Monday, 15th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 22:30-23:11
Morning Prayer

“It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial” (Acts 23:6)

To catch us up, The Roman Tribune had had enough of Paul starting a riot every time he opened his mouth, and was about to have him whipped (that is, tortured) to find out what his real agenda. At that point Paul played the trump card of his Roman citizenship. Less than 100 years earlier, Mark Antony had granted Roman citizenship to some Jews who had supported his military campaigns. Thus, not only was Paul a citizen of Rome, but his citizenship was inherited, at least as far back as his father, and maybe his grandfather. Once, informed of this fact, the Roman commander’s treatment of Paul improved dramatically.

Hoping to calm things down, the commander convenes the ruling council of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, for Paul to address them. Unfortunately, when Paul can’t say one sentence without getting smacked in the face, then civil debate isn’t much of a possibility. So, Paul decides to play two political arties off against each other.

The Sadducees were the party of priests, descending from Moses’s brother, Aaron. The Pharisees were the part of teachers and reformers. The other main difference between them was that the Sadducees only considered the first five books of the Bible to be authoritative, while the Pharisees considered the prophetic books (such as Isaiah and Ezekiel) to also be authoritative. If you looked only to the “Pentateuch,” then there didn’t seem to be much basis on which to conclude that there was any afterlife for human beings. This life alone was God’s gift to us. It is in the later prophetic writings that the Jewish people began to glimpse the possibility of Resurrection, which the Pharisees did. By invoking the Resurrection of the dead, Paul starts an argument between the Sadducees and Pharisees. That’s probably not what the Roman commander wanted, but it kept the Council from condemning Paul.

Just to be clear, Paul means our resurrection, not just Jesus’s. His Resurrection is just the first. Ours is the last to come. Resurrection is not just the escape of our souls from the prison of the body. Our bodies are as much gifts of God as everything else he gives us. When will that happen? Why so long? Well, 2,000 years isn’t really that long if we are people who believe in life for eternity. In the meantime, we are to treat our bodies as the gift that God has given us, and in the words of Jess Jackson, keep hope alive.

Sermon for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51)

In one way, the Gospel of John is the ultimate chick flick. It's about three hours of Jesus talking, and talking and talking. On the other hand, most of Jesus's talking isn't getting him any love. For most of these three hours, "the Jews" are just getting madder and madder at Jesus. This long chapter six has had the same effect on Christians. Is Jesus saying that the bread and the wine really is his physical body and blood, or is he really saying that the bread and wine are symbols of his spiritual presence? And just like "the Jews," we Christians have argued among ourselves and had a grand adventure in missing the point. We have argued so much about the bread and wine that we have forgotten that most real presence of Jesus is in each and every single one of us.

So, back to the chick flick. Jesus has been talking for the last four weeks, with one Sunday yet to come. And all his talking has hit a wall with his fellow Jews. Even his disciples are clueless. First he feeds 5,000, to which the people respond, Oh Jesus we love you and we want to make you our King. To which Jesus responds, No, you really just want me to give you more bread. But Moses gave us bread in the wilderness, they come back with. No, Jesus corrects them, God gave your ancestors the bread and then they died. You need the bread of everlasting life. So can you give us this bread, they ask? Sure, Jesus answers, I'm that bread. You don't really mean that, do you Jesus? Oh but I do, Jesus says today. Unless you chew and gnaw on my flesh, and consume every ounce of my blood, you're dead. The Greek word translated as "eat," really means to chew. The language is shocking, but it is the language that Jesus uses. That's why we keep the reserved sacrament in the aumbry, and why we keep a candle lit whenever there is consecrated bread and wine in there. Jesus holds nothing back when he gives himself to us. And as long as that lamp is lit, then know that Jesus is here.

One mistake that too many Christians have made through the centuries has been to try and improve Jesus’s explanation. Transubstantiation, consubstantiation, transsignification, are all long words that human beings have invented to try and make sense of Jesus's words today. The doctrine of the Real Presence is not a philosophical insight, or a scientific theory. It is a mystery that is revealed to us, which we accept on the basis of our trust in Jesus Christ. Perhaps the truest words ever spoken about the Real Presence may have been the briefest. The words belong to Queen Elizabeth I, who when asked for her opinion, simply said, "Twas God the word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it; And what the word did make it; That I believe, and take it." We trust Jesus’s word that he is as close to us as our own tongue, our own stomach, our own heart.

Another mistake that Christians have made through the centuries is that they have focused too much on Jesus being really present in the bread and wine. Yes, when we eat this bread and drink this wine, we receive Jesus’s Body and Blood. But for what? Is the point that Jesus is present in the bread and wine, or that Jesus is present in each of us? Perhaps we focus on the altar because, if we begin to reflect on what Jesus shares with us, that sharing will not stop until we die. “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh,” Jesus says. Each Sunday, we relive Jesus’s Last Supper with his disciples. More than that, we relive his Passion, his death on the Cross, and his Resurrection from the tomb.

