(Homily preached by Bishop Terry Brown at Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 21, 2017. Texts: Acts 17: 22-31; Psalm 66: 7-18; John 14: 15-21.)
Behind our two lessons today are two contexts or two settings, yet the conclusions very much support one another.
In Luke’s description of Paul dialoguing with the Greek philosophers of his day on the mount of the Parthenon in Athens, we see the complex religious scene of Paul’s day: the traditional Greek gods, mystery religions from the east, and new cults emerging, even one “to an unknown god”, whom Paul identifies with the Lord of heaven and earth who sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. There was probably also a Jewish synagogue somewhere at the foot of the Parthenon where Paul visited and proclaimed Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah to the Jews.
Paul, the faithful Jewish Pharisee, whose life had been turned around by his vision of the Resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus, when he was called to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, moved back and forth amongst all these diverse religious traditions, Jewish and pagan, proclaiming the resurrected Christ. His new deep faith in the resurrected Christ never wavered, whatever the context, whatever the location, whatever religious and social setting he faced, whether he was free or in prison, young or old. Christ reigned for him.
The context of John’s Gospel is later and much more settled. It is a stable Christian community, probably in Asia minor, that has suffered from internal problems and disputes, perhaps about the nature of Christ and his relationship with God. There is perhaps some conflict between Jewish and Gentile members of the Christian community or conflict with the Synagogue. In that context, the author goes back to words of Jesus that emphasize the complete unity of himself and his Father; and that out of that infinite love is promised an Advocate or Guide (the Greek word is Paraclete, the one standing beside, speaking) who will, after Jesus’ departure from earth, lead the community into all truth and peacefulness.
Like the passage about Paul, the message is deeply Christological: the perfect love of Christ is continued in the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guiding them (and us) into all truth. In two weeks we shall reach Pentecost, the celebration of the Holy Spirit. This passage from John, of course, is also one of the passages from which the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is derived.
In both passages, out of the local conflicts, whether external or internal, emerges Jesus Christ as liberator, peacemaker, source of truth: whether through Paul’s deep faith in the resurrected Christ, into which others are invited, or through the promised gift of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guiding us into all truth. The answer is not through our own cleverness (especially not through clever expositions of doctrine or even ministry) but through a basic openness to God’s love, wherever it is found.
How might we be drawn into and participate, so to speak, in these two stories? (That is our relationship with the Bible; we are invited into the stories so that we participate in them in our own lives.) Because they come out of two very different contexts, it is probably best to treat each story differently than to combine them into a single story in which we try to participate.
The story of Paul on the Parthenon amongst the pagan gods should resonate a bit for us today in our multicultural context and often, so-to-speak, supermarket approach to spirituality – take your pick off the shelf of what works for you. Paul does not unilaterally condemn but appreciates how Christ might be present in something that looks very pagan (a shrine “to an unknown god”). A friend or family member goes for a quiet walk in the woods on a Sunday morning or sits quietly on the deck with a cup of coffee and announces, “I am spiritual, not religious, that is why I do not go to church”.
That sounds just a bit like an updated version of the inscription Paul sees on a shrine, “to an unknown god”. How do we respond? Not with condemnation (though the temptation to condemn on the social media might be great) but with listening and understanding; and perhaps the suggestion that there is more to spirituality than being quiet in a quiet and peaceful place. “God has acted in Jesus Christ and we and our world are changed for the good because of it; come join us”, might be the eventual invitation.
Or friends simply may simply be struggling, with life decisions, with grief, with problems of intimacy, with illness, with old age. They may feel a glimmer of God’s love (“an unknown god”) and we are able to be with them and invite them into our fellowship. Therefore, a community should, as much as possible, be a place of vibrant faith and love, not a place of constant doubt and quarrelling.
That leads us to participating, both as community and individuals, in the community of John’s Gospel and the promise of an Advocate, Counsellor, Comforter, Paraclete or Holy Spirit, the perfect love of the Ascended Christ imparted to us by the Father. John quotes Jesus, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments”. Of course, the greatest of those commandments is to love with Christ-like love. The Advocate is the Spirit of God’s perfect love in Jesus Christ. So, we do not cherish conflict and disagreement, we do not promote it, we seek unity, we do not let paranoia take hold, we are willing to let go with faith that the Holy Spirit will work through the community and love will thereby grow and prosper. And the Holy Spirit leads to constant encouragement and bearing one another’s burdens. We become a Spirit-filled community.
