Trinity Episcopal Church

A Chosen Vessel

“Don’t even try. You can’t teach on old dog new tricks. A leopard can’t change its spots.” These bits of proverbial wisdom stem from peoples’ experience and the frustration we encounter in trying to change long held patterns of thought and behavior. It is important to remember that they describe what often is the case, but are not certain descriptions of human possibility.

Today (January 25) is the commemoration of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who went from ardent persecutor of Christians to being Paul, the main Christian missionary to the Gentiles.

Most of us know story from St. Luke’s portrayal of the event in the Book of Acts 9:

“And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nearDamascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute thou me? And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting: but rise, and enter into the city, and there you shall be told what you must do. And those journeying with him stood speechless, hearing the sound, but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. They led him by the hand and brought him intoDamascus. And he was blind for three days, and ate and drank nothing during that time.” (Acts 9:3-9)

The story continues with a devout Jewish Christian, Ananaias, receiving a divine revelation telling him to visit Saul at the house of Judas on the particularly well-named Street Called Straight, where he is to lay hands on Saul to restore his sight. Ananias, having heard stories of just how aggressive and abusive Saul is, does not want to do this, but finally relents when God tells him, “Go ahead and do this, for [Saul] is a chosen vessel for me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children ofIsrael.

Acts tells the story two other times, both in speeches placed on Paul’s lips (Acts 22:6-21 and 26:12-18): these tell the story differently and seem focused on attracting the audiences addressed by the speeches: Acts 22 seems to want to establish Paul’s credibility to a Jewish audience by linking him to Ananias’ good reputation among the Jews in Damascus, while Acts 26 seems aimed at attracting its Roman audience by its emphasis on loyalty and obedience to orders.

For his part, Paul himself refers to his conversion a couple of times in his letters. In Galatians, he stresses that the revelation came from God and not from some human intermediary (like Ananias in Acts):

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting thechurchofGodand was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being.” (Galatians 1:11-16)

Despite this claim of having no human intermediary, Paul elsewhere sets his own conversion within the context of traditions that he had received from others:

“For I passed on to you the tradition first of all that I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; that he was buried; that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures; that he appeared to Cephas, then the Twelve; after that, he appeared to over five hundred of our family at once; of whom the greater part are still alive, but some have died. After that, he appeared to James; then to all the apostles. And last of all he appeared also to me, a monstrous child born at the wrong time, as it were.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

The great hope that the conversion of St. Paulgives us is this: it is possible to change, even when you have a weight of experience telling you that you will always be the same. You can teach an old dog new tricks. A leopard can change its spots. But this is the result of serious power from on high and grace from God, as well as seeking the socialization and support from tradition-bearers like Ananias.

–Fr. Tony+

Sermon – Third Sunday after Epiphany

After Epiphany III-B     Mark 1:14-20       January 22, 2012        Rev. Tom Murphy

The liturgical Gospels for these Sundays after Epiphany are mainly about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and especially two events that occur at the start of his work.  First, Jesus announces the themes of His ministry.  He proclaims what He has come to do – what His work is to be.  Second, Jesus forms his working team.  He calls and recruits people he chooses to assist him in his work and who are to continue his efforts after he is gone.

First of all – Jesus’ proclamation of his ministry has four parts.  First, the time is fulfilled.  He’s not talking about clock time, or calendar time, or what season of the year it is – the Greek word for that, the commentaries tell me is CHRONOS  -  He means fulfilled  time.  Everything in human affairs is ready – all the lines of historical convergence have come together – a great space has mysteriously and unexpectedly been prepared for some unprecedented new event to emerge – the Biblical term for this kind of time is KAIROS – when all is ready for something amazing and new to occur in human affairs.  The Kingdom of God has come near – that’s the second part of his announcement – and that’s the new thing the Kairos has been made ready for – a new way of being human  – human life imbued with the presence and power of God – a whole new way of being human together – a new kind of human society in this world.  The third component of Jesus’ ministry is the call to “Repent” – and that powerful and creative term needs to be freed from the moralistic baggage that it has tragically accumulated over far too many years of legalistic Gospel perversion.  Jesus’ call to repentance is a liberating challenge to be new – to change direction – to start over – to decide and act in a totally new way – to be open to unimagined new possibilities.  Finally, the fourth aspect of Jesus’ ministry is his gracious and empowering invitation to “believe in the Good News”!  – to act and choose and behave and function in the conviction that a loving and gracious God  is among us and with us and in us, who cherishes us and all other people – the challenge to turn away from enmity, strife, self-serving and violence because life  -   and every life  -   is good and noble and exalted and valuable and precious, and that the future for all of  us is to share in the Divine life of God, in this world and in the world to come – and not to end on the ash-heap of  meaningless oblivion!  “The time is fulfilled” Jesus proclaimed, – “thekingdom ofGod has come near – repent – and believe in the Good News!”   Is there a more urgent or vital message than that to be heard in our day  -  I don’t think so!!

