Trinity Episcopal Church

The Holy Spirit in the Creed

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

May 15, 2013

The Holy Spirit in the Creed

This coming Sunday is Pentecost, the celebration commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the early Church. Everyone in the parish is encouraged to wear red to help us remember the “tongues of fire” that came upon the early Christians as the Spirit was poured out upon them.

In the last few months you may have noticed in our Sunday bulletins that the words of the Rite 2 Nicene Creed are slightly different from those found in the Prayer Book. For instance, “and was made man” now reads “and became truly human” as a better and more gender-inclusive rendering of the Greek καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα and Latin et homo factus est. All these changes have been approved and recommended by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and that is why we have adopted them in our order of service.

The section about the Holy Spirit has the most of the authorized changes:

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son] [[brackets added]], who [[instead of ‘he’ later in the phrase]] with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified, who [[instead of ‘He’]] has spoken through the Prophets.”

The shift from “he” to “who,” again, is more gender-inclusive and a better translation of the Greek and Latin. The word for “Spirit” is masculine in Latin, but neuter in Greek and feminine in Hebrew. The Creed in Greek and Latin does not repeat the pronoun.

The addition of brackets around “and the Son” reflects a deep and divisive problem of long-standing in the Church.

Our “Nicene” Creed comes from one affirmed by the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E. and its revision by the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E. The words for “and the Son” appear in neither of these Creeds. The word Filioque (“and from the Son”) was added to the Latin Creed probably by a local council in the Western Church in 410 C.E., without any authorization from a Church-wide (“ecumenical”) Council. The addition, however, was later approved by the Bishop of Rome. The Eastern Church rejected the addition saying that only an ecumenical council could change a creed approved by two ecumenical councils. The Filioque became one of the two causes of the split between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 C.E. The other was papal authority and the claim by the See of Rome that it had the authority to change the form of the Creed without approval of an Ecumenical Council.

The New Testament is somewhat ambiguous on the matter. The words of the original Creed “who proceeds from the Father” are based on John 15:26, which says the comforter “comes forth from the Father.” John 14:25 has Jesus saying “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” John 20:22 says Jesus “breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.”) Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:9, Philippians 1:19 calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of the Son”, “the Spirit of Christ”, “the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Perhaps the best way to summarize all these somewhat contradictory passages is to say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son. But such wording has never been proposed or approved in Council of the United Church.

In 1978 the Anglican Communion’s Lambeth Conference suggested that all member churches of the Communion “consider omitting the Filioque from the Nicene Creed.” In 1985 the General Convention of The Episcopal Church recommended that the Filioque clause should be removed from the Nicene Creed in the Episcopal Prayer Book and approved rites, if this were endorsed by the 1988 Lambeth Council. In 1988 the Lambeth Conference recommended that national provinces in their future Prayer Books delete the Filioque. This was reaffirmed by the 1993 joint meeting of the Anglican Primates and Anglican Consultative Council. At its 1994 General Convention, the Episcopal Church reaffirmed its intention to remove the words “and the son” from the Nicene Creed in the next revision of its Book of Common Prayer. In the meantime, use of the Creed without the clause, or with the clause in brackets is authorized.

In the Roman Church, when Pope Francis was inaugurated two months ago, for the first time in 1,000 years the Patriarch of Constantinople attended the service. The Gospel was chanted in Greek. When the Creed was said, the Filioque was omitted.

In light of all this, and as a sign of Christian unity and solidarity, the Worship Committee of Trinity Parish agreed unanimously last month to drop the Filioque (the bracketed phrase) from the Creed altogether in our public worship. So this coming Sunday, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, we will affirm simply “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified…”

This step is aimed at greater Christian inclusiveness and less parochialism (and focus on the Western tradition alone). It is done with full authorization from the National Church and the International Communion.

So in addition to wearing red, please make sure you read carefully as you recite the Creed.

