The Seventh Sunday After Easter Acts 1: 6 – 14
Sunday, June 5, 2011 I Peter 4; 12 – 14; 5: 6 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 17: 1 – 11
Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.”
John 17: 1
We hear, on this the last Sunday in Easter, Jesus pray: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Our text comes from the gospel of John on the night before Jesus dies. On this night, Jesus gathers with his disciples for a last supper. During this last supper, if you remember from the liturgy of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and commands them to do the same.
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, at the last supper, Jesus institutes the Eucharist, telling the disciples to remember him through the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine. But in the gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples to “love one another as I have loved you,” and washes their feet. For our evangelist John, the washing of feet not the breaking of bread grounds the disciples’ common life.
And now, as this supper in the gospel of John comes to an end, Jesus prays to his Father. And unlike the other gospels, Jesus is not in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying that “this cup might pass” but sounds victorious as Jesus acknowledges that his work has been finished and the glory of his Father has been made known through him.
In the gospel of John, a gospel in which Jesus has turned water into wine, fed the multitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish, walked on water and raised Lazarus from the dead – all signs of God’s glory – the crucifixion is the last and ultimate sign of the glory of God revealed through Jesus. The crucifixion completes Jesus’ work of “making God known.”
“Glory” is not a word most of us would associate with the crucifixion. Jesus’ death on the cross was intended by the Romans who nailed him there to deter any would be revolutionaries from disturbing the peace, as Jesus had clearly done. Crucifixion was a humiliating death, as the condemned was stripped and hung for hours along a public road for all to see, to slowly and painfully suffocate. “Glory” suggests something of triumph and worthy of praise; crucifixion meant condemnation and failure.
Commenting on our text for this day, the Lutheran professor of New Testament Craig Koester writes: “If the signs reveal God’s glory by displaying divine power, the crucifixion reveals God’s glory by conveying divine love. The crucifixion completes Jesus’ work of glorifying God on earth, for by laying down his life he gives himself completely so that the world may know of Jesus’ love for God and God’s love for the world… The crucifixion manifests the scope of divine power by disclosing the depth of divine love.”
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jesus has just told the disciples at their last meal together. For our evangelist John, Jesus’ death is an offering made in love, the return of all that the Father had given to the Son, the completion of Jesus’ work in the name of his Father on earth.
Koester concludes provocatively: “If glory defines what the crucifixion is, the crucifixion defines what glory is.” The word for “glory” is δοξα in Greek and can mean splendor and power and praise; δοξα is the root for doxology, the hymn of praise we sing as we offer up our gifts before the Eucharist. How might we re-imagine the glory of God in light of the crucifixion?
One day this week, to my great surprise, the weather turned cooler and I threw open the windows and turned off the air conditioning. I thought to myself after the recent stifling heat: “This weather is glorious!” “Glorious” is an adjective that comes to mind when strolling through the gardens of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in spring; hearing Handel’s Messiah performed by the Richmond Symphony at Christmas time; and watching the sun come up over a calm sea. Glorious, for sure, would have been Jesus’ miraculous transformation of water into wine at the wedding in Cana; glorious would been that afternoon on a hillside, when the crowds ate their fill from just a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread; glorious would be to receive your sight after being born blind.
Glorious was not a word that came to my mind as I wandered around MCV recently, waiting for doctors to tell me when I might be able to bring my husband home following surgery; glorious is not a word I would use to describe how I feel when my granddaughter cries; and glorious is certainly not a word I would ever use to speak of those times when I have failed in one way or another to live into the person God created me to be.
Something is glorious because that something is good; our evangelist John pushes us this morning to see hidden in this horror of crucifixion, the very, the ultimate display of God’s love. You and I are wont to draw back, to recoil when our evangelist John invites us to see the crucifixion as a, indeed “the,” revelation of the glory of God. Remember Peter on Maundy Thursday – on that night Peter was horrified that Jesus wanted to wash his feet. Now Jesus is going to his death and Jesus is dying so that the world will know the depth of God’s love.
Today ends our Easter celebration. Next Sunday is Pentecost and I hope Pentecost will be a grand celebration. But for the most part we are now thrust into a long season of green, ordinary time we call it in the church, not a lot of fanfare, no great celebrations, just life on the road. I have no idea where God will lead us during the next six months, the time between now and the beginning of Advent. What I know is that during this “ordinary” season, God will make Godself known in ways we will enjoy and delight in; what I also know is that during this time we will experience difficult and painful times, times of crucifixion, times when the glory of God will be veiled from us.
Our evangelist John is giving all of us a bit of a heads up this morning; the time to come will not be like the time that has passed. The paschal candle is going back to the sacristy next Sunday. Jesus will no longer being turning water into wine, raising the dead, feeding the multitudes, or giving sight to the blind. For sure, we are not on our own, Jesus is leaving us with an “Advocate,” but the long season of Pentecost will not always appear glorious. Jesus takes leave today, his work on earth is finished and our work begins.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all give us a different picture of Jesus; in the gospel of John we meet a Jesus who was not born in a stable but who was with God before the world began and returns to God when his work on earth is finished. Jesus’ work on earth in the gospel of John is to reveal the God who sent him. On the cross, the God who loves the world and who wishes that the wine at a wedding never run out, the blind might see, and the hungry be fed is supremely revealed as a God who will withhold nothing, not even God’s own life for us. The Jesus of John’s gospel is the King of Glory and we, who worship this King of Glory, are now sent into the world to show forth God’s glory, the glory of God made known to us as we give ourselves away, loving others as God loves us. May God sustain and strengthen us all by the power of the Holy Spirit as we take up our holy calling in the months to come.
Sunday, June 5, 2011 I Peter 4; 12 – 14; 5: 6 – 11
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 17: 1 – 11
Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.”
John 17: 1
We hear, on this the last Sunday in Easter, Jesus pray: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Our text comes from the gospel of John on the night before Jesus dies. On this night, Jesus gathers with his disciples for a last supper. During this last supper, if you remember from the liturgy of Maundy Thursday during Holy Week, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and commands them to do the same.
