Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Loving God and Our Neighbor

             We have had an awful mess in Baltimore in this past week.   People protesting the death of Freddy Gray who was in police custody have been rioting and doing a lot of damage.  Those who have been looting and destroying property are no friends of Freddy Gray.  They are people taking an opportunity to do some very bad things in their neighborhood.  But there is an underlying problem: relations between the black community and the police department have deteriorated badly.  The economic condition in those neighborhoods is also appalling.  The problem in Baltimore is only one of a number of this kind of events that have triggered rage all over the country.  Race relations on the part of police have reached a place where something needs to be done before things get visibly worse. We need very much to address this issue, an issue of loving our brother and sister as a person like ourselves.  The result of our lack of love can be devastating.

            This isn’t only something that exists in poor neighborhoods.  I went to vote in our precinct a year or so ago and was asked for identification, even though it had been made clear to everyone that it wasn’t required.  I refused and asked the man behind the table why he was asking me.  He said “there are some people who come in here who look like our President.”  I was outraged and said to him that what he said was the most bigoted thing that I had ever heard from an official in public.  That probably wasn’t technically truthful because I have heard many public officials say things that were even more bigoted.  But there we are with our lack of love for each other calling into question our love of God.  Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.  That is a clear commandment that we have from the lips of our Lord Jesus, who told his disciples to love God and to love one another.

            In John’s first letter, there is a wonderful phrase that we all need very much to hear: Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.1John 4:21 In a culture that constantly draws lines around race, ethnic origin and gender, we violate this constantly.  We have a terrible time loving those of a different nature than ourselves.  We have had terrible culture wars in this country, pitting black against white, often without understanding.  Voting rights are still an object of argument, with people trying still to take them away.   

            The Acts of the Apostles is the story of what the Apostles did after they discovered the resurrection of Jesus had actually happened.  They built the church.  In Philip’s case, he was sent by the Spirit to go south on the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.  When we were in Israel a long time ago, we went through Gaza into Egypt by bus all the way to Cairo, so I know where that is.  On the way, Philip saw an Ethiopian in a carriage and was told by the Spirit to go to him.  The man was reading Isaiah but didn’t understand it.  Philip explained to him what Isaiah was saying and told him the story of Jesus from his birth to his resurrection.  They came to a pond and the Ethiopian said that he wanted to be baptized, and Philip did that with him.  This is a beautiful story of one of the apostles spreading the good news of Jesus into the heart of a person whom he happened to meet on the road.  Certainly the Ethiopian was black, and was a man of wealth, being the finance minister of the leader of his country.  Philip had no problem with this brother of his, accepting him for who he was and simply telling him the story of God’s love and welcoming him into his arms as a fellow Christian.  This is exactly what is meant by loving one’s brother and sister being a sign that we love God.  Whoever it is that you meet on the street is visible to you.  God is not.  We know God through each other.  Our role as Christians is to tell the story of God’s love as far and wide as we can.  We do that by the way that we live our lives.  If we live lives full of hatred and bigotry, we spread a message that God is also one who hates and is bigoted.  That is contrary to everything that I know about God, who loved us so very much that he sent his Son Jesus to come among us, to live like us and to die like us.

            The churches that we have built are sanctuaries .  Places where those who need love and respect can find it.  We place no signs on our doors limiting who it is who can come in to these places.  They are open to all.  That is what the Love of God is all about.  God loves us, so we are asked to love one another.  That is, in a couple of words, the message of the Gospel.  God bless us as we try as hard as we can to do this.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Using the Gifts We Have Been Given

            I have a number of times gone to downtown Pittsburgh, walked from the parking garage to Trinity Cathedral.  On the way, I have been approached by people who looked as though they were homeless; or at least in need and they have asked me for money.  That probably happens because I have a clerical collar on and look like a preacher.  I always try to give them some money, sometimes whatever I have in my wallet.  I have been criticized for this because people say, “they will only go and buy booze with it”.  I suppose that is true sometimes.  But the truth of the matter is this: when I give my money to somebody, it is no longer mine.  What they decide to do with it is up to them.  Yes, they can go and buy booze with it.  They can also go and buy food, or something else that they need, and I think that this also happens much of the time.  The problem is, I don’t know one time from another.

            Once I was driving in Washington, D.C. in a clerical collar.  I was stopped at an intersection on 14th street.  I was in front of a liquor store and a man hammered on my car window and yelled, “Preacher, give me ten dollars so that I can go into this liquor store and get me a bottle!”  I didn’t give him anything.  I was too terrorized.  As the light changed, I turned the corner and hurried across the bridge to my safe home in Alexandria.  That was probably the most honest request for money that I have ever received.

