Proper 5B
Category: Episcopal Church
-
Give pride of place to one another in esteem.
A verse of scripture has been on my mind all week and I can’t stop thinking about it. When that happens, I assume that it may be a prompting of the Holy Spirit that is important for my life and ministry.
The verse is from St. Paul’s exhortation on Christian behavior found in the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Romans. It is verse ten and the translation that keeps coming to mind is from the New English Bible. It reads, “Give pride of place to one another in esteem” (Romans 12:10b NEB). Most other translations use honour instead of esteem, but those are not the translations that keep popping up in my mind.
Our English word esteem is derived from the same Latin root (aestimāre) as estimate and means “to assign value.” If I were to try my hand at a Ron’s English Version of this particular verse, I would write it like this: “Put others ahead of yourself to demonstrate how much you value them.”
The late Scottish Biblical Scholar, William Barclay, offered the following insight in his commentary on this passage: “More than half the trouble that arises in Churches concerns rights and privileges and prestige. Someone has not been given his or her place; someone has been neglected or unthanked. The mark of the [true Christian] has always been humility” (William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1975, p.164).
General Conventions, Episcopal and National Elections, Annual Meetings, as well as day-to-day life in churches of all sizes and locations afford many opportunities for tensions to mount that tempt followers of Christ to forget that humbly loving one another as Christ loved us is a prime directive. The world at our doorstep is watching to see how we behave toward one another.
During Lent, Gay and I attended a seminar that was led by John Philip Newell at Lexington’s Christ Church Cathedral. In one of his talks, he invited us to meditate on these words from the Quran, “Whichever way you turn, there is the face of God.” The thought is similar to the promise we make in the Baptismal Covenant, to “seek and serve Christ in all persons” and to “respect the dignity of every human being.”
Do I look for the face of God in every person at every turn? Do I work at treating others as I would treat God? When I disagree with a fellow Christian, how will I tailor my response in a way that demonstrates esteem for that person, in spite of differences? When I prefer one candidate over another in an election, will my comments about the other candidate be tempered by my awareness that I are speaking about one who is the apple of God’s eye? When someone does something that bothers me, do I speak about the person or to that person? Am I more concerned with being valued by others than I am about putting others ahead of myself to show how much I value them? Am I more concerned about what I am getting than what I am giving?
If every Christian works at showing esteem for others, there will surely be enough esteem to go around, and then some. There must be a way for us to run our meetings, our elections, and our churches that puts others first and values them as those who are “Christ’s own for ever.” Let's see what happens if we try harder, with God's help!
-
God in Three Persons
The doctrine of the Trinity was developed by the Church centuries ago in an attempt to help explain the nature of God. For many people, the doctrine raises as many questions as it answers.
Several years ago when I was rector of Galveston’s Trinity Episcopal Church, a local news organization sent a photographer to cover an event we were having. After the event, which was held on the sidewalk in front of the church, she followed me back inside the building and asked if she could talk with me for a few minutes. I told her I would enjoy the opportunity.
She then told me that she had not been inside a church since she was eleven years old. (I secretly guessed that would have been about thirty years earlier.) It seems her family was attending a church in Florida at the time and she had an experience in Sunday School that was the reason she decided to stay away from churches.
The Sunday School lesson concerned the Trinity. After listening to the teacher talk about the Trinity, she asked, “How can one God be three persons? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
The teacher and the other children laughed at her. She never went back.
I expressed my sadness about that incident and told her that in our Church we had a Sunday School program for children called Godly Play and that children were encouraged to ask questions. In fact, our teachers and our children are taught that every question deserves to be heard respectfully.
Since we were standing in Trinity Church beneath the beautiful window with the traditional symbol that has long been associ-ated with the doctrine, I asked her if I she would permit me to respond to her long-unanswered question. She said she would appreciate that.
I said, “You are someone’s daughter, right?” “Yes,” she answered. “Do you have siblings?” She told me that she had a brother and a sister. “So, in addition to being a daughter, you are a sister, correct?” “Yes, she replied.” I asked if she had a husband and she told me that she did, so I said, “Then, besides being a daughter and a sister, you are also a wife.”
All of a sudden her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “But I’m still me! I’m one person but I have different roles in the lives of other people. That must be what the Church is trying to say in describing God as Trinity.”
