Through What Door?

Each of us has come on board this ark of salvation, sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes in search of answers.

SJF • Lent 1b • Tobias S Haller BSG
God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you.

My friend Peter — named for the saint, of course — entered into Christ through a little blue door. He came to Columbia University in the late sixties as a graduate student, with the usual doubts and hopes of young men of that age, and that time and that place. People were saying that God was dead — yet the church still seemed to have some utility. The civil rights struggle showed the church was still one of the few things still alive and kicking against a world whose heart it seems had grown cold.

Peter was an intelligent young man, with a passion for justice and civil rights, and a cultured taste in art and music — he was studying medieval literature. But he wanted to learn more about the church before he got too involved with this whole “religion” thing.

And so he called on his neighborhood parish church, which, if you know Columbia will know just happens to be the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine. Given his intellect, passion for civil rights, and his taste for art, the choice was natural: the Episcopal Church was considered “the thinking person’s church” and the Cathedral leaders had taken a strong stand for civil rights, at the cost of a few wealthy donors. And there was no denying the beauty of that building, even in its unfinished state — and it’s still unfinished fifty years later!

Peter called the and they connected him with Canon West, who, the receptionist thought, would be the best person to talk with him about religion. Peter found Canon West much too busy to see him that week, but West told him that if he would come to the little blue door he would find half-way up the cathedral on the southern side at about 10:45 next Sunday morning he might have some time to talk with him about religion.

Peter had come of age in a culture that had forgotten what it is that goes on in cathedrals on Sundays at about 10:45, so he was caught short went through that little blue door into that cavernous space and asked for Canon West. Before he knew what was happening, he was whisked into the sacristy; many helping hands vested and girded him and dressed him up in an acolyte’s outfit, then handed him a one of the massive crucifixes that they use there at the Cathedral — and they weigh about 70 pounds! — and pushed him towards the head of a procession, maintained in place by Canon West’s stern eye and finger-snaps, and the nods, gestures and elbows of more experienced servers at the altar.

Peter was confused, but also furious, but he dared not challenge the imposing Canon West — with his bald head, black goatee and long black cape, who knows what powers might be at his disposal? Even had he dared, before he could protest, he was swept up in the worship — right at the head of the procession, along with at least three more crosses behind him, along with the embroidered banners that emerged from clouds of incense, floating like the masts and sails of ancient dream-ships navigating the valleys of those towering rough-hewn rock columns and walls. The roar of the organ resounded in the caverns of that space, the waves and wash of breakers of sound resounded and echoed back and forth — after all, the Cathedral is an eighth of a mile long; ranks of choristers and clergy in vestments ancient and modern, gloriously colorful, gold and scarlet; and there was Peter right in front — just behind the man with the incense-pot swinging and twirling the prayers of the saints up and up into that now invisible dome — and the congregation bowing in waves as he passed with that cross, as if pressed down by the weight of glory he was carrying.

And all the while all he could think was, “I’ll kill him!”

When the worship ended, as he was hanging up the borrowed vestment, still quivering with rage and disorientation, Canon West came up behind him, and laid a bony hand on his shoulder. The old priest spun him around, fixed him with a stern look, out from underneath those bushy eyebrows, and said, “Now, my boy, I’m prepared to talk to you about our religion.”

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Lent is upon us, a time in the church year when we raise the intensity a notch in our efforts to think about our religion. I’m sure all of us here could tell a tale about how we got here — through what little blue door each of us passed to enter the ark of salvation. That’s what it is, you know, this church of ours. It was prefigured, as Saint Peter tells us, in the ark in which Noah and his family were kept safe amidst the waters of the flood. Our church is an ark. As I have pointed out before, churches are often built like upside-down boats: if you look up to our ceiling there, in that part of the church called the “nave” — which also betrays its naval origins — you’ll see that the ribs of a boat’s hull have become the ribs that hold up our roof.

Each of us could tell how we boarded this upside-down boat, through what little blue — or red — door — even if we were carried in kicking and screaming when we were just a few weeks old. And yet here we are, the company of the baptized, some of you baptized right here in this font — I know, because I was the one that did it! We are gathered here together in this boat, a boat that has no first or second class passengers, no steerage for the poor, nor staterooms for the rich — but just one big lifeboat!

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It may seem strange to start the season of Lent with Scriptures all of which refer to baptism either directly or figuratively — since by tradition Lent is the one time of the year during which baptisms are not performed! But Lent anciently was the time when people were prepared for baptism at Easter; it was during these weeks that they studied, and fasted, and prayed to be ready to be baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter. And so we begin our Lent reminded of baptism, and of the fact that the church — this church, not just the building, not just the upside-down boat, but we the people are the company of the baptized, and it is worth reflecting on what it means to be on board this boat — and to reflect on where this boat is heading.

So this year, I want to use our Lent together to focus on what it means to be the church — this gathering of people who have been through the little blue door, a little red door, who have been washed in the waters of baptism, and fed with the bread of heaven. For this is how it begins, my friends — in the church as the ark of salvation. Now, some might be tempted to ask, “Isn’t there salvation outside the church?” well, it is not for me to speculate on God’s grace, or to place limits upon it. God can and will save whomever and however God pleases to do so. Is there salvation outside the ark of the church, outside the lifeboat? I hope so — there may be some good swimmers out there! But I know that there is salvation inside the ark of the church, inside the lifeboat; and it is my calling and my task — as it is yours, my friends — to gather up people floating out there in life jackets before they freeze to death!

We will not do this merely by talking to them about religion — there is plenty of talk about religion out there, my friends, and much of it probably keeps people away from church rather than bringing them to it. No, the answer is to invite them here, through our little red door, into this lifeboat, the one we know, where we can hear words about religion — but more importantly be dressed in a new garment, given a cross to bear, hear the music and the song and join in it too, and be fed with the bread and nourished with the wine, and not just hear words about God but give thanks to the Word of God — Jesus the Christ.

This is the Gospel Cruise my friends: the ark of salvation right on the corner of Jerome Avenue and 190th St in the Beautiful Bronx — as unbelievable and specific as God being born in a stable, and as wonderful and as gracious as being pulled from freezing water into a lifeboat.

This is where it all starts my friends — there will be time to talk about it later; but those who want assurance of salvation will first come on board.

When they have gone through the little door, blue or red, been clothed anew with the garment of baptism, and have carried the cross while rows of their sisters and brothers bow in reverence to the powerful symbol of the unspoken and unspeakable Word above all words and worlds — then, as Canon West said, there will be time to talk about our religion.+

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In the Name of Love

God is Love. That's it.

Proper 17a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Let love be genuine… hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Have you ever faced a task beyond your ability? Have you ever been given a job that made you feel totally inadequate, one you couldn’t get out of no matter how hard you tried? Well, if you have — welcome to the Moses Club. Our Old Testament reading this morning gives us the beginning of the call and ministry of Moses — and you can see him wriggling with those same feelings of inadequacy that we do, feelings that would follow him throughout his long career as shepherd to the wearisome flock of Israel.

But what this scripture also shows us is that God has an answer for those feelings of inadequacy, those moments — or years! — of weakness and incapacity like Moses; those times of getting it just completely wrong like Peter in our Gospel today: the realization that you can’t do it alone, but you also don’t have to do it alone. Sometimes all you have to do is get out of the way and let God be God!

Now, most of us are well aware of how almost nothing we do is truly done by ourselves alone: that we all depend upon each other for virtually every aspect of our lives. As the old saying goes, If you see a turtle on the top of a fence-post, you know he didn’t get there by himself!

It is in part the joy of Christian community, as Saint Paul encourages the Romans: its members support each other with genuine love, with mutual affection, with zeal and ardent spirit serving God in each other, outdoing each other in showing honor to each other. But a big part of the good news is that it isn’t just each other we depend on — ultimately all of us and each of us depend on God, who helps and supports all of us. He does it by his presence with us, his teaching to guide us, his patience to give us time to complete the work, and the nourishment to bear the fruit God desires. And all of this is because of the love of God.

“Let love be genuine,” Saint Paul said to the Romans. We catch a glimpse of the most genuine love there is in today’s reading from the book of Exodus, when Moses encounters God in that bush that burns but is not consumed: the love of God that is an eternal flame that does not consume the inexhaustible being of God.

Love is eternal because it is reborn in every instant. Love — God’s love — is always now. This is especially true when you compare love to the other two theological virtues, as they are called, faith and hope. remember what St Paul said? “...these three, faith hope and love; but the greatest of these is love.” Faith looks to the past, and gives thanks for all that God has done. Hope looks to the future and trusts that God will provide. But love lives in the present, if it lives at all.

After all, it is no good telling someone you loved them once, or that you’ll love them some day — who wants to hear that? And even hearing someone say, “I have always loved you” or “I will always love you” wouldn’t mean anything unless the one saying it loves you now. Love, true love, is eternal because it is alive in every moment. Love is a fire that burns, but does not consume.