            In the First Letter of John is a jarring statement:  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and refuses help? That certainly gets my attention.  Mostly, we are blessed people.  We have enough to feed our families, drive our cars and provide a modest amount of entertainment.  If we are wanting, it is usually in the nature of our emotional needs.  We all grieve from time to time.  Loss is never an easy thing.  When we suffer loss, it is necessary for us to understand the wonder of community. Out parish churches generally turn out to take care of one another’s needs and provide help. It is a beautiful thing to see when we watch people take care of one another. 

            Rosie and I watched Foxcatcher the other night.  It is the story of John DuPont, an egotistical rich man who tried to assemble a wrestling team to win a world championship.  At the end, John kills a man, the wrestling team dissolves and John dies in prison.  It isn’t an easy movie to watch.  I was struck by the callousness of the movie; its lack of respect for humanity and the way that this one rich man managed to spread his insidious lack of morality to a whole group of people who wanted only to win, but to win in honest ways.  I saw the lack of love in this movie as the driving force that brought the story at last to a tragic end. 

            We are all subject to this kind of self-centered approach to life.  When we let our own needs determine our life goals, we leave our community and enter a place where we don’t have enough means to achieve our goals.  That is certainly what happened to John DuPont.  It wasn’t only his material wealth that determined his fate; it was also his lack of emotional depth.  He was a poor man in every sense of the word, except for his enormous treasure of money. 

             Scripture tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil.  That is certainly true.  It isn’t the money itself; it is our worship of it that gets us off the track.  I would love to have enough money to pay off our kids student loans and make sure that they have everything that they need.  That would be wonderful.  But more wonderful it would be if they were able to take care of their own needs, and to be respectful of the needs of those around them.  This they have done in their lives, and we are proud of them for it.  It isn’t necessary for us to take charge of them and to dictate how they use their means.  Thank God, it is up to them, and we know that they understand that.

                That is ultimately our mission in this world.  To use what we have been graciously given not only for ourselves, but also to take care of the need that we see around us.  That is what our Lord asked us to do: to be a source of hope for those who are without.  This includes not only those who lack wealth, but also those who suffer emotional need.  That is what it means to be a community.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Building the Church

            When I was the rector of Christ Church, North Hills in Pittsburgh back in the now distant 80’s, we started a new Episcopal church in Franklin Park, in the Northern Suburbs of Pittsburgh.  St. Brendan’s was an attempt to attract people from the burgeoning areas that were being fed by a new expressway.  The parish started small, meeting for a time in a Presbyterian church in the area and growing slowly, but after a while began and built a new building.  It wasn’t an easy time.  There was a competing parish that also wanted to build a church in the area and we managed to get an agreement from them that they would hold off their effort for a year while we tried to get St. Brendan’s underway.  It really worked out well.  The competing parish also built their building, but decided to leave the Episcopal Church, which made the argument go away and the little parish managed to thrive.  Today, St. Brendan’s is an excellent parish with a solid membership and is a good presence in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. 

            I tell you this because what I want to describe is the building of the church.  That is what I believe the gospel is about, particularly today.  The miracle of Easter has happened and the disciples are wondering what it is that they do next.  At first they are frightened that they are next of the list of those to be arrested and killed for their faith; but Jesus comes to them and shows them what the resurrection means.  Slowly it dawns on them that their Lord is alive and well and that there is a mission before them that they can’t ignore.  They put their fears aside and begin to speak of the dynamic love that Jesus has exhibited toward humankind. 

            The stories that are told in the Acts of the Apostles are examples of what the building of the church was all about in the first century.  No longer afraid, the disciples begin to speak of what happened around the time of the crucifixion with frank judgement.  They talk to the people about the release of Barabbas rather than Jesus:  (Y)ou rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. Here is faithful witness without fear.  Disciples who understand that their mission is clear: the building of the church from this point onward.  And it worked well.  In small groups, mostly in homes, the church began and spread.  They celebrated and worked to become what we call today the Body of Christ.  The Lord visibly present in this world through the acts of the disciples who loved Jesus completely and who had witnessed his death and resurrection and understood their mandate to make the whole world understand what that meant. 

            It is still our job today to be witnesses of that wonder.  The purpose of the church is to show the love of God to the world around us.  We sometimes become obsessed with the bricks and mortar of the place.  We need to replace the windows or the roof, or whatever at the moment seems to be broken.  When we do that, we take away from our mission.  The point of all of this is to first of all, to be a community of faithful Christians who love each other so that we can be a beacon of hope to those who have nothing in this world.  We are not the place where the wealthy find comfort and where those who have much also discover that they also happen to possess eternal life; we are a refuge for those who discover in this world that they don’t have very much at all and they need the love that those of us who love God can provide.

