6-easter-grace-camden-2 1.md

Easter 6

Grace Church, Camden
05/27/2019

Easter tide is turning into Ascension tide this week

We are echoing in the passage of our Church year a series of transitions we feel in the world around us. Memorial Day is a traditional marker separating Spring from Summer. The hotel we stayed at in Atlanta advertised that the pool was open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Unfortunately the person who checked us in apologized for it still being closed on Thursday, saying, “We can’t anticipate you know.”
Mary Pat did observe to me the other day that it seems like we never had Spring – at least it really Whooshed by.
Back when I was first ordained, the rector I worked for explicitly planned his ministry around the pace of the school year. Back in those days, attendance at church tended to fade in the summer when folks did “wintering” in the South or Southwest.
In different parts of the country the migration happens in different directions. From South Carolina some folks “summer” in Minnesota. But we’re right at the cusp of that happening. This weekend is the pivot. We move from one kind of time to another.
The season of the church year memorializes, sacramentalizes, a similar kind of transition. Easter makes sacred the remembering the time when Jesus’ followers experienced, first hand, the Risen Lord. They ate fish on shore with him.
This Thursday is Ascension Day. Like the Easter season, Ascension tide marks a time when the earliest followers of Jesus began to make a transition. From a time you could have brunch with Jesus and a time when that was no longer possible. Those followers, as we remember from the upcoming feast of Pentecost, recognized that they couldn’t have brunch with Jesus, but they experienced his presence in a new and powerful way, empowered by the Spirit.

Liminal time

Ascension marks the transition from one period to the next. ing, and appearing --From revealing, manifest to hiding, fading into the background, seemingly absent – but no longer as present but, present in a new way.
Eugene Peterson, who gave us The Message of the Bible, translates vs. 23 of John’s 14th chapter this way:

23 “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, "is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him - we’ll move right into the neighborhood!

We mark the in-between time of Ascension-tide, beginning this week, and extending through to Pentecost.
Students of religion have for a long time known that there was a special dynamic in the structure of ritual. The kind of ritual we find all over the place: in Baptism or Bar Mitzvah; in Weddings; in coming of age ceremonies around the world; in sacred passages of all kinds. There is a time when one is still in the old reality. Ritual happens and one is in the new reality. But the most important time in a sacred ritual is in the in-between time – in the time when one is neither one nor the other. The technical term for it is liminal time.
It is in the in-between times that the most profound manifestations of the sacred happen. It is the time when God seems to break in. It is the reason, I think, that I have always felt that the funerals were among my favorite times in my ministry. Not that they are “happy” times, but they are “liminal” times. God seems to speak especially loud and clear to folks during funeral times. The person who has died is no longer present, but we have not moved past to the time when they are “past tense.”
We mark a time like that in the Church Year.

Presence and Absence

Seeing ghosts by throwing flour at them?

(Posted 18 July 2005 - 07:06 AM) I was watching an old video this weekend (circa 1978), related to death but not the paranormal. At the end, there was a brief clip on a couple ghost hunters who were researching a haunting by a man’s deceased wife. One of their methods was sprinkling flour across the floor in a room where there was a lot of activity. The idea was to catch ghost “footprints”. Now, they said their experiment was successful, and they showed barefoot tracks in the flour supposedly made by this ghost…?¹

Have you seen it? I remember it from my elementary school days, how fascinated I was
Iron flecks revealing the magnetic forces. https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2010/start-seeing-magnetic-fields/

These are crude approximations of what we are about at this “in-between” time. But what we are looking for is not ghosts. It is God. God is present. All the time. Everywhere. But so much of the time we utterly unaware, utterly unresponsive, utterly blithe.

How does one pass on the insight that the sacred (Holy) is all around?

If there were such a method, I would suggest using it. There’s not. But what God has provided is the Spirit.
Only by the Spirit is the holiness of the world made visible.