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, at the last supper, Jesus institutes the Eucharist, telling the disciples to remember him through the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine. But in the gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples to “love one another as I have loved you,” and washes their feet. For our evangelist John, the washing of feet not the breaking of bread grounds the disciples’ common life.
And now, as this supper in the gospel of John comes to an end, Jesus prays to his Father. And unlike the other gospels, Jesus is not in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying that “this cup might pass” but sounds victorious as Jesus acknowledges that his work has been finished and the glory of his Father has been made known through him.
In the gospel of John, a gospel in which Jesus has turned water into wine, fed the multitudes with five loaves of bread and two fish, walked on water and raised Lazarus from the dead – all signs of God’s glory – the crucifixion is the last and ultimate sign of the glory of God revealed through Jesus. The crucifixion completes Jesus’ work of “making God known.”
“Glory” is not a word most of us would associate with the crucifixion. Jesus’ death on the cross was intended by the Romans who nailed him there to deter any would be revolutionaries from disturbing the peace, as Jesus had clearly done. Crucifixion was a humiliating death, as the condemned was stripped and hung for hours along a public road for all to see, to slowly and painfully suffocate. “Glory” suggests something of triumph and worthy of praise; crucifixion meant condemnation and failure.
Commenting on our text for this day, the Lutheran professor of New Testament Craig Koester writes: “If the signs reveal God’s glory by displaying divine power, the crucifixion reveals God’s glory by conveying divine love. The crucifixion completes Jesus’ work of glorifying God on earth, for by laying down his life he gives himself completely so that the world may know of Jesus’ love for God and God’s love for the world… The crucifixion manifests the scope of divine power by disclosing the depth of divine love.”
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” Jesus has just told the disciples at their last meal together. For our evangelist John, Jesus’ death is an offering made in love, the return of all that the Father had given to the Son, the completion of Jesus’ work in the name of his Father on earth.
Koester concludes provocatively: “If glory defines what the crucifixion is, the crucifixion defines what glory is.” The word for “glory” is δοξα in Greek and can mean splendor and power and praise; δοξα is the root for doxology, the hymn of praise we sing as we offer up our gifts before the Eucharist. How might we re-imagine the glory of God in light of the crucifixion?
One day this week, to my great surprise, the weather turned cooler and I threw open the windows and turned off the air conditioning. I thought to myself after the recent stifling heat: “This weather is glorious!” “Glorious” is an adjective that comes to mind when strolling through the gardens of the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in spring; hearing Handel’s Messiah performed by the Richmond Symphony at Christmas time; and watching the sun come up over a calm sea. Glorious, for sure, would have been Jesus’ miraculous transformation of water into wine at the wedding in Cana; glorious would been that afternoon on a hillside, when the crowds ate their fill from just a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread; glorious would be to receive your sight after being born blind.
Glorious was not a word that came to my mind as I wandered around MCV recently, waiting for doctors to tell me when I might be able to bring my husband home following surgery; glorious is not a word I would use to describe how I feel when my granddaughter cries; and glorious is certainly not a word I would ever use to speak of those times when I have failed in one way or another to live into the person God created me to be.
Something is glorious because that something is good; our evangelist John pushes us this morning to see hidden in this horror of crucifixion, the very, the ultimate display of God’s love. You and I are wont to draw back, to recoil when our evangelist John invites us to see the crucifixion as a, indeed “the,” revelation of the glory of God. Remember Peter on Maundy Thursday – on that night Peter was horrified that Jesus wanted to wash his feet. Now Jesus is going to his death and Jesus is dying so that the world will know the depth of God’s love.
Today ends our Easter celebration. Next Sunday is Pentecost and I hope Pentecost will be a grand celebration. But for the most part we are now thrust into a long season of green, ordinary time we call it in the church, not a lot of fanfare, no great celebrations, just life on the road. I have no idea where God will lead us during the next six months, the time between now and the beginning of Advent. What I know is that during this “ordinary” season, God will make Godself known in ways we will enjoy and delight in; what I also know is that during this time we will experience difficult and painful times, times of crucifixion, times when the glory of God will be veiled from us.
Our evangelist John is giving all of us a bit of a heads up this morning; the time to come will not be like the time that has passed. The paschal candle is going back to the sacristy next Sunday. Jesus will no longer being turning water into wine, raising the dead, feeding the multitudes, or giving sight to the blind. For sure, we are not on our own, Jesus is leaving us with an “Advocate,” but the long season of Pentecost will not always appear glorious. Jesus takes leave today, his work on earth is finished and our work begins.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all give us a different picture of Jesus; in the gospel of John we meet a Jesus who was not born in a stable but who was with God before the world began and returns to God when his work on earth is finished. Jesus’ work on earth in the gospel of John is to reveal the God who sent him. On the cross, the God who loves the world and who wishes that the wine at a wedding never run out, the blind might see, and the hungry be fed is supremely revealed as a God who will withhold nothing, not even God’s own life for us. The Jesus of John’s gospel is the King of Glory and we, who worship this King of Glory, are now sent into the world to show forth God’s glory, the glory of God made known to us as we give ourselves away, loving others as God loves us. May God sustain and strengthen us all by the power of the Holy Spirit as we take up our holy calling in the months to come.
The Day of Pentecost Acts 2: 1 – 21
Sunday, June 12, 2011 I Corinthians 12: 3b – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 20: 19 - 23
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
Acts 2: 4
In April, 1906, a one-eyed black preacher, the son of slaves, William J. Seymour, worshipped with a mixed group of whites and blacks in a small rundown house in Los Angles. During worship several of the worshippers began praying in tongues, attracting others until the group grew so large that the front porch of the small house collapsed under their weight. For three years Seymour led three services a day seven days a week and the phenomenon of speaking in tongues continued. The “Azusa Street Revival” as the event came to be called seeded the greatest spiritual renewal movement in the twentieth century, ultimately impacting just about every denomination in one way or another. These folks were on fire and they believed it was all the work of the Holy Spirit.