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Moses confronted that love that day he was keeping his father-in-law’s sheep, living as a stranger in a strange land. The God of love chose to reveal himself to Moses for one reason: he had heard the cry of his people in Egypt, and would deliver them, because he loved them, because they were his. The eternal love of God became, in that particular time and place, (as it always does in every time and place) the present love of God in action. The God of faith that was past, the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, their faith in God; the God of the hope for the future, that God would visit his people and take them and deliver them out of Egypt; the eternal and everlasting love of God would be revealed on that mountain — as God reveals himself as the God who is love, burning but not consuming: the one who was, and who is, and who is to come — is always Love. As Saint John would affirm many centuries later, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

Some theologians have focused on this story of the burning bush, and the Name that God tells Moses to call him by, as a way of emphasizing God as pure Being, He Who Is, or “Being itself.” I would like to suggest that Saint John’s description is more apt — rather than get involved in the debate about the nature of being, simply declare that God is love. And that when we love we are most like God.

When Moses complains to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?” God responds, “I will be with you.” In other words, God is assuring Moses that he isn’t going this alone. God will be with him. And as a sign of his presence, God — after a little bit of needling from Moses — tells Moses his name, which is I AM , or in Hebrew Ehyeh.

Now Hebrew, unlike English, doesn’t have tenses, at least not in the way English does. (I hope you’ll pardon this Hebrew grammar lesson, because it is important if we are to understand God’s Name; because it doesn’t translate very easily into English, and I can hardly think of anything more important, given this reading!) Instead of past, present and future, Hebrew verbs have only two forms called perfect and imperfect: the perfect describes an action that is completed and finished. It’s the “been there and done that” of language. The imperfect, on the other hand, describes an action either that was repeated or continuous in the past, or something that is happening now that hasn’t yet finished, or that is going to happen in the future. It might seem odd to think of God referring to himself using the imperfect. After all, we always think of God as perfect! But the difference in language is that perfect is dead — it’s the past, it’s done; it’s finished. What God is saying to Moses is that he is without end — there is always more to God. We can plumb the depths and think we’ve understood God, but we’ve only touched the surface, the outer edges of God’s being. God is without end; never finished.

This imperfect form of the language is what God uses when he says I AM WHO I AM: in Hebrew, Ehyeh asher ehyeh. This not only means “I am who I am,” but, “I have always been what I have always been,” and “I will be what I will be” or “I am now what I have always been and will be.” All of this is summed up in this name: and what a wonderful way to know the name of the eternal that has always been, is now, and ever shall be.

This is God’s Name, and it assures us of the kind of presence we can rely on in our weakness or our inadequacy. Not just someone who “is there for you” but someone who has always been there for you and always will be there — for you, and with you now: whose very name means Eternal Being Present. Truly, our help is in the Name of the Lord: the eternally present helper.

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My brother in Christ Thomas Bushnell made a fine observation about this not too long ago, in relation to what I said about those three virtues of faith, hope, and love. He pointed out that while we are called to have all three — faith, hope and love — there is a reason for love being the greatest, and being an attribute of God’s own Being. We have faith, but God does not need to have faith — God is the object of our faith. We have hope, but God doesn’t need hope; God knows what is to come better than we do! Faith and hope belong to us relate us to God, because we have faith in God and hope for God’s plans for us; but love is the means by which we reflect God’s own being, as mirrors or likenesses of God, made in God’s image; and this responding love joins us to God; for God not only has love, the love we have for God, the genuine love that we have for each other and for God, joins us to God. For God not only has love, but as Saint John says, God is Love; and whoever loves abides in God, and God abides in them.

After all, as St Paul assures us in his Letter to the Corinthians, in that famous passage so often heard at both weddings and funerals (and what better places are there to be reminded of the power of God who is love!): Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love believes all things; it has faith. Love hopes all things — it includes both faith and hope — but love endures because it is embodied in the eternal nature of God, and it is through love that we are joined to one another and to God. That love of God is eternal — it burns forever, and never consumes the source of its flame.

When you feel week, when you feel inadequate, when you feel you’ve been given a task you can’t possibly even begin to undertake, trust in that love, my friends in Christ; the love that God shows to you and through each of you to each other. It will raise you up from being a member of the Moses Club to being an eternal life-long member of the communion of God: in whose name we pray, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.+

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Brother Against Brother

Envy, jealousy, and littleness of faith...

p14a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Joseph’s brothers said, “Hear comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

Anyone with experience of a large family will know something about sibling rivalry. But even if you have never experienced it yourself, the Holy Scripture lays out more than enough to satisfy the most insatiable curiosity. Right from the beginning, right from the very first brothers ever to breathe the air of God’s good earth, we find conflict and worse: for Cain killed his brother Abel, striking him down out of jealousy and envy.

Fast forward just a few chapters in Genesis and we find Isaac and his half-brother Ishmael, originally content to play together, soon separated by Isaac’s mother. She is jealous that the son of her servant might inherit along with her son — here it is not the two brothers who are rivals, but their respective mothers!

Isaac will later get payback from his descendant rather than his ancestor, though largely through the machinations of his own wife Rebekah, when his two sons Jacob and Esau set up a rivalry that verges on being as bad as that of Cain and Abel. Jacob cheats his brother out of his inheritance, disguising himself with his mother’s help and deceiving his old, blind father Isaac into giving him his brother’s blessing.

In today’s reading from Genesis we catch up with Jacob some years later. He has settled in Canaan with the large family he has started. And what a family it is! He has four wives — count ‘em, four: Rachel (who died in giving birth to his youngest son, Benjamin) and her sister Leah, and their respective servants Bilhah and Zilpah, and in addition to Benjamin he has eleven other sons and at least one daughter, Dinah — and who knows who is in the kitchen with her!

His favorite son, though, is Joseph, who with Benjamin are the only children born to the his true love Rachel, the one for whom he worked for seven years only to be tricked by his father-in-law into marrying her older sister Leah. (And this is not the only trick to be played on that trickster Jacob before the tale is done! Perhaps this is part of his payback for having cheated his own brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing.)

In any case, Joseph’s brothers know their father “likes him best” — does anyone remember the Smothers Brothers routine, “Mom always liked you best!” “Lower your voice.” “Mom always liked you best!” — and to make matters worse Jacob broadcasts his favoritism for this teenage boy — giving him a fancy outfit to wear. Think of your own sons and how they might feel if you gave one of them the latest Air Jordans while the rest were stuck with lame tennis shoes or sandals. They might not throw their brother, the one with the fresh kicks, down a pit, but they won’t be happy!

Another thing to note about this fancy outfit is that it is a long outfit, not suited for work: long sleeves mean that Joseph doesn’t have to do yard-work; in many ancient cultures having a long robe with long sleeves meant you were among the upper classes, the royalty who had no hard work to do, who had others to do the hard work for them; they couldn’t be bothered to roll up their sleeves and work themselves. Joseph the tattle-tale — one more strike against him: notice how he informs his father when his brothers are slouching in their work — Joseph is home, spending time around the house, at most sent on errands out checking up on his brothers. And today we see what sets the story in motion — the story that will eventually lead Israel into Egypt, and will set the stage for all that is to come as God’s people are formed in that crucible of slavery and then brought out of it in the Exodus.

But we’re still at the prelude here: Joseph is set for a fall; he’s got three strikes against him, and his brothers simmer with jealousy. To add insult to injury, Joseph is a dreamer. He is also innocent enough to tell his brothers and his father the dreams of them bowing down to him — dreams which for some reason those who planned our lectionary this morning have chosen to omit from our reading — but this is why the brothers refer to Joseph as “this dreamer”! Anyway, the scene is set for sibling rivalry of the most dangerous sort, and his brothers gang up on the boy with the intent first to kill him, and then to sell him into slavery. As we hear by the end of the tale, Joseph is bundled off to Egypt. We’ll hear more about that and the aftermath next week.

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For now I want to focus on the thread that ties together all of this sibling rivalry in the book of Genesis: all that ties it together up through our own time. And that is the sin of envy, manifested as jealousy. From Cain through Sarah through Jacob himself and then on to his sons — and on to every human heart if we are honest — jealousy and envy, wanting what someone else has, is the craving the leads to the biggest part of human misery, whether brother against brother or nation against nation. No one said it better than James the brother of the Lord, in the epistle that bears his name: “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” (James 4:2) There can be no doubt that the story of Joseph was close to James’ heart: James is the English form of Jacob, after all. And he begins his letter with an appeal to the Twelve Tribes who were descended from Jacob’s unruly household. So his description of jealousy and envy — sins he saw at work in the early church — is sharp and to the point.