Our lives are long enough to learn what we need to learn, but not long enough to change anything. That is our flaw. Each age must learn everything afresh. Such waste!
Such waste – making all the mistakes once and again, each generation making the same mistakes, fumbling in ignorance and darkness.
This oak was already old when I was born.
Now I am old and soon to die, and this tree grows strong still.
We are small creatures.
Our lives are not long,
but long enough to learn. ²

God’s love everywhere in plain sight

In The Shack – both the book and the movie – the figure of God the Father very intentionally persuades the narrator that God is “especially fond of him.” Only gradually as the truth of that soaks in, do we begin to realize that God is “especially fond” of everyone – indeed of all of God’s creation. God is so lavish with love it permeates the cosmos.

Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face in the light of the moon and patterns of stars in scarred mountain rifts and ancient groves in mighty seas and creatures of the deep. Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face in the light of eyes we love in the salt of tears we have tasted in weathered countenances east and west in the soft skin glow of the child everywhere. Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face there is your face among us.³

Thomas Merton put it this way:

Life is simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything – in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. It’s impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it. ⁴

Ascension Tide invites us to look at the world around us with new eyes, to hear with new ears, and to love with new heartcp. “a loveless world is a sightless world.”
Seeing ghosts by throwing flour at them? Iron flecks revealing the magnetic forces.
http://www.paranormalsoup.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10524
Posted 18 July 2005 - 07:06 AM
I was watching an old video this weekend (circa 1978), related to death but not the paranormal. At the end, there was a brief clip on a couple ghost hunters who were researching a haunting by a man’s deceased wife. One of their methods was sprinkling flour across the floor in a room where there was a lot of activity. The idea was to catch ghost “footprints”. Now, they said their experiment was successful, and they showed barefoot tracks in the flour supposedly made by this ghost…?
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2010/start-seeing-magnetic-fields/

How does one pass on the insight that the sacred (Holy) is all around?

Only by the Spirit is the holiness of the world made visible
Our lives are long enough to learn what we need to learn, but not long enough to change anything. That is our flaw. Each age must learn everything afresh. Such waste!
Such waste – making all the mistakes once and again, each generation making the same mistakes, fumbling in ignorance and darkness.
This oak was already old when I was born.
Now I am old and soon to die, and this tree grows strong still.
We are small creatures.
Our lives are not long,
but long enough to learn. ²

God’s love everywhere in plain sight

In The Shack the figure of God the Father very intentionally persuades the narrator that God is “especially fond of him.” Only gradually as the truth of that soaks in, do we begin to realize that God is “especially fond” of everyone – indeed of all of God’s creation. God is so lavish with love it permeates the cosmos.

Notes

lectionary

The Sixth Sunday of Easter	Color: White Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Acts 16:9-15 Psalm: 67 Lesson 2: Revelation 21:10,22-22:5 Gospel: John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9

Themes:

• Lydia and her household baptized (female head) … a vision sent them on voyage to Macedonia
• Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of the clouds. … the river of the water of life…
• Jesus (cp. early John Easter appearance) Peace I give you.
  Or
  John 5 … healing at the pool by the Sheep Gate
• Gospel (MSG) 23-24 “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.

25-27 “I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.
28 “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.
29-31 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me.

• Ascension is the following Thursday

During week

• Mon, May 27, 2019
  • | Day | Holy Day |Assigned Readings |
    |----|----|-----|
    | Mon, Tue, Wed: | Rogation Day| Day | Holy Day |Assigned Readings |
    | ---- | ---- | ----- |
    | Mon, Tue, Wed: | Rogation Day | |
    |Thurs | Ascension Day| Lesson 1: Acts 1:1-11 Psalm: 47 or 93 Lesson 2: Ephesians 1:15-23 Gospel: Luke 24:44-53|
    | Friday | The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary | Lesson 1: 1 Samuel 2:1-1 Psalm: 113 Lesson 2: Romans 12:9-16b Gospel: Luke 1:39-57 |

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1. http://www.paranormalsoup.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10524 ↩︎
   
2. Stephen Lawhead via Northumbrian Community ↩︎ ↩︎
   
3. John Philip Newell, Praying With the Earth (Eerdmans: Michigan) 23. Photo courtesy of Jacob Ruff. ↩︎
   
4. from Thomas Merton via Celtic Daily Prayer ↩︎
   

5-easter-epiphany-spartanburg.md

Sun, May 19, 2019 Epiphany, Spartanburg

Easter 5 05/20/2019: Epiphany Spartanburg

Opening

Not very often in my ministry have I paid special attention to the last book of the Bible, the Revelation to John – or using the Greek term of the title the Apocalypse of John.

