Holy Trinity - June 03

Do you know what déjà vu is?  It’s that feeling of having been somewhere, or done something before. In fact, it’s that feeling of reading the 3^rd chapter of John’s gospel for the 3^rd time in 12 weeks.  I’m almost at the point that, when I die and go to heaven and meet Nicodemus, I’m going to kick him in the shins.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Nicodemus, and certainly, John 3:16 speaks as clearly to my own heart as it does to that of any other Christian believer.  But it’s not all there is in the gospel.  Not by a long shot.  It’s a beautiful synopsis; a clear snapshot of the gospel in a few words.  If it is all you have to guide your faith by, you will find little better.  But the fact of the matter is that Christians have more – much more – revelation and Scripture to use to guide their faith that just John 3:16.

A while ago, two airline pilots were disciplined when their airliner was found to be 150 miles off course. The pilots blamed a faulty guidance system; the airliner accused the pilots of being asleep.  The actually cause is probably somewhere in the middle: both bodies could have, and should have, been more responsible for their own actions.

I know that many of you remember the story of the Gimli Glider, a Boeing 767 enroute from Montreal to Edmonton that ran out of fuel and was forced to glide to a landing at the thriving metropolis of Gimli, Manitoba.  The cause?  Fuel in the aircraft had been calculated using the relatively new metric system, but recorded in the traditional manner of gallons and pounds.  There had been a fundamental shift in the way that airlines and air travel operated, but the individuals involved still clung to their previous ways of doing things.

It’s kind of like distilling the entire bible down into John 3:16, and then decided that one verse is all you ever need.  As good as it is, if you build a theology around just one verse of Scripture, you will miss countless others that will break you down, and build you back up again.  Because just one verse of Scripture can’t stand alone out of the thousands that are contained in the Bible; there are many verse that seem contradictory, confusing, consanguineous or corrupt.

As a result, the church through time has developed doctrines that help define or bear witness to a traditional understanding of theological things; since today is Holy Trinity Sunday, in a practice first set aside in the 10^th century we celebrate the only festival day that commemorates a doctrine of the church.

And yes, the Holy Trinity is quite possibly the most confusing doctrine of the church. Far more learned scholars than myself have gone on record to say that there is no rational, static, definition that describe the Holy Trinity without confessing some very old heresies.  It is best describing using language that is active, relational, and dynamic – in short, using language that speak of God being, rather than God doing.

That is to say then, that we need to re-orient ourselves out of the traditional Lutheran practice of believing doctrine for doctrine’s sake, and into the experience of God made manifest and visible to us through the written Word, the Word proclaimed in the church, and the Living Word of Jesus Christ.

So, perhaps John 3:16 is kind of a magnetic north, that can keep us oriented in our lives; but what the Holy Trinity then supplies is not something as antiquated as a road map or as direct as a GPS; but rather the guarantee, and promise, of companionship on our journey.  If we simply fix our sight on that magnetic north and strive for it (as many polar explorers have throughout our own history), we will leave our path strewn with broken relationships, bodies, and become even more alone and isolated than we thought possible.

So, think for a minute about what it might mean to truly experience God.  To be close.  There’s a whole heap of devotional literature that longs to describe it; God as a gentle, loving Father; God as the righteous judge; God as one’s best friend.

And turn to Isaiah, and see what Isaiah saw.  Isaiah 6 is a vision; it’s a dream, or an oracle, and Isaiah describes actually experiencing God.  And it is terrifying for him.  Isaiah is standing in the Temple, where God lives; God's presence is so large, that the hem of the Lord's robe alone fills the temple space. This is vastness. Strange and wonderful creatures envelop the throne. Smoke obscures the whole scene. We are used to the images of fire and smoke, cloud and height being associated with God. It is all here. And, in comparison with that grandeur, we see ourselves, along with the narrator, as puny and inadequate.  In some classical artwork of this scene, and along with some commentary on this lesson, people have captured the expression on the faces of those seraphs not as ecstasy, but agony at being so close to the pure, unadulterated holiness of God.

But God's power to cleanse and make whole is ready to do its work.  It not something that Isaiah does for himself; instead, recognizing that his is unclean and powerless in the presence of God he is overcome with guilt, and one of those seraphs – itself a servant of the Lord – comes and bear God’s redeeming power in the form of a burning coal.  As he is made clean, Isaiah joins the hosts around God’s throne, and as a cleansed servant of God is sent out again to bear the word of God’s own work: that Israel can be saved.

But of course, Israel doesn’t listen.  Instead of coming together in the promise of God (who promises to all people), they remain fragmented and aloof, trusting in foreign powers and the rich and mighty of their own society and ignoring the few and needy among them as unworthy and untouchable.