Peace and Grace,

Fr. Tony+

Sermons

Gone from our Sight (Ascension Sunday C)

“Gone from Our Sight”
Sunday after the Feast of the Ascension (Year C)
12 May 2013
Homily
Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland

The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, Rector

Acts 1:1-11 ; Ephesians 1:15-23 ; Luke 24:44-53 ; Psalm 97

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

When I was a boy and I heard the story of Jesus’ ascension told in Church, I pictured it very literally: Jesus took an invisible elevator of sorts up, up, up until he was beyond the sight of his disciples. The two angels came and added, “you saw him go that way, and that’s the way he’ll come back.” I understood this to mean Jesus taking the celestial elevator down, down, down, back to us here. The descent was accompanied with appropriate clouds and lightning, and angelic choirs playing trumpets.

When I was eight years old (this dates me), my literalism ran into a problem named Yuri Gagarin, the first person to orbit the earth. A Soviet Cosmonaut publicly pushing his nation’s official atheism, he was famously quoted as describing the earth from orbit in the heavens as a stunningly beautiful blue, and then adding, “I looked and looked

but I didn’t see God.”

“Well of course,” I said to myself. “He was up in the sky, not in heaven! He was in space, not where God and Jesus are seated!”

That was probably the start of me moving from the literalist doctrines of my childhood denomination to becoming an Episcopalian. I had learned in a small way that the Bible tells its truth mainly through stories composed of images and metaphors: had Commander Gagarin’s heart been right, maybe he would have “seen God” (note the metaphor) in the stunning beauty of the earth from space.

The readings today about the ascension of Jesus, one from the Book of Acts and one from the Gospel of Luke, were both written by the same author. Acts is volume two of a two part series of which the Gospel of Luke is volume one. Luke, a meticulous author whose Greek style is the best of the New Testament, wrote them. The Gospel Reading has the resurrected Jesus ascending to heaven the evening of Easter Sunday after he has appeared to the disciples and eaten fish with them and then walked with them out of the city as far as Bethany (Luke 24: 42, 50). The Acts passage places it forty days after Easter (Acts 1: 3, 9). In the original publication of Luke-Acts, before the Gospel of John was interposed, these two passages were juxtaposed against each other by the careful author. Why?

Luke at the beginning of his Gospel says he will give an “orderly account of events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word” (Luke 1: 1-2). Luke’s is an orderly retelling of stories of events by eyewitnesses passed on through the early preaching in the Church. It is not intended to be a literal, perfect chronicle. The detail in Jesus’ saying in today’s Gospel, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” gives the narrative plan for the Book of Acts: stories of preaching in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and then through the gentile world, even to Rome, then called the “end (note singular) of the earth.”

His juxtaposing the two stories of Ascension is deliberate. The first one concludes the Gospel narrative and brings that volume to an end. For purposes of narrative order, he must place the first on Easter evening. The second one begins the narrative of the Church after Jesus. For narrative purposes, he places it after a period of Jesus’ “appearing to them forty days, and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

The detail “forty days” tips off any sensitive reader that Luke’s editorial hand here is bringing an “orderly account” to the stories he has received. The number is symbolic of a completed period in God’s hand: forty days and night for Noah’s flood, forty days and night in the wilderness fasting, etc.

The point is this: When Jesus died, everyone knew he was dead. And everyone knows without a doubt that when you’re dead, you’re dead. Dead people don’t come back, except maybe in people’s imaginations, dreams, or as some kind of spectral vision, as the “ghosts” of folk traditions. They don’t come back as such.

But when Jesus was killed, about a day and half later he came to his disciples in such a form that they had a very hard time figuring out what was going on. Here was a Jesus much more tangible, much more alive than they had ever seen him. It took several of them a time before they even recognized that this new, more-than-alive being before them as Jesus (Luke 24:16; John 20:14; Matthew 28:17).

Reflecting on their experience and their scriptures, they later associated what had happened with an image in the later prophetic books and the image-rich, coded persecution literature called apocalyptic, books like Daniel and the later Revelation of John. The image is that at the end of time, when God acts definitively to set things right in this messed-up world of ours, God will bring to life again the people who had suffered horrible deaths because they had only been faithful to God’s religion, the martyrs. They would be created anew, fully alive and happy, in a new world, where everything is as God truly intends. The Book of Daniel says they come forth from their graves and “shine like the stars of heaven” (Dan. 12:3). Jesus’ disciples found that this obscure image—the resurrection of the martyred righteous at the end of time—this described this strange thing they had seen in Jesus’ death and subsequent bodily reappearances. “Resurrection” is not merely a resuscitation of a corpse; it is God’s act of populating the new creation he intends to replace this defective world.