The common result of these two ways of being a Christian, Paul’s and John’s, both rooted in Christ’s teaching, can be found in today’s psalm, 66, drawn from the Jewish tradition perhaps three centuries before Christ’s birth. It is a psalm that I believe we can be certain that both Paul in the synagogue and the Johannine community in the church used in moments of great joy. Possibly it is a very late psalm, written after return from exile in Babylon. The psalmist has been through great travail; he has been through fire and water but though the love and mercy of God has prevailed. Now he offers thanks and tells his story of salvation, concluding, “Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, nor withheld his voice from me.”
Sometimes we make an overly sharp distinction between the Old and New Testaments but both are sacred Scripture and both reveal the nature of God and divine love and justice. Thus, early Christians, Jew and Gentile, continued to pray the psalms, as we do to this day. The psalms have an extraordinary range of themes but this is a psalm of thanksgiving. In singing it liturgically with the passages about Paul in Athens and the Johannine community and the Holy Spirit, we are reminded that because we share in the grace of Christ’s Resurrection and because we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, the only proper response is thanksgiving to God; and this psalm says it all. We are reminded that a basic mindset of thanksgiving to God, despite whatever pain and suffering we endure, is essential to the Christian life. In Paul’s own words in his epistles, Christian life is all about thankfulness for God’s grace. Grace comes from the Greek word for gift.
Putting these three lessons together, we come up with the centrality of the resurrected Christ as a kind of anchor amidst all the cultural, religious and ideological diversity of our age; deep faith in the power of the Holy Spirit operating in the community to bring us into deeper love of one another and the world around us, leading us into all truth; and finally a deep thankfulness for God’s grace, protection and love, even though at other times we may feel like invoking the psalms of despair and anger.
I think it is a reasonable hope that as a parish we might exemplify these three themes in our ministry to one another and in the world around us. That requires listening and engagement (Paul on the Parthenon amongst the pagan gods), active trust in God’s spirit of love and letting the Holy Spirit direct us (the Johannine community of love) and always (with the psalmist) being thankful: “be joyful in the Lord, all you lands!” Who can resist that? Thanks be to God.
(Homily preached by Bishop Terry Brown at the Church of the Ascension, Hamilton, Ontario, on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 14, 2017. Texts: Psalm 31: 1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2: 2-10.)
About 25 years ago I had the privilege of having a sabbatical in Jerusalem. I took a six-week course at St. George’s College on the Bible and worship in the setting of the Holy Land. We would visit many ancient buildings and sites with histories from centuries ago to today.
At the beginning of the course, one of the instructors advised us to regard what we would see not just as interesting archaeological or architectural sites but as “living stones”, that is, places where men and women and children of faith had prayed, lived, loved and died; that the sites were soaked with humanity and faithfulness, past and present; Jewish, Christian and Muslim; Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant; places of peace and places of conflict. Indeed, that is what makes places like Jerusalem sites of pilgrimage: the sense that the stones of the place are soaked in the faithfulness and witness of all those who have been there before.
Even the stones of our church, including its windows and fabric, are living witness to those who have gone before; perhaps that is one reason we find it hard to throw things away or envision changes. As long as we are able, it is our responsibility to look after this place well for future generations.
Today’s epistle from 1 Peter, also speaks of a living stone and of living stones: the central living stone of our faith, Jesus Christ, and ourselves, as his disciples, also living stones. And we are called to let ourselves as “living stones” be built into “a spiritual house” and become “a holy priesthood”.
The metaphor of Christ and ourselves as “living stones” is striking for it juxtaposes two concepts that usually do not go together. We all know that stones are not alive; they may have had life before, for example, coal or fossils, but now they are dead. They may have life growing on them, lichen or moss, but underneath we know they are dead stone. They may be the result of violent trauma, for example, lava coming out of a volcano, but we do not really count that as life. Stones are related to the desert, with stoning people, with stone-heartedness, with headstones in cemeteries.
But stones are also the source of fresh springs; some are beautiful and produce gold, silver, jewels and many useful materials; stones can be used to build houses and churches. The walls of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation are made of many precious stones. Today’s psalm speaks of God as our foundation stone. And the Epistle quotes an Old Testament promise of a cornerstone, “chosen and precious”, understood by Peter as Jesus Christ.
