Our Destiny in the Arms of God

            When the Church Hymnal Commission created the 1982 Hymn book for the Episcopal Church, they removed a wonderful hymn: Once to Every Man and Nation that had been a part of the life of the church for many years.  I was very disappointed in this because I remember that hymn as being one of my favorites since childhood.  It spoke eloquently about how changing times demanded new duties from Christians.  New occasions teach new duties/Time makes ancient good uncouth, echoed the hymn in the words of James Russell Lowell.  Lowell wrote those words in protest against the war that we were fighting with Mexico; and when the hymn was thrown out of the new hymnal, we were still arguing about the war in Viet Nam.  I thought at the time that Lowell’s words were a great affirmation of Christian opposition to ignorant wars fought for reasons that seemed to me to be more in tune with the Military Industrial Complex than with the needs of the nation.  The same thing can be said of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan.  One can look closely at those military adventures and see little that helped with American freedom.  In pursuing those conflicts, we helped greatly with corporate greed, while sacrificing many lives.

            It is amazing to me how Christianity is available to bend with the times and elevate to good things that seem to me to be so terribly wrong.  Right wing Christianity seems to want constantly to blend the cross and the flag into one symbol.  I know that the United States was not created to be a Christian nation; but a country where all faiths were honored and recognized.  The first amendment to our Constitution forbids the establishment of any religion by the state and opens our doors to the inclusion of any worship group among our inhabitants, including any people who adhere to no religion at all.  That is one of the primary principles that make this nation great.  Over the years, we have opened our doors to Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and some home grown varieties such as The Church of the Latter Day Saints, the Christian Scientists and many others.  Religion has been always a firm part of the American Experience, and it flourishes today in many different types, always presenting us with what its adherents believe to be the Word of God.  That the “Word” frequently turns out to be not of God, but simply the political preference of one individual, is irrelevant.  We are a country where it is possible to voice our religious preferences as loudly as we wish.  I think of the Westboro Baptist Church and its picketing of gay weddings and funerals without producing any particular feedback, or of Pat Robertson trying valiantly to blame the Texas flooding on the gay population and struggling to find the right words to accomplish this.  That all of this religious nonsense is a part of our common life, I think is a tribute to the freedom that we have in this country to pursue our conversation with our God and with each other. 

            One of the great politicians of Jesus’ time, Nicodemus came to him by night to talk to him about his miracles and what they meant.  He told Jesus: Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God. Jesus told him that no one could see the Kingdom of God without being born from above.  The conversation continued until Jesus ended it with those great words from John 3: 16-17: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

            That is the essence of Christian belief.  We are loved infinitely and saved from ourselves by our God, despite the ignorant things that we do and continue to do.  Our ultimate freedom is not wrapped up in the things that this country does or fails to do.  We are as a people held in the hands of our loving God who offers to us the certainty that our destiny is safe and firmly established in God’s sight.  No matter what the politicians and the moneyed class decide, our lives are safe.  What we need to do is not to fight more wars, but to help those without means to a comfortable life with us.  That is what Jesus spent his entire ministry doing.  Following in his way is our calling.

The Nudges of the Spirit

            In the First Book of Kings, in the ninth chapter is the story of Elijah fleeing from the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel after he defeated the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel.  He was terrified of what those two leaders might do to him, so he ran south to Horeb, the Mountain of God, also called Mount Sinai, where Moses had received the Ten Commandments.  Elijah found a cave and lodged there.  God spoke to him and told him to come outside. When he went out, Elijah heard a powerful wind, but God was not in the wind; there was then an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake; then a blazing fire, but God was not in the fire.  Then Elijah heard a still, small voice.  It was the voice of God speaking to him telling him how the Israelites would be preserved by the swords of the men whom Elijah would recruit, and how Elisha would emerge as the successor to Elijah.

            I’ve always loved the idea of God speaking in a still, small voice.  I think that is how it happens most of the time.  Think about it for yourself.  How has God spoken to you?  Is it with thunder and lightning, earthquakes, fire and flood?  Or is it mostly in the stillness of the night in your dreams?  For me it has been in quietness that I have heard the Lord speak to me.  It would be nice if the words were clear and direct, but mostly they aren’t.  They are mostly nudges in one direction or another and when I have listened to them, I have been richly blessed. 

            My movement into ordained ministry came this way.  I had been working as the program director of a television station that went bankrupt and I found myself out of a job.  I reached back into an old desire that I had to do the work of the church and I called my rector to see what he thought. That was the still, small nudge. We talked to the bishop and I was enrolled in Virginia Seminary the following September.  In the meantime, we sold our house, got an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, moved our kids there and got ready for a new chapter in our lives.  Rosie found a job and we relocated.  When I look back on it, it seems like an awful lot happened in a very short period of time. It is also remarkable that there was general agreement between Rosie and me about what we were going to do.  I think that our kids might have a different view of it, but I know that God’s Spirit was instrumental in all of it.   I can’t pinpoint the exact words, or whatever it was that led to all of it.  It is as mysterious as all of God’s work is in the world.  I know that ordained ministry is what I am called to do.  When I say “called”, I mean it in a very specific way.  I know that I am called to do God’s work in this world, as we all are, but for me it is in this specific calling. 