I have shied away from preaching on the text in part because apocalyptic is not well understood by many and by many it is misunderstood. I end up saying something about apocalyptic when Advent arrives because one of the characteristics of apocalyptic is end times and end times is a theme during the season of Advent. It is the end of the year. Christmas marks a new beginning and so on.

But there are a number of other typical characteristics about apocalyptic. One of them is the use of fantastic, colorful, imaginative imagery. It’s not bland and is more like the kind of thing going on in amusement parks than in museums.

The Revelation to John is, then, a little like an amusement park themed conclusion to the Bible. It’s really great when you know what you’re getting into.

Revelation to John

Some years ago, at the encouragement of a Bible Study group at my church in Honolulu, I set about trying to teach about the book for a month or two.

I read several books and commentaries. I worked through some workbooks that were available at the local religious book store. I learned a lot. But I was most struck by one thing in particular. The book of Revelation can be best understood as an elaborate, colorful, description of a worship scene set in the sanctuary where God himself sits. (In heaven?).

Examples of worship in the book

There are sounds – the sounds of choirs of angels singing anthems. We’ve heard several of them during these past few weeks as we have had readings from Revelation.

The Book of Common Prayer includes some of them in its prescription for the Episcopal Church:

• A Song to the Lamb Dignus es
  Revelation 4:11, 5:9-10, 13

Splendor and honor and kingly power *
are yours by right, O Lord our God,
For you created everything that is, *
and by your will they were created and have their being;
…
And so, to him who sits upon the throne, *
and to Christ the Lamb,
Be worship and praise, dominion and splendor, *
for ever and for evermore.

Then, after the singing, there is a description of the sanctuary. It begins:

• Ch. 5 Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. ² And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” ³ But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. ⁴ I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. ⁵ Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” …
• The voices sing again in chapter 7, 15, and 19. And then we get the final scene of this spectacular, cosmic, worship service, before the closing. ¹ the text from today’s Eucharist. We hear "He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”

I am making everything new.

They will know we are Christians by our love, …

What do we mean by these words, “making everything new.” I think we’re not meant to think of it the same way we might say, e.g., “my parents got me a new dress for Easter!”

Have you looked into the eyes of someone who was utterly and totally in love? They see everything around them with new eyes. The whole world is new for them – is it not? And together those two lovers are out to discover the new and wonderful world that has opened up before them. I think John is talking about something more like that. Jesus opened the eyes of the blind so that people could see the world with new eyes – make it new.

The other day I was made aware of a little boy who was able to see the world with new eyes and in the course of it he made the world new. His name was Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek. His mother’s name is Jeni Stepanek.

Her son was a celebrity, the little boy poet with the devastating rare disease who earned a following around the world. Fighting that same illness—and now, a constellation of other afflictions—the Rockville resident looks back on what a brief but wondrous thing it was to be Mattie Stepanek’s mom.

[he] bled from his fingertips when he wrote. And he was writing a lot at the end of his life, when he was one of the most famous boys in the world.

The world he lived in was an unbelievable sad world. He, his mother, and his 3 sibliings all suffered from the same rare disorder, dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a condition similar to muscular dystrophy. He had “published seven best-selling books of poetry and peace essays. Before his death (at the age of 13) he had become known as a peace advocate and motivational speaker.”

Jimmy Carter who delivered the eulogy at Mattie’s funeral said of him, that he was “the most extraordinary person whom I have ever known”.

Mattie Stepanek made the world a new place. He took the lemons he had been dealt and he made the most extraordinary lemonade.