In his description of Christ as “the living stone”, Peter combines these positive elements of stone with life given by God in creation and, more particularly, with the new life given to the world in Jesus Christ and his resurrection. The stone is rolled away, the resurrected Christ emerges, and the stones that were broken in the earthquake at his crucifixion now sing out with living joy. The resurrected Christ becomes “the living stone”, bringing new life to all of creation and especially to those who follow him. Christ the foundation, pours out life and spirit to all.
As disciples of Christ, we are called to be “living stones”. What might that mean? Perhaps one way to explain the metaphor is to turn every dead and negative image of stone into a living and life-giving one to describe this new life in Christ. Not “stone-hearted”, but a heart that is strong as stone from which love pours. Not “stone-headed” but a mind as strong as stone out of which creative thoughts flow; not “stone-walling” but telling the truth; not hot like flowing lava from a volcano, but alive with the Spirit of love flowing from us. Not “stone-fisted” but hands open, both to give and to receive. Not “stony silence” but silence that is friendly and welcoming. Not “stoned” on one drug or another, but alert and ready to do God’s work of love.
Today is Mother’s Day and perhaps one quality of a good mother (or parent or friend, for that matter) is this quality of being a living stone: strong as a diamond (a stone) but with life and encouragement always flowing out to her offspring and beyond. That was certainly a quality of my mother.
The Epistle makes it clear that our task as “living stones” of “the living stone” Jesus Christ is to build a house, “a spiritual home”, together. We are “living stones” in loving relationship with one another, building a community of love and self-giving, becoming together, “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God though Jesus Christ”.
Notice the focus on corporate worship, that is, offering prayers, our ministries, our acts of kindness and love, our generosity, our support of one another, our repentance, offering all to God through Jesus Christ. And, in doing so, we share in Christ’s high priesthood of self-offering on the Cross and, indeed, resurrection. We build that “spiritual home” from ourselves as “living stones”.
As such, we become, in Peter’s words, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that [we] may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvellous light”.
In the Protestant Reformation, this description of “royal priesthood” was sometimes called “the priesthood of all believers” and sometimes used to denigrate the ordained priesthood of the Roman Catholic church. In some places, this conflict continues and Anglican priesthood is similarly denigrated. Perhaps a better term is “the priesthood of the church” for Peter is writing about the completed “spiritual house” now built and shared by the whole community of the faithful. Peter’s language is corporate not individual.
The whole thrust of the Epistle is a movement from individuals (some Jews, some Gentiles, from a great variety of backgrounds, including different pagan religious backgrounds) who experience Jesus Christ and then become one people in one “spiritual home”; and it is that redeemed community that is blessed by God, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation”, and sent out to the whole world “to proclaim the mighty acts” of the one who called us “out of darkness into his marvellous light”. We are sent to proclaim as a community.
We live in a society that is very individualistic. Yesterday, I was at a celebration of a friend’s 60th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood in Toronto. At the reception, an old friend and I were talking about moving and leaving friends. She mentioned how hard it would be to leave Winnipeg upon her retirement to return to Toronto and commented, “it must have been very hard to leave the South Pacific”. And, of course, I said yes.
I have often reflected on why it has been sometimes difficult even though I have come home to friends here and been very well treated, including by yourselves. I think the answer is in that word “individualistic”. Peter, living in a less individualistic culture than ours, assumes that new Christians can move from their individual histories to a common life in Christ in which all the failures and wrong beliefs of the past are simply forgotten in the move from “darkness” to “light”. The new Christians emerge as a single body, the church, blessed by God, ready to proclaim the Good News.
If we have been raised in an Anglo-European society such as much of Canada, inevitably we have a very strong sense of our own individuality, our own autonomy, our own space, our own gifts, our own rights, our own bodies, our own duties, -- the list goes on – and inevitably we compare how we function in all these areas with how others (other individuals) function in these same areas; this culture of individualism brings us into potential (and sometimes very real) competition, comparison, criticism and conflict. One result of this individualism may be isolation and alienation.
In less individualistic cultures, as some of our Filipino and Caribbean members may be able to tell us, where people more easily put the concerns of the community or society or church over their individual needs, there is often a much greater ease about doing things together, a greater acceptance that we are one whether we like it or not and we have to love one another, and a greater ease in coming together after conflict. People don’t seem to be in such a sense of chronic upset, anxiety and distrust, even if their situations are sometimes quite dire. There is a lot more laughter and dance. Of course, such cultures also have their weaknesses and gifted individuals are sometimes put down as a threat or the become object of jealousy. But generally, because people have been socialized into the full village or extended family from birth, there is greater comfort with being part of the community, at least the local community. “Enemies” may be another story.