What Jesus said he was to be about has implications right across the spectrum of human life and experience, from the most intimately personal to the most transnational.  Is this election year, for example, a Kairos time for our country when powerful forces are converging for a showdown; and the way of our being human together is up for grabs; when new and changed behaviors and decisions are called for; and people are waiting to see if the news is good or bad?  If you think I’m going to explore those ideas in this sermon, you can think again!  I may  be dumb, but I’m not stupid!!   What Jesus said he came and comes to do is the framework of our common life and the implications of what he said ought to be explored and discussed and debated in the faith community in a way that enables free give and take and where everyone who wants to can have their say – and this ain’t that setting!!

And what about Jesus’ team-building activity – his recruitment drive for those he wanted to be his co-workers?  Here are Peter and Andrew and James and John happily doing their routine work as fishermen – same as they’d done numberless days before – and Jesus comes along the shore and calls to them and says, “Get out of those boats – come, be with me”  -  and they do it,   and everything changes!!  My goodness, what a Kairos moment that must have been for them – the total and instantaneous transformation of everything  -  I can hardly imagine it!!  and whether you like Mark’s version of the call of the disciples, where Jesus is the initiator – or John’s very different account  – we heard a part of it last Sunday – where Jesus is just sort of hanging around – just walking by – and the other John – John the Baptizer, the Forerunner – who, in Mark’s version, has already been locked up in prison before Jesus does anything – in John’s Gospel version, the Baptizer sees Jesus and directs his disciples – including Andrew, to go with Jesus and they do – and they ask Jesus the rather strange question, “Where are you staying?”  and Jesus says, “Come and see” and they spend the rest of the day with him – and it develops from there.  Episcopalians and Anglicans like John’s version better – because it’s more passive and less assertive and not as pushy as Mark’s!  “Come and see!”  That’s our line.  That’s our strategy.  That’s the way we do it!  “Come and see” – I’m pretty sure there are people in your life and mine right now – this minute – who are waiting – they may not exactly know it – for you and for me to say to them about  this life in Christ we so cherish – “Come with me – come and see”  What stops us from making that saving and transforming  invitation!?  I suspect it’s the fear they’ll say “no – not interested”  although they’ll say it politely so as not to hurt our feelings, but we’ll do anything to avoid rejection!  We need to take our cue in this from sales-people!  Experienced sales reps don’t worry about being turned down – they know they’ll be turned down – but they are energized and excited because they know that out there is someone who’s going to say “yes!!”  and it’s worth it to them to slog through the chorus of “NO’s” for the anticipation and thrill of getting to that “YES” they know is coming!  “Come with me – come and see”  is our gracious invitation – let’s have the courage to make it  -   in the sure knowledge and trust that there’s someone out there right now who you know -  who’s going to say “YES” and we will have helped change their lives!!

Maybe another reason we hesitate about inviting folks to join us in this Christian faith community – although it may be buried a little deeper in our consciousness – is that we know about today’s Gospel – and that, as much as we might like to think we are inviting people to come with us and join a nice religious country club where our every whim is indulged – that at some place in our souls we know it isn’t true – and that at heart, when anybody decides to take Jesus and the faith community that forms around Him seriously – when anyone does that it’s an invitation to sign up for a job – it’s agreeing to go to work – as it was for those fellows who were called out of those fishing boats on Galilee so long ago – it’s to take on a job that will never be done – that will consume all that we are and have – and that may kill us – as it surely did for most of those Galilean fishermen so long ago, although they didn’t know it when they went to follow Him – and we also know that no other life than life with Him – and the glory and the burden of that life  -  no other life than that  -  is worthy of the name.