            I mention all of this because this coming Sunday is the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down upon the twelve apostles who were still trying to find their way after the resurrection of their Lord Jesus.  The way that the story is told in the Acts of the Apostles is almost startling in its detail.  Tongues of fire came down on the heads of these followers of Jesus and they spoke in different tongues.  All of the people who were present heard them speak .in the language that they themselves understood.  People from all over the place heard the words spoken by these followers of Jesus.  Their first inclination was to think that they were drunk; but Peter said that they certainly weren’t drunk, it was only nine o’clock in the morning. He then went on to quote the Prophet Joel about the coming of the word of God in the last days.  It is an incredible story and it became the basis for the followers of the Christ reaching out to all of the nations of the world with the Good News of the gospel of Christ. 

                Pentecost is the beginning of a long season of the church.  From now until the beginning of Advent, we will hear stories of Jesus’ ministry and his work in the world.  In the Roman Catholic Church, this is called “ordinary time”.  But the beginning is incredible.  The coming of the Holy Spirit as promised by Jesus when he left his disciples is an event of great note.  What I certainly can’t argue with is the presence of the Spirit in all of our lives.  How the Word of God is communicated to us is always mysterious.  I know from my own experience that it is a quiet, small voice that is easy to miss. It is only when I look back that I can see the little nudges that moved me in the direction that brought me to this day.  I thank God for these small messages.  They are messages that belong to God, not to me.  My responsibility is to do what I am called to do.  That is not always easy to see or to understand.  I need constantly to be open to the call of the Spirit.  That means a life of prayer and frequent times of silence.  It is only then that the still, small voice of God can be heard.

The Evil that Exists Within Us

            It is certainly not possible to deny that there is evil in this world.  I grew up during the Second World War and heard the stories of the Jews and many others killed by the Nazis in Germany and the rejection even by the United States when some of the Jewish residents of Europe tried to come to this country in boats.  We had no idea what was going on in Europe until late in the war when the horror of the concentration camps was uncovered and we knew what had been done by the evil people who were at the head of the German government. 

            It is easy to deceive ourselves that we are better than that.  It is easy to dismiss evil as something terrible like Nazism that thrives for a while and then is defeated, but that is really to miss the point.  Evil is a constant among us.  It isn’t only Boko Haram in Africa or ISIS in the Middle East.  Evil is always present in our everyday lives.  It was evil that caused the crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Romans and the Leaders of the Temple because they saw him as a threat to their way of life. 

            We are deep into the Easter season and we are just getting around to choosing a successor to Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus and caused his death.  It is easy to forgive Judas, he thought he was doing the right thing; but like most of our confrontations with evil, that also misses the point.  Jesus’ engagement with evil was a profound statement by God of the ultimate kingship of God over all of creation, despite what we might desire.

             What is certainly notable in Judas’ betrayal is that evil has been a part of the church from its beginning.  Judas was a part of Jesus’ entourage.  He followed him, believed in him and ultimately betrayed him.  It is tempting to dismiss this as just one man among the twelve; but that isn’t true.  Peter denied Jesus three times.  Thomas refused to believe in the Risen Christ because he didn’t have the facts. Paul held the coats of his fellow Pharisees when they stoned the martyr Stephen.  Evil is a part of all of our natures.  It can’t just be dismissed.  We all know about it, we have experienced it and we have seen it work in our lives. 

            I have always been intrigued by Jesus’ forty day sojourn in the desert right after his baptism and his engagement with Satan in that place.  Satan used a wonderful sarcastic phrase:  If you are the Son of God… . The tempter asked him to allay his hunger by turning the stones into bread, and then taking him to a high mountain and showing him all of the cities of the earth and telling Jesus that all of these would be his if only he would pledge allegiance to Satan.  Then, he placed him on the temple mount and told him to throw himself down so that God’s angels would certainly rescue him.  Jesus refused all of these things, knowing that only by living his life and showing the profound Love of God to people in this world by the way that he encountered and alleviated the pain that consumed so many people, would God’s message of hope ever be understood.  That was the mission of Jesus during his life among us.  He taught, healed, preached and helped countless people with their lives.  He showed everyone whom he met how God loved his creation.  And at the end, Jesus knew that only by giving himself to those who opposed him would evil finally be defeated.  That is why the resurrection is such an important moment in the history of the world.

            But defeating evil certainly isn’t a once and for all event.  Evil persists and the church has been created to be an organization that stands as a place where evil can be always contested.  The problem is that the church sometimes joins with evil in creating messes in this world.  I know the struggles that minorities have had in the church: women trying to become ordained; gays and lesbians trying to have equal treatment from their fellow Christians without finding themselves judged and excluded.  That is a paradox that the church has been contending with throughout its history. 