So, coming back from the South Pacific with a lot of my individualism worn off, now taking community for granted, after 16 years of usually harmonious church life where every Sunday is a joy, perhaps the biggest challenge for me in Canada is why people get upset so easily and often have a hard time getting along with one another. (I am not particularly referring to our parish here but to all sorts of organizations from parishes to theological colleges to condo boards. We seem to like to argue.) To answer, I can only come back to our strongly ingrained sense of individualism which includes always differentiating ourselves as an individual from the other, and at worse, a sense of individual privilege and the need to judge others critically all the time. Building the kind of community Peter envisions in today’s Epistle is sometimes not so easy in such a context.
But for me, it is the only hope, whether for excessively corporate cultures where individuals are sometimes unfairly suppressed or for individualistic western societies: the pattern put forward in this passage: through faith in Christ, becoming living stones (stones that bring life rather than harm), building a spiritual house together (in our case, a loving parish community), moving from the darkness of the past to light, and letting God make us (with many other loving communities) “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people”. Only then will we effectively proclaim the Good News to the world in example and word. That is, I believe, what we are trying to do.
I believe this process is already working amongst us, for example, in our various ministries of hospitality. Indeed, our benchmark and goal is expressed in the final sentence of the Epistle: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Let those words be our benchmark, end and goal as we strive to be living stones, building here and now a “spiritual home” of God’s love in Jesus Christ, to be offered to God though our royal priesthood, and shared in deep joy with a broken world that needs it so badly. May God strengthen us all, God’s “spiritual house” in this place in this sacred ministry. Amen.
Let us pray. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable before you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Good morning, my friends. It is so good to be here.
From today’s Gospel, “While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”
Throughout our lectionary for today, there seems to be this running theme of eyes being opened, freshly received spiritual vision, and new truths being revealed and learned.
The Collect prayer, for example, is a plea for spiritual vision, so we may, individually and as church, see Jesus, revealed in acts of redemption, acts of liberation from sin, death, oppression, any form of diminishment. Acts of redemption, acts of liberation which take place in the here and now, yours, mine, and that of the church.
The first lesson, from the Acts of the Apostles is an account of how the eyes of those in the crowd Peter was addressing were opened to their own role in the death of Jesus, to the power of His resurrection, and to the salvific consequences of such revelations, experienced and appropriated through repentance, and baptism.
The Epistle lesson, on the other hand, belongs in a wider argument from the first letter of Peter, for Christians to lead blameless lives, even if in the middle of social mockery or hostility, or worse, discrimination and even persecution.
It is their Christian faith, says the writer of the Epistle of Peter, what enables them to not lose sight of their inheritance, which lies well beyond the temporary powers and glories of this world and, more specifically so, the powers and glories of a “pagan” social reality in which the place of Christianity is questioned, mocked, or even brutalized, by competing political and religious loyalties and powers.
And, we just heard the Gospel according to Saint Luke, and its account of the encounter of two disciples with Jesus on the road to Emméus --how their eyes were opened both to the good news of salvation and forgiveness of sins brought about by the Christ, and to the ordinary, friendly presence of Jesus by their side.
And I want to reflect on this Gospel with you, if only briefly so. It is very tempting to hang onto every bit and turn of this Gospel lesson -its beauty and depth -but I will not go so far.
Our two disciples, our two Emméus hikers, are making their trip ‘on that same day’, on the very day of Jesus’ resurrection. This may well explain why they have such sparse details about the message from the women, or its meaning.
The events leading to the crucifixion, and indeed the life of Jesus himself, lie in their immediate past (they say “Jesus of Nazareth, who WAS a prophet”) and like the other disciples in Jerusalem, these two are still trying to make sense of it all.
These two disciples on the road to Emméus knew, and sure they knew, all sorts of chronological details about “Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people”. And, yet, they did not know. As the Gospel says, something prevented them from recognizing, Jesus.
Also, --if we think about it, this was a very ‘normal’, ‘ordinary’ scene, to be sure. If you look at the map of the route between Jerusalem and Emméus, in the last before page of your bulletins, even by modern standards, it is not a walk in the park, 7 to 9 hours in all -only half way Hamilton to Toronto, on the other hand.
