus CAN heal him, he’s just not sure if he WILL.
But how does Jesus respond? He stretches out his hand, touches him and says to him, “I will; be clean”. Why does Jesus do this? Because he is moved with Pity – or Compassion as other versions say. What is Compassion? - “To love tenderly, to pity, to show mercy, to be full of eager yearning.” Compassion is what God is by Nature.
Psalm 145: 8,9 describes God in this way:
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
God is GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL. To be gracious means to be disposed to show favor – regardless of merit.
Consider this verse from II Chron 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him…”
Psalm 25:10: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
And this from Micah 7:18: Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. (Mercy)
His eyes eagerly seek out the faithful in order to support them, and he delights in showing Mercy. This is the attitude that God has towards us as we approach him with our requests: a favorable disposition to show unmerited favor out of his deep love and tender compassion. This is the spirit in which Jesus received the leper; he was moved with Compassion.
Examples of Christ's Recurring Compassion
Matthew 9:35-38: And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because hey were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 14:13,14: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Matthew 20:29-34 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus,[moved with compassion] touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.
It’s always the same. Jesus sees suffering, and he is moved to his very depths with Compassion.
Now, let’s think about the leper in our story again. He is sure of Jesus’ power, but he doesn’t really know about Jesus’ will. Had he known Jesus better, he might have presumed first upon his grace and his compassion.
But Jesus is never one to quibble about getting the order of things right. He sees the man’s heart, and immediately reaches out to heal because his heart is deeply moved with compassion. His healing POWER follows from his great COMPASSION. And so the man receives the healing he requests.
And buddy, was he excited! Even though Jesus specifically told him not to tell anyone, but to go show the priests that he was well, the poor guy just couldn’t keep it in. He runs out of there and tells the whole county! He had something to share with his neighbors: God is Powerful and God is Good! Yippee! I got healed and you can too!
The result of this was, of course, that the whole county came after Jesus seeking healing.
Here we learn something about God’s purposes in the world. By sending Jesus into our midst, God definitely answered the two nagging questions we have about our own suffering: Is God Good? and Is God Powerful?
Jesus took upon himself human flesh, he went about doing good and healing, was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day God raised him up, trampling down Death by Death as the orthodox like to say.
Our two questions of God have been answered decisively in Christ.
But now there are two questions God has for you:
Do You have something to share?, and Do You Care?
Has Jesus done something for you exciting enough to tell others about it? Is it powerful enough that you couldn’t keep it in even if you tried?
Do you have Compassion like Jesus for those around you? Are you deeply moved down into your guts for your neighbors? Do you care enough to tell them about the way to eternal life?
If not, you better either rethink your experience, or reevaluate your own level of compassion for those who are perishing.
But if you do have something to share, and you do care, you may not have a good method of sharing.
SHOT Principle
This past week I came upon a simple idea called the SHOT Principle. This is a way of engaging those around you so that you can share your experience with them. It really represents a nutshell approach to the very most effective means of church growth: namely, personal invitation. It has always been true and always will be true that the most effective and lasting way to get your message out to the world and to grow a church is to personally engage your family, friends and neighbors.
So, here’s The SHOT Principle for Growth:
Go Somewhere together.
Ask for Help with a ministry.
Share a meal at Our house.
Visit Their house; share Testimony.
I’m going to hand out some cards at this time with the SHOT principle on one side. What I would like you to do is to take a few moments and to write down on the other side of this card, the names of people you will personally pray for and personally engage by means of the SHOT approach.
Friends, do you remember the figure 75,000? Do you recall that more than 80 percent of people in our area do NOT go to church on Sunday morning? And do you remember that 5 out of 10 people who do not go to church DO have some sort of church background?
When you seek the lost, you are not seeking total strangers. They are most likely church people who got lazy or lost the way, or got mad at God or somebody at church. These people need to be saved or reengaged as diciples. Jesus wants us to go out there and get ‘em in order to make disciples of them so that He can spend eternity with them as friends and family members.
So again, I ask you some basic questions:
Do you care?
Do you have something to something to share?
Are you confident in God’s Grace to heal and forgive?
Will you use a silly little mnemonic device to help win your neighbors for Christ?
I hope to God you do, for our faithful fulfillment of the Great Commission depends upon it, as does the very life of our church.