            When my wife and I were in England, we visited a number of the great cathedrals that were built.  These great buildings were built by workers who found the work to be of great benefit to them.  They raised their families out of the pay that they received for the work of building these places.  When we visited them, they were all beginning to crumble.  Most of them had large boxes throughout the nave asking for donations from the visitors.  They had no other means of support. At Salisbury Cathedral, they were financing teams of carpenters and stoneworkers who were fixing the broken parts of the Cathedral.  This was how they were using their money.  When we visited Canterbury Cathedral, we discovered that there was a ticket booth where it was necessary to pay to enter the grounds, and when we went to the Sunday service, we were seated in the choir instead of the nave and the congregation consisted mostly of tourists.  It was for me a rude awakening of the condition of the church in that country.  It is still in decline and it will soon be in decline in this country unless we put aside our differences and begin again to be a source of the Gospel of Christ in this world.  What that means is to take care of those who have nothing and who are dependent on the gifts of others for their very existence.      

            One of my favorite places in England is a place in Yorkshire called Fountains Abbey.  It was built by Cistercian monks in the eleventh century using workers in the area who needed the work to survive.  Henry VIII kicked out the monks and closed the abbey and it fell into ruin. Today, it is a serene and beautiful place where you can walk among the stones and the former places of worship and experience a magnificent peace that tells me that God is still present in that place.  Down the street about a mile and a half is Ripon Cathedral, one of the places that is in the process of decline.  Both of those sites are ruins.  One of them doesn’t know it.

            Our mission a Christians is to keep the church always alive and well, no matter our size.  We need to attract those who have need of hope, faith and comfort to a place where we can show them what the resurrected Christ means to them and to all of us.  God will bless us as we do this marvelous work for the world.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Science and Religion

            We have a constant argument going on in this country over global warming.  All of science seems to agree that the polar ice caps are melting, the turbulent storms that we have been having in the country, both summer and winter are as a result of climate change, but there are rampant deniers of this who want to call the people who are trying to warn us about what is happening in our climate as fear mongers or worse.  It is a shame that something as dangerous as the problem with our climate has degenerated in to political argument that has Republicans fighting with Democrats and people generally ignoring the problems that are associated with this development in our weather.

            I used to broadcast the weather on television.  I remember when the first TIROS satellite was launched that gave us the first picture of our weather all over the country.  It was a remarkable event.  It was the beginning of meteorologists being able to see at a glance what was happening around us, offering a tool for forecasting that brought us a new accuracy that hadn’t been possible before.  I remember talking to rotary clubs about this technology and saying to them that it was only a first step; that there was much more that needed to be done before we could know what our weather would be for certain. This, for me was science at its best.  We were eating away at what was required by faithfully believing that weathermen knew what they were saying.

            We are in the midst of the significant and blessed Easter season.  This is the time when we celebrate the most wonderful mystery that Christianity offers: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Last week, we had Easter day, which comes after the horrible experience of the crucifixion of our Lord and his burial in a borrowed tomb.  When the women came to the tomb, they found it empty and couldn’t believe that Jesus has risen from the dead.  As the story continues, the disciples of Jesus are locked away in a room, as it says, for fear of the Jews, meaning that they were deathly afraid that they were the next to be arrested.  All of a sudden, Jesus appears among them.  They are overjoyed to see their Lord, although Thomas wasn’t there with them.  They try to tell Thomas what they have seen, but he doubts what they say.  He wants scientific proof.  Unless I can put my fingers into his wounds, and my hands into his side, I won’t believe, he says.  A few days later, Jesus again appears among the disciples.  Thomas is there.  Jesus says to him: Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe. Thomas says to Jesus: my Lord and my God!

            Jesus goes on to say to Thomas:  Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.  Here is that wonderful division of faith and science.  We are the ones who have not seen, yet have come to believe.  That is the essence of Easter.  The resurrection is certainly not a provable event.  We have never seen one, yet we celebrate the wonder of Easter because we know that Jesus has risen from the tomb and that we will also.  It makes sense of all of our lives.  Even the tragedies that we experience are overwhelmed finally by the whole idea of the resurrection.  That God’s love extends not only through our lives, but even into our deaths.  That is what makes a believer out of me. 

            There is too much destruction in this world.  We have families ripped apart and whole communities destroyed by violence.  Something has to supersede that.  In God’s infinite love, we are given the assurance of resurrection and a continuity of life that continues even after we die. 