By the way, apologies for the low definition of that map. It is a long walk, by all accounts. We don’t really know why they are on it. I guess they were just going to Emméus. And Jesus joins them on that road, and walks with them in their grief and confusion.
Seemingly, the appearance of Jesus to these two disciples was also overall ordinary -just as, if you remember from our Easter Sunday gospel, Jesus had looked ‘normal’, ordinary, to Mary Magdalene-- that neither knew it was Jesus who had come to meet them.
The last time any of them had seen him, Jesus was beaten, and bleeding. Now, here He was, glorified in a way that they could just not know who He was. How could anyone know, really?
As Jesus meets them, he does not dictate, but asks. He meets them, just like Jesus meets you and me and us all, just where we are.
And, while embracing them, even in their pain and confusion, Jesus goes on to open for them the Scriptures, a sort of holy teaching of the Law and the Prophets, which sets the stage, so to speak, for the shared meal.
But, as we know, it is the experience of gathering around bread, of sharing bread, blessed and shared --it is only this that, finally, opens their eyes to the revelation of the seemingly obvious, that it has been Jesus walking with them, all along.
This Gospel, just like Jesus to these two disciples, sneaks into our imagination and comes to speak, more than about an event on the road to Emméus, but even about the path of those who follow Jesus, and indeed the path of the Church. Yours and mine.
At the end of this service, we go out into the world, as the dismissal encourages us, to love and to serve. It is a road of sorts, with an intended destination, and a somehow discernable path. We read and examine and study the Scriptures that speak to and reveal the Christ, moved by faith, nourished by hope. We look ahead to Jesus, the consummation of our faith, and fix our eyes in his promise and glory. We live, and seek to do so in a godly fashion, in the world, in friendship to this reality in which God has planted us.
We struggle, no doubt, with our own blindness, with the twists in the road, with the past we don’t quite understand and the future we know nothing about. We sometimes struggle among ourselves.
Still, becoming one from our differences, we share our stories, and are even ready to put our faith in practice by welcoming the stranger, and sharing experiences, lodging, and food, with those whom we find, or those by whom we are found, and met, on the road.
It is the sharing of food, though, it is the enactment of common hopes and longings, it is the sacrament of abundance and access for all, what triggers our Jesus-detector, it would seem, and also that of the disciples on the road to Emméus.
The eucharist, the prologue to the heavenly banquet, the sacrament of equality and mutuality, is the sure sign for our being in the presence, being accompanied by, Jesus --under whatever form we might not otherwise recognize -be it bread and wine, or the very fellowship of the gathered community.
The sharing, the welcoming, the nourishing, in whatever language or ceremonial style, is a sure sign that Jesus is meeting us, even under the guise of folks who might not otherwise look or sound like the Jesus of the Gospels -let alone the Jesus of our cultural imagination.
Folks like you, and me, and the brother or sister who spoke to you last, the brother or sister who will join you in your own pilgrimage, or that of the church, and ask you, and us all, in love, or even in pain, if that is the case, ‘what is it that you are talking about?’.
As I was talking with the children, at the beginning of the service, it is not often easy to know how to recognize friends. And then how do we recognize ‘Super-friend Jesus’ -in others? What helps us see Jesus in others, even if it takes a long time for us to realize so?
Now, think about ¿what would help others see Jesus in you? And me? And us? Even if it takes time? Even if theology and Bible and sacraments, or your subject of choice, might not be the first item in our conversation? Or even if such are the only items in our sharing?
¿How to be Jesus to others, in this city, this neighborhood, this congregation, today, in our own context, without necessarily getting all christiansome about it, every time? Or, to put in in a different way, how to best follow saint Francis of Assisi’s admonition, “preach the Gospel, and use words, when necessary”, here where we are?
Our parish community, through the service and ministries of both its clergy and lay people, has been and wants to go on trying all of this, by hosting outreach groups, with new initiatives like community cooking, with the persisting desire to open ourselves, our building and our arms and our hearts, to those to whose encounter Jesus is calling us, and in fact, those in whom Jesus is indeed meeting us, making us one is the love, sacrifice, salvation, and wholesome human fellowship. Jesus, by whatever name, who is God made Guest, our friend on the road, and at the table.
Let us continue making it so. Thanks be to God. Amen. Alleluia.