The house and the happenings on Asuza Street drew together a mixed group of worshippers – white, blacks, Hispanics, men, women, the educated and the illiterate. Barriers of race and class and gender crumbled as folks were drawn into the praise of God and away from culturally determined boundaries. In 1906, whites and blacks mixing together was unusual and folks took notice. Eventually, though, the community gathered together by Seymour fell prey to the cultural pressures of the day, splitting along racial lines. Seymour died in 1922, leaving behind only a handful of worshippers.
But the Asuza Street Revival renewed the landscape of religion in America, not only creating new Pentecostal churches but breathing new life into main line denominations, traditions that could be skeptical of events difficult to understand, such as praying in tongues. But the awakening of faith that took place during the Asuza Street Revival reminded many in the church that reason alone was not going to save anybody. Faith engages both the mind and the heart. The Holy Spirit is the joy of God poured out for us and made known to us through our bodies, our minds and our spirits.
Already, prior to the Asuza Street revival, Catholic and Protestant scholars were concerned that the worship of the church had lost something essential and no longer reflected the joy of the early church who gathered together to praise the God who had raised Christ from the dead. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is a fruit of this work of this liturgical renewal. Central to The Book of Common Prayer is our celebration of the “Eucharist” – a Greek word meaning thanksgiving, reminding us all that the service of the church is an act of thanksgiving and praise and an event of joy.
In a recently reprinted book called Living in Praise, authors David Ford and Daniel Hardy, argue that that the Azusa Street revival was “a recovery of the authentic Christian impetus of praise,” a reminder of the “jazz factor” of faith. Christians, like their Hebrew ancestors, are people who praise, people who recognize God’s activity in the world around us and rejoice. Indeed, the entire Bible is a book of praise, a book that bears witness to God’s acts in the world and wishes to bear witness, to praise, to give thanks for this God who acts. The psalms probably are the clearest example of this impetus to praise. Over and over again, in the face of all sorts of trials and tribulations, the psalms bear witness to a gracious and loving God who longs for God’s people to rejoice in response to God’s grace. “He looks at the earth and it trembles;” reads our psalm this morning, “he touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being.” And in the blinding light of the Resurrection, the disciples, likewise “rejoice” when they see their risen Lord in our gospel reading from John. We are a people who praise because we have seen the work of God. The Holy Spirit is the joy of God, God loving us and we loving God in response.
The Holy Spirit bears witness to God’s love even now renewing the world, not leaving us alone but neither coercing us into obedience against our will. Respecting our freedom, God works among us to accomplish God’s purposes, taking what is old and making it new, taking what is dead and bringing it to life. As Ford and Hardy point out, it surely can be no accident that precisely among the most marginalized and impoverished folks of the time, living in Los Angeles – African-Americans, Hispanics and women – we discover an absolutely outrageous outpouring of praise. How can we not praise God when we suddenly discover a wholly unexpected blessing?
We can get along quite well without believing God acts in the world. I do not think that believing in the Holy Spirit means we will live longer or healthier lives. In fact, just the opposite might be true. But I do think we can only rejoice if we believe God does act in the world. There simply is no reason to rejoice if we believe everything that happens is a result of our own doing. Most of the time we will make a mess. When we are able to bring things round right, at best we can rest satisfied that we simply knew more than the other guy. But that is not joy; that is self-satisfaction.
To rejoice means to glory in the way world gives gratuitously an infinite number of wholly unnecessary delights – a Bach concerto, a Rembrandt painting, aardvarks and prairies dogs, friends and lovers, laughing children, good novels, very funny jokes – all God’s jazz.
The world, in other words, does not have to be the way the world is. The sun does not need to feel good on our face, we do not need the pleasure of kissing someone we love, we do not need the delight of laughing or the joy of watching the stars come out at night. We do not need the inspiration of a great mind or the companionship of someone who calls forth from us thoughts we had never thought before. None of those things is essential to our biological survival. Yet, the world seems to be full of any number of unnecessary riches, wonders we do not need but gifts to be enjoyed. We rejoice not because God has given us what we need but because God has given to us more than just what we need. The Holy Spirit is the “more” of God, the abundance of God’s love poured out for us.
When the disciples recognized their crucified Lord standing among them and wishing them peace, God’s jazz brought the house down. With apologies to our evangelist John, “rejoice” seems an understatement!
But events like the Asuza Street Revival do not necessarily “fit in.” The story on the front page of the Los Angeles Daily Times on April 18, 1906, suggests that not everyone thought what was happening on Azusa Street was a gift from of God to be praised. “In a tumble down shack on Azusa Street,” the article read, “devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories, and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal.” Labeled as “weird” and “fanatical” the folk on Azusa Street were ridiculed as a congregation of “colored people and a sprinkling of whites” who made the nights in that neighborhood “hideous” “by the howling of the worshipers who spend hours swaying back and forth in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication.” These folks were not rejoicing in the love of God but disrupting the peace!
Ironically joy is threatening. Joy signals a refusal to give ultimate value to anything that attempts to block our joy. Joy is the conviction that God wishes our joy and will ultimately defeat everything that seeks to keep us from rejoicing. Joy refuses to believe God does not love us. So even when Paul is imprisoned and expecting to be executed for preaching the good news – “God raised Jesus from the dead” - Paul rejoices and movingly writes in Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul’s joy will simply not be shaken.
We celebrate Pentecost today in this parish burdened by much suffering and many griefs. We will bury Garland Gravatt this afternoon and I know others of us are struggling with sickness and other terribly trying circumstances. We come together in worship this day neither to forget the struggles we face nor to try to keep “a stiff upper lip.” We come to worship this day because God refuses to abandon us and is, even now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, acting to make all things new. We can rejoice this day not because our lives are wonderful but because God loves us always and everywhere and will not leave us comfortless. May the grace, comfort and consolation of the Holy Spirit be yours this day and always.
Sunday, June 12, 2011 I Corinthians 12: 3b – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis John 20: 19 - 23
“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
Acts 2: 4
In April, 1906, a one-eyed black preacher, the son of slaves, William J. Seymour, worshipped with a mixed group of whites and blacks in a small rundown house in Los Angles. During worship several of the worshippers began praying in tongues, attracting others until the group grew so large that the front porch of the small house collapsed under their weight. For three years Seymour led three services a day seven days a week and the phenomenon of speaking in tongues continued. The “Azusa Street Revival” as the event came to be called seeded the greatest spiritual renewal movement in the twentieth century, ultimately impacting just about every denomination in one way or another. These folks were on fire and they believed it was all the work of the Holy Spirit.