We talked on and discussed several other analogies for understanding God, the holy and undivided Trinity. I assured her we can never fully comprehend the majesty and mystery of God. Our doctrines are truth in the sense that they represent the best we can do as we reach for the Truth.
In the end, I believe she had finally gained an appreciation for this doctrine that had been a source of embarrassment and anger for so long. But, even more, I believe she found some peace that day in her relationship with God, her creator, redeemer, and sustainer.
P.S. The image above is the Trinity Window in Trinity Episcopal Church, Galveston, Texas, one of the oldest stained glass windows in Texas.
-
Strategies for Summertime Spirituality
The month of May is almost over. Memorial Day signals opening of swimming pools, buzz cuts for boys, weekday outings to museums and zoos, homemade ice cream, watermelon season, an upswing in agricultural enterprises, and the beginning of summer vacations. We also start the summer slump in churches across America, with a decline in attendance and anxious messages from church treasurers about cash flow because offerings go down when the people are not there.
Our culture has declared how things are supposed to work between Memorial Day and Labor Day and that’s that. The Church tends to conform to the culture. Whatever happens during the rest of the year, in the summer, we are both in and of the world.
On several occasions, I have tried to counteract the summer slump and had little success. Call me a die hard, but I’m going to try again. Any success at all is better than none when it comes to reminding God’s Holy People what our relationship with the world is supposed to be.
St. Paul put it this way, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Jesus called his followers to be light and salt and leaven in the world (Matthew 5 and 13). Light, salt, and leaven are agents of transformation – light dispels darkness, salt adds flavor, and leaven causes the dough to rise. When the agents of transformation are present, things are no longer the same. Through our prayers and our lifestyle, we are God’s change agents.
With that in mind, I have a few suggestions for how to enjoy summertime while still fulfilling our sacred purpose.
• Maintain the spiritual discipline of worship. If you are home on Sunday morning, your presence in worship with your community of faith helps keep the emphasis on God, both for you and for your fellow worshipers. When you are there, you are making a statement – a witness – that God’s reign in your life is not suspended just because it is summertime. Vacationers may be visiting your church while you are out of town. You may also use the time in worship to contemplate the different things you are doing/seeing/experiencing during the summer. What about those mountain majesties where you hiked? What might God have had in mind when creating the orangutan you saw when you took the children to the zoo? What kind of divine purpose is being worked out in the harvesting of hay, which kept you working from sunrise to sunset yesterday?
• Find a church in which to worship while traveling. In addition to maintaining the discipline of worship while you are in a different place, you may discover new friends, new ideas, and elements of diversity you have not known before. Maybe you can bring something back that will enrich the life of your own community of faith. The churches you visit will have an opportunity to extend their hospitality to you and hear about the church you love back home. If you have children or youth who will be traveling with you, ask them to get on the internet and find a church where your family can worship “wherever you may be.”
• Don’t send your pledge on vacation. The operational costs of your church continue even when you are not there. In warmer locations, the costs increase significantly because of the need for air conditioning and watering. There is no legitimate reason why church leaders should have to experience anxiety over cash shortfalls in the summer (or anytime of year for that matter). Make it a matter of faithful stewardship to bring or send your contribution before you leave on vacation. Or, if you forget, you may still mail a check or use online banking to get your gift to the altar while you are away.
• Get involved in ministries you don’t normally have time for. If summertime affords you a little extra free time or a slower pace, use some of that time to serve Christ and the Church. Maybe there’s a need for Vacation Bible School leaders, workers for a home repair ministry, or someone to do some maintenance around the church. Is there a mission trip, retreat, summertime conference, or bible study you would otherwise decline due to the busyness of your life? Does your summer schedule allow you to attend a weekday service that you can’t attend at other times of the year? God would like to spend more time with us and have more of our attention. Summertime may open up some possibilities for that to happen and blessings will flow into our lives.
• Whatever you do, think God! Be intentional about your spiritual journey. Begin and end your days with prayer, so that, in all the cares and occupations of our life, we may not forget God, but remember that we are ever walking in God’s sight. Look for signs of God’s hand at work in the world around you. Habits that affect the rest of your life can be formed during a three-month period. Don’t let a hiatus become a habit!