Julian of Norwich was a woman who lived some 600 years ago. She made the world new by the way she looked at it. The world she lived in was decimated by the black plague.

*Little is known of this extraordinary Englishwoman apart from what she recorded in the account of her mystical revelations. *There she recorded how she had prayed in her youth that she might be granted three graces: recollection of Christ’s passion; bodily sickness; and the spirit of contrition, compassion, and longing for God. At thirty her prayer was answered when she fell grievously ill. While gazing on a crucifix she experienced sixteen revelations concerning Christ’s passion, after which her sickness left her.

In these revelations she vividly experienced Christ’s passion. Though his sufferings were terrible, she perceived that they revealed the depth of God’s intimate love for humanity. This vision yielded further reflections on a range of issues, including the value of creation, the power of atonement, and the impotence of evil. Though creation amounted to no more than a hazelnut in the hand of God, its value was measured by the price God paid for it in blood. And in the end God’s suffering became our joy with the realization that we are “soul and body, clad and enclosed in the goodness of God.”

Perhaps the most famous quote from those Revelations of hers is: “All shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.”

Closing

Jesus’s command to his followers was to love one another. I think what he meant by those words was something like what these followers did when they made their world new. They looked and saw with new eyes. That is a profound gift we can give to one another. And it is enough to transform the world, to make it new.

Jesus commands his followers to love one another. Our reading from the last book in the Bible suggests to us that the Gospel – the Good News – of this command is that we are to “make all things new.”

This means that though there may be decline and chaos, nevertheless we are about the business of making all things new – so that what we see is a new heaven and a new earth.

It’s not a pipe dream. It’s very real if we have eyes to see.

Flipping what we see, looking at the abundance rather than the scarcity. As an example, let me close with one of Mattie’s poems:

When I Die (Part II)
When I die, I want to be
A child in Heaven.
I want to be
A ten-year-old cherub.
I want to be
A hero in Heaven,
And a peacemaker,
Just like my goal on earth.
I will ask God if I can
Help the people in purgatory.
I will help them think,
About their life,
About their spirits,
About their future.
I will help them
Hear their own Heartsongs again,
So they can finally
See the face of God,
So soon.
When I die,
I want to be,
Just like I want to be
Here on earth.

Notes

lectionary

The Fifth Sunday of Easter Color: White Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Acts 11:1-18 Psalm: 148 Lesson 2: Revelation 21:1-6 Gospel: John 13:31-35

Themes:

• The way, the truth, and the life
• Peter and his vision, salvation to gentiles
• Revelation: vision of a new heaven and a new earth … making all things new
• John: … Judas had gone … I give you a new commandment, love one another

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1. Revelation 5 records John’s vision in heaven just before the Lamb opens the scroll containing the seven seals of judgment to be poured out upon the earth. Revelation 19:1-6 comes after these judgments, before the return of Christ to the earth to wage war against His enemies (last week’s passage.) It opens with the praise of God for condemning the “great prostitute,” Babylon, which was seen in Revelation 18. Babylon historically is thought to be the empire of Rome. In the future Babylon is believed to be the world system in rebellion against God. bible.org ↩︎

st-marks-at-st-marks-4-27.md

Church

Sat. Apr. 27: St. Mark’s

Saint Mark 04/30/2019 (April 25 tr.)

It’s not quite a week since the wider church concluded a 40 day preparation for proclaiming the Risen Lord. Then a week of intense telling of the story of the way to the cross, the tomb, and the empty tomb. It took a week to tell the story and this week has been focused on telling variations of the proclamation: "He is not here. He has gone ahead of you to Galilee. The Church understands that this primary proclamation is of such central importance that it takes a week to say it. And here we are, coming to the end of this week.

The Gospel for tomorrow is an account of Easter – one week later.

ancient homilies

I am going to read to a short excerpt from an Easter sermon, written some 1700 years ago. I have never done this before. But I do it because of the power and significance of the words for us today.

The Most Precious and Becoming of Gifts
Be sure to deliver it, not just read it.