            Once when I was doing the weather for a television station in West Texas, I watched as some seven tornadoes snaked their way across the horizon.  These terrible storms portended waves of destruction for the people in their wake.  This kind of damage occurs frequently in this country from Texas through the Midwest.  We even get some of them in our area.  We live through the tragedy that these storms bring, but it is always heartening to me to see the people in these areas rise again and reclaim their lives.  This is the process of resurrection being acted out on the stage of life.  The same thing happens when life is no more.  We can believe that the God that we worship has more in mind for us than to simply die and be no more.  We live on, and Easter is God’s scientific proof of that.  Even though we haven’t seen, we still believe.  We are blessed indeed.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The Remarkable Blessing of Easter

            Rosie and I were at a fitness place the other day.  Rosie was with a class that was teaching a group how to strengthen their muscles.  Mostly the class was older people like us.  I was walking on a treadmill and getting some exercise while waiting for her class to be over.  When the door opened and the people came out, there were several little old ladies accompanying Rosie as she came to me.  “This is my husband,” she said to those women.  “Oh, you still have one of those,” was the reply.  That put a lot of things in perspective for me.  We don’t live forever, do we?  There comes a time when we come to the end of our lives and are separated from each other.  That is what the marriage service means when we take vows to be true to each other “until death does us part”.  The time comes when we part from each other, as much as we don’t even want to think about it.  That is what life is all about. 

            When I read the gospels for Easter Sunday, I am somewhat astonished at what a small thing they seem to make out of the resurrection of Jesus.  When I read all of the New Testament, I am struck by the fact that resurrection is the end point of Jesus’ ministry.  It is what he has been heading for since his birth.  He relentlessly preaches about the constant love that God holds for us all.  He heals and restores and always shows a miraculous compassion for all of humanity.  That this would not extend beyond life itself is beyond my understanding.  But in Mark’s Gospel, the end of the story is the women finding the body gone and the angel telling them that Jesus has risen and instructing them to tell his followers, and then they run in fear away from the tomb.  In the Gospel of John, the story is a bit different, but still remarkably subdued.  Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb and finds that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance.  She runs and tells Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved what has happened.  They run to the tomb, find it just as Mary described it with the wrappings lying there, but Jesus body has disappeared. 

            Meanwhile, Mary stays at the tomb.  She looks in, sees two angels in white who ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” which seems to me to be almost a sick joke at this moment.  She tells them that they have taken away the body of her Lord and she doesn’t know where they have taken him.  She turns around and there is Jesus standing there, but she doesn’t know who it is.  She supposes him to be the gardener.  He says to her the same thing that the angels said:  “Woman, why are you weeping?”  With great anxiety, she says to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, please tell me where he is.”  Jesus says to her, “Mary.”  She replies, “Rabbouni”, which means teacher.  She tries to hold on to Jesus, but he tells her not to touch him because he has not ascended, but to tell his apostles that he is ascending to God.  Mary goes and reports to the disciples:  “I have seen the Lord” 

            So why is Jesus’ resurrection so downplayed in these Gospels?  Why aren’t there bands playing and people shouting and a great fuss made over this incredible event?  One of the reasons might be that resurrection is something that is completely out of our experience.  I know that I have never seen one.  I have stood in church aisles many times with caskets and wished that I could preside over a resurrection instead of a funeral.  The grief that surrounds our death is very difficult and it hurts a lot.  Mary, grieving at the tomb of Jesus is certainly proof of that.  All of you have had the experience of grief, sometimes over your parents, or your spouse, or sometimes a child.  We all know what it feels like to experience loss, and how hard it is to get back to our lives.

            This is a terribly violent world.  ISIS is on the march in the Middle East with atrocities unbounded.  We don’t even know what side we are on in some of the conflicts.  I am amazed at how those nations and tribes and cults feud with one another and we have no idea how to do anything to stop it.  We argue with each other about it and can’t seem to solve much of anything.  The tragedy is overwhelming.  Where is there help?  In the face of all of this loss, how can we get back to some kind of normality?

            But listen to what Jesus tells Mary:  I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to your God and my God!  Jesus is focused on life, not death.  His words to Mary, and to his followers is that even though he died on the cross, even though his life ended in a terrible tragedy, he still lives and has moved from this world into the arms of our God.  That is what resurrection means.  That is the antidote to me for the grief that I certainly experience when I have a loss. And it is God’s ultimate answer to all of the tragedy that we see around us.  I know that those women who met us at the fitness place had lost spouses and were getting on with their lives, even though the grief had been terrible.  God loves us absolutely and none of us need fear that after our death we won’t continue to live, not on this earth, but in the place where our God will continue to love and care for us through all eternity.  That is the joy of this remarkable day.  We can live our lives in the certain knowledge of the resurrection and know it to be ours.  It is the greatest gift that our God can give.  That is the meaning of Easter and why it is such a day of celebration.