One of the earliest formulations of this faith in the New Testament is found in the letter to the Corinthians (15:3-9): there Paul says he passes on what he was taught, that 1) Christ suffered and died for us in accordance with the (Hebrew) scriptures, 2) on the third day he was raised, and 3) that he appeared, first to Cephas (Peter) and the Twelve, then to James and the apostles, then to over 500 Christians at once in a large gathering, and then to Paul himself (here he moves from tradition to his own story), the “least of the apostles.” This earliest citation of the early apostolic preaching tradition makes use of the technical “was raised from the dead,” a reference to this idea of the coming forth of the righteous dead at the end of time.

But the risen Jesus did not continue to appear to his followers as a matter of course. Paul recognizes this when he says that when the risen Lord appeared to him, it was “last of all.” He adds that his experience, later that all the others, made him like “something born at the wrong time.” (1 Cor. 15:8).

The image of Jesus “going back up to heaven” early on became a symbol for when such appearances generally stopped. Various authors in the New Testament treat the matter differently.

The longer ending of Mark has the risen Lord sitting at a meal with disciples, after which he is “taken up into heaven to sit at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19).

Matthew has the disciples return to Galilee where they see the risen Lord on a mountain (Moses receiving the Law imagery is big in Matthew), and he gives them what we call today the “Great Commission” to preach the Gospel to every nation (Matt. 24:50).

As we have seen in today’s readings, Luke in his Gospel places it on Easter evening in Bethany, while in Acts he places it forty days later and ten days before the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.

John, as always, is the maverick. For him, the moment that Jesus is lifted up into glory is the moment of his suffering and death on the cross (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32). In John, there is no Pentecost, but on Easter evening Jesus breathes his spirit onto his disciples (John 20:22).

The different writers make the same point in different ways, with different stories: Jesus may be hidden from our sight, but this is because of our defective sight, not because he is not here. In Acts’ image of the clouds surrounding the Ascension, it is because we are unable to see through the bright clouds that surround him.

So the next time someone belittles you by saying they take the Bible literally while you do not, just remember that the Bible itself often asks us to read it in more than literal ways.

And may we all pursue the spiritual disciplines of daily prayer and reflection, and quiet but steady amendment of life, to help us have the kind of hearts that can see through the brightness.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Sermons

Ego and the Spirit

6 Easter, Year C

The Rev. Deacon Carol Howser,

5/5/13, Trinity Episcopal Church

In the name of the living God: who is and was and is to come…. Amen.

Once, a few years back, my spiritual director threw up her hands in frustrations and let me know in no uncertain terms that I have a very strong ego. I didn’t like that because having a strong ego was pretty much at odds in my mind with being a humble person, letting God direct my life: with becoming a faithful disciple, which, of course, was what I was trying to become. But she was right. I do have a strong ego, much to my chagrin.

Ego is that part of us that develops from the time when, as babies, we can focus our eyes enough to make out a face peering down at us: probably a parent, hopefully smiling and cooing warmly, that tells us we are wanted and loved. We begin to develop our little baby egos from that moment, an idea of ourselves. We discover our own personal power as a two year old saying, “no” to every possible thing , and eventually we include our talents, tendencies, and idiosyncrasies so that we develop a pretty clear idea of who we think we are and how other people see us. This ego, underscores and interprets all we think and do and become in the world.

But we are spiritual beings too. There is an ancient memory in us that pulls us from inside and up toward God and beyond here and now. While we yearn to live in that place deep inside, the ego part of us that wants to be successful and safe in the world gets a little jumpy. That was the “me” the spiritual director was dealing with: my spiritual self at odds with the part of me that is so immersed in the world. And so she challenged me with “what happens if you let go of everything and just … go there? Just lean over into this spiritual place and go there. Without thinking I blurted out, “I might lose myself.” It felt like standing on the edge of a precipice and hurling myself off into the unknown. It felt like chaos. It felt like giving myself up to the madness of poets, of mystics, of people like John of Patmos who wrote the book of Revelation. I thought, “if I let go of myself, my ego, what will I hang on to? It’s so much more “real” this world I can touch and smell and see and taste. Can I trust what I cannot understand? Like Pilate: What is truth? Am I strong enough to hope, really hope, really believe: give myself and my heart. And most of all, “if I fall, who will catch me?”