The house and the happenings on Asuza Street drew together a mixed group of worshippers – white, blacks, Hispanics, men, women, the educated and the illiterate. Barriers of race and class and gender crumbled as folks were drawn into the praise of God and away from culturally determined boundaries. In 1906, whites and blacks mixing together was unusual and folks took notice. Eventually, though, the community gathered together by Seymour fell prey to the cultural pressures of the day, splitting along racial lines. Seymour died in 1922, leaving behind only a handful of worshippers.
But the Asuza Street Revival renewed the landscape of religion in America, not only creating new Pentecostal churches but breathing new life into main line denominations, traditions that could be skeptical of events difficult to understand, such as praying in tongues. But the awakening of faith that took place during the Asuza Street Revival reminded many in the church that reason alone was not going to save anybody. Faith engages both the mind and the heart. The Holy Spirit is the joy of God poured out for us and made known to us through our bodies, our minds and our spirits.
Already, prior to the Asuza Street revival, Catholic and Protestant scholars were concerned that the worship of the church had lost something essential and no longer reflected the joy of the early church who gathered together to praise the God who had raised Christ from the dead. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is a fruit of this work of this liturgical renewal. Central to The Book of Common Prayer is our celebration of the “Eucharist” – a Greek word meaning thanksgiving, reminding us all that the service of the church is an act of thanksgiving and praise and an event of joy.
In a recently reprinted book called Living in Praise, authors David Ford and Daniel Hardy, argue that that the Azusa Street revival was “a recovery of the authentic Christian impetus of praise,” a reminder of the “jazz factor” of faith. Christians, like their Hebrew ancestors, are people who praise, people who recognize God’s activity in the world around us and rejoice. Indeed, the entire Bible is a book of praise, a book that bears witness to God’s acts in the world and wishes to bear witness, to praise, to give thanks for this God who acts. The psalms probably are the clearest example of this impetus to praise. Over and over again, in the face of all sorts of trials and tribulations, the psalms bear witness to a gracious and loving God who longs for God’s people to rejoice in response to God’s grace. “He looks at the earth and it trembles;” reads our psalm this morning, “he touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being.” And in the blinding light of the Resurrection, the disciples, likewise “rejoice” when they see their risen Lord in our gospel reading from John. We are a people who praise because we have seen the work of God. The Holy Spirit is the joy of God, God loving us and we loving God in response.
The Holy Spirit bears witness to God’s love even now renewing the world, not leaving us alone but neither coercing us into obedience against our will. Respecting our freedom, God works among us to accomplish God’s purposes, taking what is old and making it new, taking what is dead and bringing it to life. As Ford and Hardy point out, it surely can be no accident that precisely among the most marginalized and impoverished folks of the time, living in Los Angeles – African-Americans, Hispanics and women – we discover an absolutely outrageous outpouring of praise. How can we not praise God when we suddenly discover a wholly unexpected blessing?
We can get along quite well without believing God acts in the world. I do not think that believing in the Holy Spirit means we will live longer or healthier lives. In fact, just the opposite might be true. But I do think we can only rejoice if we believe God does act in the world. There simply is no reason to rejoice if we believe everything that happens is a result of our own doing. Most of the time we will make a mess. When we are able to bring things round right, at best we can rest satisfied that we simply knew more than the other guy. But that is not joy; that is self-satisfaction.
To rejoice means to glory in the way world gives gratuitously an infinite number of wholly unnecessary delights – a Bach concerto, a Rembrandt painting, aardvarks and prairies dogs, friends and lovers, laughing children, good novels, very funny jokes – all God’s jazz.
The world, in other words, does not have to be the way the world is. The sun does not need to feel good on our face, we do not need the pleasure of kissing someone we love, we do not need the delight of laughing or the joy of watching the stars come out at night. We do not need the inspiration of a great mind or the companionship of someone who calls forth from us thoughts we had never thought before. None of those things is essential to our biological survival. Yet, the world seems to be full of any number of unnecessary riches, wonders we do not need but gifts to be enjoyed. We rejoice not because God has given us what we need but because God has given to us more than just what we need. The Holy Spirit is the “more” of God, the abundance of God’s love poured out for us.
When the disciples recognized their crucified Lord standing among them and wishing them peace, God’s jazz brought the house down. With apologies to our evangelist John, “rejoice” seems an understatement!
But events like the Asuza Street Revival do not necessarily “fit in.” The story on the front page of the Los Angeles Daily Times on April 18, 1906, suggests that not everyone thought what was happening on Azusa Street was a gift from of God to be praised. “In a tumble down shack on Azusa Street,” the article read, “devotees of the weird doctrine practice the most fanatical rites, preach the wildest theories, and work themselves into a state of mad excitement in their peculiar zeal.” Labeled as “weird” and “fanatical” the folk on Azusa Street were ridiculed as a congregation of “colored people and a sprinkling of whites” who made the nights in that neighborhood “hideous” “by the howling of the worshipers who spend hours swaying back and forth in a nerve-racking attitude of prayer and supplication.” These folks were not rejoicing in the love of God but disrupting the peace!
Ironically joy is threatening. Joy signals a refusal to give ultimate value to anything that attempts to block our joy. Joy is the conviction that God wishes our joy and will ultimately defeat everything that seeks to keep us from rejoicing. Joy refuses to believe God does not love us. So even when Paul is imprisoned and expecting to be executed for preaching the good news – “God raised Jesus from the dead” - Paul rejoices and movingly writes in Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul’s joy will simply not be shaken.
We celebrate Pentecost today in this parish burdened by much suffering and many griefs. We will bury Garland Gravatt this afternoon and I know others of us are struggling with sickness and other terribly trying circumstances. We come together in worship this day neither to forget the struggles we face nor to try to keep “a stiff upper lip.” We come to worship this day because God refuses to abandon us and is, even now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, acting to make all things new. We can rejoice this day not because our lives are wonderful but because God loves us always and everywhere and will not leave us comfortless. May the grace, comfort and consolation of the Holy Spirit be yours this day and always.