-
“Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise” – Feast of the Ascension
Almighty God, your blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the world; through the same your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today is the Feast of the Ascension. The Ascension (Luke 24:44-53 / Acts 1:1-11) is probably not the best known of the feast days in the Church’s calendar, but it is one that takes on increasing depth and importance the more you think about it and experience it. In this feast, we are drawn into an event that has cosmic significance.
The Ascension is not about gravity, or the physical location of heaven, or any of that. It is about God. In fact, even though it comes toward the end of the season of Easter, the Ascension is most closely related in meaning to Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and living among us.
What was begun at Christmas is brought full circle and proclaimed again in a different way at the Ascension. In the Incarnation, what it means to be God became fully a part of what it means to be a human being. In Jesus, the human and the divine become united in the person and life of one man. In the Ascension, this human being became fully a part of who God is.
It was not the spirit of Jesus, or the essence of Jesus, or the divine nature of Jesus, or the invisible part of Jesus, or the idea of Jesus, or anything like that, that ascended to the Father. It was the resurrected body of Jesus: a body that the disciples had touched, a body that ate and drank with them, a real, physical, but gloriously restored body-bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This humanity has become a living, participating part of Divinity.
The Ascension tells us that it is a good and holy thing to be a human. It is so good and holy a thing that God became human. The fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.
So we are able to approach God with confidence and with joy. Because we are not only dealing with the Creator of the universe and the Sovereign of all time and of eternity; we are also drawing near to the One who lived our life, has shared our fate, who knows us, and cares about us.
St. John Chrysostom expressed it in this way: “Through the mystery of the Ascension we, who seemed unworthy of God's earth, are taken up into heaven…Our very nature, against which Cherubim guarded the gates of Paradise, is enthroned today high above all Cherubim.”
Charles Wesley's Hymn for Ascension Day is also quite a beautiful expression of the meaning and implications of the Ascension.
Amen.
-
So that your joy may be complete
Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:9-11).
While reading this passage, which is a portion of Sunday's gospel, I was struck by Jesus emphasis on joy. He wants our joy to be "complete." That led me to theologian Paul Tillich, who reflected on the joy of the Christian life in The New Being:
Blessedness is the eternal element in joy, that which makes it possible for joy to include in itself the sorrow out of which it arises, and which it takes into itself. In the Beatitudes, Jesus calls the poor, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst, those who are persecuted, "blessed." And He says to them: "Rejoice and be glad!" Joy within sorrow is possible to those who are blessed, to those in whom joy has the dimension of the eternal.
Here we must once more reply to those who attack Christianity because they believe that it destroys the joy of life. In view of the Beatitudes they say that Christianity undercuts the joy of this life by pointing to and preparing for another life. They even challenge the blessedness in the promised life as a refined form of seeking for pleasure in the future life. Again we must confess that in many Christians, joy in this way is postponed till after death, and that there are Biblical words which seem to support this answer. Nevertheless, it is wrong. Jesus will give His joy to His disciples now. They shall get it after He has left them, which means in this life. And Paul asks the Philippians to have joy now. This cannot be otherwise, for blessedness is the expression of God’s eternal fulfillment. Blessed are those who participate in this fulfillment here and now. Certainly eternal fulfillment must be seen not only as eternal which is present, but also as eternal which is future. But if it is not seen in the present, it cannot be seen at all.
This joy which has in itself the depth of blessedness is asked for and promised in the Bible. It preserves in itself its opposite, sorrow. It provides the foundation for happiness and pleasure. It is present in all levels of man’s striving for fufillment. It consecrates and directs them. It does not diminish or weaken them. It does not take away the risks and dangers of the joy of life. It makes the joy of life possible in pleasure and pain, in happiness and unhappiness, in ecstasy and sorrow. Where there is joy, there is fulfillment. And where there is fulfillment, there is joy. In fulfillment and joy the inner aim of life, the meaning of creation, and the end of salvation, are attained. (Tillich, Paul, The New Being: Chapter 19, The Meaning of Joy, Chas. Schribner's Sons, 1955)
When our inner joy finds outward expression, it is "complete." When our inner joy finds outward expression, it is contageous. Joy is the essence of our salvation and the fruit of faith-filled living.
The world needs more joyful Christians! Lord, give us an abundance of joy so that we may spread it around liberally enough to change the world.