The French philosopher René Girard has developed a theory that jealousy forms the basis of much human behavior. I’m not sure it takes a philosopher to read that from the evidence of human history, but René Girard suggests its mechanism. He calls it mimetic desire — but the old words imitation and jealousy will do just fine. Two children — let’s call them Isaac and Ishmael just to keep it in the family — they are sitting on the floor in the romper room happily playing with their toys; perfectly happy, perfectly content, each of them playing with his toy. But then momma comes in and gives Ishmael a new toy. What happens? Anyone want to guess? Little Isaac, until then perfectly happy with his own toy, now wants to have the toy Ishmael has — and so the war begins!

Of course, it is not always a toy; I wish it were. Sometimes, as with Cain and Abel, it is jealousy of God’s blessing. Sometimes it is a birthright or inheritance. How many families have squabbled over grandma’s kitchen table, and who gets it? Sometimes it is an article of clothing — how many young men have been stabbed or shot in the Bronx because someone wanted their jacket? Sometimes it is a father’s favor. Sometimes it is gold, or oil. Sometimes it is called the Gaza Strip, or East Jerusalem, or the Crimea or the Sudan. Whatever it is, as James said, “You want something and do not have it,” — and so follow murder, theft, war, destruction and death.

How soon we forget the verse that ends, “You do not have because you do not ask.” How much of the world’s goods could be shared instead of being fought over? How many sibling rivalries could be stilled if people would set aside jealousy and envy, and cultivate instead the virtues of charity and generosity — to ask, so that it might be given; to knock, so that the door might be opened.

In our Gospel today, Jesus chides Peter because he starts well in his walk on the water, but then begins to doubt. Let’s be honest — doubt is part of our life: it is hard to trust others, it is hard sometimes to ask someone to share what they have; look, let’s face it, sometimes it is hard to share when you are asked! There is always that fear that there won’t be enough to go around; that if I give of what I have I won’t have enough left for myself.

But my friends, we are not called to doubt, to fear — we are called to faith, to trust in the generosity of God, and to “take heart” in the knowledge that he is with us — we can walk on the water if we trust him! He is the same one who fed thousands in the wilderness, who turned a few loaves into enough food to feed a multitude. How much of the world’s five loaves and fishes could be transformed if Isaac and Ishmael would share instead of fighting? There is no need for envy or jealousy — the products of a world-view that is based on scarcity and desire and envy — when the abundant grace of God is there — for the asking; for the asking, my friends. To have great faith instead of that little, stingy, mean faith — the faith that is hardly faith at all, when abundance is around us. Remember, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

So let us not fear asking God, asking our brothers or sisters, let us not dwell on jealousy or envy, but trust in the abundance of God, and the good news that God is with us, and can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. To him be the glory, from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Trust and Obey

Obedience is built on the foundation of trust....

Proper 8a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He 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.”

Was ever such a commandment so harsh and cruel been given? Was ever a commandment so harsh and cruel ever heard? Was ever a commandment so harsh and cruel ever obeyed?

These are the questions that form in my mind as I hear the truly frightening commandment of God to Abraham in this morning’s continuation of our reading from the book of Genesis. You will recall that just last week Abraham had received another cruel command — the one from his wife Sarah. She had told Abraham to send the woman Hagar and the son she had borne to him out into the wilderness, there to die but for the intervention of God who revealed the well of water in the desert to revive the woman and her child. God had comforted Abraham before he sent Hagar and Ishmael out to the wilderness, promising him that they would survive, and that while the boy would become a great nation, it was to be through Isaac that Abraham would be reckoned as the father of many.

And now, out of the blue, God orders Abraham to that very son Isaac, the very son through whom, just last week, he promised that Abraham’s descendants would be numbered — to take his son Isaac out into the wilderness and to offer him as a sacrifice on the mountain that God would show. So my questions: Was ever such a cruel and harsh commandment ever given, ever heard, or ever obeyed?

For Abraham is ready to obey. He doesn’t argue with God the way he argued with him about the people of the city of Sodom, for whom he showed concern and care when God told him that the whole population of that wicked city would be destroyed. Abraham complained that God should not kill the innocent along with the guilty; and God finally agreed that if Abraham could find just ten innocent people in that wicked city God would spare it.

Yet when God gives this horrifying and cruel command, that Abraham is to kill his own innocent son, Abraham doesn’t blink an eye. He gets up early the next morning, saddles his donkey and takes his son along with two servants — and the firewood, the knife, and the fire! And then throughout the scene that follows, through the questions of his young son, even through to the raising of the knife, Abraham does not hesitate or falter. It is only the angel of the Lord calling to him out of heaven that stops him, and then he finds the ram caught in the thicket to offer in sacrifice instead of his son.

So let us look again at those questions. Was ever such a harsh command ever given? Well, I think we’ve already answered that one if we look at last week’s reading from Genesis. Sarah told Abraham to cast out Hagar and Ishmael. This was a harsh command in and of itself, especially considering that it was Sarah who had given Hagar to Abraham to start with, for the very purpose of bearing him this son. So, to look to the second question, how did Abraham receive this hard command about Hagar and Ishmael? He wasn’t happy. The Scripture records that “the matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.” Sending that woman and small child out into the desert, even with a water bag, is a horrible thing to do. Before God reassured him, Abraham would know there was every chance that they would not survive, they would die of thirst — as indeed they would have had it not been for God’s promise that the boy would survive, and the provision of water in the desert.

And that final detail offers us the beginnings of an answer to the last question, Was ever such a harsh commandment obeyed? Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert because he trusts God to keep the promise that God has made to him — for God had told him that the boy would survive and I will make of him a great nation, too. And so it is as well with the commandment God gives Abraham in this morning’s passage. Because God had promised Abraham — just last week — that his posterity would be numbered through Isaac — God had promised that this son would live and grow to manhood and marry and have children — and that those children would have children, until the descendants of Abraham — through Isaac — would be more numerous than the sand on the seashore or the stars of the heavens. Abraham obeys the commandment of God because he trusts the promise of God. Trust comes first, then obedience; or perhaps it would be better to say that obedience is built on the foundation of trust. Abraham knows that God is faithful, that God keeps the promises that God has made — and in this case, although he doesn’t have the foggiest idea how God is going to do it, he knows that God will do something to allow his son Isaac to survive and grow up and marry and have children whose children shall be numbered as his — Abraham’s — offspring.

Abraham is so sure of this, that notice two things: First, he tells the servants who accompany him to the mountain where God has told him to sacrifice Isaac, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” “And then we will come back to you” — not “I will come back to you” but “we will come back to you.” Second, when the boy Isaac asks where the sacrificial offering is, Abraham responds, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.” “God himself will provide.” Abraham’s trust is so great that even when they come to the place of sacrifice, even when he reaches out his hand for the knife, he trusts that God will provide — and God does provide.

Abraham trusts God, and that is the basis of his righteousness and his obedience — not his own strength or his own virtue, but his belief, his trust, in the nature of God — who is supremely trustworthy and keeps every promise God has made. After all, Abraham has seen God’s righteousness at work — God offered to spare the wicked city of Sodom if Abraham could find two handfuls of righteous people. God kept the promise that Abraham and Sarah would have a child in their old age — remember, they were in their 90s — but they did. God kept the promise, and she bore him that son, Isaac. Abraham knows that God will not make promises and then take them back. He trusts, and then he obeys.

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And so ought we to do, and for the same reason. We have experienced the blessings of God in our lives; we have heard the voice of God speaking in our hearts and guiding us on the right way; and though we have known times when the command of God was hard, we have also known that the mercy of God is great. More than that, there are many of us here I’m sure, like those Romans to whom Paul the apostle wrote, can look back on parts of our lives when we were not obedient to God but were obedient to the demands of our own lower nature. There were times when instead of raising our eyes to the hills we allowed ourselves to wander through the valley of the shadow of death. Yet even then, and even there, God was with us like a good Shepherd leading us up out of that valley into the light upon the heights.

Somehow even in the depths and darkness a small spark of hope and faith and trust was kindled, and the grace of God helped grow that little spark into a flame, and by its light God led us out. That spark of trust allowed us to realign our obedience from slavery to sin towards service to God — whose service is perfect freedom.

So let us join our voices with that of Abraham, in the sure and certain hope and trust in our Lord, the God of the promise made and the promise kept, the God whom we obey because we know that the Lord has provided, that the Lord provides, and that on the mount of the Lord, the Lord shall provide.+

Witness Protection Plan

God offers a protection plan for those who witness in the power of the Spirit...

SJF • Easter 2a 2014 • Tobias S Haller BSG
These are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Happy Easter! I say that because Easter is not just a single day, but a whole season, and we are now on the Second Sunday of that Easter Season. This season is a time to celebrate something that is too good just to commemorate with a single day — the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is something to celebrate for a whole 50 days, right up to Pentecost. And beyond! For I hope I don’t surprise you further by reminding you that every Sunday is a “little Easter,” a celebration of the resurrection. Even the Sundays that fall during Lent are called “Sundays in Lent” but not “of Lent” — that’s a little liturgical footnote.