The First Sunday After Pentecost: Trinity Sunday Genesis 1: 1 – 2: 4a
Sunday, June 19, 2011 Corinthians 13: 11 – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 28: 16 – 20
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.
Matthew 28: 19
Today is Trinity Sunday and while I am grateful for your presence here this morning, most of us I daresay, are not here because today is Trinity Sunday, a day that is, though, for us, a “principal feast,” ranking right up there with Christmas and Easter. Christmas and Easter are just two of seven high holy days we celebrate and today is one of them. Today we celebrate God made known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons.
Trinity Sunday is a bit of a sleeper in the Episcopal Church, rarely, if ever, drawing the crowds of Christmas and Easter. And yet, on Trinity Sunday we celebrate the distinctive God we worship, the reason we are Christians and not Jews or Muslims. Today we remember and celebrate our claim of faith that God is both One and Three, suspecting perhaps, to say otherwise would constitute heresy but not necessarily feeling that this claim is something to celebrate.
And of course we would be in good company. This whole notion of the Trinity is not just hard to understand but suggests a divide between us and other people of faith, folk who do not profess faith in a Triune God. For many in the church, that divide is good reason to simply forget about the Trinity altogether. For others, the doctrine of the Trinity is the product of sterile theological debates that took place a long time ago and, while those debates may have been important then, have no relevance to the Church of the twenty-first century.
The doctrine of the Trinity is rooted in one rather immoveable phenomenon: the early church worshipped Jesus. And that was a problem. The early Christians were all Jews who knew God was One and knew that to worship anything other than this One God was idolatry. And, yet, good Jews that they were, they gathered together to worship Jesus.
For the early church “God had raised Jesus from the dead,” in the words of Saint Paul, and that meant Jesus was somehow “of God.” Just how Jesus was “of God” took centuries to articulate, but even before those theological claims were worked out, the question: “Who is God?” pressed upon those first Christians who knew God was One but who also knew that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, this One God had been revealed in a new way.
Centuries passed before the church was able to say in 325 A.D., at a council in Nicaea, that “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,” words we say every Sunday as we repeat the ancient words of the Nicene Creed.
Not long after the creed was formulated, barbarians ransacked Rome and western civilization was plunged into the dark ages. By the time the lights came back on, the doctrine of the Trinity was nothing more than an esoteric theological dictum with “little to do with the Christian life,” in the words of Catholic laywomen Catherine LaCugna. In much of the Church, that situation continues to exist.
And yet, we are made in God’s image and, therefore, knowing something about God should make a difference to us as we seek to know ourselves. If God is an old man in the sky sending down lightning bolts every time we step out of line, we become as rigid and watchful as our image of God. If, on the other hand, God is a communion of love between Father and Son and Spirit who are distinctive Persons in relationships of mutual giving and receiving, then we are created to discover our being as particular persons, not in isolation from others, but rather with others, others who remain other than us.
As the twentieth century dawned, a young Swiss Reformed theologian was coming of age by the name of Karl Barth. Barth encountered a Church that was bankrupt, pulled on the one hand by a liberal Protestantism that privileged the goodness of man over the grace of God and by a Roman Catholicism that believed we could achieve union with God. The Church Barth encountered never blinked an eye when German nationalists sought to tell the Church what to do and what to think. For Barth, the Church had lost sight of who we are and Barth began writing and writing and writing eventually publishing his magnum opus Church Dogmatics, 6 million words altogether, in thirteen volumes, all inspired by the doctrine of the Trinity. When asked to summarize his great work, Barth told interviewers: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Barth, who died in 1968, opened a new vista for the Church, prompting theologians to consider anew the significance of our central claim of faith: God is both One and Three. Beginning with Barth, the doctrine of the Trinity came out of the closet.
Now, not everyone in the church is inclined to believe that reclaiming this ancient confession of faith will help heal the ills that plague us. But many provocative insights have been tendered.
For some the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity is the whole notion of what we mean by the word person. If God exists as three persons in relation, and if we are made in God’s image, then who we are and how we are needs to be re-thought. We tend to think of ourselves as “individuals” who have relations. What if we cannot know who we are absent our relationships? That suggests that relationships are essential to our identity not an added extra chosen by us for our enjoyment.
And what might we do if we really believed that God was this communion of Three different Persons, Persons who are not the same? What might we do if we really believed that the ground of our being is constituted not out of sameness and “alikeness” but out of difference and otherness? In what way might we strive to build relationships with folk who are other than us, different from us, in light of a God who is constituted by difference?
And what about our understanding of freedom? Freedom for us so often translates into autonomy, being able to do whatever we choose to do. What if, given we are made in God’s image, freedom means not being free from restraints but being free to be with and for others, giving to others and receiving from others all that we are and all that we have?
All tantalizing thoughts for sure. But the point is that what we believe does make a difference. To confess a faith in a Triune God, to worship God made known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, should make a difference to us. Too often, God is whatever we believe God should be. And your take on God and my take on God are beyond question. I want to say that our take on God as Christians, while clearly not altogether transparent and obvious, clearly makes a difference on our way of being in the world, and needs to be wrestled with. We do have a unique take on God. The Creed we confess on a Sunday morning is, shall we say, “odd.”
Barth saw a church that had forgotten who they were. I want to say we are at the same risk. We worry far too much that the claims of our faith will divide us from others and far too less about the possibility that the claims of our faith, grounded as they are in the witness of Christ, might actually bring us together. Jesus was, if you remember, about breaking boundaries not about keeping those boundaries in place. For sure, we do not all believe the same thing; but to dismiss out of hand that what we believe is wrong or irrelevant is short sighted to say the least. Perhaps the greatest challenge to all of us is trying to get a handle on what we do believe and then to move on to wondering what difference that all makes as we seek to live faithful lives.
I am grateful to those among us in the Church who are taking the time to think through the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. I do not believe these folk are doing so with the intent of keeping faithful people apart but rather with the intent of keeping faithful people together.