All this happens before the revelation of God made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. On the other side, is Paul, writing to the fledgling church in Rome, itself fragmented and conflicted.  The church was struggling with relationships both within its own walls and with the culture that surrounded it – as was every church then, and now.  Paul’s response was to write to them, and remind them that their faith looked very different from the faith that centred around the Temple and it’s actions.

What Paul did was to describe that the relationship between believers mirrored the relationship that God has with God’s own self: it is the Holy Spirit that leads us to recognize that we are children of God the Father, and sisters and brothers with Christ, the Son.  The Spirit that we receive – the same one given on Pentecost, received at our baptism – is a Spirit that should lead us out of fear and into freedom.

Being oriented to fear leads us to curve inwards, putting our own needs and desires ahead of others.  Fear – fear of death, fear of the unknown – is what drives us to consume and define ourselves by what we have, or what we can get.  It’s the “he who dies with the most toys” mindset; the same one that equates our self worth with our net worth.  Paul knows what he’s saying when he points out that way leads to death.

It’s fear that drives us to define ourselves over and against another group – and fear that divides us.  The greatest moral challenge of the Lutheran church in the 20^th century was when it began to form ecumenical agreements with other Christian bodies and participate in ecumenical ministries – instead of sitting back and refusing to engage with others until they agreed we were ‘right’, the bodies that became the ELCIC began to see that if, indeed we had received a Spirit of adoption, then we can remain ourselves and still be in relationship with others in our community.  That, in fact, unity did not mean or require uniformity.

They re-oriented themselves so that, rather than their own (obviously) correct orthodoxy at the centre, the Trinity became that centre and their own relationships – flawed though they were – modelled after the God who called them, gathered them, and enlightened them, just as every Christian has been called, gathered, and enlightened by the power of the Holy Spirit working in the world.

And perhaps, beloved, that is the biggest thing to learn from a doctrine of the church.  That doctrine does not save us, but is meant to satisfy us to some extent that God is indeed active and working in our lives.  The Holy Trinity – an ancient doctrine of the church that bears witness to God who exists in unity and in community, in turns bears witness to us that we are called into modelling that relationship with others – orients us to understand that in the relationships in our community that we bear witness to our own adoption, and our own salvation.

Bearing witness to the fact that, indeed, God did so love the world that God redeemed it, cleansed it, called it, and sent it out as the body of Christ in that same much-loved world.

Be that body, beloved.  Your souls are won.  In your baptism you are adopted into the family of God and become beloved children.  Live in that family.  Love each other.  And make it your priority to enlarge that family – multiply our smiles here, beloved, because God smiles on us.

Pentecost Sunday - May 27, 2012

Mortal, can these bones live?

The prophet Ezekiel stands at the edge of a valley; it is full of bones.  He does not know why it is full of bones; but full, it is.  Bleached white by the sun, they stretch as far as the eye can see and, as the Lord leads him around he sees that there are many, and they are very dry.  There is nothing left; nothing to bind bone to bone, to animate them, to give them life.  There is nothing, not even hope.

Where did those bones come from?  Ezekiel doesn’t know, only that they are the bones of the whole house of Israel.  Israel.  The great kingdom of David; the kingdom of Solomon, the nation of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob has fallen.  They are bones.

How does that happen?  How can it happen?  A great calamity, a great catastrophe has befallen the great nation - upon which rested the promise of God – and they have become nothing less than a valley of dry bones.  What could that have possibly been?

In C.S Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters, the author imagines conversations between the under-demon Wormwood and his boss, the uber-demon Screwtape.  It is Wormwood’s challenge to afflict one particular believer, to undermine his faith.  Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood is that the “safest path to hell is a gradual one,” in which the main challenge is to confuse, conflict, and eventually corrupt a person, rather than tempt them to evil. 

At one point in the letters, Screwtape notes that the greatest weapons they have are disinterest, dis-connection, and dis-heartenment.  After all, it is not necessary for the tormentors to incite a person to evil – it is enough simply to let their faith slide off into nothingness, into a valley of relativity and self-pleasure, where they become nothing but dry bones.  Screwtape encourages Wormwood to promote passivity and irresponsibility in his charge, noting that “God wants [people] to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

Maybe that’s what happened to the bones.  Maybe, faced with the challenges of faith, they found it easier to disconnect from the life-giving community and their bones each joined the bones of others who found that, alone, they could not sustain themselves.  The Spirit of God and promise of God was not given to just one individual, but to the nation that sprang forth – and that God’s word is liberating not just to one individual, but through community.

