Now You See It

God plays peekaboo with his children... a sermon for Last Epiphany B

SJF • Last Epiphany B • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.+

Throughout the season since the Epiphany in early January we have been exploring concepts revolving around perception, knowledge and belief. We have reflected on why and how we have come to believe in God, and how our faith and our belief changes our lives, transforms and transfigures our lives, and how we spread and share that faith, the faith in our own transfiguration through God. This Last Sunday after the Epiphany is no exception.

Today we return to the theme with which the season began, when we spoke of that old blind priest Eli and the attentive boy Samuel. The theme is vision and perception — partial or, more precisely in the case of our readings today, on again and off again. Now you see it, now you don’t.

The transitory nature of revelation seems characteristic of the way that God deals with — and appears to — humanity. God does not, it seems, choose to reveal himself in permanent form, but in transitory glimpses, passing appearances. Revelation is not a constant stream, but more like one of those fountains that pulses and pauses. You will recall that in the story of the young Samuel the passage began by saying that visions were rare and the voice of God was not often heard — until, that is, God revealed himself to the boy Samuel with news that made every ear in Israel tingle. Recall also that when God appeared to Moses at the first, it was not as a rock or a monument but as a burning bush; and when God was revealed to the whole people of Israel it was not in a form like a mountain, but in the form of a cloud that descended upon the mountain. God was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night — not a thing like the gods of the Egyptians, idols of metal or stone. God was not an object, like the Golden Calf that the Israelites foolishly tried to substitute for the living God who had chosen them to be his people.

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So it is that God — constant as God is in his own being — did not reveal himself with a kind of permanent constancy in those bygone days. We can see an echo of this in the account of Elijah’s being whisked away by God, and the clear message to his disciple Elisha concerning it: Keep your eyes open and watchful — if you see me being taken from you, you will inherit that double share you asked for; but if not, not. Indeed, when it happens, it is so quick and astounding, all fiery chariot and horses and whirlwind so that Elisha only has time to cry out to his vanishing father in God before he is taken from his sight. Now you see him, now you don’t.

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One might say that Elijah performs a similar guest appearance, and disappearance, on the mount of the Transfiguration. Joining Moses as the representative of the Law, Elijah as the spokesman for the Prophets appears to the wondering eyes of Peter, and James and John, there on the mountaintop, conversing with Jesus. And sure enough, as soon as Peter the Big Fisherman opens his big mouth — trying to prolong the vision by building dwellings, instead of accepting the transitory revelation for what it is — as soon as Peter tries to lay hold on it, make it permanent, a cloud envelopes them and God himself has the last word: this is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! And suddenly, Elijah, Moses and the cloud are gone, and only Jesus remains. Now you see him... and now you see him still!

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But isn’t that the point, after all. Jesus is still with us. He is the final revelation of God, the very image of God — the last word, as indeed he was the first Word, the Word who was in the beginning with God. and who was, and is, God, and who has appeared to us in these latter days for our sake and for our salvation. So at the Transfiguration it is not Jesus who disappears — he is the one who remains, and is the one to whom the others defer as they step from the stage: even God the Father himself, turning the microphone over to his Son and telling that small audience, “Listen to him.”

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Lent is about to begin this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, and during it we will journey with our Lord on up to Calvary on Good Friday, and through the Holy Saturday vigil as he lies in the tomb, and then on to the great celebration of his rising on Easter Day. Over those three days we will take part in that last great game of peekaboo that God played with his children — now you see him, now you don’t — and again after a little while you see him once again, but then, at the last, for ever.

God played peekaboo with his children when they were young, but now that we are growing to maturity in Christ the time for the games of childhood is past. Good Friday was the last time God in Christ ever said to humanity, “Now you can’t see me!” ... and then, again, we see.

Easter put an end to that, when the light shone out of the darkness, shining into our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, who, behold, is with us always, even unto the end of the age. His Father wants us to listen to him, and he himself wants us to walk with him, in his presence and by his light, every day of our lives. Let us do as he commands, our mission high fulfilling, and follow him where he leads.+

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In It to Win It

Running the race to win... a sermon for Epiphany 6b

SJF • Epiphany 6b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Do you not know that in a race the runners all compte, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.

One of our Lord Jesus Christ’s better known sayings — known by many who may not know it was Jesus Christ who said it — is, “Ask and you shall receive.” Our Gospel passage this morning shows this principle in action. Jesus is not going out of his way to find sick people — he doesn’t have to. Word has spread about this miraculous healer and the wonders he has performed through the various towns of the region. It is the leper who comes to Jesus, not Jesus to him. He comes because of what he’s heard by word-of-mouth, not because Jesus has been engaged in a media blitz like a presidential campaign. The leper has heard, and he comes and he plants himself before this wonder-worker and begs for a wonder to be worked.