The disciples had been in this place while Jesus was with them. Their very strong egos really guided them and in many ways interfered with them hearing what Jesus was saying. They were fishermen and tax collectors, men with families, just men. Their understanding of what Jesus was talking about, he was and why there doing this and what the end would be was frightening. It didn’t make sense to them in the context of what they felt was truth, of what was safe, of what was good for them and the world they lived in.

But everything is different now. Jesus had died and after the despair and horror of that, something beyond their experience of the world has happened. Jesus, who they knew was dead, has appeared to them. They have seen him, touched him, eaten with him. He is alive. Their baby eyes have opened to something entirely new. The shock of it gets their attention and they begin to listen with their spirits. The scales fall from their eyes and from their egos too. Jesus tells them who he really is, who they really are, and that the world, the kingdom of God is so much more than what their senses tell them it is. And this time they begin to allow themselves to believe it.

Then just when they think they have him back he tells them he must leave again “I have said these things to you while I am still with you,” he says. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” “I am going away AND I am coming to you.” Strange.

Still as time went by they found that they themselves had changed. They had strength they had not had before, they began to heal people, different things mattered now: not what they owned: they gave it all away. They did not build up bank accounts or fill their pantries. They had what they wore, the shoes on their feet and a cloak. They didn’t worry about what was going to happen tomorrow or the next day. Life now meant so much more and whatever happened, even death would not separate them from God in Christ. Because of their experience of the risen Christ, they were able now to focus, really focus on, count on what they believed, no……what they knew now to be true….. even unto death.

What did they know? They knew what we must know before we can even begin to believe this. ( I owe the following thoughts to a sermon Rev. Anne preached many years ago. I kept it, feeling it was very important and should certainly be said again. The thoughts are hers though it is not a direct quote) . First of all, they knew that Jesus did really die, that he was not just in a coma, laid in a tomb but then woke up. His friends, mostly the women had seen him die, anointed his dead body. His death was real.

Next they knew that Jesus was fully human, he was not a god walking about in human flesh, imperishable. Death was not merely discarding the human costume. They experienced his sorrow, his anger, his weariness. He ate, he drank, he slept. He was fully human, born of a woman they knew, was crucified, died, and was buried. All of this was not some divine magic trick.

They also knew that his death was not just some resuscitation. Jesus had raised people from the dead, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, his friend. They came back to life to live out the rest of their days…. then to die again. Jesus… in his resurrected body was not constrained by the workings of the material world at all. He appeared at will and left as abruptly, sometimes he appeared in two places at the same time. He materialized through doors. Sometimes he was recognized right off the bat and sometimes not until he spoke or performed some act and then. But he was not a ghost. They touched his wounds. He fixed breakfast for them on the beach. Everything was transformed in this resurrected life. He told them to not be afraid. I am myself, he told them. And now he was leaving… not dying again… leaving. In Jesus, death was defeated and a whole new creation effected. Now they knew their message, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

So they set out to become part of the great creative force that is the Kingdom of God. They set out to Samothrace, and Philippi, and eventually to Rome. And as promised, the Spirit went before them, hearts were opened, their numbers grew. They found people who needed their message of hope and love. We know there were setbacks and failures ahead, there was disagreement, persecution and eventually death, but for some reason what they now knew was enough to give them courage and focus and determination. Even when they didn’t know all the answers. They had faith now that God truly was leading them. That everything would be brought to fruition in time.

Time: The Book of Revelation brings it all together: this reconciliation….in time. We are used to time. But what we think of as time is Chronos: time measure by duration, by clocks and watches, years and centuries. St. John uses that word but he also uses the word Kairos which is time measured in opportunity. God’s time. More than present, it’s presence. It’s being. Only in Kairos can we lose ourselves and also find ourselves: in the quiet center past our own darkness, in a future that is not really a future but a past and present also. Eugene Petersen says in his book Reversed Thunder … “Only by the means of Kairos can we commprehend and participate in Christ’s coming… It is primarily a meeting, an arrival which is already in process of taking place.” In Kairos God is and was and is to come all at the same instance. What has always been with God will continue to be and still is. It’s confusing to us when we are so anchored to our egos, focused on Chronos. Clock time. But Kairos is where the holy city is: this city of the Lord which Revelation speaks of. Where Jesus establishes himself both at the beginning and at the end. As lamb and as Lord. Where there is no darkness, only clarity and light and life. Where the lines we have drawn between us disappear, when evil has been purged and cast away. Where there is no suffering, or tears. And it’s not just perpetual future, it’s perpetual presence too. We are both in the kingdom and participating in the new creation.