Peter stands with one community that is learning the Spirit of God is moving among them.  They’ve been fractured, but they’re beginning to pick up some of the pieces.  Their grief is still raw, yet it is tinged with something else.  It is hope?  Maybe.  They’re standing in the valley, and it is full of bones.  The bones have names: joy, community, hope, peace, love…the future.  They are very dry, but somewhere, a wind is stirring. 

The disciples have seen Jesus ascend into heaven.  Matthias now stands in their midst, taking up the responsibilities of Judas.  They are faced with a hostile crowd, still anxious and ready to put to death anyone who wants to question the status quo. 

Into the reality of a group that has seen their leader die and experienced the wild hope of resurrection, when they have already scattered and been brought back, it is going to be easier to walk away, to stop caring and stop engaging in the community, to become a safe face in the crowd. 

They’ve seen the cost of believing.  The cost of what they do is the price of who they are.  It is a high, high, cost to pay – but what is it worth to them, for forfeit their lives to be part of something greater?

Somewhere, they can hear the question: mortal, can these bones live?

Today is a bit of a rare occasion; Pentecost is commemorated once a year, and of course in the congregation there is an awareness that confirmation Sunday should happen at some point in time – but, perhaps you’ve noticed that I did not, in fact, have a youth confirmation class.

But then three people expressed interest in the same themes and ideas, and we began to meet together, and I did suggest that they could, on this day, choose to publically affirm their baptism.  On this day, they do, indeed, think more about what they do and less about what will happen to them.  There is no huge price for them to pay today – but in their faith lives, they have each intimately known the cost of discipleship.  We affirm our faith together; individuals affirm their baptism.

We all have our share on trials and temptations, and I think we can all likely track our own struggles with the Christian faith.  Whether we believe in such a lively sort of temptation as CS Lewis, or simply become aware of our own periods of indifference and disengagement, we can understand together that faith is never our job.

As Luther affirms, and as we believe, teach and confess in the explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed (Small Catechism): “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or understanding believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in one true faith… even as he calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole church.” The Spirit is alive and active in you and in me, re-making us in the very likeness of God.

Ezekiel stands in the middle of the valley, surrounded by bones.  But I would, with some confidence, guess that many of you know what that valley looks like, don’t you?  You’ve been there in your personal life, your professional life, your family life.  You know what it’s like to be surrounded by death and without hope.

So I ask all of you this, today: mortals, can these bones live?

YES! Those bones can live.  You know they can – you have been those bones.  Those bones are very dry, ALL of our bones – our beings – are very dry.  In the waters of baptism they are given life, and as at Pentecost the Holy Spirit breathes life into them, and raises them up from the pit in which they lie, and they have life – but more than that, they have abundant life.

The bones live, they have life, they are built and brought up and out by the power of nothing less than God’s own Holy Spirit.

From dry bones that have no life to the bodies of the whole of Israel that rise up and worship their Redeemer; liberated from the hopelessness of death and the endless weariness of life – they are restored.

Instead of more scorching heat of fire, God breathes life into the dry bones.  Those who said, “we are dried up and our hope is lost,” find hope restored to them and they are raised up by God.

Mortal, can these bones live?

Yes, these bones can live.  Though dry and tested and weary by days and years in the wilderness, they will find life.  Those who felt their hope cut off, find that they are restored. 

“I will put my spirit within you,” says the Lord,  “and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil, and you shall know that I am the Lord thy God.”

Be the church together, beloved.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to move in the lives of those who today affirm and renew their baptismal covenants; pray that the Spirit will continue to move in your lives, and in our life, together.  The Holy Spirit is the gift to the church of God’s renewing presence.  Pray and sing, taste and see that the kingdom of God is with us, and among us; with you, and among you, and know that your bones will live, and find life everlasting through the magnificent gift of God.

Easter 6 - Fruit that Lasts

A long, dark hallway.  That’s what I remember. 

Odd, because hospitals only have long, dark hallways in the movies – especially when there’s some psychopath hiding, ready to jump out and attack you.  But there was no such luck in this hospital.

It was my second year of Seminary, my first month of clinical pastoral education; a eight-month hospital internship that was supposed to help me a) hone my pastoral skills; and b) become more self-aware about myself and my call to ministry.  The long, dark hallway represented my first ‘near-death experience’ – not my own death; but the first time that I, as a chaplain, was called to minister to someone who was dying, and was called to care for their family.

Quiet panic was the order of the day.  As I walked down that hallways, I was filled with all sorts of thoughts and doubts – thoughts about what I would say, what I would see; doubts about my abilities, and doubts about my call and vocations.

And this verse wandered through my head: “you didn’t choose me.  I chose you.”  And somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my mind I thought: “gee, thanks Jesus.  I’ve been chosen.  Now what!!??”

