Sharing our Stories

This past week I spent a couple of days at a Diocesan clergy retreat.  It was a wonderful and restful time at the Whispering Pines Conference Center on the Alton Jones campus of the University of Rhode Island.  We worshiped and ate meals together, studied a passage from the Gospel of Luke, shared in meditation, and built collaborative relationships with our Bishop and fellow presbyters. 

During a Bible study session we noted that many young people are not church-goers today.  I am sure this is no surprise.  In the course I teach at Rhode Island College titled, “The Idea of God,” several of my students, most of whom were raised as Roman Catholics, tell me they no longer go to church because they no longer believe all the stories they were taught when they were children.

I don’t blame them; I understand where they are.  Some of those stories when taken literally and at face value are unbelievable.  Were Adam and Eve literally tempted by a serpent to eat an apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  Did the Red Sea actually part waves so the Israelites could escape their Egyptian pursuers by crossing the sea while their chariots became stuck in the mud as water rushed over to drown them?  Did Noah actually build an ark and stock it with two of every kind of living creature?  If so, why would he leave his family behind?  These are examples of several biblical stories that children are taught in Sunday school.

These stories and so many others in the Bible are significant and important but they are not to be understood as literally true.  The question we need to ask and the message we need to teach is what these stories mean.  They are true as metaphors or allegories about the human condition.  They are stories about our relationship to God and to one another as inhabitants on this earthly planet.

What young people want to hear as they grow up and ask questions are our stories about what is important to us individually and as a worshipping community.  Why do we affirm our trust in God?  What does it mean to come together for worship?  How is your life and my life transformed, changed, because of our faith and the faith of the Christian community?

How would you respond to these questions?  What is your story?  What is our story as parishioners of this church?  Our scripture readings this morning offer an outline to use as we come to terms with our stories.  Each of our readings is part of a three-part outline.

The Book of Leviticus says, “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”  Being holy means that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”  How do we live out the command to love our neighbor as our self?  Do we know what it means to be holy?

The second part of our outline is from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians.   Paul said, “according to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation… that foundation is Jesus Christ.  Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? All things belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”  What is the foundation you have built to uphold God’s indwelling Spirit?  Or, to ask the question another way, what is the bedrock of your commitment to Jesus Christ?  Can you relate examples from your life and from our life together that demonstrates how you and we are God’s temple and belong to God?

Matthew’s Gospel is concerned about how we live the Christian life.  The third part of our outline records Jesus saying, “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven…. Be perfect… as your heavenly Father is perfect."  Loving one’s enemies is not easy; it’s the most difficult thing to imagine.  Perhaps the only way to achieve it is through nonviolent action.  An example is Martin Luther King, Jr. and the nonviolent protests for civil rights and an end to war.  How do we understand what it means that we should love our enemies?  Is this how we are to be perfect?

The outline of our individual stories and our communal story is about being holy, building a foundation for a temple of God’s indwelling spirit, and living a life of perfect service.  Can you fill in this outline by writing your own story?  How would you write our community story at All Saints’ Church?   As we reflect on this we can learn what it means to live transformed lives as members of the Church giving witness to God through Jesus Christ.

A passage from the Gospel of Luke that we studied during our clergy retreat is about telling our stories.  In Luke’s Gospel the Lord “appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.”  He told them to take nothing with them but when they enter a house they should say, “Peace to this house” and eat and drink whatever they provide while you are there.  And, “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”  But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, “Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.”

Meeting someone with a greeting of peace is important.  For those seventy followers who heard this from Jesus it was not the peace, the Pax, of the Roman Empire, but it was the shalom of the community of God’s people.  Shalom is the greeting of peace between God and the community, a greeting of well-being.  Peace be with you, may it be well with you.  Or, as Jewish worshipers say to one another on Fridays, Shabbat Shalom, May it be a restful Sabbath.

We are holy persons and a holy community when we understand being called by God as baptized Christians to follow Jesus Christ by proclaiming the Good News through word and example.  We build a foundation knowing ourselves as carriers of God’s Spirit in our relationships with everyone we meet by respecting the dignity of every human being.  We live lives of perfect service seeking and serving Christ in all persons by loving our neighbors as ourselves.  It is the life we live in our covenant relationship with God.  Amen.

Living Organism vs. Organization

I am part of a small group of clergy and consultants who meet on a fairly regular basis to discuss issues we find important in our ministries with congregations that are going through various stages of transition or redevelopment.  Last Wednesday our group discussed a paper titled, “Adapt or Die,” by the Rev. Ken Howard, rector of a church in the Diocese of Maryland.  Ken Howard began his paper by noting that he was asked at a recent conference “to speculate about what our parishes would look like a decade from now.”  His answer was brief: “One thing I can say with certainty is this: The only way our churches will look like they do now is if they have been stuffed and mounted and displayed in a museum of natural church history.”

I found this statement to be a rather depressing thought in his provocative article.  But then he continued, “We are facing radical change – radical as in going to the root – requiring of us both radical recognition and radical response.”