That, I think is what the disciples began to know. Perhaps in seeing the risen Christ they were given a glimpse of eternity. Perhaps seeing him transformed they knew they would be transformed as well. Perhaps they knew that the transformation was now about everyone and everything, and all of time from the beginning to the end of things: from Alpha to Omega. Christ the bridge, the purifier, the Word, still speaking, the light that shines in the darkness to reconcile, to restore all of creation to what it was intended to be.

It is a mystery.. one better understood in our imagining. There are many mysteries that surround the Incarnation and the Resurrection. We doubt and yet, doubt is one of the great things about the Christian faith. Of course, we doubt. We can’t prove any of this except by faith. If we could prove it, then we would have no choice but to believe it. And as soon as we had no choice we would no longer be free. Our love of God would be forced upon us. Love must live in freedom or it is not love at all. But we are limited in what we can understand now. Who knows what we will understand when that great moment arrives and we slip through to our own eternity, our own experience of God’s time when all things will be revealed. I have an idea it will be so beautifully clear and simple that we will marvel at all the stress and worrying we’ve done trying to figure it out.

The gifts of Easter: of Christ’s resurrection are reconciliation, healing, love and finally peace. This gospel is Jesus’ love letter to his disciples and to us.

He said and continues to say: PEACE I LEAVE WITH YOU. He would have used the word Shalom. Not just the absence of war, but completeness, quietness, wholeness. When things come together for us in God’s good way.

Jesus says: MY SHALOM I GIVE TO YOU. I DO NOT GIVE TO YOU AS THE WORLD GIVES. DO NOT LET YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED AND DO NOT LET THEM BE AFRAID. ” I am going away, AND I am coming to you.” Or, I am going away SO I may come to you. We are not alone. It is God in Christ that will catch us whenever we stumble, whenever we fall, when we die. (And our ego? Well, if we allow it, God can use those too.) The resurrected Christ is in our midst. Thanks be to God. Alleluia and Shalom. Amen

Sermons

All Things New (Easter 5C)

“All Things New”
–The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson

Easter 5C
28 April 2013 8:00 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Mass

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

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

Fifty years ago today, on April 28, 1963, a group of demonstrators gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in what was called the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” They were demanding the passage of national civil rights and voting right acts to end legal discrimination on the basis of race or color. Fifty years ago today, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a young Baptist minister from Atlanta advocating non-violent vigorous resistance to oppression, delivered one of the great speeches of American political and social history.

In all of about 15 minutes King took up great themes and rhetorical tropes: 100 years gone by since the Emancipation Proclamation, and still no freedom; America’s default on the promissory note of liberty it had signed in its Declaration of Independence; we will not be satisfied until freedom is truly and authentically enjoyed by all; have hope that suffering is redemptive; and “I have a dream today.”

I remember as a young boy watching the speech on television and being deeply moved. I had never before the preaching of the black Church. Even my father, who thought King was a hypocrite and a communist to boot, was moved by King’s vision of a country where we all said, “let freedom ring.”

Today, 50 years on, we see progress. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Acts were passed. Explicit racial prejudice is now generally, if not universally, condemned in our society, where it was still a socially acceptable point of discussion in many quarters when King gave the speech.

But fifty years on, we are still far, far, from the dream Dr. King described, a dream where we all share equally in our common life, where we are all brothers and sisters, not defined by external classifications.

Dr. King was one of the spiritual and political leaders of the last 100 years who exerted profound influence to help their people not through skillful management of force or manipulation of interest group politics but through their self-sacrificing dedication to truth, to the common heritage and values of all humanity, and their non-violent use of what Mohandas K. Gandhi called Satyagraha—truth force. These include Gandhi himself, King, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, and H.H. the Dalai Lama, among many, many others.