Eastertide — those fifty days — is a special season that speaks to us eloquently, because it coincides with the awakening of the world to springtime glory. I often wonder what it must feel like to be celebrating Easter in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the beginning of fall — that must give it a different feeling. But here we are lucky enough to have Easter coincide with all of those beautiful flowers coming up outside; some of which we owe to our dear friend Monica. After the winter we had, believe me, spring is most welcome. As is Easter.

This is also a time to hear passages of Scripture that describe the birthday of the church and its very beginnings, that emergence of the body of the faithful believers in Jesus as they shared with each other in their experiences of the Risen Lord. The seed that had been planted by Jesus himself began to blossom and to bear fruit, in those days after his resurrection. For the church this was new life in a new world: the world’s spring.

Primary among these believers is Saint Peter. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear the first part of Peter’s very first sermon — the one that he preached on the day of Pentecost — and we also hear a brief passage from his First Letter. We will hear more from this sermon next week, and more from that letter over the coming weeks of this Easter season. And I want to spend some time today and in the coming weeks exploring the teaching Peter develops about what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be the church in this world’s springtime.

Peter’s sermon to the crowds on Pentecost was more than a sermon, of course. It was testimony, and that is the element I want to highlight today. Like any religious Jew of his day, Peter knew his Scriptures well, and also like any pious believer then or since, he always tried to bring his own experience into relation with Scripture, to place his own experience into the history of salvation to which the Scriptures bear witness.

So Peter does some scriptural exegesis — which is just a fancy word for exploring and explaining what Scripture means. He quotes from the Psalms of David, Psalms that point to eternal life, and the promise that God’s Holy One would not suffer corruption. And Peter has the guts to say to the gathered assembly, “Well guess what, folks. David died! Not only that, but he suffered corruption — he was put in a tomb, and his tomb is right down the street and you can go and see it if you want. So David wasn’t talking about himself, but about one of his descendants. It is this Messiah that David is talking about when he says that he “will not be abandoned to Hades or experience corruption.” Then Peter pulls this historic analysis — all well in and of itself — right into the present: He tells the people there, “It has happened, right here in Jerusalem and not so long ago: this descendant of David, this Jesus — the man in whose crucifixion you all played a part by getting the Romans to execute him — God has raised him from the dead, and of that we are all witnesses!”

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Now, recall the situation. Just fifty-two days earlier, this same Peter was huddled by the fire outside the court where Jesus was on trial. When people recognized him and accused him of being one of the disciples, he denied it three times before the rooster crowed; and it all ended in tears. Peter, too, you see, had played his own part in the crucifixion of Jesus. Yet here — now, fifty-two days later — is this same man now boldly proclaiming to the whole community not only that they are guilty of complicity in a terrible crime — the execution of an innocent man — but that this man was and is the Messiah, whom God has raised from the dead, and that he and the other apostles are eyewitnesses to this raising. The former coward and traitor has been transformed by his own personal experience and the coming of God’s Spirit into one willing to testify to the truth, even at the risk of his own life — for remember who he is talking to: he knows that those who had worked to bring down Jesus may well still be there among that crowd, and they might do to Peter and his colleagues the same things, to bring them down — as indeed some of them would soon do — and we’ll be hearing more about that in the coming weeks!

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So there are two parts to this phenomenon: Peter’s actual experience of being a witness to something, and then the action of testifying to that experience. Has anyone here ever served as a witness in a trial or a hearing? (I won’t ask for a show of hands, but if you did you’ll know what I mean, that there are two parts to the experience. Not only have you had personal experience of some event, but you are willing to testify to that event. It means having and sharing first-hand knowledge, being able to deliver your testimony. It isn’t enough to have hearsay — somebody told me this happened — no, it means being able to say, “I was there, and I saw what happened.” And it isn’t enough just to have seen what happened — you have to be willing to be sworn in and to testify to your memories of what you saw. You have to tell your story — a story that happened.

Peter lacked the courage to testify that he knew Jesus on the night that Jesus was betrayed, but in between that and the testimony we heard this morning, two great events took place: Jesus was raised from the dead, and the Spirit descended on the apostles. These two events changed Peter and made him willing to take a risk he had been unwilling to take just weeks before.

For there is a risk in offering testimony. As I said, Peter, in that sermon was testifying to the same people who, as he said, got the Romans to crucify Jesus. Sometimes the risk is so great that people who testify, in a modern setting, have to be offered special protection; sometimes even a whole new identity, a whole new life in a different place. They call it a “witness protection plan.” God had such a plan for Peter, and it too had two parts. First came his own personal experience of the risen Christ, the Easter experience of a new life raised from the dead. But even more powerful was the descent of the Holy Spirit that came on him and the other apostles on the feast of Pentecost — which is when he spoke the words of this bold first sermon to the people. These two events gave Peter a new identity, and equipped him with what Paul would later call “the armor of God” but which Peter refers to as “protection” — a depth of trust and conviction that converted him from fear to faith. And they gave him a new life in a new place — the church that was born on the day of Pentecost, as we’ll hear again in a few weeks. He could boldly preach Christ and him crucified, but also risen from the dead, and he did so in the witness protection plan of God’s Holy Spirit.

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In addition to our sermon from Peter, today’s gospel passage gives us another story of a witness, the patron saint of witnesses: Doubting Thomas. Thomas is a skeptic — perhaps by nature. John reminds us that Thomas had a nickname; he was called “the Twin.” Now, we don’t know if he was an actual twin, or if he just looked so much like someone that they called him that. But he had probably had to argue many times with people who tell him, “But I saw you at the shop yesterday,” when what they saw was his brother or someone who looked like him. Even people who aren’t twins suffer from mistaken identity often enough — perhaps our twins can testify; have you ever been mistaken for someone else? or each other? I’m sure you have; I know I have! Or have you ever mistaken someone else for someone else; gone up to someone on the street and started to say “hello” and they look at you like, “Who are you?” And then you realize, “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

So Thomas probably had that kind of experience for much of his life. And when you’ve lived with that long enough you can become very skeptical about the eyewitness reports you hear about others. You’ve been there; you know how wrong people can be.

So when the other disciples assure Thomas that they have seen the Lord, he is not persuaded by their testimony. His first thought is that they’ve seen someone who looks like Jesus. Even their eyewitness testimony is not enough to convince him. He won’t accept their word: he needs to see for himself.

So, when Thomas finally does see for himself, he is practically speechless; he is only able to say a few words — how many times have you repeated them yourselves as you knelt at this altar to receive Christ present in the Eucharist — that simple phrase, “My Lord and my God!”

And Jesus does not rebuke him: he merely reminds him that being an eyewitness is not possible for everyone. It is the task of faith to believe those who are witnesses to the truth. We are challenged to test everything, yes, but to we are also called, as Jesus tells Thomas, to give credence when we see the greatest good; to believe not only the testimony, but the good faith of those who testify, who, in their lives and in their works as well as in their words show forth the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit at work in them. That is putting the power of faith to work: not just seeing, but believing, and testifying and bearing witness in one’s life, so that others may see and believe in the power of God, and have the courage to have faith.

This is how the power of God’s witness protection plan works for us. It gives us a different kind of courage — but through the same Spirit that gave courage to Peter. This is the courage to believe that of which we are not eyewitnesses — the resurrection of Christ — yet hold fast to the testimony of those who are witnesses — and to allow that experience of God to work in our lives.

We are not eyewitnesses to the resurrection — but we do have the testimony of those first eyewitnesses, passed down to other believers, and then on to the next generation of those who believe, and who receive the courage of faith through the Spirit, to act on their own belief to do the work God gives them — gives us — to do. And the power of this testimony, handed down through the ages, can still change the world. Our own “witness protection plan” is not based on having seen, but having believed, as Jesus promised Thomas would be the case. This gives us our new identity and our new dwelling place — as members of the church, Christ’s body on earth, and with that new identity, “Christian.” This testimony is as fresh as the day it was first delivered, blooming up out of the soil of cowardice and fear into the light of faith. It comes alive, alive like the springtime, like Easter itself in its continued rebirth, every time that testimony is offered, every time you speak a word of faith to someone who does not yet believe, you help that seed to blossom into life. It is the power of God at work for good in the world that God created, the world God redeemed, and the world God fills with his Holy Spirit.

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This is the promise and the fulfillment of Easter: the season of resurrection, of new beginnings and new possibilities, when life comes to the dead, cowards become courageous, doubters become believers, and even those who have not seen dare to speak out, dare to stand firm and to stand forth against all that works against the human spirit or God’s Spirit, to testify that they are saved and redeemed by the blood of Christ: witnesses protected by God!

This is our faith; this is our testimony; this is our courageous proclamation in the Spirit; this is our story, this is our song! beloved sisters and brothers in Christ. We may not have seen him rise, but we know he lives.

