Transformative Character

The book group I belong to has been reading the recent publication by New York Times columnist, David Brooks.  It is titled, “The Road to Character.”  Its focus is on how some notable people in history have cultivated strong character. It’s also about Brooks' own search for meaning and purpose.

The first chapter is about American culture and how so many people have become self-centered.  Brooks points out that this self-centeredness "leads to selfishness, the desire to use other people as means to get things for yourself.  It also leads to pride, the desire to see yourself as superior to everybody else."  The author favors a more humble approach to life and reminds us that we are all built from "crooked timber." He quotes Immanuel Kant, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."  Our character, asserts Brooks, must be built from the crooked timber of self-centeredness that is part of our individual lives.  The road to character is a transformative experience and it results in a new attitude of concern for others.

Jesus spoke of this transformative character when he said to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

The passage from John’s gospel is part of Jesus’ final discourse.  Jesus’ death, resurrection, and glorification by God are held together as one event.  God is glorified in Christ.  It is an event of redemption for the whole world; a new covenant is about to be sealed.  Jesus told the disciples that the new covenant is not unlike the old covenant.  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  The newness of this commandment is found in the fact that Jesus’ love led him to endure death in order for the disciples to have eternal life.  The disciples’ love for one another must be no less.  This love is total.  It embraces the compassionate love for peace and justice; the romantic love of partners in intimate relationships; the sister-love and brother-love of Jesus caring for all sorts and conditions of people who came to him.  It is about forgiveness, healing, and bringing new life to all people.

The passage from Revelation to John as we heard in one of our lessons says something about this new life.  It is a proclamation of the fulfillment or completion of the entire biblical message of redemption.  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…. And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new…. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”

You and I spend our lives developing and assimilating new experiences in our relationships and in our spiritual journeys.  In order to integrate new experiences we sometimes have to change our existing attitudes and viewpoints.  It is part of our road to character.  Changing attitudes can provide us with a new and transforming awareness.  Transformation is hard work; it is the result of our spiritual journey and it doesn’t come easily.  Generally speaking, people who have everything don’t want real or significant change but people who are poor or oppressed are often searching and hoping for change, for a new and transformative life.

Our religious heritage and history begins with the early Christian community as it lived in the midst of human misery and suffering.  The early Christian communities looked forward with hope and anticipation for new life. The meaning of life was found in hope and love.  The issues of our day so far removed from the early Church were not their concern.  No one thought about climate change or renewable energy;  there was no concern about privacy and information technology; no instantaneous worldwide communication; no international economic system; and no human genomic medicine or DNA analysis.  None of these issues were even imaginable for early Christians.

What is the new heaven and new earth, the new Jerusalem for us who live in the 21^st Century?  What is new is that we are members of a worldwide community. We are no longer simply members of a local community, or a clearly defined and identifiable religious community.  We go through life moving from one community to another, always building new relationships and always saying good-by to communities left behind.  It seems that God’s new Jerusalem, at least for now and the foreseeable future, is to come to terms with what it means to be a worldwide community, multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-religious, and all interdependent.

The real question is how do we understand what it means to live with this pluralism?  How do we understand one another’s language, views, customs, traditions?  What this suggests to me, especially in the light of our reading from Revelation, is that we should be open and hospitable to those whom we don’t know.  “To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”  The “spring of the water of life” belongs to everyone.  We are all thirsty and we are all in need of this water.  The metaphor of pouring a glass of water for the stranger you meet is about befriending that stranger.

Jesus said to his disciples, “Where I am going you cannot come.”  Death is real.  It is not just physical dying but it is death to everything that stands in the way of love and life.  No one is to be denied water from the spring of the water of life.  The death we are to witness is a death to the status-quo, to the accepted ways of doing business and of taking life for granted.  Death must happen in order for new life to spring forth.  Privilege must die so equality can live.  Greed must die so people can work and share the resources of life.  Prejudice and bigotry must die so pluralism, understanding, and mutual respect can live.  Violence must die so love can live.  Self-righteous nationalism must die so a new world order can be born.