Think about the organizations to which you belong.  It may be the company or institution that employs you; it might be the local rotary club; or a fraternal order; or social club; an art club; a medical society; a school, college or university.  It is also your church.  How do these organizations embrace change?  Are they preoccupied with doing things the same way over and over again?  Do they have a business plan that guides their activities?  Are they constantly trying to do more good things with fewer resources?  What is it about your participation that keeps you involved in the organizations to which you belong?

Ken Howard’s article focused only on churches.  It suggested that we must confront the fact that many of our churches are dying.   The older ways of being church are no longer what they used to be.  Church is more than a building that is there for its members and others when they need it.  A church is more like a living organism that goes through the life cycle or birth, development, growth, maturity, decline and death.  Death happens so new life can arise.

The author writes,  “At the core our churches are living human organisms, and dying is what all living organisms eventually do. But first they are born, live, adapt, create new life, and pass on their DNA to the next generation. We cannot insulate our churches from death without isolating them from the very process that would empower the next generation, not just to survive but also to thrive.”

“To guide our churches into a vital future, vestries and other church leaders must help our congregations to embrace their organic nature – to see death not as the ultimate failure but as the door to greater life. We need to help our congregations learn how to die in a way that plants the seeds of their resurrection….How do we help our congregations live into a more incarnational Christianity that values organism over organization?”

I share this with you for two reasons:  First, our Vestry will be on a retreat this next Saturday.  I am proposing that we examine what a shift in our understanding of church as an organism would look like for All Saints’. How might we refocus our energies from an organizational model to an organism model?  This shift would have several implications for our life together.  Ken Howard claims that by “embracing the organic and incarnational nature of Christian community [we] can both make our congregations more vital in the present and enable them to face the ‘changes and chances’ of the future with adaptability and resilience.”  It may be challenging and good for us to think and discuss this as it pertains to our mission and ministry and how we understand leadership within out congregation.

My second reason for sharing this is that our Scripture readings this morning have a lot to say about our common life and what our relationships are and should be.  For example, in the Old Testament reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, the Lord said to Moses,  “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.” 

Then, in the reading from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, after chiding his listeners because of their divisions, Paul said, “We are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building.”  Later in his letter Paul states, “There are many members, yet one body….  If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Finally, in Matthew’s gospel Jesus said that his mission is not to abolish the law as it is written in the Ten Commandments and the Torah, but he has come to fulfill the law.  So, as a way to fulfill the law, “when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” 

Reconciliation and right relationships are important.  It takes more that mere obedience to the law because as living organisms of Christian ministry and service, how we envision our future growth and our ability to adapt to the changes that inevitably come before us will determine how we embrace new life, rejoice and offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving to God.  As a verse in a familiar Advent hymn puts it, “Our hope and expectation, O Jesus now appear; arise, thou Sun so longed for, above this darkened sphere! With hearts and hands uplifted, we plead, O Lord, to see the day of earth’s redemption, and ever be with thee!”  Amen.

Salt and Light

Jesus said to his disciples, and he says to us, "You are the salt of the earth.”  He further said, "You are the light of the world…. Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Salt and Light are two elements that are used repeatedly in the Bible as metaphors.  They are also common elements that are necessary for life.  When you think about salt as a metaphor, can you recall a time when someone referred to you as “salt of the earth?”  In this sense, “salt of the earth” means a good and worthy person.  When you think about light as a metaphor, can you recall an experience when someone reflected God's light for you in a time of need?  Or what about a time when you felt you were "light" for someone else?  Experiences of salt and light are personal and intimate when we connect with another person at a deep and significant level.  Being the light for someone, or someone else being the light for us, is a revelatory experience, an encounter that leads to transformation or change in a person's perception or behavior.  It has to do with discovering something about our relationships that had been, prior to the light, hidden from our self-understanding.

Today's gospel usage of salt and light is about God's revelation to us.  Jesus used the metaphors of salt and light to alert his disciples to the importance of their role in the world.  The metaphor of salt suggests that the disciples were to be "the salt of the earth.”  Salt was important in Jesus' world as a spice and a preservative.  The disciples must convey and challenge the world with Jesus' teachings and preserve the deepest meaning of God's Holy Word.  The saying, “salt of the earth,” however, ends with a threat of divine judgment:  "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot."

In reality, salt cannot lose its taste, but it can become unclean when tainted with impurities, and then it is thrown out or used to melt the ice on sidewalks and roads.  The disciples were warned that despite their call to carry on the teaching and ministry of Jesus, they could lose everything if they were unfaithful during times of persecution.

The metaphor is light is about relationships.  “You are the light of the world…. Let your light shine before others.”  A traditional Jewish hope in Jesus’ day was that Israel and the city of Jerusalem would become "a light to the nations" by showing clearly what is God's justice.  The disciples' charge to be the "light of the world" was to be like "a city built on a hill" and a lamp "on the lamp-stand [to] give light to all in the house."  Their purpose however was not to draw attention to themselves but to bring the nations to God.  "In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your God in heaven."

In these words Jesus taught his disciples and he is teaching all of us that the commandments of God and their truth about love of neighbor require more than verbal assent or belief.  They require total commitment, right actions and compassionate behavior.  Our light should break forth like the dawn and shine before others.  The commitment to God is an active commitment; it is simple and radical in its simplicity, and it is the good work of God's love for all people.