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

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Get Up and Go

Combating inertia and momentum is not just a physics lesson...

Lent 2a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation...”

Have you ever felt so discouraged, so worn out, that you just feel like giving up? I know I felt that way a few weeks back when I heard that yet another winter storm warning had been issued. You reach the point at which you feel like your “get up and go” has got up and gone! Newton’s First Law of Motion declares that an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by some force; and sometimes when you are resting you need quite a bit of force to get up and get going. I know that many of us can likely testify to another scientific fact: that the gravitational force of your mattress tends to increase in inverse proportion to the earliness of the alarm going off! The earlier the alarm, the harder it is to get up. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who found last Sunday, with that lost hour of Daylight Saving Time, that my “get up” only wanted to go back to sleep!

So it is that people will tend to stay put unless acted upon by some force. And in our scripture readings today, on this Second Sunday in Lent, we see forces at work to get people up and going.

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The prime mover, of course, is God. As I noted last week, left to our own devices and desires we will be pulled down by original sin that lies coiled in our hearts, an inescapable gravitational force — more powerful than the most comfortable pillow-top mattress — a force that pulls us down and away from love of God and neighbor, nested in our own wishes and desires, curled up and content to let the rest of the world fend for itself.

Pulling against this force — raising us up — is the power of God, manifest in God’s call — a call that is strong enough to wake the dead, which, if you think about it, is what all of us are until we come to live in Christ, and come to life in Christ.

We see this powerful call of God at work in the Hebrew Scripture passage that we heard this morning — the call of God to Abram to get up and go; to leave his home and his father’s house and travel to a distant land that neither he nor his fathers knew.

And in that call, and by its power, Abram acts. He gets up and goes. Even in this simple act, Saint Paul assures us in that Letter to the Romans, Abraham shows his righteousness. He didn’t question God — “God, why can’t you bless me right here and now, instead of there and then? Why not here in this place I know so well, among my own people and in my father’s house? Why not here on my home turf? I’m so comfortable here, and I hate traveling! Is this trip really necessary?”

No, Abraham doesn’t make any such excuses; he answers the call, like that, trusting that God has a purpose for him, and trusting in the righteousness of God rather than in his own skills or talents — or works. If he relies on anything at all it is simply on his faith, his faith that God will fulfill all that God has promised. And a refrain will take over his life, the rest of his long life: The Lord will provide. That is his faith. He leaves his own father, his own home in the trust that God will indeed provide, and make him the father of many nations. God’s promise itself gives Abraham the greatest gift, the gift of faith, and the power to get up and go.

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Then, in our Gospel passage today we see a different kind of getting up and going. I’ve spoken before about this passage, and how easy it is for to misunderstand the language of “being born again,” or being “born from above.” What Jesus is saying here is after the fashion of an orchestra conductor, saying to the orchestra: “Let’s take it from the top!”It is a charge to return to the beginning and to start again. Being born again isn’t an emotional feeling; it’s starting over.

You know, sometimes if you get lost what you need most to do is retrace your steps and get back to where you started, to at least to find some landmark with which you are familiar, and which you can use to help you reorient yourself. Sometimes, as C.S. Lewis once said, when you find you have gone the wrong way the best thing you can do is turn around and head back!

And one thing I’ve learned when traveling, is that sometimes you need to turn around to see what the signs on the other side of the highway say, in order to realize how far you’ve gone in the wrong direction! Has that ever happened to you? Your driving along and the signs are telling you that you are heading somewhere that you don’t want to go; and so you look back and see, on the other side of the highway, a sign saying Poughkeepsie is that way. I wish they’d had a side on this side saying, Poughkeepsie is back that way; turn around! And we get that in the gospel, don’t we: you have to be born again. It’s a sign saying, Go back, you’re headed the wrong way; start over. Take it from the top!

This is really a big part of what being born again or born from above means. It isn’t that you haven’t gotten up and been going — it’s just that you’re headed in the wrong direction! And to return to Newton’s First Law, just as an object at rest tends to stay at rest, so too an object in motion tends to stay in motion — and if it is headed the wrong way, it requires some force to turn it back again.

This is literally what repentance means — not feeling sorry, but turning around, heading back the way you came, for only by doing so can you find the right path. This Lenten season is given to us all as a time to focus on repentance, on assessing where we are. We are given this time to see, by looking at where we are, perhaps how far we’ve strayed, or how far on the right path we have traveled, to listen carefully and look for the road-signs — including those on the other side of the road — to be sure we are following the call and direction of the one who gave himself for us, and gives himself to us every day.

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For there is one final “get up and go” in our Scripture readings today. It is the greatest “get up and go” that ever happened. Only the one who descended from heaven and ascended there again has made such a trip. God sent his Son, because God loved the world so much that he gave him to us. And this sending has a purpose: to the end that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God sent his Son, told him to get up and go, to leave his heavenly throne and descend into the very heart of the world God made at the beginning of time, to be born as one of us — as God with us — so that we might behold him in his innocence and in his glory, lifted up so that he might draw the whole world to himself. That signpost is raised for us at the end of Lent a few weeks from now — on Good Friday, when we will see the greatest sign ever given, when we behold the Son of God upon the cross of shame, which is also the cross of glory. It is through the love of God and the power of God and the call of God in Christ that we are called forth from the sleep of sin, shown the way forward, and empowered to get up and go: to follow him where he has gone before, ascended into heaven, where he again sits enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. So heed the call, see the sign, and get up and go: Turn to him, my sisters and brothers, saved by the one in whom all salvation rests, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

Memory of Persistence

Keeping on keeping on, urged towards justice and blessing...

Proper 24c 2013 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

In keeping with the theme for the readings today, we persist in hearing from the letters of Paul to his disciple Timothy. Today we hear Paul urging Timothy on, like the coaches who accompanied Diana Nyad on her swim from Cuba to Florida. Look at all the encouragement Paul pours out: “Continue in what you have learned… I solemnly urge you… be persistent… endure… do the work… carry out your ministry fully.”

As with most of Paul’s letters, we only have one side of the conversation. That is, we have no copies of the Letters of Saint Timothy to Paul. But common sense tells us that Paul does not write a letter such as this — full of the voice of a coach offering encouragement — if Paul has not heard, either from Timothy himself or perhaps from some other messenger, that there is something about which Timothy is discouraged.

We don’t have to look very far to find indications of what is causing Timothy’s discouragement. People are challenging his teaching — which involves passing along the gospel that Paul has passed along to him. As we saw in last week’s passage, people are “wrangling over words,” that is, perhaps arguing over different interpretations of Scripture.

In a verse we don’t hear between last week’s portion and this week’s, Paul complains that some people are giving in to“profane chatter” as he calls it, that will “spread like gangrene” because some — and Paul is not afraid to name names — “some have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place.” Paul denounces these people as frauds who are just trying to take advantage of people and make themselves rich.

In today’s passage he alludes to those who have “itching ears,” who choose teachers to their own liking instead of listening to the truth, putting their faith in myths rather than in the sound teaching that Timothy is trying to offer them.

In the midst of all this trouble — and doesn’t it sound familiar, even in our own day? — Paul urges Timothy to press on, to keep the faith and to spread it. Four times in this relatively short correspondence, he uses the phrase, “The saying is sure” to introduce some fundamental doctrine to which he urges Timothy to hang on as he would to a life preserver in a flood. The message to Timothy is persistence.

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Our other readings today reinforce this theme of persisting, holding fast, and not giving up. The story of Jacob’s wrestling match with God takes the image of holding fast literally. The amazing thing is that, not only does Jacob wrestle with God — or God’s messenger — but that he gets his adversary to cry uncle! Jacob simply will not let go until he gets that blessing, and so he receives the blessing; he becomes a father of nations, and he gains a new name, Israel — which means “he who contends with God,” whose face he sees, and yet lives — even though he is left out-of-joint and limping.

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The gospel today shows a different kind of persistence, in the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. Whenever I hear this parable I can’t help but think of those women who for many years stood in the public squares in Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, and Guatemala — all of them holding up photographs and posters with the images and names of Los Desaparecidos — the “disappeared ones” — their brothers, sons, husbands and fathers abducted by political authorities with no more care for justice than the unjust judge in today’s parable. They persisted, in a testimony to their faith that justice will eventually prevail, and that right will triumph in the end. Sadly, some of them are still waiting.

In the parable, however, we aren’t given the details of what the widow’s complaint is, only that she has an opponent, and the judge — who has no fear of God or respect for people — is not rendering a decision. Perhaps he is looking for a bribe, perhaps he just doesn’t care enough to take up her case, or perhaps — in spite of his not having respect for people — he doesn’t want to cross whoever her unnamed opponent is. Whatever the reason, justice is delayed — and as the old saying goes “justice delayed is justice denied.” Finally, though, in this case, we hear the end of the story, and the persistent widow wears the unjust judge down.