Character that is transformative is not just individual development or personal experience.  It is communal, focused on relationships yielding new life.  It is the biblical message of redemption.  “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;… the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…. And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new…. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”  Amen.

The Heart of Belief

Last Sunday in my Easter sermon I quoted the theologian Richard Niebuhr who said, "What you come to believe, what you come to love, will lead you to the future; and by those beliefs and loves you will build the future." 

Building the future is a major focus of our life this year at All Saints’.  This past month our strategic planning committee submitted a report to the Vestry about the need to adopt a new mission statement and a vision for where we hope to be during the coming 18 to 24 months.  The committee also proposed several goals to lead us into the future.

The proposed mission statement says, “All Saints’ Memorial Church is a welcoming multicultural Episcopal congregation that strives to grow in the love of God and respond to the spiritual and human needs of our neighboring communities.”

The vision for the future is: “All Saints’ Memorial Church is a visible and known beacon that engages people in their spiritual journeys and nurtures their minds and souls.”

The strategic plan then lists five goals and strategies to achieve them. Here are the goals and an abbreviated list of programs and activities to realize them:

The first goal is to  “Grow in the love of God.” 

The second goal is to “Respond to spiritual needs of our younger adults and our neighboring communities.”

The third goal is to “Respond to human needs of neighboring communities.”  

A fourth goal is to “Undertake one new capital improvement project each year.” 

Finally, a fifth goal is to “Develop a clergy succession plan.” 

The Vestry has received the strategic plan and will have a retreat in the near future to discuss it in detail and develop priorities and timelines for its implementation.

Bringing life where death reigned is the message of Easter.  It is what the resurrection of Jesus Christ is all about.  The resurrection is not a one-time event that occurs on Easter Sunday once a year.  Nor is it the 50 days of the Easter season leading up to the feast of the Ascension and then Pentecost.  Resurrection life is continuous and we are aware of it every time we share in the celebration of Holy Eucharist. 

We heard in the Acts of the Apostles that Peter said, “ The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus … as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him." The risen Christ as leader a Savior, God incarnate, is compassionate giving repentance and forgiveness of sins.

True believing is a matter of the heart.  In this sense believing is more than a matter of intellectual assent.  If we only dwell on thinking about what we believe and fail act on it we are missing the mark.  To believe in something is more than an objective reality. It is not an object like an i-phone that you can tinker with and download all sorts of apps.  There is no app for the resurrection.  When the risen Jesus stood among the disciples he “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’"

Breath and heart are closely related.  Breathing is the Spirit in action. Believing as a matter of the heart means in biblical terms forgiving, for respecting the dignity of every human being, and for actively living the resurrected life as part of the Christian community.

Frederick Buechner, theologian and writer, has written about belief and how we see Jesus with our hearts.  He said, “I believe we have glimpsed the truth of Jesus in the faces and lives of people we know who have loved him and served him…. I believe we have glimpsed him in the pages of the Gospels when by some miracle of grace those pages come alive for us and it is as if we ourselves are the ones he is speaking to when he says, ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ I believe we have caught sight of him in works of art that have been created to honor him…. I believe we have seen him once in our own churches, especially when … he is present in the silence of waiting and listening. 

‘To see him with the heart is to know that in the long run his kind of life is the only life worth living. To see him with the heart is not only to believe in him but little by little to become bearers to each other of his healing life until we become finally healed and whole and alive within ourselves. To see him with the heart is to take heart, to grow true hearts, brave hearts, at last. That is my dearest hope and prayer.”

It is now up to all of us to take heart and become bearers of Christ’s healing life both among ourselves and among all the people throughout the wider community.  It is by what we come to love that we are led to the future; and by that love we shall build the future of All Saints' Memorial Church in response to the human and spiritual needs of the people we meet.  Amen.