And what is that work – that job – that vocation to which He calls us?  He tells us with crystal clarity in another part of the Gospel – in the 25th chapter of Matthew in which Jesus – two days away from his own end – gives his disciples – gives us the stunning parable of the Last Judgment – to me, one of the half-dozen most important passages in all the New Testament – it’s the great finality, when everything in all the course of human life is settled, and all is sorted out, and all humanity is assembled before the King -  and the King says to those on his right hand, “Come you blessed of my father recieve the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!”   and he tells the blessed what are the grounds of their great reward – what it is that they have done – what work they have accomplished – what righteousness they have shown  -  to deserve this benefit – and what does he say, “Come you blessed ones  -  for you have the correct religion – the true doctrine – you believe all the right principles, you’ve kept all the rules and regulations,  and have unsullied morals, and impeccable ethical standards, and belong to the right church!”  No such thing!  “Come”, says the King to the blessed, and why, “for I was hungry, and you gave me food – I was thirsty and you gave be something to drink – I was a stranger and you welcomed me.  I was naked and you gave me clothing.  I was sick and you took care of me.  I was in prison and you visited me.”  and the righteous remonstrate – and say, “Wait a minute – we never did any of those things for you – what are you talking about!” – and the king makes this astonishing answer, “When you did it to one of the least of those who are members of my family – you did it to me!!”  They were just being decent, caring, compassionate, loving human beings – and all the while they were serving the King – and they didn’t even know it!!  The job we are called upon to embrace, as followers of Jesus, has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the needs of human life – and any religion that is not based and founded upon the exaltation and blessing of human life in all of its infinite variety and need is a lie and a sham and a travesty!

I think it is something like that Jesus means when he calls to Peter and Andrew and James and John – and when he calls to you and me and says, “Follow me and I will you fish for people!”

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, . . . . ”

Parish Announcements – January 20, 2012

Ceremonies Reverencing the Holy Sacrament

Sisters and Brothers at Trinity,

Some of you have asked about the use of the sanctus bell during the consecration of the Eucharist, as well as some of the small ceremonial practices I use when I celebrate. Here is a beginning of an answer.

St. Paul, writing about 25 years after the death of Jesus, said, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 11:23-27)

This early Christian saying lies behind the words of institution that are at the heart of the Eucharistic Prayer (the Great Thanksgiving). Another Christian tradition recorded about 50 years later, takes the thought further: it has Jesus saying, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (John 6:53-55).

These sayings brought the Church to recognize the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In both Eastern and Western traditions, many ceremonial practices resulted that sought to express faith in and reverence for the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament: the use of incense, bells, bowing or quickly kneeling (“genuflecting”), and ensuring that the consecrated elements were consumed reverently and not thrown or washed into the trash or sewer.

The Western Church much later actually tried to define the method by which the Eucharistic bread and the wine supposedly became the body and blood of Christ: a mystical miracle where the priest used God’s power to change the elements’ philosophical “substance” (bread-ness and wine-ness) into the blood-ness and body-ness of Divinity Itself: transubstantiation. Such a definition required that the consecrated elements be treated as if they were God himself, and produced late medieval abuses such as simply observing the Eucharist but not partaking of the bread and wine, and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as if it were God. The Eastern Church was reluctant to define such a mystery and accept the one-on-one identity of the consecrated elements and the Almighty. Rather, it was content to simply affirm the Real Presence. The radical Protestant Reformation reacted against what it saw asRome’s “idolatry” of worshiping “mere creatures of bread and wine,” and instead focused on other early Christian passages where the Eucharistic Meal was treated as a memorial or remembrance.