And true to the sentiment, “Ask and you shall receive,” Jesus heals the man and sends him away, incidentally instructing him not to spread the word any further than it already has spread — and will continue to spread, in spite of Jesus asking those healed, such as this man, not to spread it!

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Word gets around. Long before, in the days of the kings, word had similarly spread, far from the land of Israel, as far as Aram, about a similar wonder-working man of God with the power to heal. The historian who recorded this tale even gives us some of the back-story: word is spread by a young girl captured in a raid and put to work in her captor’s household as a house-slave to the master’s wife. So word passes up the chain of command from the slave to the wife to the master to a pair of kings, and finally to the man of God himself — and all who ask, receive.

There is a bit of a hiccup when the Aramaean general expects more of a dramatic show than just a dip in the River Jordan. But the good counsel of yet another servant reminds him of the wisdom of following doctor’s orders — and how much easier when those orders are simple rather than difficult! It is as much as to say, You have asked, why not now receive? And he consents and discovers that his prayer is abundantly answered.

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Ask and you shall receive: it seems so simple and obvious. Yet how often, and for how many different reasons, do we fail to ask, and hence do not receive the good things God has prepared for us? Or how many times do we receive, but as what we receive is not quite what we expect, do we turn it down? Do we put God to the test, daring God to act in spite of our refusal to ask God for action? Do we risk offending God by turning down the gifts God gives because it doesn’t seem to us at the moment to meet our needs? Are we like those stubborn husbands who will not stop to ask directions no matter how lost they get? (And isn’t GPS the answer to a hundred thousand prayers, by men and women alike!) Or how often are we like Naaman the general, deciding not to take the simple prescription medication our doctor has ordered, imagining we can make ourselves better by will-power and sheer obstinacy?

No, my friends, the answer is “Ask, and you shall receive.” Kneel in the path if you must to stop his way, and lay out your need before him. Pour out your needs to God in humble prayer. He indeed knows our needs before we ask, but it is in asking that we open ourselves to his healing action.

Namaan could have stayed in Aram, wasting away from his disease, or remained indignant and refused the prescription when it was given. The leper in the Gospel could have chosen not to trouble the wonder-working healer, remained an outcast from his own community until he died. The runner could have failed to enter the race, and would never have achieved the crown. In short, you’ve got to be in it to win it: you have to ask in order to receive.

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A few weeks ago I heard a news story about the upcoming Olympics. The story noted that the sport of boxing has been part of the Olympic games from the times of ancient Greece — but only for men. At the summer games later this year, in London, boxing will for the first time be open to women boxers. Now whether I approve of boxing or not, or of women boxers, I have to say, when I heard the voice of a young Bronx woman who hopes to qualify to box in the summer games, of how proud she is and how much this means to her — I really understood the spirit of bravery, commitment, competitiveness, and the upward call to do all in one’s power to win the race, despite what people may say is appropriate for you; or if you should race at all. You’ve got to be in it to win it. Ask and you shall receive.

Naaman’s wife’s slave might have kept to herself the word of the healer in Israel. His king might have dissuaded him; he might have given in to his own disappointment when he heard what the cure demanded; or his servants might not have had the courage to encourage him to take the cure that was offered. The leper could have held back, thought himself beyond hope and beyond cure, and not troubled Jesus with his hopes. The runners could have sat out the race, and the boxers chosen not to qualify. We could, all of us, simply accept all that is failed and broken in our lives, shrug and cease our prayers.

But God calls us to persist, to pray in faith and in hope to him, to run the race that is set before us with endurance and all the strength God gives. Join in the race, my friends, stretch every nerve and press with vigor on, in the heavenly race that demands your zeal, in hope for an immortal crown.+

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Like and Unlike

We are weak, but he is strong; and yes, Jesus loves us! -- a sermon for Epiphany 5b

SJF • Epiphany 5b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these?... Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Today’s Scripture readings begin with a passage from Isaiah that portrays God at his very most indignant. The passage is rather like the section of the book of Job, when God finally says, basically, “Just who do you think you are talking to?” Not Downton Abbey’s Maggie Smith at her most indignant could raise her eyebrows high enough or purse her frown so low as to capture the indignation that God reveals in this passage. The short message in all of this, as someone once said, is: God is God and you aren’t.

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But what of God’s ministers — those chosen servants, like Isaiah himself, or like Saint Paul, or like any of us here today called to serve God to the best of our ability, with the strength that God provides? Of course we are not like God in his ultimate creativity and power. And yet he has called us and challenged us to be like him in reaching out to others to help them where they are. And in doing this we are called to be as much like our brothers and sisters who are in need of help, as we are to be like God who is the source of the power that allows us to help at all.