            Jesus told us to be inclusive: to love one another as He loved us.  That sounds simple, but it isn’t.  It is incredibly difficult.  We are all natural judges and we look at those who are different from us with a skeptical eye. We judge those who are of a different economic class than ours; or a different race, or those of a different belief system.  It was amazing how two classes of judges came together in Garland, Texas to create chaos: the Muslim haters who sponsored a caricature of Mohammed contest and two men who were bent on violence who showed up with weapons.  No wonder there is violence in this world.  We never seem to really learn.

            But we come together as a community to share our lives, to take care of one another and to provide for those around us as much help as we can.  Ours is a magnificent mission, one that offers to all of us who find evil in our midst a way around it: to love God and each other with all of our hearts.

Letting our Compassion Loose

            After the apostles finally understood that Jesus had risen from the dead and they experienced the ascension, they began to discover the ministry that Jesus had sent them on.   It is our ministry too.  Their job was to build the church, and to continue the work that Jesus had done in taking care of the poor and the afflicted in the world.  In our time, it is a little bit daunting to do this because there is so much misery in the world.  I have always been impressed by organizations such as Doctors Without Borders who go anywhere that there is pain and try to help.  They aren’t afraid of the political consequences of going anywhere at all, as long as there is a great need.  They have done some wonderful things in this world and they deserve our deepest respect and whatever way that we can help them in what they do.

            I think of them when I look at the devastation that has happened in Nepal and in Tibet around Mount Everest.  I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to stand on that great mountain and feel the effects of a massive earthquake.  It caused an avalanche that destroyed several of the climbing camps on the mountain.  Thank God that there were some people around who were able to help, and who continue to help in those ruined places.  What drives organizations like Doctors Without Borders is compassion; simple care for others.  It isn’t a desire for wealth or anything for themselves.  It is instead a sense of responsibility to other people on this planet who are in desperate need and have no way at all to take care of themselves.

               That simple phrase: God is Love was the model for what Jesus brought to all of us in his too short life.  Constantly, he cared for others instead of himself, and that is the love that he commanded his disciples to continue to show to the world.  It doesn’t always have to be something that we do on a massive scale.  We can take care of people in our everyday lives, if only we will look.   

            Every week in the Post-Gazette there are stories of people who have gone out of their way to help others. The paper calls these Random Acts of Kindness.  Somebody pays the bill for a group in a restaurant, or helps somebody with a flat tire.  These are simple things that mean a lot to the recipients.  More of this is what is needed in this world.  The curious thing about random acts of kindness is that we read them in the paper.  These are simply the everyday acts that we all need to do to help each other.  That is what I mean by Jesus’ command to love one another.  Look for ways.  It really isn’t hard.  It just means looking with compassion on the people around us and thinking about what they need.  Doing this in small ways can also take care of the larger issues that plague us.

            When I look at situations such as have occurred in Baltimore in recent days, I know that a lack of compassion is at the root of much of it.  It isn’t only the cruel way that one man was treated by the police after his arrest; it is much more than that.  There is a lack of compassion for the poverty that infects many of the neighborhoods where the people are living.  Unemployment is has high as fifty percent in these areas.  It is inevitable that frustration with a lack of wealth and the inability to produce enough to make life minimally comfortable will lead people to desperate measures.  This is what happens in our inner cities, including a number of places in Pittsburgh.

            I have preached a number of times in Homewood at the Church of the Holy Cross.

I have loved that parish since my friend Junius Carter was the Rector. Father Carter died a few years ago, but we were good friends in the turbulent times in the seventies when there was almost a revolution in this town in terms of racial equality.  I have felt an attraction to Homewood because my father was brought up in that community.  This was in a different time; in the early part of the twentieth century.  That neighborhood has changed considerably over the years.  There are abandoned apartment buildings all over the place; fires get started because homeless people go into vacant houses and start fires simply for heat. 

             There are signs up all around on those streets saying “Don’t Shoot, We Love you”.  Can you imagine the reason for this?  There is a lot of poverty and violence and people with guns in Homewood, and a lot of good people who would like to stop it.  There is a lack of trust between the people and the police, because the police look at the black residents with a prejudice.  It isn’t just the color of their skin, it is a deeper prejudice: that those who are black are being judged as guilty of anything that is going on in the neighborhood, before they have a chance to speak.  That creates a climate of distrust.  There have been attempts to create a better climate, but there is a cynicism among law enforcement and increasingly among the people that makes change very difficult and this continues the distrust of the community.      

            So, what do we do about it?  I think that Jesus has the answer in his simple command to his disciples to love one another as I have loved you.  Not really very simple at all, is it?  It involves all of us looking at each other as brothers and sisters, wherever we are.   Let your compassion loose.  Do what you can for your neighbors every day.  It will make a big difference.