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Jesus then gives us a moral to this parable, as he spells it out, and it is an example of a teaching technique that the rabbis called “light and heavy” — a teaching device very common among the rabbis, and used a number of times by the Rabbi Jesus. We heard an example of it some weeks ago when Jesus confronted those who were upset with him for healing that woman on the Sabbath: and he confronted them by saying, if you will rescue an animal on the Sabbath how much more a human being.

This teaching technique of light and heavy was very popular with the rabbis, and Jesus uses it again and again; even in perhaps his last teaching. Even on the road to Calvary, as he carried his cross to his crucifixion, when he met the women weeping for him, he ended by saying, “If they do this when the wood is green, what will they do when it is dry.” Light and heavy — simple and hard.

So too here the “light” is the unjust judge and the “heavy” is the just God. If even an unjust earthly judge will eventually give in and do justice for those who appeal to him, how much more will the just God hear and respond to his people when they cry out to him for justice. Light and heavy.

As with Paul’s encouragement to Timothy, this is Jesus’ encouragement to the disciples, “about their need to pray always and not to lose heart” — if an unjust human will finally do justice, will not the just God ultimately do justice as well — and far more powerfully, with far more weight?

And as with all of Jesus’ teaching, this is directed to the church to which Paul ministered and Timothy ministered — and to which all of us minister in the church today, for we are his disciples. I don’t just mean the ordained ministers but each and every one of you, as each of you has some ministry, some service in the gospel to the spread God’s gospel on earth, to let all hear of the kingdom and its coming. We are, all of us, called to persevere and persist in our work and in our prayer.

As I said a few moments ago, when I was listing some of the problems that Timothy had to face: some things haven’t changed since the first century. There are still people who will get deeply into arguments about words, using the Scripture not as a medicine for the soul but as a weapon to bash other people over the head. There are some who engage in profane chatter and spread false doctrines or their own half-baked ideas instead of relying on the wholesome gospel truth of Christ and his saving life and death, and life again. There are some who prefer myths and fantasy to the tested and assured doctrines of salvation, or who have itching ears and seek out teachers who will tell them what they want to hear, instead of challenging them with the demands that Christ places upon us. And there are some who are willing to be such teachers, willing to give people what they want to hear, and make a fine living out of it, creating personal cults with devoted followers — and we’ve seen the tragic results of such things in places like Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate.

I’m tempted almost to cite our Lord’s pessimistic — it seems — closing comment, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Will he? Will he find it hear among us? Everywhere the church seems to be in decline; it is so much less a part people’s lives today than it was even thirty years ago, even twenty years ago; while the “new age spirituality” section at Barnes & Noble takes up several shelves — and anyone with itching ears for salvation through crystals, or yoga, or transcendental meditation can find plenty to occupy their time — and fill the pockets of those who are ready to provide such spiritual junk food.

But, to quote Saint Paul, “as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.” For we have studied the Scripture together, persistently examining it and exploring it for all of the benefits that can be found in it: a light to our feet upon the way. We have recognized that the inspired Scripture is useful — this is no fantasy game! We are called and challenged, my brothers and sisters, to persevere in these disciplines of prayer and devotion and work, ministers of God as much as Paul and Timothy, each of us equipped with varying skills and differing talents, all of which can be used to the service of God and to spread God’s kingdom. Only let us persevere, and blessing and justice will be ours at last.+

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Living As If

Faith is living as if what you believe were true was true.

Proper 14c • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.

A friend of mine, June Butler, lives in Louisiana, but she has visited here at St James Church. She writes on the internet under the name of Grandmère Mimi, at a blog called “The Wounded Bird.” Her slogan there is, “Faith is not certainty so much as it is acting as-if in great hope.” That strikes me as a profound way of expressing a simple truth.

For faith is not certainty. It is not about something which you know for a fact to be true, but something you believe to be true, something you hope to be true. What’s more important, our faith and our hope are proclaimed by our acting accordingly, acting “as if” what we hoped for were a certainty. As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It is about assurance and conviction, not certainty. These two qualities reflect the outward and the inward aspects of faith. We receive assurance from the outside: from the faithful testimony of fellow-believers, and from the experiences we ourselves have; and these outward experiences ratify and confirm and strengthen our inward faith, our conviction of things not seen.

This echoes a line in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He writes, “Hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” Hope is about what you do not have, but which you believe you will have some day. It is based on a promise, a promise from one in whom you believe, in whom you place your trust, strengthened by your experience and the testimony of others.

Faith is, then, about things you believe to be true, but which you cannot prove to be true. Yet still, through that assurance and conviction, you hope that they are true, and you live your life “as if” they were true.

This is a bit like the principal called “Pascal’s Wager.” Pascal was a seventeenth century scientist and mathematician, and also a very serious and devout Christian. (It is good to remember that science and faith need not be enemies!) As a founder and developer of probability theory Pascal also scored a point for God. In his“Wager” he posed the question this way: either God exists or God doesn’t exist. If God exists, and I live my life in accordance to that belief, I stand the chance to gain life everlasting. If in the end it turns our that God does not exist, I haven’t lost anything. So wise people will bet on God existing, and live “as if” God exists — for by doing so they might gain everything, and if wrong they definitely lose nothing. This may strike you as a calculating way to come to some kind of faith; but then, Pascal was a mathematician: his faith was not based on certainty, but probability, common sense, and hope and trust.

Let me give you another example, about that little phrase, “I believe...” You would not normally use that phrase to describe something about which you are absolutely sure, some incontrovertible fact, some certainty. I would not, for instance, say, “I believe this is Saint James Church” or “I believe that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” In fact, I would normally use the phrase, “I believe,” as a way to indicate — paradoxically — that there is some slight doubt or insecurity in my mind concerning the accuracy of a given fact. “I believe so” is a way of expressing a personal opinion, perhaps even a strong one, but with the possibility that it might just be mistaken. It is a way to indicate a degree of fuzziness, as when someone asks me if they can catch a #9 bus on a given corner and I say, “I believe so.”If I were absolutely certain, if I knew the bus stopped right there, I would just say, “Yes.”

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Now, of course, this doesn’t mean we should dwell on the doubt or in the doubt. With Pascal we are encouraged to place our bets on God rather than on Not-God. We are called to rest in trust and hope, and frame our lives “as if” what we believed were true for a certainty was true for a certainty — putting our faith in our faith, our hope in our hopes, and our trust in the one whose promises are sure.

Abram does just that in the portion of Genesis we heard today. God promises him not only that he will have an heir, but will have more descendants than there are stars in the heavens. But God does not show him a vision of the children who will flow from him, the offspring of this father of nations. Nor does Abram demand a sheaf of birth certificates for proof — long form or short. No, Abram trusts God who shows him the stars themselves, and challenges him to count them, and promises him descendants more numerous than they. It is as if God were saying, Can not I, who created all these, and set these countless stars in their places in the heavens, can not I fulfill my promise to you and make you the father of many nations? And so Abram believes — not because he has seen his offspring, but because he has seen God’s greatness, and his hope has been rekindled by God’s promise — God whose faithfulness is great — and the Lord reckons it to him as righteousness.

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Jesus makes a similar promise to his disciples in the gospel passage we heard this morning. He also tells two parables about the nature of faith — to show that it is about acting “as if” — trusting in what we believe is true even when there is no certainty or proof that it is true.

One parable is about being careful: you can’t tell when a robber might rob your house, but you believe it could happen — so you always act as if it could happen at any time, even though it might never happen, if you are lucky! As with Pascal’s wager, even though your home may never be burgled, you are prudent enough to have proper locks on your door, and maybe even an alarm system from ADT. So we act as if the thief might break in and steal, to be prepared for this possibility, even if a thief never breaks in and steals.

Now, that’s not an entirely happy parable, as we certainly don’t hope our home will be broken into, but just the opposite. But given what Jesus also has to say about where our treasure should be — in heaven — there is also a happier lesson in all this. Let’s apply Pascal’s principle to it: if our true treasure is in heaven, and if we act that way, living our lives as if all that mattered is our eternal home with God, we would need fear no earthly thief, no loss of earthly treasure — for our hearts truly would there be fixed upon the life of hope and trust and faith in the one whose promises are sure.

We get a glimpse of that trusted one himself in the other parable Jesus tells in the passage this morning: the one that describes servants waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet. They do not know when he will return, but they believe that he will return. If I were to ask one of them, “Is your master going to return?” they would rightly answer, “I believe so.” But were I to ask the hour of his return, they would rightly say, “I don’t know.” And so they act as if: as if their master might return at any moment; for in fact he might return at any moment, even though he only will return at one precise moment, the moment he actually arrives — and blessed are the servants who have acted as-if all along and so are prepared to welcome him.