Thoughout Lent, Fr. Mark and I hope to meet with you all individually to talk about the Four Practices for 8th Day Life and the implementation of the SHOT principle. Let me assure you that this is not like a sales quota, but rather a simple tool to help us accomplish what Jesus commanded us to do.
Like St. Benedict, I will quickly add that if anyone has a better idea they are already using to accomplish this goal, more power to you – but regardless of method, let us all resolve to be united with Christ in feeling Compassion towards those who are perishing and reaching out in love to bring them healing. AMEN.
Mark 1:40-45 Jesus Cleanses a Leper
40 And a leper [1] came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” 41 Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” 42 And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. 43 And Jesus [2] sternly charged him and sent him away at once, 44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” 45 But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.
The Compassion of Jesus to Heal
Did you ever think that we seem to trust our friends and their willingness to help us more than we trust God to help us?
Ask yourself which you believe more: That God has the POWER to heal or that He is WILLING to heal. You see, most of us today would agree with the former statement. We believe that God is powerful – in theory. But we have a real problem believing that God is WILLING to heal us – or even to answer our prayers!
But as FF Bosworth points out in his book “Christ the Healer”, this is really backward because it doesn’t take into account the essential goodness and Compassion of God. When the leper comes to Jesus, he expresses this same sort of split. He believes that Jesus CAN heal him, he’s just not sure if he WILL.
But how does Jesus respond? He stretches out his hand, touches him and says to him, “I will; be clean”. Why does Jesus do this? Because he is moved with Pity – or Compassion as other versions say. What is Compassion? - “To love tenderly, to pity, to show mercy, to be full of eager yearning.” Compassion is what God is by Nature.
Psalm 145: 8,9 describes God in this way:
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
God is GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL. To be gracious means to be disposed to show favor – regardless of merit.
Consider this verse from II Chron 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him…”
Psalm 25:10: “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.”
And this from Micah 7:18: Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. (Mercy)
His eyes eagerly seek out the faithful in order to support them, and he delights in showing Mercy. This is the attitude that God has towards us as we approach him with our requests: a favorable disposition to show unmerited favor out of his deep love and tender compassion. This is the spirit in which Jesus received the leper; he was moved with Compassion.
Examples of Christ's Recurring Compassion
Matthew 9:35-38: And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because hey were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Matthew 14:13,14: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Matthew 20:29-34 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus,[moved with compassion] touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.
It’s always the same. Jesus sees suffering, and he is moved to his very depths with Compassion.
Now, let’s think about the leper in our story again. He is sure of Jesus’ power, but he doesn’t really know about Jesus’ will. Had he known Jesus better, he might have presumed first upon his grace and his compassion.
But Jesus is never one to quibble about getting the order of things right. He sees the man’s heart, and immediately reaches out to heal because his heart is deeply moved with compassion. His healing POWER follows from his great COMPASSION. And so the man receives the healing he requests.
And buddy, was he excited! Even though Jesus specifically told him not to tell anyone, but to go show the priests that he was well, the poor guy just couldn’t keep it in. He runs out of there and tells the whole county! He had something to share with his neighbors: God is Powerful and God is Good! Yippee! I got healed and you can too!
The result of this was, of course, that the whole county came after Jesus seeking healing.
Here we learn something about God’s purposes in the world. By sending Jesus into our midst, God definitely answered the two nagging questions we have about our own suffering: Is God Good? and Is God Powerful?
Jesus took upon himself human flesh, he went about doing good and healing, was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day God raised him up, trampling down Death by Death as the orthodox like to say.
Our two questions of God have been answered decisively in Christ.
But now there are two questions God has for you:
Do You have something to share?, and Do You Care?
Has Jesus done something for you exciting enough to tell others about it? Is it powerful enough that you couldn’t keep it in even if you tried?
Do you have Compassion like Jesus for those around you? Are you deeply moved down into your guts for your neighbors? Do you care enough to tell them about the way to eternal life?
If not, you better either rethink your experience, or reevaluate your own level of compassion for those who are perishing.
But if you do have something to share, and you do care, you may not have a good method of sharing.