I daresay Trinity Sunday probably will never pack the house so to speak. On the other hand, the God we worship is worthy of glory and praise, a peculiar God who desires to be known and out of love has made us to be creatures who can know and love God, not for our sakes, but for the sake of the whole world.
Sunday, June 19, 2011 Corinthians 13: 11 – 13
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 28: 16 – 20
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.
Matthew 28: 19
Today is Trinity Sunday and while I am grateful for your presence here this morning, most of us I daresay, are not here because today is Trinity Sunday, a day that is, though, for us, a “principal feast,” ranking right up there with Christmas and Easter. Christmas and Easter are just two of seven high holy days we celebrate and today is one of them. Today we celebrate God made known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, One God in Three Persons.
Trinity Sunday is a bit of a sleeper in the Episcopal Church, rarely, if ever, drawing the crowds of Christmas and Easter. And yet, on Trinity Sunday we celebrate the distinctive God we worship, the reason we are Christians and not Jews or Muslims. Today we remember and celebrate our claim of faith that God is both One and Three, suspecting perhaps, to say otherwise would constitute heresy but not necessarily feeling that this claim is something to celebrate.
And of course we would be in good company. This whole notion of the Trinity is not just hard to understand but suggests a divide between us and other people of faith, folk who do not profess faith in a Triune God. For many in the church, that divide is good reason to simply forget about the Trinity altogether. For others, the doctrine of the Trinity is the product of sterile theological debates that took place a long time ago and, while those debates may have been important then, have no relevance to the Church of the twenty-first century.
The doctrine of the Trinity is rooted in one rather immoveable phenomenon: the early church worshipped Jesus. And that was a problem. The early Christians were all Jews who knew God was One and knew that to worship anything other than this One God was idolatry. And, yet, good Jews that they were, they gathered together to worship Jesus.
For the early church “God had raised Jesus from the dead,” in the words of Saint Paul, and that meant Jesus was somehow “of God.” Just how Jesus was “of God” took centuries to articulate, but even before those theological claims were worked out, the question: “Who is God?” pressed upon those first Christians who knew God was One but who also knew that through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, this One God had been revealed in a new way.
Centuries passed before the church was able to say in 325 A.D., at a council in Nicaea, that “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,” words we say every Sunday as we repeat the ancient words of the Nicene Creed.
Not long after the creed was formulated, barbarians ransacked Rome and western civilization was plunged into the dark ages. By the time the lights came back on, the doctrine of the Trinity was nothing more than an esoteric theological dictum with “little to do with the Christian life,” in the words of Catholic laywomen Catherine LaCugna. In much of the Church, that situation continues to exist.
And yet, we are made in God’s image and, therefore, knowing something about God should make a difference to us as we seek to know ourselves. If God is an old man in the sky sending down lightning bolts every time we step out of line, we become as rigid and watchful as our image of God. If, on the other hand, God is a communion of love between Father and Son and Spirit who are distinctive Persons in relationships of mutual giving and receiving, then we are created to discover our being as particular persons, not in isolation from others, but rather with others, others who remain other than us.
As the twentieth century dawned, a young Swiss Reformed theologian was coming of age by the name of Karl Barth. Barth encountered a Church that was bankrupt, pulled on the one hand by a liberal Protestantism that privileged the goodness of man over the grace of God and by a Roman Catholicism that believed we could achieve union with God. The Church Barth encountered never blinked an eye when German nationalists sought to tell the Church what to do and what to think. For Barth, the Church had lost sight of who we are and Barth began writing and writing and writing eventually publishing his magnum opus Church Dogmatics, 6 million words altogether, in thirteen volumes, all inspired by the doctrine of the Trinity. When asked to summarize his great work, Barth told interviewers: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Barth, who died in 1968, opened a new vista for the Church, prompting theologians to consider anew the significance of our central claim of faith: God is both One and Three. Beginning with Barth, the doctrine of the Trinity came out of the closet.
Now, not everyone in the church is inclined to believe that reclaiming this ancient confession of faith will help heal the ills that plague us. But many provocative insights have been tendered.
For some the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity is the whole notion of what we mean by the word person. If God exists as three persons in relation, and if we are made in God’s image, then who we are and how we are needs to be re-thought. We tend to think of ourselves as “individuals” who have relations. What if we cannot know who we are absent our relationships? That suggests that relationships are essential to our identity not an added extra chosen by us for our enjoyment.
And what might we do if we really believed that God was this communion of Three different Persons, Persons who are not the same? What might we do if we really believed that the ground of our being is constituted not out of sameness and “alikeness” but out of difference and otherness? In what way might we strive to build relationships with folk who are other than us, different from us, in light of a God who is constituted by difference?
And what about our understanding of freedom? Freedom for us so often translates into autonomy, being able to do whatever we choose to do. What if, given we are made in God’s image, freedom means not being free from restraints but being free to be with and for others, giving to others and receiving from others all that we are and all that we have?
All tantalizing thoughts for sure. But the point is that what we believe does make a difference. To confess a faith in a Triune God, to worship God made known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, should make a difference to us. Too often, God is whatever we believe God should be. And your take on God and my take on God are beyond question. I want to say that our take on God as Christians, while clearly not altogether transparent and obvious, clearly makes a difference on our way of being in the world, and needs to be wrestled with. We do have a unique take on God. The Creed we confess on a Sunday morning is, shall we say, “odd.”
Barth saw a church that had forgotten who they were. I want to say we are at the same risk. We worry far too much that the claims of our faith will divide us from others and far too less about the possibility that the claims of our faith, grounded as they are in the witness of Christ, might actually bring us together. Jesus was, if you remember, about breaking boundaries not about keeping those boundaries in place. For sure, we do not all believe the same thing; but to dismiss out of hand that what we believe is wrong or irrelevant is short sighted to say the least. Perhaps the greatest challenge to all of us is trying to get a handle on what we do believe and then to move on to wondering what difference that all makes as we seek to live faithful lives.
I am grateful to those among us in the Church who are taking the time to think through the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. I do not believe these folk are doing so with the intent of keeping faithful people apart but rather with the intent of keeping faithful people together.