Anglicans remained in the middle (along with Lutherans), and affirmed the Real Presence and called for the reverencing of the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the sacrament while declining to accept transubstantiation per se, preferring vaguer formulations such as consubstantiation or transignification. We have been consistent in viewing the Eucharist as a sacrament where the unseen power of God is made manifest and visible rather than a mere ordinance or memorial. Many of us have preserved or revived the older traditions expressing reverence for the Sacrament while not adoring it as such. That’s where sanctus bells, bowing, and washing of vessels come in.

In all this, we have followed the lead of the young Elizabeth I, by affirming in faith the Real Presence while ambiguously declining to over-define the matter. When queried under threat of possible torture or death as a heretic by Queen Mary’s inquisitors about her belief regarding the Eucharistic elements,Elizabethreplied with this quatrain:

Christ was the word that spake it.

He took the bread and break it;
And what his words did make it
That I believe and take it.

(Note: Elena and I will be heading out on a long-planned and paid-for vacation 20-27 January. Fr. Tom and Fr. Morgan will continue to help fill in during my absence.)

Peace.

–Fr. Tony+

The Reverend Anthony Hutchinson, Ph.D.

Hearing Voices

Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year B)
15 January 2011: 8 am Spoken Mass and 10:00 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church, Ashland, Oregon

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was. Then the LORD called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The LORD called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, `Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” (1 Sam 3:1-10) 

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

I had a student several years ago who shocked a French class I was teaching.  He was a well-educated Cambodian who had fled the genocide in his country in 1975, and despite his sophistication and scientific orientation, affirmed in class his belief in ghosts. He told us this story:

When the Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh in April, I was evacuated from the city along with everyone else.  I saw people shot on the street as class enemies simply because they were wearing glasses. I was sent to a labor camp near the Thai border.  It was very hard, but I managed relatively well until I realized that there was no hope—they people I would start becoming friends with would get into trouble with the camp leader and then be killed in a public struggle session.  I had heard that the swamp between the camp was impassable and full of quicksand, but getting across the border was my only hope. I fled in the middle of the night during a heavy downpour that limited visibility to just a foot or so.  Almost immediately I lost my sense of direction, and soon I was in water and mud almost over my head. I lost all hope.

 But then I started noticing small blue lights—almost like flames—that seemed to call to me. I would follow them—first this one, then that one, and as I did, I noticed the ground under my feet would get more solid, and suck at my legs less. Soon, even though it was still raining heavily, I was following a path marked by blue flames on each side.  Gradually the rain stopped, and dawn came with me on solid ground.  Immediately soldiers surrounded me. But they were speaking Thai, not Khmer. I had successfully crossed the border. The soldiers did not believe that I had come that way through the night, because the swamp was a dumping ground where the Khmer Rouge had been dumping the bodies of those killed daily at the camp. “It’s haunted by all the dead,” they said, “and no one can get through.” 

We all sat transfixed by the story. He continued:

Now I am an educated man. I have studied science and some philosophy. I know that I had low blood sugar, and was under stress. I know that I was probably suffering from hallucinations. I know also that sometimes in swamp areas the decaying vegetation can produce methane that can ignite and cause random flames. Sometimes there is bioluminescence cause by microscopic plants. I know that all of this might be the explanation of the flames and the faces. But when I think about what happened to me, I realize that the only language that can even approach describing it to say that the ghosts of those killed by the Khmer Rouge took pity on me and lead me through that swamp. 

One of Cambodia's many monuments to the victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide.

I have often thought of my student’s story when people ask me how it is that we Christians, living in an age of neuro-science, evolutionary biology, and particle physics, can say we believe in God, and that Jesus was God made truly human.

Most of us who show up to Church on a regular basis (or even on a not-so-regular basis) do so because at some time or another we have had an experience, an insight, a dream, or a deep feeling, where we felt, if only for a moment or if only in a glimmer, that God was speaking to us, that Jesus was embracing us in his arms.  This is true even of us Episcopalians, whom some love to make fun of as “the chosen frozen” because we tend to be suspicious of too-fervent claims of endorsement by the Almighty of any particular way of seeing things, and find it in bad taste to parade such experiences about in public.