SHOT Principle
This past week I came upon a simple idea called the SHOT Principle. This is a way of engaging those around you so that you can share your experience with them. It really represents a nutshell approach to the very most effective means of church growth: namely, personal invitation. It has always been true and always will be true that the most effective and lasting way to get your message out to the world and to grow a church is to personally engage your family, friends and neighbors.
So, here’s The SHOT Principle for Growth:
Go Somewhere together.
Ask for Help with a ministry.
Share a meal at Our house.
Visit Their house; share Testimony.
I’m going to hand out some cards at this time with the SHOT principle on one side. What I would like you to do is to take a few moments and to write down on the other side of this card, the names of people you will personally pray for and personally engage by means of the SHOT approach.
Friends, do you remember the figure 75,000? Do you recall that more than 80 percent of people in our area do NOT go to church on Sunday morning? And do you remember that 5 out of 10 people who do not go to church DO have some sort of church background?
When you seek the lost, you are not seeking total strangers. They are most likely church people who got lazy or lost the way, or got mad at God or somebody at church. These people need to be saved or reengaged as diciples. Jesus wants us to go out there and get ‘em in order to make disciples of them so that He can spend eternity with them as friends and family members.
So again, I ask you some basic questions:
Do you care?
Do you have something to something to share?
Are you confident in God’s Grace to heal and forgive?
Will you use a silly little mnemonic device to help win your neighbors for Christ?
I hope to God you do, for our faithful fulfillment of the Great Commission depends upon it, as does the very life of our church.
Thoughout Lent, Fr. Mark and I hope to meet with you all individually to talk about the Four Practices for 8th Day Life and the implementation of the SHOT principle. Let me assure you that this is not like a sales quota, but rather a simple tool to help us accomplish what Jesus commanded us to do.
Like St. Benedict, I will quickly add that if anyone has a better idea they are already using to accomplish this goal, more power to you – but regardless of method, let us all resolve to be united with Christ in feeling Compassion towards those who are perishing and reaching out in love to bring them healing. AMEN.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Humble Yourself
Chapter Talk # 211, addressed to the Company of Jesus
January 18, 2009
Grace to you on this second Sunday of Epiphany, the season of the Glory of God being made manifest by shining through Jesus.
As I reported to you previously, All Saints Anglican Church is participating in something we call the Divine Experiment. In other words, we’re asking the question, “What would happen if we met together morning and evening for 21 days to pray and humble ourselves before God? Would he indeed hear our prayer and bless us and our land, as it says in 2 Chronicles 7:14?
Well, today is day seven of the ‘Experiment’. We’ve been doing a graduated fast, in which we are gradually cutting things out. Now we’re down to fruits and vegetables. We’re praying from 7-9 in the morning and 7-9 in the evening. Since there are seven churches involved, each church is responsible to lead the prayer sessions one day of the week.
It’s been a real exercise in forbearance as there has been a wild variance of musical styles and proficiency, as well as in prayer styles. Our first kickoff service was quite powerful, with all seven church’s ministers participating and some 400 or 450 in attendance.
I and Br. Mark Goldman had the privilege of leading the Eucharistic prayer and serving the other ministers, then giving them the bread and the ‘wine’ (grape juice for our protestant brethren) and watching as the people came down for communion. We had three medium size pita loaves and somehow God made enough bread for all the people to eat – and for there to be about one quarter of a loaf left over for Mark and I to consume! It was really quite remarkable.
But probably equally remarkable was what happened right before the communion. I had not planned to bring a lavabo to wash my hands, but one of the ministers piped up and said that if we were going to distribute the bread, that the people would want to see that we had washed our hands. I was very pleasantly surprised and immediately affirmed that we had a way to deal with this… So as the ministers gathered around the altar, I poured water over their hands and Mark caught the excess with one towel and offered another towel for them to dry their hands.
My wife, Cindy, said that something powerful began to happen during this time. And indeed, by the time I got to the third minister, his face was wet with tears streaming down. Then, during the prayer, Mark instructed them on how to ‘concelebrate’. One of our retired Episcopal priests in the congregation said that when he saw this, he started jumping up and down, and then started weeping with joy!
It was a great privilege to bring the Eucharist to these mostly Pentecostal folks. They seemed to like it and I think we are scheduled to have communion again at our wrap-up service on February 1 – smack dab in the middle of the Super Bowl! (We’ll see what kind of turnout we get. I noticed in a restaurant the other day that they were closing early in order for the employees to spend the time with their families! Isn’t it nice that we have another secular holiday to celebrate now?)