“Now what?” Jesus replies: “now, go and bear fruit that lasts.”

I think that one of the hardest experiences we may share as Christians is that seminal moment when we’re called to put our stated faith into action; to go and sit with the family of a dying person, to bring a casserole to the mother whose husband just left her, to knock on the door of the home of the family that just lost a child, take a deep breath, and love them.

That’s bearing fruit that lasts.  And curiously enough, that’s something Christians don’t do often, or well.  Because we live in a society of instant gratification, we think that because we spout out a sound byte, or shake our heads at a culturally appropriate time, that we are bearing fruit: it’s quick, easy, and makes us feel good.  Like buying an apple at a store, and declaring it to be ‘our apple’.

But like Christianity that is purchased at a church, that apple has been picked too soon, commercialized, chemicalized, and commodified.  It may not even wither and die – it will remain waxy and glossy on the surface long after it has rotted at its core.  If you have ever tended a fruit tree, though, you know the work that is required to produce good, lasting fruit.  Incessant pruning, caring, and hard work is necessary to bear good fruit, and that fruit does not last long when it is removed from the tree.

So, US President Barack Obama made history this week, when he became the first President in US history to go on record as stating that he supports gay marriage.  Rush Limbaugh stated that Obama has declared war on marriage – but his first, second, and third wives couldn’t be reached for their opinion.  Being homophobic is not showing support, or love, for family.

But, interestingly enough, if someone hangs out a sign promoting ‘love for families’, or ‘support for families’ they risk being immediately labeled as exclusive, fundamentalist, misogynistic, or some combination of all three – because of the association with fear and violence that reactionary, hateful rhetoric of the debate has come to represent. 

Fruit that lasts isn’t opinion, or repeating verbatim what some pastor said.  The only fruit that lasts is love; and love shows itself in action.

There is probably no word more mis-used or mis-understood in the whole of the English language than ‘love.’  People ‘love’ chocolate (and I’m going to avoid pointing at my wife at this point!), they love sports, money, vacations in Mexico, their car, their hairstylist, and we all know that most men just love beer.

We also know that with a divorce rate approaching 50%, love for beer and chocolate is often considered far more important than love for one’s spouse.  There are appreciation days for ‘beer lovers’ and ‘chocolate lovers’ and ‘shopaholics’ – “free love” was my the anthem of my mother’s generation, the Beatles sang “love is all you need” and there’s a sign outside a store I drove past the other day called “The Love Boutique” (I somehow don’t think that’s a therapy group). 

The way we love shapes our families: it’s a hard rule to learn about parenting: it’s easy to say words to build up a child, than it is to say words to repair an adult (I know enough adults struggling to repair damage done in childhood by hurtful words spoken by parents).

When I was younger, a friend of my mother’s was trapped in an abusive relationship.  Her husband beat her, threatened her and her children, controlled her in terrible ways and made her life almost unbearable.

One evening I overheard my mother talking to this woman.  My mother asked, “why do you stay?”

And her friend replied simply, “he says he loves me.”

Beloved, we love as we have been shown love

You’d think, for all the community-awareness campaigns for domestic violence, that the rate would be going down.   But it’s not.  It’s going up.  The only war that’s being waged on the family is the one that happens when love is confused for control.

The love that is given to us – that is modeled for us by the Saviour – is the love that we need: love lived in sacrifice, in community, and in joy.  There are so many interpretations of the idea that someone can ‘lay down their life’ for another.  But here’s something to think about:

There is only one person in all of history who chose to lay down his life, and that was Jesus – because only Jesus did not have to die.  Everyone else does.  No one chooses to lay down their life, because it is not theirs to lay down.  Through sacrifice, suicide, or stupidity, we can chose to end our lives early – but they are still going to end.

Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the by whom we became children of God chose to lay down his life in death so that our death would not be the end; and we he picked his life up again he raised us up through his power so that the fruit we bear would be eternal fruit.

We bear fruit that lasts because of the gift of Christ within us; the living waters of baptism in which we are washed, blessed, cleansed, and claimed by God.

Because of God with us, we bear fruit; because of Christ within us, we bear fruit that will last eternally: the proclamation of love and grace that we are part of something greater than ourselves.

We did not choose to bear fruit; the fruit tree, left to its own devices grows gnarled and notched.  But beloved, we have been chosen to bear fruit; to be the stones out of which Christ builds God’s holy church.  Every stone in a wall is under pressure, but that pressure is shared by every other stone.  Every piece of fruit on every giving tree is nourished by the same nutrients that come from the root; there is none that is by nature better than another.

Be the church together, beloved.  Support each other.  Care for each other.  Love each other.  You have been given the gift of joy – share that gift.