I daresay Trinity Sunday probably will never pack the house so to speak. On the other hand, the God we worship is worthy of glory and praise, a peculiar God who desires to be known and out of love has made us to be creatures who can know and love God, not for our sakes, but for the sake of the whole world.
The Second Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 22: 1 – 14
Sunday, June 26, 2011 Romans 6: 12 – 23
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 10: 40 – 42
God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
Genesis 22: 2
Today Pentecost begins in earnest and we begin the long trek through what is known in the church as “ordinary time,” the time of the liturgical year between our celebration of Eastertide and the beginning of Advent. And we begin “ordinary time” this year with an extraordinary Old Testament story: the sacrifice of Isaac.
The story of the sacrifice of Isaac in the book of Genesis comes after God calls Abraham to be a blessing for all the world, promising Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and calling Abraham to leave his country and his people to go to a land God will show him. Beginning with Abraham, God launches a divine rescue operation, delivering the world from the chaos wrought by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when Eve took that fateful bit of an apple and Adam and Eve no longer knew the delight of intimate fellowship with God.
And Abraham, in response to God’s promise, sets off with his wife Sarah, going he knows not where. On the way, Sarah remains barren and God’s promise for years remains only a promise. And then, impossibly in his old age and that of his wife Sarah, Isaac is born and God seems to be making good on his promise. And now, in the story we hear this morning, God tells Abraham to “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
So Abraham takes Isaac up to a mountain in the land of Moriah, lays out the wood, ties up his son, lays him on top of the wood, and prepares to slit his son’s throat with a knife before he lights the fire, all the while telling his son: “God will provide.” With the knife raised over Isaac, an angel of the Lord tells Abraham not to harm Isaac and Abraham looks up and sees a ram, “caught in a thicket by its horns.”
Chilling is the only word I know that might come even close to describing this story of God’s dealings with Abraham. Abraham, long honored as a model of faith, in both the Old and New Testaments, appears here looking very much like a crazed individual, a father so obsessed by God that he is willing to kill his son. Or, perhaps, Abraham is not crazed; perhaps God is the crazed one in this story, insisting that Abraham kill his son only to pull a ram out of a thicket.
Some have said in response not just to this story but to other stories in the Old Testament, that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, irrationality and judgment whereas the God of the New Testament is a God of grace and mercy and love. That argument never prevailed in the church and to this day, we affirm that the God who told Abraham to kill his only son is the same God Jesus called “Father.”
Others argue that this story about the sacrifice of Isaac is the means whereby the people Israel came to know that God did not want them to sacrifice children. That argument dismisses the questions this story raises about God and who God is and what God requires of us. What we know is that blood sacrifices were very much a part of the life of the people Israel. Blood was the symbol of life and nothing less was required by this people to whom God had given life, bringing them out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of death into life.
Both Abraham and God look a bit mad in this story. How could God demand such a thing and how could Abraham even consider killing his son? From beginning to end this story seems to compel us to ask: “How could these things be?” I believe that is exactly what we should be asking. And asking that question in a culture that seems so often to rest self satisfied knowing the way and the will of God.
In the New Testament, Abraham is held out to us as a model of faithfulness. Both in the letter of Paul and the book of Hebrews, Abraham is lifted up as a model of righteousness. When God called Abraham to leave his home and his country, Abraham went; and when God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, Abraham laid the wood, bound his son, laid him on the altar and raised his knife. God made a promise to Abraham and God made a demand; Abraham never seems to have doubted the promise even when the demand made no sense and seemed absurd.
Abraham would be long remembered especially when the people Israel struggled to follow a God who took them places they did not necessarily want to go. They, no less than us, had a goodly amount of trouble doing that. They grumbled in the wilderness, we grumble when the stock market falls. They wondered if they would ever see their homeland again when God led them into exile; we grumble when events in our lives undo our careful plans and expectations. They, just like us, could not fathom the mystery of God’s ways and boy, they wanted to! They, just like us wanted God to be logical, reasonable and to make sense. Following a God who has His own way of doing things was and is and will continue to be a challenge.
God, in this story, does not fit our image of God. God does not do what we think God ought to do. That may be the greatest gift of this story. God looks bad in this story and we want to re-make God!
God makes an incredible demand upon Abraham and Abraham complies even though in so doing that command makes Abraham look like a murderer and God look an Indian giver. Who among us would even come close to doing what Abraham did? Abraham risks everything trusting in the promise God made to him. And God did provide, but not before Abraham raised a knife to kill his only son, the son whom he loved.
I doubt most of us hear this story without remembering Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, another son about to be sacrificed, praying that “this cup may pass,” wishing God would do something differently. No ram came out of the thicket that day.
We hear this story as we continue our lives together, a common life that will be fraught with disagreement and problems and indecision and all manner of stumbling blocks. Faith trusts that God will make good on God’s promises. You and I will be tasked as we journey through Pentecost to remember that. We are about the business of God and God is with us and we will need to keep that in mind.
When I was a chaplain in a hospital, we all knew we were in trouble when the doctors said: “Everything’s in God’s hands now.” That comment was reserved for those times when the doctors did not know what was going to happen and as we all know, when doctors are clueless we are left wanting to say the least. That comment was not offered when the doctors knew death was inevitable but when the doctors did not know what was going to happen. Doctors diagnose, treat and expect a certain outcome; every now and again, doctors diagnose, treat and the outcomes are unpredictable. That course of events is not within the worldview of medicine. To say: “Everything’s in God’s hands now” means we are not sure what is going to happen and that belies everything science relies upon – predictability.
Faith bids us to stand in that lurch between knowing and not knowing, between knowing God’s promise to be with us and God’s demand to act on that promise without knowing exactly how things will turn out. You all have experienced standing in that lurch. When you all built the elevator did you know for certain you would be able to pay for it? Did you actually have the cash in hand? When we get married, do we know for certain that this person who we love this day, will love us until the day we die? Do any of us know without a shadow of a doubt what tomorrow will hold?
Our faith rests upon a promise from God, a promise we heard clearly last Sunday in our gospel reading from Matthew: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” I suspect during this long season of Pentecost God will give us all plenty of opportunities to remember the mad faith of Abraham, who, though he knew not where he was going, trusted God would be faithful to God’s promises.