How are you and I salt and light for others?  Jesus challenges us to be the good salt of the earth and to be a beacon of light for others, radiant, buoyant, and optimistic.  It is the work of the Spirit of God.   St. Paul states it well as we heard in his Letter to the Corinthians: "We have received the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God."  We are pulled along by the Spirit, stretched with the challenge to put our faith into living acts of love and justice for others.

In a moment we shall baptize and welcome a new member into the household of God.  Vivian Lima Vigneault who is just 8 months old and her parents have come to be with us and share in Christ’s ministry.  The sacrament of Baptism is our response to the invitation of the Gospel.  It is the initiation rite into full membership in the Church, and, in the case of infants, it is also a time for giving a child his or her name.

The sacrament of baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  The outward sign is the water that we bless and use, and the spiritual grace is the gift of God's Spirit by which we place ourselves as Christians, and those we baptize, within a particular history.  We take on the historical identity of the Christian tradition and work for justice, peace, love and reconciliation of all people with one another and with God.

It is our prayer that Vivian will grow into the full stature of Christ and herself become salt of the earth and a light to all the people she will meet.  Amen.

The Revelation of God’s Love

Today, known as the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, we celebrate the purpose of God’s relationship with all people.  It is the revelation of God's saving love to Israel, to the whole world, and to us as we know it in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  It is both a joyful and a dreadful moment.  It is a spirit of hope and expectation, of wonder and awe, and it is mixed with anxiety, anguish and dread.

This mixture of hope and expectation with anxiety and dread is stated at the end of the Hebrew Bible when the prophet Malachi speaks a word of anticipation.  Malachi’s message is a mixture of hope and anxiety.  "The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight - indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?"

Then, in the gospel of Luke, Simeon, a righteous and devout man, and Anna, an elderly prophet, greet the young child Jesus who was brought to the temple by his parents.  Jesus’ parents brought their son to fulfill the laws for purification of his mother and the dedication of their first-born. 

As one commentator stated, Simeon, also an elderly person, had been "told he wouldn't die till he'd seen the Messiah with his own two eyes, and time was running out.  When the moment finally came, one look through his cataract lenses was all it took...." Simeon held the small child in his arms.  As he did so, he said, "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation."  The baby reached out to play with the fringes of his beard.  The parents were obviously pleased, "amazed at what was being said about" their baby, so Simeon "blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’” 

Anna, a prophet from the tribe of Asher, also was in the temple and “began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”  The people of Jerusalem had been suffering greatly under the oppressive rule of the Roman empire, and they were looking for positive and redeeming change.

One of the most deeply affecting mysteries of human life is the mystery of suffering, especially when innocent and good people are involved.  Anna and Simeon knew this, and Simeon’s words to Mary and the events of our own time thousands of years later will not allow us to forget how pain, anguish, suffering and death, are part of life's journey.

Why should young people be victims of abuse and neglect?  Why is it that those who suffer are the people whose lives have often enough already been marked by hardship and struggle?  Why should any human being be hated, taunted, inflicted with suffering, because of color, religion, race, ethnic background, or gender?

We ask these questions, and nowhere do we find satisfactory answers.  These forms of suffering simply should not be.  As I reflect on questions of human suffering and why bad things happen to good people, I find some of the insights of William Stringfellow to be helpful.  Stringfellow was an attorney, a lay theologian, and an Episcopalian who wrote extensively about death and life, about revelation and what it means to be faithful to the word of God.  In one of his books, An Ethic for Christians and other Aliens in a Strange Land, he has a chapter about resistance to death.  He writes:

"No violence is private.  On the contrary, violence is so dynamic, variegated, and pervasive that all violence must be regarded as essentially political.  Even apparently isolated or remote or unilateral violence inherently implicates every human, and every other creature…. The violence Jesus suffered on the Cross becomes the most notorious political event in all history....”

"Where is hope?", he asks. "The biblical response... is that hope is known only in the midst of coping with death…. Engagement in specific and incessant struggle against death's rule renders us human.  Resistance to death is the only way to live humanly..."

Simeon, as he held Jesus in his arms, was aware of the relationship between life and death.  He and many others were aware of the intermingling emotions of hope and awe with anguish and dread.  The time is dreadful.  Death in all of its forms must be overcome.  The purpose of Christ's life, death and resurrection, the purpose of God's incarnation, of the Word becoming human, was and is the revelation of God's saving love. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, “God loves us with a love that will not let us go, a love that loved us before we were created, a love that loves us now, a love that will love us forever, world without end.  A love that says of each single one of us: ‘I love you, you are precious and special to me, I love you as if you were the only human being on earth, I love you and there is nothing you can do to make me love you more because I already love you perfectly.’”

God’s love is about reconciling all people to God.  God was and is in Christ reconciling the world.  The ministry of reconciliation belongs to us; it is what we are called to do in every moment of human history.  In so doing, our hope and the focus of our lives is always on Christ, "a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people."  Amen.