Saint Paul understood the importance of meeting people where they are if he was to reach them — you can’t stand aside in judgment against people if you really want to rescue them; and it is no good standing safely on the shore and shouting advice on how to swim to someone who is foundering and drowning out at sea. What you need to do is become like them by jumping into the water and swimming out to save them; but unlike them in knowing how to swim. And so Paul to the Jewish people reasserted his own Jewish heritage in order to win them over. To those under the law he became as one under the law in order to win those under the law. To those outside the law he became an outlaw in order to win those other outlaws back. Even to the weak he became weak; knowing that it was God’s strength and not his own that would help him in his mission of mercy and salvation.

For ultimately all of the strength must come from God — God who, as Isaiah assures us, does not faint or grow weary. God provides the swimmer with his skill, and provides those who are weak with amazing and reviving strength if they will wait for him, renewing them so that they rise up as with the wings of eagles, and run without weariness and walk without becoming faint.

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In the long run — especially when we remember our weakness or our need of help — it is great good news that God is not like us — for as the old children’s song so rightly says, “We are weak but he is strong.” And it is his strength that supports us in our weakness. As with rescuers trying to pull someone from a marsh or quicksand, if we were not able to stand upon the firm ground of his strength we could not lift ourselves or anyone else to safety. If God did not give strength and skill to the lifeguard, he couldn’t guard any lives.

This morning’s gospel shows us Jesus doing exactly this, from the moment he takes the hand of Simon’s fever-stricken mother-in-law, on through his healing of the crowds that gather around the doorway to the house. He comes to those who suffer where they are, and heals them with a word or with the touch of his hand. He is full of the power of God as no other human being ever was or could be — and yet he is also completely like us, completely one of us, completely with us where we are. In Jesus, like and unlike come together and coexist in the perfect unity of God in Man “made manifest in making whole palsied limbs and fainting soul.”

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And, as that children’s hymn reminds us, “Yes, Jesus loves me...” and you, and you, and all of us. It is for love and through love, the love of God who created the universe and made all that is. That passage from Isaiah shows God standing there, like an artist, and gently gesturing towards this earth that he is made, that makes its inhabitants look as small as grasshoppers; he waves a hand gently in the direction of monarchs, who rise and fall, and rise and fall; he then, as an artist in an exhibit showing those wonderful photographs from the Hubble Telescope showing the depths and powers and infinite riches of the starry universe, and then, without a need to make much of a show of it, basically says, “This is my work. Consider it; consider it, and then consider the power that rests in God — and which God has so graciously deigned to share with those who wait for him, reviving them even in their weakest moments and giving them the strength to fly like eagles. God loves us, and it is for that same love and through that same love that Christ who is strong comes to us to strengthen us in our weakness, out of his own strength poured into our weakness, clothing our weakness, that we too may run and not grow weary, may walk and not grow faint. For he has given us work to do, and wants us able and ready to do it.

Brothers and sisters, let us rely not on our own strength, but on his strength, which is boundless, and strive to be like him in devotion and service even if we cannot be like him in power and majesty. Let us thank God that God is not like us in our weakness, but is with us in his strength, and will strengthen our hands to serve and to minister in his Name. This service and this ministry have been committed to our hands, yet the power and the majesty is his and his alone, God the everlasting Father, Christ the co-eternal Son, and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide.

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Gods and Demons

Demons and Spirits take on form and power when we give ourselves over to them --- but so does God. The choice is ours... a sermon for Epiphany 4b

SJF • 4 Epiphany • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords—yet for us there is one God, the Father... and one Lord, Jesus Christ.+

Anyone who watches the TV trailers for the movies — whether you end up going to see the movies or not — knows that demons are and always have been a hot topic for film-makers. I’m sure many of you here remember “The Exorcist” — with its sequels and prequels and even the satires and fun-poking parodies about spinning heads and split-pea soup. That film was not the first by any means to take up the theme of demons and possession and exorcism — and nor was it the last, as the current fare offered by Hollywood continues to show. We are offered ample portions of demon possession and exorcism — and split-pea soup. This is like one of those restaurants where the food isn’t very good, but the portions are generous!

Why is it that people never seem to tire of such supernatural tales of terror — of demons and devils, of those possessed by them, and those foolish enough to worship them? Why is it that tales of supernatural evil — resident or just visiting — continue in the form of such a large part of our popular entertainment? Is it that there aren’t enough real horrors to frighten us, or enough real human evil in the world that we have to look for evil from beyond?

Perhaps after all it is just the fear of the unexplained or the unknown. When something strange happens, when we do not understand the natural cause of some phenomenon, we are likely to attribute it to something supernatural — and people have been doing that since the dawn of human consciousness.