Thomas Merton, O.C.R., and H.H. the XIV Dalai Lama

People often have misunderstood the reasons and rationale for non-violent resistance to oppression. Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote the following:

It would be a serious mistake to regard … nonviolence simply as a novel tactic which is at once efficacious and even edifying, and which enables the sensitive person to participate in the struggles of the world without being dirtied with blood. Nonviolence is not simply a way of proving one’s point and getting what one wants without being involved in behavior that one considers ugly and evil.… Nonviolence is perhaps the most exacting of all forms of struggle, not only because it demands first of all that one be ready to suffer evil and even face the threat of death without violent retaliation, but because it excludes mere transient self-interest from its considerations. In a very real sense, those who practice nonviolent resistance must commit themselves not to the defense of their own interests or even those of a particular group: they must commit themselves to the defense of objective truth and right and … all … human beings. Their aim is then not simply to “prevail” or to prove that they are right and the adversary wrong, or to make the adversary give in and yield what is demanded of him.

…[N]onviolence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the basic unity of humankind. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for healing and reconciliation. (“Blessed are the Meek: The Roots of Christian Non-Violence,” 1967)

King’s “I have a Dream” vision is one of united humanity, not divided races. It is a world where all are reconciled rather than one where one group, previously oppressed, has simply prevailed, turned the tables, and become oppressors in turn.

Today’s story from Acts tells of the breaking down of barriers, the overcoming of human divisions, and the sacrificial, transforming, love that comes from our faith. The inclusion of the Gentiles is a great theme of the Book of Acts, and is seen there as the direct consequence of Jesus’ resurrection. It is very appropriate on this anniversary.

Peter has included the Gentiles because of his experience of God—despite everything he knows about clean and unclean, proper and improper, holy and profane from the Holy Scriptures of his day. This causes people in the Church to question him. He intentionally goes to them, takes time and explains, “step by step.” He simply says what has happened to him to help him change his mind from where he once was and where those criticizing him still are. He is careful to include the details of the dream vision: “Lord, I can’t eat that stuff because it’s against your commandments and I’ve tried since I was little to keep them. I can’t eat it because it’s disgusting.” “But then the voice of God said, ‘call nothing unclean that I have made clean and nothing profane that I have made holy.’” And Peter then actually gets to know some of these believing Gentiles and sees in their lives the signs that God has been active in their lives, just as much as in the lives of Jewish believers. This for him is the sign that God has indeed made these Gentiles holy, without benefit of following the Scriptural Law that Peter knows.

The Resurrection of Jesus changed the world for his followers. All things were made new. Jesus in his life had proclaimed the arrival of God’s Reign; God raising Jesus from the dead showed that the Reign had indeed come. As so we have to live as if the Reign of God is already here. This includes God’s great banquet for all peoples at the end of time. This includes all people being priests and prophets. Jesus’ disciples re-evaluated everything in light of the Resurrection. Their contemplation of Beauty that raises the dead made them quickly see the universality of God’s grace, and the impermanence of human barriers.

“Call nothing profane that I have made holy!” “Call nothing unclean that I have made clean!” “All things are being made new!”

If we are to follow God’s call, we must stand ready to witness to the truth of God’s action in our lives and the lives of others, especially those different from us. With Peter, we must reach out and get to know the unfamiliar. We must “go” with them and learn to see the hand of God in their lives. Then we must go to those who criticize, and explain, “step by step,” what has led us to see God’s hand at work in our fellow human beings.

In his Second Inaugural Address in January, President Obama made a passing reference to Dr. King’s speech by also mentioning the Declaration of Independence’s vision of human equality and dignity. He explicitly expanded the reference beyond race: “We, the people, declare today the most evident of truths–that all of us are created equal–is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” The president was talking about three great historic moments in the fight for equality for all Americans: the Seneca Falls convention in New York in 1848, which launched the women’s suffrage movement; the marches in Selma and other cities in Alabama in 1965 that Dr. King helped organize; and the spontaneous demonstrations in New York City in 1969 by members of the gay community after a gratuitous and brutal police raid on a bar called the Stonewall Inn.

The issue of the full inclusion of first women as priests and bishops and then gays and lesbians fully in the common and sacramental life of the Episcopal Church has caused a lot controversy in the Church and the Anglican Communion in the last 20 years. Like the devout Jewish Christians in today’s story, some have criticized inclusion, pointed to Scripture (at least Scripture as they understand it, and asked how we can do such a thing.