Gregory Nazianzus delivered this as an Easter sermon in the 300’s after Jesus.

Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I died with Him; today I am given life with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise again with Him. Today let us offer Him Who has suffered and Who has risen for us – you think perhaps I was about to say, gold, or silver, or precious things, or shining stones of rare price, the frail material of this earth, which will remain here. . . . [R]ather, let us offer Him ourselves, which to God is the most precious and becoming of gifts. Let us offer to His Image what is made in the image and likeness of this Image. And let us make recognition of our own dignity. Let us give honour to Him in Whose Likeness we were made. Let us dwell upon the wonder of this mystery, that we may understand for what Christ has died.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become Gods because of Him, since He for us became man. He took upon Himself a low degree that He might give us a higher one. He became poor, that through His poverty we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). He took upon Himself the form of a servant (Phil 2:7) that we might be delivered from slavery (Rom 8:21). He came down that we might rise up. He was tempted that we might learn to overcome. He was despised that we might be given honour. He died that He might save us from death. He ascended to heaven that we who lie prone in sin may be lifted up to Him. ^{1 2}

Returning to my own words …
Easter is the key proclamation for Christians, it has been repeated over and over again to make that possible. On the one hand I think that every generation has to make the truth their own. At the same time I think that I am only here because of the countless saints who have gone before – many of them doing a better job of it than I.

We live in the echo of Easter. We are here only because of the empty tomb discovered by those women all those years ago. If they had been able to anoint and bury their teacher as they intended, they would have been impacted the rest of their lives with the sadness and disappointment of that. But instead they found the Lord Risen again and the rest of their life was one of joy.

Easter of course occurs at different times in different years. The feast of St. Mark occurs on the same day every year – April 25^th. Except that nothing is allowed to get in the way of the Easter proclamation during the week of Easter. The focus is all Easter.

The rules in the church calendar indicate that a Saint’s day is to be moved to the next available day when it is superceded by Easter week. In this case, St. Mark’s day is shifted to next Monday. But here we are, we’re gathered on Easter Saturday. It seems fitting that we would recognize and honor Mark.

The Gospel for that day is either: The beginning or the ending of the Gospel – (the sending of the disciples)

Both of those readings are dramatic and powerful. The opening makes it clear that this gospel proclamation business is the most serious business there is. “This is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God …” And it jumps right in.

The ending is equally dramatic. The witnesses to the Resurrection are frightened. They don’t know what to make of the empty tomb. But the Spirit empowers them to go forth. To jump in and proclaim the “good news”. Just the way the beginning is. “Go back to the beginning of hearing the good news – and do it again.”

We live in interesting times some would say. Some would say we live in the ending times, like the ending of the Gospel. Some would say we are just beginning to figure out what it means to proclaim the Gospel. We live in the beginning and we live in the end. It is fulfilled in our midst.

Notes

Lectionary

Saint Mark the Evangelist Transferred from April 25
Color: Red Assigned Readings
Lesson 1: Isaiah 52:7-10 Psalm: 2 or 2:7-10 Lesson 2: Ephesians 4:7-8,11-16 Gospel: Mark 1:1-15 or Mark 16:15-20

St. Mark lectionary: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/HolyDays/Mark.html

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Easter/EasSat.html

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1. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Homily on the Holy Pasch Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 330–ca. 389) was one of the three great Cappadocian Fathers, along with Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. He was Archbishop of Constantinople and is perhaps best known for his defense of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity against the heresy of Arianism. ↩︎

2. a part of Easter Day Morning Prayer in Give us this day our daily bread. ↩︎

4-easter-2019-chester.md

Sun, May 12, 2019: St. Mark’s, Chester

Easter 4 05/13/2019

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts is read each Sunday (again by long tradition) instead of an Old Testament reading

Woman featured prominently in the reading from Acts
They had been the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Now here a woman is raised from the dead as an early sign of the power of the Holy Spirit in the followers after Jesus.