Sunday, June 26, 2011 Romans 6: 12 – 23
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 10: 40 – 42
God said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
Genesis 22: 2
Today Pentecost begins in earnest and we begin the long trek through what is known in the church as “ordinary time,” the time of the liturgical year between our celebration of Eastertide and the beginning of Advent. And we begin “ordinary time” this year with an extraordinary Old Testament story: the sacrifice of Isaac.
The story of the sacrifice of Isaac in the book of Genesis comes after God calls Abraham to be a blessing for all the world, promising Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and calling Abraham to leave his country and his people to go to a land God will show him. Beginning with Abraham, God launches a divine rescue operation, delivering the world from the chaos wrought by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden when Eve took that fateful bit of an apple and Adam and Eve no longer knew the delight of intimate fellowship with God.
And Abraham, in response to God’s promise, sets off with his wife Sarah, going he knows not where. On the way, Sarah remains barren and God’s promise for years remains only a promise. And then, impossibly in his old age and that of his wife Sarah, Isaac is born and God seems to be making good on his promise. And now, in the story we hear this morning, God tells Abraham to “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”
So Abraham takes Isaac up to a mountain in the land of Moriah, lays out the wood, ties up his son, lays him on top of the wood, and prepares to slit his son’s throat with a knife before he lights the fire, all the while telling his son: “God will provide.” With the knife raised over Isaac, an angel of the Lord tells Abraham not to harm Isaac and Abraham looks up and sees a ram, “caught in a thicket by its horns.”
Chilling is the only word I know that might come even close to describing this story of God’s dealings with Abraham. Abraham, long honored as a model of faith, in both the Old and New Testaments, appears here looking very much like a crazed individual, a father so obsessed by God that he is willing to kill his son. Or, perhaps, Abraham is not crazed; perhaps God is the crazed one in this story, insisting that Abraham kill his son only to pull a ram out of a thicket.
Some have said in response not just to this story but to other stories in the Old Testament, that the God of the Old Testament is not the same God of the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, irrationality and judgment whereas the God of the New Testament is a God of grace and mercy and love. That argument never prevailed in the church and to this day, we affirm that the God who told Abraham to kill his only son is the same God Jesus called “Father.”
Others argue that this story about the sacrifice of Isaac is the means whereby the people Israel came to know that God did not want them to sacrifice children. That argument dismisses the questions this story raises about God and who God is and what God requires of us. What we know is that blood sacrifices were very much a part of the life of the people Israel. Blood was the symbol of life and nothing less was required by this people to whom God had given life, bringing them out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of death into life.
Both Abraham and God look a bit mad in this story. How could God demand such a thing and how could Abraham even consider killing his son? From beginning to end this story seems to compel us to ask: “How could these things be?” I believe that is exactly what we should be asking. And asking that question in a culture that seems so often to rest self satisfied knowing the way and the will of God.
In the New Testament, Abraham is held out to us as a model of faithfulness. Both in the letter of Paul and the book of Hebrews, Abraham is lifted up as a model of righteousness. When God called Abraham to leave his home and his country, Abraham went; and when God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, Abraham laid the wood, bound his son, laid him on the altar and raised his knife. God made a promise to Abraham and God made a demand; Abraham never seems to have doubted the promise even when the demand made no sense and seemed absurd.
Abraham would be long remembered especially when the people Israel struggled to follow a God who took them places they did not necessarily want to go. They, no less than us, had a goodly amount of trouble doing that. They grumbled in the wilderness, we grumble when the stock market falls. They wondered if they would ever see their homeland again when God led them into exile; we grumble when events in our lives undo our careful plans and expectations. They, just like us, could not fathom the mystery of God’s ways and boy, they wanted to! They, just like us wanted God to be logical, reasonable and to make sense. Following a God who has His own way of doing things was and is and will continue to be a challenge.
God, in this story, does not fit our image of God. God does not do what we think God ought to do. That may be the greatest gift of this story. God looks bad in this story and we want to re-make God!
God makes an incredible demand upon Abraham and Abraham complies even though in so doing that command makes Abraham look like a murderer and God look an Indian giver. Who among us would even come close to doing what Abraham did? Abraham risks everything trusting in the promise God made to him. And God did provide, but not before Abraham raised a knife to kill his only son, the son whom he loved.
I doubt most of us hear this story without remembering Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, another son about to be sacrificed, praying that “this cup may pass,” wishing God would do something differently. No ram came out of the thicket that day.
We hear this story as we continue our lives together, a common life that will be fraught with disagreement and problems and indecision and all manner of stumbling blocks. Faith trusts that God will make good on God’s promises. You and I will be tasked as we journey through Pentecost to remember that. We are about the business of God and God is with us and we will need to keep that in mind.
When I was a chaplain in a hospital, we all knew we were in trouble when the doctors said: “Everything’s in God’s hands now.” That comment was reserved for those times when the doctors did not know what was going to happen and as we all know, when doctors are clueless we are left wanting to say the least. That comment was not offered when the doctors knew death was inevitable but when the doctors did not know what was going to happen. Doctors diagnose, treat and expect a certain outcome; every now and again, doctors diagnose, treat and the outcomes are unpredictable. That course of events is not within the worldview of medicine. To say: “Everything’s in God’s hands now” means we are not sure what is going to happen and that belies everything science relies upon – predictability.
Faith bids us to stand in that lurch between knowing and not knowing, between knowing God’s promise to be with us and God’s demand to act on that promise without knowing exactly how things will turn out. You all have experienced standing in that lurch. When you all built the elevator did you know for certain you would be able to pay for it? Did you actually have the cash in hand? When we get married, do we know for certain that this person who we love this day, will love us until the day we die? Do any of us know without a shadow of a doubt what tomorrow will hold?
Our faith rests upon a promise from God, a promise we heard clearly last Sunday in our gospel reading from Matthew: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” I suspect during this long season of Pentecost God will give us all plenty of opportunities to remember the mad faith of Abraham, who, though he knew not where he was going, trusted God would be faithful to God’s promises.