At any rate, we’ve been going to most of the meetings – at least one per day and sometimes two. We’re very tired, but gratified that God’s people have gathered to pray. We take it as an opportunity to practice our monastic discipline and I have been wearing my habit to the meetings – mostly as a prophetic act to remind me that God wants to build a house of prayer – and that he wants to do it with poor, ragged, sinful people like me and the 20-30 others who meet for these prayers.
January 18, 2009
Grace to you on this second Sunday of Epiphany, the season of the Glory of God being made manifest by shining through Jesus.
As I reported to you previously, All Saints Anglican Church is participating in something we call the Divine Experiment. In other words, we’re asking the question, “What would happen if we met together morning and evening for 21 days to pray and humble ourselves before God? Would he indeed hear our prayer and bless us and our land, as it says in 2 Chronicles 7:14?
Well, today is day seven of the ‘Experiment’. We’ve been doing a graduated fast, in which we are gradually cutting things out. Now we’re down to fruits and vegetables. We’re praying from 7-9 in the morning and 7-9 in the evening. Since there are seven churches involved, each church is responsible to lead the prayer sessions one day of the week.
It’s been a real exercise in forbearance as there has been a wild variance of musical styles and proficiency, as well as in prayer styles. Our first kickoff service was quite powerful, with all seven church’s ministers participating and some 400 or 450 in attendance.
I and Br. Mark Goldman had the privilege of leading the Eucharistic prayer and serving the other ministers, then giving them the bread and the ‘wine’ (grape juice for our protestant brethren) and watching as the people came down for communion. We had three medium size pita loaves and somehow God made enough bread for all the people to eat – and for there to be about one quarter of a loaf left over for Mark and I to consume! It was really quite remarkable.
But probably equally remarkable was what happened right before the communion. I had not planned to bring a lavabo to wash my hands, but one of the ministers piped up and said that if we were going to distribute the bread, that the people would want to see that we had washed our hands. I was very pleasantly surprised and immediately affirmed that we had a way to deal with this… So as the ministers gathered around the altar, I poured water over their hands and Mark caught the excess with one towel and offered another towel for them to dry their hands.
My wife, Cindy, said that something powerful began to happen during this time. And indeed, by the time I got to the third minister, his face was wet with tears streaming down. Then, during the prayer, Mark instructed them on how to ‘concelebrate’. One of our retired Episcopal priests in the congregation said that when he saw this, he started jumping up and down, and then started weeping with joy!
It was a great privilege to bring the Eucharist to these mostly Pentecostal folks. They seemed to like it and I think we are scheduled to have communion again at our wrap-up service on February 1 – smack dab in the middle of the Super Bowl! (We’ll see what kind of turnout we get. I noticed in a restaurant the other day that they were closing early in order for the employees to spend the time with their families! Isn’t it nice that we have another secular holiday to celebrate now?)
At any rate, we’ve been going to most of the meetings – at least one per day and sometimes two. We’re very tired, but gratified that God’s people have gathered to pray. We take it as an opportunity to practice our monastic discipline and I have been wearing my habit to the meetings – mostly as a prophetic act to remind me that God wants to build a house of prayer – and that he wants to do it with poor, ragged, sinful people like me and the 20-30 others who meet for these prayers.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Transformation, Wilderness and Baptism
A portion of my Chapter Talk to the Company of Jesus, January 11, 2009, the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus.
Mark 1: 7-11: 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Divine Experiment Begins
Back in October, I a group of pastors from Huntington began regular Friday morning prayer meetings at a location just two blocks from our home. Today will be the beginning of something called the “Divine Experiment”. Seven local churches have come together to seek God’s face for 21 days. During this time, there will be morning and evening prayer meetings at the Douglass center and a ‘Daniel Fast”, the focus of which will be to get ourselves right with God and get the worldliness out of the church. As a result of this experiment, we hope to attract a more tangible Presence of God to our churches and community.
Friday evening and Saturday, we attended a seminar in which the speaker, Rhonda Hughey, talked about Transformations that are happening around the world in places like Fiji and the Canadian Arctic Circle. In these communities, the people have come together and recognized their need for God, turning to Him in prayer and repentance. Many remarkable healings and manifestations are taking place, and there is often a sense of the “Manifest Presence” of God in these places.