This is what living life “as if” is all about — being prepared for the surprising arrival of the one whose return is promised, and whose promises are sure. This is the substance of our hope, our trust, and our faith. My brothers and sisters in Christ, are you with me on this? I hope you are, I trust you are, and I’ll bet you are!+

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A Lot Like Christmas

Jesus takes after his mother in his human nature... A sermon for Advent 4c

Advent 4c • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and that is only to be expected since it’s just two days away — even closer if you count as the Jewish people did from sundown on the night before: Christmas will begin tomorrow at sundown, and we will welcome Christ’s coming with worship at 6 PM.

So it is no surprise the scriptures resound with such a Christmas spirit: that first reading today reminded us of the little town of Bethlehem — no doubt this was the Scripture that inspired Phillips Brooks to write that famous hymn; and it’s nice to know that that preacher, Phillips Brooks, himself once stood in this very pulpit when he preached at the wedding of the third rector of this church, with whom he had worked up in Boston.

However, lest we jump the gun and get too deeply into Christmas before it has actually arrived — even though it is awfully close — our gospel passage today forcefully puts us further into the sacred backstory, shortly after Mary had herself received the archangel’s greeting, “Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with you.” It has been a year since we heard that passage — on Advent Four last December; it has taken us a year to move from Gabriel greeting Mary to Elizabeth greeting Mary; from the Annunciation to the Visitation. John the Baptist, who will announce his Lord’s coming in the wilderness, even though he is still in Elizabeth’s womb, cannot suppress his excitement that his even more recently conceived Lord has come near — and he leaps up and moves in Elizabeth’s womb, and she is herself inspired, filled with the Holy Spirit, to call out that cry of joy and acclamation, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

You will of course immediately recognize that between the archangel’s greeting last year and Elizabeth’s greeting this year we have the entirety of that very ancient prayer, the Hail Mary, or Ave Maria. I say the whole of it, that is of the original version of that prayer before the Roman Catholic Church chose to add the additional words asking Mary to “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death” — that was a late addition from the stormy years of the Reformation, and one which, to be frank, has always struck me as a bit of a downer in the midst of the joy of those initial greetings of blessing and favor. As we did last year, we will conclude our worship this morning with the Angelus, a traditional way of reciting this beautiful scriptural prayer in its original form.

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But there is something far more important to note here than even the most beautiful prayer. And that is both the leaping up of the unborn John the Baptist and the affirmation that Elizabeth pronounces over Mary — that is, the reason she is blessed among women: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Mary is blessed in so many ways, from beginning to end: almost the first words the Archangel said to her affirmed that she was full of grace, or as some translations have it, “highly favored.” She is blessed in her obedience, in her willingness to accept the promise of the Lord and all of the embarrassment it might bring. She is blessed in having a husband like Joseph — a loving husband — a man who could have had her stoned to death when he discovered she was pregnant and not by him; a man who chose instead to heed the word of the Lord when it came to him as well, telling him not to take offense, but to accept the work of God, the working out of God’s purposes, that had been promised, promised for so many centuries, and yet were coming into reality even there and then.

Mary was blessed in having a cousin like Elizabeth, herself no small miracle, for she was, as our translation very politely puts it, “getting on in years,” and was considered barren, because she had never borne a child — and yet God’s same archangel Gabriel visited her husband Zechariah and assured him that his wife would bear a son who would be great, who would be the one to go before the Lord and announce his coming, to make ready a people prepared for coming of their Lord. The news struck Zechariah literally speechless, but for Elizabeth it was a blessing, a blessing that she shared with Mary when that child, so unexpected, moved for the first time, in her womb, leaped up for joy — beginning his ministry of announcing the Lord’s presence even before he was born.

And of course, Mary responded to that acclamation with her own song — the song we sang as our psalmody this morning, and in a metrical version as the Gospel hymn, that magnificent outpouring of thanksgiving known as the Magnificat: My soul magnifies the Lord.

In a way, that song is a culmination of all the blessings — blessings such as only a poor and humble person who is suddenly given incredible honors could possibly understand. It is the song of those who were cast down being raised up, the song of the hungry being fed, the song of rescue and release from captivity. These are the blessings that Mary knew in her heart of hearts, as she stored them all up.

And there is no doubt that she drew on that store — that store of blessing — and shared it with her child, Jesus, as he grew to maturity. She passed these things along to him — the one who would go on to preach release to the captives, to challenge the mighty on their thrones, to lift up the lowly by healing the sick and the suffering; by filling the hungry with bread from heaven; and by counseling the rich to give up all that they have, that their hands might be open to receive the true blessings that come from above, the blessings of life and salvation. It is easy to see that Jesus takes after his heavenly Father in his divine nature; but also very easy to see how he takes after his earthly mother in his human nature.

It is all about the blessing, you see, the blessing that came upon the one who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord. It was not just the fulfillment of her pregnancy and the miraculous birth. It was as well the fulfillment of the life of that child who lived out all of those promised blessings about which Mary sang.

It is a song we too can sing, not only with our lips but in our lives — to let our lives be canticles of thanksgiving, shouting blessings and multiplying them in the way that good things do when they are shared; for one good turn does not just deserve another — one good and gracious act can give rise to so many others; one act of kindness and generosity and grace can change someone’s life — and that life can become full of grace and yet more grace, abundant and amazing.

So let us give thanks for Mary the mother of our Lord, for Elizabeth her cousin, for John the Baptist and Zechariah, and for Joseph — this holy extended family who formed the loving and blessed environment into which the holy child was born, in which he grew to manhood, and through whom he fulfilled the purposes for which God had prepared a body for him — not just his own body, but the body of a faithful and loving and believing family, who trusted and believed in the fulfillment of what the Lord had promised. “Blessed is she — and all — who have believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken” and who do the will of God. Bless you all, my sisters and brothers , and may you — like them — be a blessing to others. We too can begin to look a lot like Christmas when we do God’s will.+

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The Cry for Mercy

Who prays to one who cannot answer prayer? The Jesus Prayer and a Brotherhood tradition.— A sermon for Proper 25

Proper 25b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
When Bartimaeus heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Today’s Gospel from Mark presents us with a turning point in Jesus’ ministry as he heads from Galilee and makes his journey on to Jerusalem. This passage also includes Mark’s last record of Jesus performing a healing — for Mark chooses not to record that Jesus healed the man whose ear was cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There are many features to this short Gospel. Consider the fact that Jericho is mentioned twice at the opening of the passage but only to say that Jesus came and went; nothing is said about what happened in-between. This does give us the opportunity, by the repetition of that name, “Jericho,” to remember that “Jesus” in Hebrew is “Joshua” — and who can forget what happened when Joshua fit the battle of Jericho!

Then, in addition to this repeated reference to Jericho, there is the immediate repetition of the blind man’s name, because Bartimaeus means “son of Timaeus.” Also note how the blind man cries out twice for Jesus to help him, before the crowd orders him to keep quiet, and again afterwards. I’m tempted to say, “Is there an echo in here; or rather three echoes?”

As soon as the echoes die down, we witness the eagerness with which the man throws off his cloak and springs up; and then Jesus asks what he wants him to do for him — which is another echo, for as Bill reminded us last week, this is the same question Jesus asked the disciples James and John in the immediately preceding passage.

Perhaps most importantly, Mark reports the speed and simplicity of the healing itself — unlike earlier healings involving physical actions and incantations in Aramaic; here the healing takes place with one word, “Go,” and the affirmation that the man’s faith has brought him healing.

All of these points are noteworthy and could be subjects, each of them, for a whole series of sermons; but today I want to focus on the third set of echoes at the beginning of the passage: the words the blind man shouted out when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” It is notable how the economical evangelist Mark repeats this phrase twice, along with all of those other repetitions, those other echoes, both before and after the people tell the man to keep quiet. As I’ve said before, when the shortest of the gospels takes the time to say something twice, and does it three or four times in this short passage today, it is Mark’s way of drawing our attention to it. It is almost as if Mark is waving at us, and saying, “Pay attention! This is important!” So let us pay attention.

First, this is the only time in Mark’s Gospel when someone addresses Jesus as “Son of David,” and it serves as a reminder and a preparation for what is about to happen, for the passage that follows immediately is the Palm Sunday account of Jesus’ entry into David’s royal city, there to fulfill the destiny prepared for him from before the foundation of the world. The blind man — think of it for a moment — the blind man is the witness in Mark’s Gospel, that this is the Son of David; he is the only one in Mark’s Gospel to refer to Jesus in this way. He is the one who has recognized that the Son of David has arrived, as long promised.