When we share the bread, we share in his death, by which he gave his life for the life of this world. And when we share the wine, his life flows through us, giving new life to this broken world. Can we focus so much on the altar, the aumbry, the music and the chasuble, that we forget to die? The death of those we love, our own death, those things must come. But to share in the bread of life is also to die daily, to fear, to anger, to grief. Those are all a kind of death, because fear, anger and death feed on hopelessness and loneliness. The Good News is that when we share the bread, then Jesus shares our small deaths. We are not alone. And when we share the wine, then Jesus brings new life out of our small deaths: new relationships, new hope, new joy.

Jesus is really and truly present, in this bread and wine given for our eternal life, and in all our joys and hopes, our grief and our anguish. For His word spake it; He took the bread and brake it; so what His word has made it, believe and take it.

Friday, 14th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 22:1-22

Morning Prayer

It’s easy to read this part of Acts with a sense of hopelessness. Paul can speak to them in their language; he can trot out all his credentials. But say the one word, “Gentiles,” and the crowd loses all perspective: So, you are preaching to the Gentiles. Now we know that all the charges are true, that you want to destroy all that makes us Jewish, God’s chosen people. Read the 5th chapter of Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, and you’ll see how hard he tried to make his Gentile protégés more Jewish. But his listeners are incapable of accepting anything Paul says about his mission to the Gentiles. They only want to believe the worst, and are incapable of having their minds changed by anything as inconvenient as facts.

Paul is speaking to a righteous people with centuries of grievances and resentments against the world which has either ignored them or oppressed them. They are so sure of their righteousness, and the Gentiles’ unrighteousness, that salvation can only mean vindication for themselves and punishment of the Gentiles. But even worse than this has been the shoe on the other foot for nearly 2,000 years. How many mobs of “Christians” have Jews had to face, culminating in the Holocaust. True, it was anti-Christian Nazis who perpetrated that atrocity. But they had centuries of anti-Jewish Christian polemic as a foundation for their policy of isolation, and eventual extermination of the Jews.

The painting to the left is by Marc Chagall, and is entitled, “The White Crucifixion.” Jesus is wearing the Jewish prayer shawl, and he is surrounded by the images of persecution, many of which Chagall saw as he grew up in Russia. Surrounding Jesus are the pogroms where local Jews saw their houses and synagogues burned, were forced to leave their homes. And when the Russian Czar was overthrown, the Communists with their blood-red flags simply continued the persecution. Christians also viewed redemption as a game of vindicated and punished, of winners and losers, with the Jews as the losers. But God is not interested in picking winners and losers. Salvation, as I said yesterday, is not a zero-sum game. If Paul, the ultimate enemy of Christianity, could become its greatest champion, then we all should see our enemies as potential friends.

Thursday, 14th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 21:27-40

Morning Prayer

He almost made it. The seven days of ritual purification were almost done. Then Paul likely wouldn’t be seen in the Temple, with his mere presence an incitement to riot. But while it doesn’t say, I think we can assume that Paul made it back to Jerusalem, as he had hoped, in time for the great Jewish festival of Pentecost. That was when the people of Israel celebrated the giving of the law to Moses. Israelites zealous for the law had come from distant parts. And having seen Paul and a Gentile together, they were ready to assume the worst; that Paul had brought this Gentile where no non-Jew was to be brought.

It’s really a miracle that the mob didn’t kill Paul before the Roman Tribune got there with his troops. Still, the last thing the Tribune wants to do is to try and comprehend an incomprehensible quarrel among these strange people. I’m reminded of the cartoon where a frog agrees to carry a scorpion across the water, because of course the scorpion would sting the frog and drown with him. Of course that’s exactly what the scorpion does. Why did you do that, the frog cries. Now we’ll both drown! It makes no sense! You forget, the scorpion said, this is the Middle East. Little has changed.

The path of least resistance is to slap chains on Paul, and then figure out what he’s done to disturb the fragile quiet. Paul’s path of least resistance might be to play the card of his Roman citizenship, and get out of there alive. But Paul has never been known for taking that path. So first, he shows the Tribune that he can speak educated Greek, which gains him just enough respect to get his request granted. The he speaks enough Hebrew for the crowd to accept, for now, that he is one of them.

Tomorrow, Paul will proceed to do what he has done wherever he has travelled. He will speak to his brother Israelites, and try to persuade them the God’s promises are not a zero-sum game. The redemption of Israel is not meant to come at the expense of the Gentiles. But neither is the redemption of the Gentiles meant to come at the expense of Israel. Salvation is not an either/or game, where God sticks it to the enemies of the righteous as a reward to them. Salvation is both/and. It is about the vindication of the righteous and the redemption of the unrighteous. We’ll see how successful Paul is tomorrow.

Wednesday, 14th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 21:15-26
Morning Prayer

“Then they said to Paul, ‘You observe, brother, how many thousands of converts we have among the Jews, all of them staunch upholders of the law: it is said that you teach all Jews in the gentile world to turn their backs on Moses, and tell them not to circumcise their children or follow our way of life.’” (Acts 21:21, Rev. Eng. Bible)

And these are the Christians. Yep, Paul has gone from the frying pan of riots and opposition in Asia and Europe right smack-dab into the fire of Jerusalem. Well, we’ve read the story for ourselves. The truth is that Paul said no such thing. He has never told the Jews to abandon their traditions. He has only sought to clear a path for the Gentiles and save them (particularly the men) from a burden which the Jewish males never had to undergo, having been circumcised at birth. But these new Christians are “staunch upholders of the law,” or literally, “zealous for the law.” And for the zealots of any age, subtlety is never a virtue. Either circumcision is so important that every Christian must be circumcised, or it doesn’t matter, in which case nobody should be circumcised.