Significantly, part of the process of getting to that place is becoming dissatisfied with the status quo in our lives and leaving ‘Egypt’ to seek the ‘Promised Land’. Rhonda reported that in Fiji, it usually takes about three weeks for a community to go from desperation, through the Divine Experiment and into Transformation of the people and the very land itself. In America and other European places, however, there have been NO Transformations, even though some communities have done this Divine Experiment several times. That’s not to say that the results of the prayer have not been remarkable.
In many cases, marriages have been restored, finances have miraculous appeared, and churches have developed wonderful friendships across denominational lines. But the hoped- for community-wide Transformation has not as yet taken place. Instead, some communities have found themselves in the ‘Wilderness’, in which God seems to be purging out of them more and more worldliness.
This has been distressing to some, but it should also be expected. We know that Purgation is part of the process of Spiritual Growth, and that when one decides to pray more, to fast and to ‘go into the desert’, God begins to transform us from the inside out. And this of course is often painful. But the result of the process is an increased sensitivity to God and a purer life. The experience of monastics through the ages has born this out, starting with the Desert Fathers especially, and also noticed through the Benedictine cenobitic tradition, the Celtic love of ‘disserth’ places and the Franciscan experience of seeking God with abandon. Our Gospel reading today reminds us that the culmination of the desert experience for Jesus was being Baptized in the Jordan – in the Holy Spirit – in order to begin His earthly ministry.
I would seek your prayers for myself, my church and the six other Churches that are participating in the Divine Experiment over the next 21 days. I pray God may grant you all the blessings of the desert as you go about your daily asceticism of marriage, family, work and life and ministry.
Mark 1: 7-11: 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Divine Experiment Begins
Back in October, I a group of pastors from Huntington began regular Friday morning prayer meetings at a location just two blocks from our home. Today will be the beginning of something called the “Divine Experiment”. Seven local churches have come together to seek God’s face for 21 days. During this time, there will be morning and evening prayer meetings at the Douglass center and a ‘Daniel Fast”, the focus of which will be to get ourselves right with God and get the worldliness out of the church. As a result of this experiment, we hope to attract a more tangible Presence of God to our churches and community.
Friday evening and Saturday, we attended a seminar in which the speaker, Rhonda Hughey, talked about Transformations that are happening around the world in places like Fiji and the Canadian Arctic Circle. In these communities, the people have come together and recognized their need for God, turning to Him in prayer and repentance. Many remarkable healings and manifestations are taking place, and there is often a sense of the “Manifest Presence” of God in these places.
Significantly, part of the process of getting to that place is becoming dissatisfied with the status quo in our lives and leaving ‘Egypt’ to seek the ‘Promised Land’. Rhonda reported that in Fiji, it usually takes about three weeks for a community to go from desperation, through the Divine Experiment and into Transformation of the people and the very land itself. In America and other European places, however, there have been NO Transformations, even though some communities have done this Divine Experiment several times. That’s not to say that the results of the prayer have not been remarkable.
In many cases, marriages have been restored, finances have miraculous appeared, and churches have developed wonderful friendships across denominational lines. But the hoped- for community-wide Transformation has not as yet taken place. Instead, some communities have found themselves in the ‘Wilderness’, in which God seems to be purging out of them more and more worldliness.
This has been distressing to some, but it should also be expected. We know that Purgation is part of the process of Spiritual Growth, and that when one decides to pray more, to fast and to ‘go into the desert’, God begins to transform us from the inside out. And this of course is often painful. But the result of the process is an increased sensitivity to God and a purer life. The experience of monastics through the ages has born this out, starting with the Desert Fathers especially, and also noticed through the Benedictine cenobitic tradition, the Celtic love of ‘disserth’ places and the Franciscan experience of seeking God with abandon. Our Gospel reading today reminds us that the culmination of the desert experience for Jesus was being Baptized in the Jordan – in the Holy Spirit – in order to begin His earthly ministry.
I would seek your prayers for myself, my church and the six other Churches that are participating in the Divine Experiment over the next 21 days. I pray God may grant you all the blessings of the desert as you go about your daily asceticism of marriage, family, work and life and ministry.
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