That goes for evil nasty things as well as ordinary things, of course, and in ancient times all such things were divided up into the care and cause of numerous spirits, gods, and demons. Prehistoric people didn’t know what the seasons were or why or how plants grew and animals reproduced, so they put all this down to the action of various gods. Early historic people — the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians — began to record their stories of gods and monsters, whom they believed to be the supernatural source of the natural things for which they had no other explanation. The sun-god rises at dawn and rides his chariot across the sky, then sinks into the west and travels by boat under the earth to re-emerge the next day. Lightning and thunder are the work of the Storm-God, waves and floods the work of the Sea-God and his lesser cousins the lake and the river gods; and the evil fortune is the result of nasty wandering spirits who do their mischief in spreading sickness and disease.

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By the time we get to the first century, we find Saint Paul somewhat on the fence when it comes to the question of whether these gods and demons have any reality or not. The Corinthian Christians to whom he wrote were a sophisticated lot, who felt that since only the true God exists, it doesn’t do any harm to pay tribute to idols representing other gods. It was their rejection of these other gods that ironically had earned them the accusation of being atheists who would bring bad fortune on the cities of the Gentiles by offending their patron gods. So to accommodate, the wise-in-their-own-eyes Corinthians were ready to spill a drop of wine in sacrifice to the pagan gods, with a wink and a nod. “It’s just a formality...”

Saint Paul warns them they are treading on dangerous ground, warning them of the danger a horror movie fan will recognize when a person invites a vampire into their home! “Not so fast,” Paul says: Yes, we know there is but one God and one Lord, but not everyone is so secure in their belief. If you make offerings to idols, even though you know these offerings are meaningless and that you are just doing it so as not to cause offense in your pagan society — what if new Christians who still believe that these false gods are real are scandalized, and you cause them to fall away on that account? In the long run, you have done the demon’s work — you have made the demon real by your actions, and lost your brother or sister to their power.

The point, for Paul as for us, is that these gods and demons derive their power not from themselves — after all they don’t exist! — but from how people relate to them, and are possessed by them. Evil may not have a personal supernatural existence as a being of some kind, but when evil is at work in people, either as individuals or as a group, it might as well — and the damage is done whatever the case. Theologian Walter Wink has written about how it is that these “principalities and powers” can arise out of the human systems that give them flesh and blood — or ectoplasm. These human systems give the spirits bodies to work with and hands to do their evil.

Think for a moment about mob violence. I think in particular of the horrors of group assaults — lynchings, gang-rapes or bashings — that happen from time to time, when a mob seem to become possessed by some evil spirit that eggs them on to do something as a group that few or none of them would have done alone. There is an evil spirit in a mob — and whether natural or supernatural, it is real.

Good Christian people — or people who think of themselves as good Christians — can, when gathered in a crowd, do some very un-Christian things. I don’t want to get too far into politics, though it’s hard to avoid in campaign season, so I hope you pardon the illustration. I was twice struck in recent weeks by the irony of people in self-designated crowds of “Christian conservatives” — each time in response to Ron Paul — first eagerly calling out to let a sick man die if he couldn’t afford his hospital bills, and then actually booing the Golden Rule! What, you might well think, possessed these Christians so to forget the rudiments of the Christian faith? To what power or principality were they giving up themselves in that moment as instruments?

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The same goes for the spirits that Jesus encountered in his ministry, such as the one who possessed the man in our Gospel today. Although this is a case of an individual rather than a mob, the point is the same: the evil spirit has no effective existence apart from the one who is possessed by it — that’s precisely why the spirit is so desperate not to be cast out, not to be destroyed by being driven from the mind and body of the one who gives it the means to function in the physical world.

The spirits can only act in this world through and by means of those they possess. I cannot answer the question as to whether they have any existence apart from this time of possession, though the ancients well thought so. But it is doubtless that they do take on life in individuals and mobs who give themselves over to thinking that it is right to pay tribute to a demon or a false god they know — or think they know — doesn’t exist. The powers act through groups of people who do evil as a group that few would dare as individuals, as the group and its demonic driver gives each member some form of plausible deniability, or the opportunity to say, “It wasn’t me” or “I was only following orders.” Some of the greatest evil in our history is the work of people who thought it wasn’t their fault. The devil made them do it.

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The good news is that God works for good in the same way these evil spirits work for bad — through human beings. The good news is that people can do more good as a group than they can as individuals, and even as individuals — when we turn our selves, our souls and bodies, over to God as a reasonable and holy offering and sacrifice — God can and will make use of us for his good purposes. The good news is that the good that can be done is greater than the evil that is done, if only we will do it. Let us pray then that God will strengthen us to be of courage and good will to work his will. Let us not turn our hearts and minds to the dark-side of the powers, but to the light and the life of God the Father of us all, in whose name we pray, and to whom we give all glory, with God the Son and through the Holy Spirit.

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