The truth is, that the “Truth” is not simple. Last evening, I preached on the tension living fully the life of the body which God has given us, and detaching ourselves from our body, but not forgetting that our bodies are God’s gift to us. The head spins. Detachment implies self-denial. Yet to live fully into God’s gift of the body is the ultimate self-fulfillment. Wait, you mean that we must seek self-denial and self-fulfillment? Well, we do call a man our Lord who said, “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it” (Luke 17:33). I think that Christian truth is so paradoxical because it envisions a time when all things that seem so contradictory to us, like body and soul, will be reconciled. The final triumph of God’s justice will not be a division of the universe into the “good place” and the bad place.” As we sang last Sunday:

A new creation comes to life and grows
As Christ’s new body takes on flesh and blood.
The universe restored and whole will sing
Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Let us patiently give that truth time to unfold.

Tuesday, 14th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 21:1-14

Morning Prayer

The seminary geek term for what Agabus did is “symbolic prophetic action.” There are numerous examples in the Old Testament of such prophecy. In fact, this kind of action had more to do with “prophecy” than the fortune-telling that often gets confused with genuine prophecy. Prophecy was not about forecasting the future. It was about announcing the judgment and will of God. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Agabus was acting out what God had determined, and by acting it out, Agabus actually was guaranteeing the truth of his prophetic action.

After such a dramatic action, it is no surprise that Paul’s friends beg him not to go to Jerusalem for fear of his life. But Paul is ready “to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” In the face of this determination, all his brothers and sisters can say is, “Let the will of the Lord be done.”

But what exactly is that will? Does Agabus actually say that Paul will die in Jerusalem? No. I suspect that Agabus himself assumed that Paul would die. But Agabus only says that Paul will be bound and handed over to the Gentiles. In fact, that is what happened. The prophecy will be fulfilled. But remember that hanging over this story is the promise spoken by the greatest prophet of all: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” So said Jesus at the beginning of Acts. And that promise must still be fulfilled. And to hint at the ending, it is by going to Jerusalem that Paul will see Jesus’s promise fulfilled in him.

Of course at this point, neither Paul nor anyone else knows that. They have been given just enough information to make them think twice. Can they trust the will of the Lord enough to push ahead. I often think that God gives all of us just enough information to make sure that following the will of God is not a blind leap in the dark, or a naïve skipping along the Yellow Brick Road. God gives us just enough knowledge, so that to follow his call is an act of faith, of trust in God’s promises and God’s power to fulfill those promises.

Monday, 14th Week of Ordinary Time

Acts 20:17-38

Morning Prayer

“For never have I avoided proclaiming all of God’s plan to all of you.” (Acts 20:27)

And now, back to our story. After Athens, Paul continued to preach the Gospel in southeastern Europe fir a number of years. But eventually, he decided that he needed to go back to where it all started, Jerusalem. And he is desperate to get there in time to celebrate Pentecost with the rest of the Church. So today, we find him back in Asia (or the western coast of modern-day Turkey) with 30 days to go before Pentecost. He had spent more time in Ephesus than any other city, and it is fitting that he make this “farewell” address to the Ephesians.

But why “farewell?” Why all the tears? Why will they never see Paul again? First, Paul has made it clear elsewhere that he wants to go to Rome, and form a base from whence he can speak the Good News in Spain, and this fulfill Jesus’s promise that his witnesses would go “to the ends of the earth” (For them, standing on the western coast of Spain and looking at the vast Atlantic Ocean would have seemed just that). So, the next time he travels, he will look for a more direct route to Rome over the Mediterranean.

But then again, he might not get out of Jerusalem alive. He has certainly earned the anger of zealous Jews throughout his travels, who are convinced that he is bent on destroying their religion. In going to Jerusalem, he is going into the belly of the beast. But none of that matters to Paul, because it was never about him. But it has always been about God’s “plan.” It’s odd that most translations don’t get the Greek right here. Many speak of God’s “counsel.” Others say, “will, “or “purpose.” That is at least closer to the truth that Paul is not referring to anything he has done or said in response to God’s request. God had a plan, to which Paul did respond. But God’s plan never depended on Paul, nor does it ever depend on any of us.

Churches spend a lot of time trying to discern what sorts of ministries they should “do.” But the first question that Christians must always ask themselves is this: What is God doing, in my life, in the life of the church, in the life of the community? I’ve heard this so much that it’s threatening to become a cliché. But it’s true nonetheless. You wanna make God laugh? Tell him your plan. More clearly than anything else, I see God creating a multigenerational community at Christ Church. We need to respond the gifts of God in the community of all ages. I see the gifts of wisdom, and the gifts of passion. How will we channel those gifts in such a way that builds up our own community, and the community around us?