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But even that is not my focus for reflection this morning. Rather it is on the prayer of the blind man, “Have mercy on me!” This is, naturally, the prayer of any beggar seeking relief, with his hand outstretched,“Have mercy on me. But it is also the natural prayer of anyone at all seeking God’s mercy — seeking what only God can give. To some extent, great or small, rich or poor, all of us are petitioners reaching out to our generous God, asking for God’s mercy. And because we only ask for help from one whom we believe can give it, this petition is in itself the sign of faith; as it is a sign of the man’s faith that Jesus is the one who can heal him; it is a sign of his faith, the faith that Jesus assures him his faith has brought him healing. “Have mercy on me” is the prayer of a faithful heart, for who asks for something from one who cannot give?

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This particular phrase, “Jesus, have mercy on me,” formed the central part of a great prayer from the monastic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church: a prayer known simply as “The Jesus Prayer” or “The Prayer of the Heart.” A Russian monk wrote of his experience with this prayer in a short memoir, The Way of a Pilgrim. In it he describes how he wanted to do as Jesus taught and, “to pray always,” or as Saint Paul told the Ephesians, “to pray in the Spirit at all times.” He wanted to fulfill these commandments and so he sought out a wise old monk who told him to pray in this way, “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” To keep this prayer always in his mind with every breath he took, the old monk instructed him, with every breath he took, to breathe in as he said the first part in his mind, “Jesus, Son of God,” and then as he breathed out, the second part of the prayer, “have mercy on me, a sinner,” and to follow his breath in his mind’s eye, picturing his breath rising up through his nose, over the arch in back and then down into his heart, and then back up and out as he breathed out. I find it helpful to think of a pulley running up through my head and down into my chest, lowering my breath down into my heart, and then brining it back up again. This is the prayer that the man was taught and this is why the prayer is called “the prayer of the heart.” It is a profoundly meditative form of prayer, and you can see at once how it is based on the prayer of the blind man Bartimaeus, recognizing that Jesus is far more than the Son of David; he is the Son of God.

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But there is more to this prayer, and I want to share it with you this morning; and I think it is about time, as I’ve been part of this parish for thirteen years - it will be thirteen years next month. As you know, I’m part of a religious community called the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory. It was founded in 1969 with the help of a very wise woman who was a Roman Catholic nun, a member of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. She was the Mother Superior of the convent up in Riverdale, just northwest of here, and our Brother Founder met with her over several years to develop the Rule by which I and over forty other brothers now live. Some years later she visited us, the brothers, when we were on a retreat, and she introduced us to the way her community of sisters had been praying the Jesus Prayer in common — as a group — for many years, perhaps going back to the founding of their community by St Francis de Sales in 1615. I want to share it with you this morning.

It is sung — and I want you to join me in singing; remembering how Saint Augustine said, “Whoever sings prays twice.” The prayer alternates between the leader and the assembly, and all you need do is repeat after me — as you slowly breathe in as I am singing, and I will do the same as you sing out with the breath you have just inhaled. The words begin even more simply than those of the Eastern Orthodox version: just, “Jesus, Son of God, mercy” — and the prayer is repeated and grows with other petitions using the many titles by which our Lord is known, and the various prayers with which we appeal through the course of our lives; but at the heart of it is the prayer of the blind man, Bartimaeus. Let’s begin; you might find it helpful to close your eyes and raise your hands with your palms upward, reaching out as we all do to the mercy of God as we pray... Jesus, Son of God, mercy... +

Choose This Day

Not the music, not the preaching, not the stained glass windows, and certainly not the air conditioning draw us to this place today, but the love of God in Christ who has redeemed us, and whom we have chosen to follow as our Lord. A sermon for Proper 16b

Proper 16b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

There is an old story about a man and a woman being awakened one Sunday morning by the alarm clock going off. After lying there for a while doing nothing, as people are wont to do, the wife finally says, “Dear, it’s time to get up and get ready for church.” The husband complains, “Oh, I don’t want to. I hate going to church. I don’t like most of the people there and they don’t like me. The music is dull, and the sermons are so boring. I don’t want to go.” The wife responds, “But dear, you have to go. You’re the minister.”

The sad fact is that this unhappy minister is not alone. There are many people who seem to prefer to worship at the shrine of Saint Mattress on a Sunday morning, instead of going to church. Even if they don’t have any particular dislike for the church, they just don’t seem to want to make the effort. Then there are all of the people who have stopped going to church because they do have some particular dislike: they are upset about something — it could be the music, or the preacher, or the worship itself. Perhaps it is something about a decision made or position taken by the larger church — surely we all know of people who left conservative churches because they were too conservative, just as there are those who have left liberal churches because they are too liberal. People have left churches that forbid things they want to do, as well as churches that allow other people to do the kinds of things they don’t think they should be allowed to do.

One begins to wonder is there isn’t a Church of Saint Goldilocks out there somewhere — a church that offends no one because it is neither too large nor too small, not too hot and not too cold, not too hard, not too soft, but “just right.” If there is such a place, I’ve not heard of it; and I can guarantee you that if it existed someone would still find reasons to complain and to depart. “This church stands for nothing! It’s too middle-of-the-road, too wishy-washy!”

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As our Old Testament reading and Gospel show us today, this isn’t a new problem, nor is it a problem faced only by churches. God himself, and Jesus, also seem to have a hard time keeping their followers from taking offense at them and stomping off or drifting away.

Joshua put the question bluntly: he asks the people to choose that very day whom they will serve: whether the gods from the other side of the Jordan, or the gods from the land in which they have come to live, or the gods of Egypt whom they left behind — or will they choose the Lord their God who delivered them from captivity in Egypt and brought them safely through the wilderness after that wandering of forty years, finally to come to the land of promise, driving out the inhabitants of the land before them to give them a home. And of course, you see, the people swear they will serve the Lord just as Joshua and his household will.

Except, of course, they don’t. As the rest of the history of this people spells out in no uncertain terms, they go on to forsake the Lord their God, almost immediately, and in almost every conceivable way through the coming centuries; rebuked by judges, prophets and a handful of good kings; yet also corrupted and misled by crooked politicians, false prophets, and idolatrous kings.

And what about Jesus? He presents the people with a hard teaching, something that many — even many of his disciples — are unwilling to accept. He presents a difficult teaching, and they begin to drift away from him. And of course, a few of his inner circle, such as Simon Peter, swear that they will remain loyal to him.

Except, of course, they don’t. Who are they who flee when the shepherd is struck, but these very sheep of disciples? Who is it that denies Christ before the cock crows on Good Friday morning but Simon Peter himself?

In both cases — both the people to whom Joshua spoke and those to whom his namesake Jesus preached — the people do not just reject a minister or a preacher, but God. This is clearly the case with the people who turn away from the God of Israel as they accommodate the tame gods of Egypt or Canaan or Philistia. They reject the God who brought them into the land of promise with signs and wonders, with a mighty hand and a powerful arm.

But it is also clearly the case with the people who turn away from Jesus in this Gospel passage today, in part because in this passage Jesus is making the kind of claim to divine power that they simply can’t — or won’t — believe. He tells them that he is himself the bread come down from heaven, and that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will live forever. Jesus is not presenting himself simply as a good man or a wise teacher, but as the Son of the living God, who gives life to the world for those who believe, so that they might not perish, but have everlasting life. He claims to be, as Peter recognizes, and declares, the Holy One of God.

The British author C.S. Lewis, perhaps best known for his Narnia stories, once said that this sort of plain speech from Jesus leaves us with few options, as it left few options for those who heard him speak. Either we accept that he is who he presents himself as, who he claims to be, who the disciples recognize — the Holy One of God — or we must categorize him as a madman on the order of someone who claims to be a poached egg, or as a liar as bad as any devil out of Hell. There is no option to treat him as simply a good man or wise teacher. For if what he says is true he is as far above any good man or wise teacher as God is above all of humanity. And if what he says is false he is either mad or a liar. We already know that his family thought he had gone out of his mind, and no doubt some of those disciples in this passage today, who turn away from him, make the same judgment, and turn back from following him. That is their choice.

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But what about us? What is our choice? We are all here today in large part because we do believe that Jesus is who he claimed to be, the one the disciples recognized as the Holy One of God. We trust that in him we have salvation and eternal life. We believe in him, not just that he is a good man, a wise man, but that he is the Holy One of God. We are here today because of him; because at this altar-rail we share in that body and blood, that promise of everlasting life; the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation.

We are not here simply because we like each other, or you like me, or I like you — though I hope that that is true — but because we believe in Jesus Christ. We are not here simply because we enjoy singing hymns, or because you enjoy the sermons — although I hope you do get something out of them! — or because of the coffee hour, or because of the stained-glass windows, or because of the air-conditioning... No, it couldn’t possibly be because of the air-conditioning!

We are here, my friends, because we have chosen, this day and every day we choose to be in this assembly, to be with the One who has the words of eternal life. He it is who calls us to this place; he it is who gave himself up for us; he it is who is the bread come down from heaven for the life of the world, not like that which our ancestors ate, and they died; but the bread that will preserve us to eternal life, the flesh and the blood of the Holy One of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom we ascribe, as is most justly due, all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and forever more.

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