Revelation:

a powerful presentation of the “worship” going on in this book.
Imagine a church:

• walk in and a great multitude, a throne (God) and a Lamb, all dressed in white robes, waving palm branches
• “fell on their faces” and worshipped. n.b. the posture is the “original” form of kneeling. [cf. Easter as a time for standing, cf. Nicene/Constantinople anathema]
• A reading available for funerals:

• For this reason they are before the throne of God,
  and worship him day and night within his temple,
  and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;

for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Note Mother’s Day: ambiguous (our Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day [what about non-mothers])

ABOUT MOTHER’S DAY
Mothers’s Day in the USA and many other countries (Australia, New Zealand, India) is observed on the second Sunday in May. It was established firstly as a secular holiday to celebrate and honour one’s own mother (it’s officially Mother’s Day, not Mothers’ Day) - but has evolved to include motherhood in general, and in some communities Christian ideas about Mary the Mother of God.
In some countries (eg Ireland, the UK, Nigeria) the 4th Sunday of Lent is observed - originally as Mothering Sunday but now more commonly as Mother’s Day. Originally Mothering Sunday was when people returned to their “mother church” for the Latare Sunday service, and while doing so met their mothers and other family member in an annual celebration. Over time, the “mother church” emphasis has fallen, and the day has come to resemble the USA’s Mother’s Day.

Saturday as Mary, Mother of Jesus day

For at least 1,000 years. Reason unknown.

• Saturday as day of rest – God himself rested on this day
• Day in-between death and resurrection

Traditions of passing out flowers to women in church, but I was conscious of many of them being women wanted a child but couldn’t.
I concluded over the years that the emphasis ought to be on the thing we all have in common – we all have a mother. We may not have known our mother. We have a sense of what mothers are (ought to be)

Prayers:

jesuit-resource

• A Prayer in Gratitude for Our Mothers
  • Good and Gentle God,
  • we pray in gratitude for our mothers and for all the women of theory who have joined with you in the wonder of bringing forth new life. You who became human through a woman, grant to all mothers the courage they need to face the uncertain future that life with children always brings.
  • Give them the strength to live and to be loved in return, not perfectly, but humanly.
  • Give them the faithful support of husband, family and friends as they care for the physical and spiritual growth of their children.
  • Give them joy and delight in their children to sustain them through the trials of motherhood. Most of all, give them the wisdom to turn to you for help when they need it most.

incl “mother earth”: 21c-prayer
cf. Sean’s letter, his mother clearly signifies unconditional love

Note:

lectionary

The Fourth Sunday of Easter Color: White Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Acts 9:36-43 Psalm: 23 Lesson 2: Revelation 7:9-17 Gospel: John 10:22-30
(Gr: Dorcas) – Tabitha raised from the dead by Peter.

• It was in Joppa that Peter encountered Cornelius – Christianity and Romans – and it was there he got his dream/vision ==> Kosher mixed with unclean (gentiles)

Revelation: a scene from heavenly worship

Hymns?:

• Firm Foundation
• King of love my shepherd is 645, 646
• Fairest Lord Jesus 383
• How firm a foundation 636, 637
• How lovely is thy dwelling place 517
• I am the bread of life 335

Possible Saturday observance

Visitation

• May 31 113 1 Samuel 2:1-10
  Romans 12:9-16b
  Luke 1:39-57

Annunciation

• March 25 45
  or 40:5-10
  or Canticle 3 or 15 Isaiah 7:10-14
  Hebrews 10:4-10
  Luke 1:26-38

St. Mary

• August 15 34
  or 34:1-9 Isaiah 61:10-11
  Galatians 4:4-7
  Luke 1:46-55

3-easter-2019-winnsboro.md

3 Sun of Easter

May 5, 2019
St. John’s, Winnsboro

Opening

In preparing to preach I considered whether I could preach on Cinco de Mayo. I asked Mary Pat what that date conjured up for her – and she put me to shame by remembering a delightful time we had in one of our early dates, enjoying beer and dinner alongside the Honolulu harbor. I thought, well, probably not.
I considered also one of the major (for me) features of the gospel reading. It is eating eating breakfast by campfire on a lakeshore beach, just after dawn, with the smell of just caught Brown and Rainbow trout wafting up from the skillet. After 60 years I still carry that memory and can smell the smell. I still associate it with a Resurrection appearance of Jesus. For that reason I have often preached on it on the 2^nd Sunday after Easter. I decided to try preaching on something I have shied away from all these years.