All things made new! The Gospel calls us to break these barriers too. In Christ, there is no white or black, slave or free, male or female, Jew or Gentile, or gay or straight. Our reading of Holy Scripture, our reflection on tradition, and our reason tells us that we are seeing clear evidence of God intending women to be church leaders, and redeeming, transforming grace at work in the lives of Gay, Lesbian, and transgender people of faith. This has led us to discern, to be led by the Spirit if you will, that we must open these ministries and sacraments to all, including people previously marginalized and condemned due to impediment of gender or what had been seen as the moral failing and disorder of same sex attraction and love. Call nothing profane that God has declared holy!

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is what calls us, just as it did Peter.

Many members of this congregation over the years have been great examples of working for the ordination and episcopal consecration of women, and full inclusion in the sacraments and life of the Church of Gays, Lesbians, and transgendered persons. These Trinitarians are models for us all.

All the blessings of full inclusion have been obvious, not just for those now newly included, but for us all, who have graced by the gifts and contributions they make in our common life.

I know that we often operate by the rule: to get along, don’t talk religion or politics with people, especially if they disagree with you. But far from avoiding the difficult conversations with those who question or disagree with us here, we need to learn to commend the faith that is in us. Like Peter, we need to go to them, and explain these things step-by-step. And we need to do this because we see in them also the children of God. Truth force dictates that we may learn new things from them as well, and we must be open to this if we are truly to practice contemplation and satyagraha.

Sometime today or tomorrow, I want us all to sit down and read, watch, or listen to Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech. Listen to it, and think of what your dream is today. Think about the resurrection makes all things new and breaks down all barriers. Think about the barriers that we still need to break down. Think about finding God in your opponents.

Here are links to a video and the text of Dr. King’s speech:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRIF4_WzU1w

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/17/i-have-a-dream-speech-text_n_809993.html

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Fr. Tony's Mid-week Reflection

Sara Miles on Resurrection (Mid-week)

Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message

April 17, 2013

Sara Miles on Resurrection

Here is a short snippet from Sara Miles’ fine book, Take this Bread. She describes her feelings after the return of a friend, Martin, who she thought had died but instead had surprisingly recovered from a deadly illness.

“I didn’t believe in miracles. And yet I had begun to believe in healing. I saw you could be changed, opened to experiencing your life differently, made more whole, even as your body was falling apart. That you could be healed from fear by touch, even when you remained sick.

“And I had begun to believe in resurrection. I didn’t mean, by resurrection, having Martin stand up alive from the operating table and walk: I saw no cause and effect between our prayers together and his improbably recovery. Resurrection didn’t mean what I still yearned for in my loneliest moments: to see my best friend, Douglas; … or my beloved father materialize again, even for just a moment, next to me. I actually couldn’t imagine that I would see them again, in the flesh, in a drift of pink clouds in a place called heaven. Resurrection, to me, was mysterious and true in a way I could glimpse only for a second, before my mind refused to stretch that far. It passed, as the Bible said, human understanding. But I sensed that it had to do with time, like the time Marshall lay in my lap and we were both present and connected. It was about eternity available in a fully lived instant” (p. 231).

Faith is a gradual, partial thing. Faithfulness is living out and responding to the small glimpses of the true, the beautiful, and the health-giving life behind our lives that God graces us with from time to time. If you cannot believe in God hearing and answering prayers, or in the resurrection of Jesus, or in a general resurrection of the dead, then trust the calming effect of prayer on your worries, and the glimpses of God’s grace and of resurrection you see in your lives. Do not try to work up a condition of belief; such efforts are doomed to fail or produce contrived and inauthentic results. True faith comes naturally as a gift from God, sometimes in a massive and life changing flash of insight, sometimes in bits and pieces, the small dim glimpses in the world we see about us of the bright unseen world.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Tony+

Trinity Episcopal Church

The Holy Spirit in the Creed

Gone from our Sight (Ascension Sunday C)

Ego and the Spirit

All Things New (Easter 5C)

Sara Miles on Resurrection (Mid-week)

Welcome to Trinity Church Ashland!

Worship Schedule

Trinity's Mission

Follow Us!

Recent Posts

Links

Episcopal News Service