“I heard God’s voice” is a dangerous claim. Think of the horrors that have been justified over the centuries with the words, “God commands this”: Holy wars, slavery, child abuse, assassinations, terrorism, sexual predation, the subjugation of nations, or women, or whole classes of people because of something they had no control over.  Some of these claims were cynical and others wholly sincere but deluded.   Granted, people have also cited God’s voice in arguing for good things, including the ending of many of the horrors just mentioned.  “I heard God’s voice” is a suspicious claim, if only because it has been used to argue such widely divergent things.

On the level of observable facts, what people call “hearing the voice of God” appears to be indistinguishable from coming to a conclusion or a new insight about things through reasoning, introspection, or through states of altered consciousness or hallucinations, whether caused by ketosis and low blood sugar due to fasting, emotional distress, possible environmental hallucinogens like ergot, or just a genetic predisposition to neurological disturbances.   When people start talking about hearing the voice of God, then, we moderns are inclined to be like Ebenezer Scrooge when he first sees the ghost of Jacob Marley.  He denies what he is seeing, saying Marley is a hallucination induced by eating before going to bed, “a spot of mustard, a bit of undigested beef.”

Yet we Christians persist in saying that we have heard God’s voice because, just like for my Cambodian student who, along with Scrooge, believed in ghosts, this is the only language we can find that adequately describes what we have experienced.

Hearing God’s voice, hearing God’s call, is the theme shared by all of today’s scripture readings.

In the reading from First Samuel, the boy Samuel hears the voice of God in the Temple in the night and mistakes it for the voice of his master, the prophet Eli.  This takes place in an era when “The word of the LORD was precious due to its scarcity, . . . and visions not widespread.”  Eli himself is going blind, as if to underscore that fact.  When Eli finally recognizes that it is God’s voice that is waking Samuel, he tells him, “Go, and listen with an open mind and heart.”   Note here that this is in an age like ours—not a lot of vision or hearing of God.  Samuel mistakes the voice of God for the voice of Eli, his teacher, religious leader, and surrogate father.  Samuel is inexperienced in recognizing God’s voice.  Eli, with his greater experience, helps Samuel in this.   Among the reasons we read scripture, pray, come to Church, and seek spiritual direction and religious formation is to form us so that we can better discern God’s voice and find encouragement to do what God tells us, however God might speak to us.

Similarly, the Gospel of John reading tells of Nathanael hearing Jesus’ call.  Like the voice of God in Samuel’s case, the voice of God to Nathanael moves from the small, easily explained away, to the more central, clear, obvious voice of God.  And this is so, despite Nathanael’s failings and prejudices.   The central image in Jesus’ message to Nathanael, that Jesus is the gateway to heaven, the ladder on which the angels pass between Earth and Heaven, underscores the point that God is speaking to Nathanael through the person of Jesus.  Jesus is the rule by which we must judge whether a voice is God’s voice or not.

This is also shown in the Epistle reading: St. Paul is replying a letter from the Church at Corinth where some people claim to have heard God’s voice recommending things that Paul roundly condemns.   They are incompatible with the voice he recognizes as God’s.

There are many competing claims of God speaking here and there, and several differing views of what God’s voice says.  Learning to recognize the voice of God among such varied voices is important.  My experience is that there is one standard that is reliable and trustworthy: it is the person of Jesus himself.   In traditional Christian theology, we affirm that Jesus Christ was and is the definitive self-revelation of God.  This means that what the historical Jesus said and did is extremely important.  To be sure, this is all mediated through scripture, tradition, and reason.  The voice of Jesus in scripture itself is mediated by four very different views of Jesus found in the four Gospels.  But the ultimate standard remains Jesus himself, and getting acquainted with his voice provides us the experience that Eli had and Samuel lacked for recognizing when God is speaking.

God does speak. I have heard the voice of God at times, and I believe that many of you have as well.

“Hearing God’s voice” can only be experienced, as it were, from the inside, and does not make itself readily available for rational analysis from some theoretical objective sideline, let alone for apologetics.

We need not fear God’s voice. It is the voice of a loving savior, a dear friend.  Eli tells Samuel “Go and listen.” Phillip tells Nathanael “Come and see.”

May we all be quick to do so.

In the name of Christ, Amen.