Paul’s conversion

There are really a variety of reasons for avoiding Paul and his conversion. You know the story because the writer of Luke’s gospel, in his Acts of the Apostles, composed what became the definitive version. Paul who had been famous for persecuting Christians, got knocked off his horse, was blinded, ended up with Ananias who healed him in the name of Jesus. From that point on Paul is a changed man. No longer a fierce persecutor of Christians but now a seemingly equally fierce defender.
His conversion became fairly quickly in Christian history the very model of what conversion ought to be. Augustine essentially followed his model some 300 years later. Luther some thousand years later followed the same model.
I met a famous theologian once who decided to go to seminary because throughout his youth he never experienced that kind of conversion and ultimately he decided that the only way he was going to get to be saved was by going off to seminary.
So important in the earliest days of the church was Paul’s conversion that an account of it appears a number of times. Paul refers to it in his own writings at least twice, maybe more. ¹
In his later writing that we know as the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells the story of the conversion 3 times. The first time in his account of the early years of the church. Again as he tells the story of Paul’s speech at the time of his arrest. Then a third time as he relates Paul defending himself to King Agrippa.

Avoiding Paul

I have shied away from preaching directly on Paul’s conversion all these years at least in part because I was aware that I was not sure whether I had had a genuine conversion experience. I met lots of folks from seminary days, colleagues and parishioners through the years, who thought it was nonsense to expect to have such conversion experiences.
I remember an exchange I had with another priest at a gathering of clergy. I made the statement that I thought conversion was at the heart of what it meant to be a Christian. By Conversion what I meant was a change, a shift, a turning around, an awakening that caused something to happen in a life. This other priest was truly horrified to think that one had to have a “conversion”. The priest, obviously, thought that what I meant was that one had to get knocked off a horse, go blind, etc. – so to speak.
Furthermore, I was taught (and I believed) that my job as a preacher in the church was to preach the gospel. I was not to preach myself, what I thought or felt, but rather the gospel that had been delivered to the church. The assumption of many is that that means preaching from one of the 4 gospels? It was not until the 1990’s that I decided that the gospel was much bigger than what was contained in the 4 books of the gospels. I became convinced that Scripture itself contained the gospel as God intended us to have it, so I regularly began to preach from the Old Testament and the Epistles.
That didn’t really help with the fact that I still thought of Paul’s model of conversion as the only one that was really genuine. I think it was basically the model that one heard from many Evangelical preachers – Billy Graham being perhaps the most famous.
That really led to another reason for resisting preaching on Paul. I became aware of a tendency to see the Gospels as a particularly Catholic view of the Christian Message and Paul’s writings as a reflection of the Protestant view of Christianity. I didn’t really want to neglect one over the other.

Conversion

So what happened? I became aware over the course of a number of years that there were in fact many different kinds of conversion experiences. Paul’s version was not normative. It was just his experience.

Some variations

I met a former soldier after I moved to Hawai’i. He had survived nissei imprisonment in Minnesota. What that means is that although he was a soldier in the US Army at the time of Pearl Harbor, he was rounded up and sent to a Prisoner of War camp. At the battle of Monte Cassino he was wounded and eventually sent back to the states. Later, after becoming a judge in Hawai’i, a deranged man barged into his judge’s chambers and fired a gun at him. Only because he was moving out of his chair at the moment the gun was fired did he avoid a bullet through his heart.
He attributed all of it to God’s protection. He was telling those stories, repeating them, up until the end of his life. They were in effect conversion stories. He understood them to be exactly that.
I knew a man who was an agnostic for many years. He was angry with God over the loss of his daughter many years earlier. He was a church organist his whole adult life, and working for the church he would admit to a kind of grudging qualified “belief” in God – but certainly not a trust in a God who cared about him. Then he experienced a severe illness. He weathered the treatment and remission of multiple myeloma. he looked death in the eye – and he found that he had changed. He reported to me after his recovery that he now believed entirely in a God who cared about him – he found that while he could intellectually question just about anything, he couldn’t deny love. All the rest is …
When I was not yet ordained I struggled with what I was to do with my life, what direction I was to go. I prayed. I fasted. I sat by myself in a beautiful sacred space at Notre Dame’s chapel. And I heard a voice, “I don’t care what you do as long as you love me with all your heart, mind, your soul, and your strength.” I was changed in that moment.
I read stories about inspirational figures – Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, George Fox (the founder of the Quakers) – people who have known from an early age that they were different, devoting their lives to God and making huge differences in their world – although at times the difference might not be felt for centuries. There came a time in each of their lives when they had to put everything on the line. There was a moment of conversion to decide whether they would see their vocation through to the end.
There was a time when I was waiting at the altar-rail for “healing” in my life. It didn’t come in the way and in the time that I was expecting or I wanted it. A dear friend questioned about whether I was really turning to God or just wanting it on my terms. Conversion can be like that.
One place that I have seen over and over again the phenomenon of an infinite variety of ways to experience conversion has been in the many people I have known through the years who suffered from alcoholism or drug addiction. I began wrestling with the impacts of alcoholism in my family in the 1980’s. I slowly became aware that addictions of various kinds affect everyone. Everyone in this room I know has been impacted by alcoholism or drug-addiction. It could be that it is a parent or a child who is addicted. It could be an aunt or a neighbor. It is everywhere.
And here’s the amazing thing. There was discovered about a century ago a method for dealing with addiction. It’s called the “twelve step method.” Some of you may know about it. But here’s the amazing thing I became convinced of. The 12 step method is not just a 100 years old. It is paraphrase, a good summary, of what it means to be a Christian. All of Christian spirituality can be found summarized in those 12 steps. And they start with – yep, a conversion experience.
One summary of the 12 steps reduces them to 3. I think you’ll see what I mean.

1. I can’t …
2. God can …
3. I think I’ll let Him !

Countless stories of alcoholics and addicts of an infinite variety have come face to face with such a decision. Sometimes the setting is in a hospital. Sometimes in a homeless camp. Sometimes in a church Bible study. A giving up, a turning over of one’s life to God. A dedication of one’s life.
A moment of decision. Will we continue to coast? Is that good enough?
How do I want my obituary to read? What do I need to change in order for that to be accurate?
This kind of questioning is at the heart of turning towards the life that Jesus was presenting to us in the Gospel. That’s what the Gospel is. Choose life or choose death. Jesus asks questions of us – like Jesus asked Peter in John’s gospel as we heard just a few minutes ago.

• Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?
• Dale, do you love me more than all those ways you’d rather go?
• Well, then, if that’s the case. “Tend my sheep”

Conversion is at the heart of the gospel as I understand it. It comes in countless forms and shapes and colors and sounds. I trust you’ve heard it yourself or you wouldn’t be here.
That being the case: go and share the good news. Or, as the 12^th step puts it:
“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics (including everybody) and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

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Note

The Third Sunday of Easter Color: White Assigned Readings Lesson 1: Acts 9:1-6,(7-20) Psalm: 30 Lesson 2: Revelation 5:11-14 Gospel: John 21:1-19
lectionary
Acts 9: Saul, Saul why do you keep persecuting me … Ananias
Revelation 5: “Worthy is the lamb …”

John 21: on the beach, fried fish … Peter, “Do you love me.”

Not included the explanation for why writing the gospel

William James

An important American writer of a century ago wrote about the American religious experience ²
are there an infinite number of ways?

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1. 1 Cor. 15:3–8; Galatians 1:11-16; perhaps 2 Corinthians 12:2 (caught up to the third heaven) ↩︎
   
2. William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience ↩︎