Saint Augustine of Canterbury

Friday, May 29, 2026

(Transferred from May 26)

 

Not to be confused with his perhaps more famous namesake, Augustine of Hippo, the Saint Augustine we commemorate today was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 598.

 

Britain had been Christian since at least the fourth century. But after the withdrawal of the Roman legions in 410, the southern and eastern parts of what is today England had been settled by pagan tribes from northern Europe, principally the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. The ancient British Church survived in Wales and southwestern England, principally in Devon and Cornwall. However, the native Britons hated the Germanic invaders and appear never to have tried to convert them to Christianity.

 

By the late sixth century, Kent in the southeast had become the most important of the English kingdoms, and a trading partner of the Christian kingdoms in what is today France. (Kent belonged not to the Saxons, but to the Jutes, who had come from the Jutland peninsula in what is today Denmark and northern Germany.) 

 

The king of Kent, Ethelbert, had married Bertha, daughter of the king of Paris. One of the conditions of the marriage was that Bertha be allowed to practice her Christian faith, and she brought a Frankish bishop with her to Ethelbert’s capital, Canterbury, to serve as her chaplain. Together, they restored one of the disused sites of Christian worship dating back to Roman times into a functioning church. So, even prior to Augustine’s arrival, there was a Christian presence in Canterbury.

 

Some historians speculate that Bertha persuaded Ethelbert to ask Pope Gregory the Great to send missionaries. Others believe that Gregory himself took the initiative, as recounted in the Venerable Bede’s story of Gregory seeing Saxons for sale in the slave market in Rome and remarking on their blond hair and likeness to angels. Either way, Kent was the logical place to establish a bridgehead for a mission to England, given its location just across the English Channel from France and the influence of its Christian queen.

 

In 595, Gregory chose Augustine to lead the mission. Augustine was the prior of the Benedictine monastery where Gregory himself had been a monk. When the missionaries were about to cross the Channel, however, they lost heart—having heard stories of the barbaric English ways—and sent Augustine back to ask Gregory’s permission to call off the mission. Gregory urged them on, and they arrived in Canterbury in the spring of 597. Augustine first converted and baptized the king; then, after preaching to his subjects, he converted thousands in a mass baptism on the Day of Pentecost.

 

Augustine was consecrated a bishop sometime in 598. Augustine wrote to Gregory seeking advice on a number of matters, and their correspondence has become a classic of the Christian pastoral tradition. Gregory’s directions included the famous advice not to suppress local customs, but rather to retain and reinterpret what was best in them. Thus, pagan temples and shrines were not destroyed but re-consecrated as Christian churches; pagan feasts were renamed and moved to the nearest Christian holy day.

 

In 601, more missionaries arrived in Kent, bringing letters from Gregory, sacred vessels, relics, books, and, not least, a pallium for Augustine. This gift signified that Gregory was making Augustine an archbishop. (The pallium is a lamb’s wool vestment worn about the neck by archbishops.) Gregory directed Augustine to consecrate more bishops, including a second archbishop for York in the north, and bishops for London and Rochester.

 

Augustine failed to gain the allegiance of the native British church in the west. The venerable Bede tells the story that the British Christians took offense at his disrespect when he didn’t stand as their bishops arrived for their meeting. But the reasons were likely more complex, involving differences over the date of Easter and the form of the tonsure—that is, the way in which priests and monks shaved their heads. Such matters would have to wait for settlement at a later date.

 

Augustine died on May 26, 604, having consecrated Lawrence, one of his companions from Rome, to be his successor. In the span of seven years, Augustine had firmly planted the Roman mission in Britain and laid the foundations of what would become the Church of England.

TRINITY SUNDAY

May 31, 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16-20

 

On the occasion of this wonderful celebration, it seems well to begin by saying what the Holy Trinity is not. It’s not a puzzle to be solved; it’s a mystery to be adored. So my goal this morning is not to “explain the Trinity,” as if that were possible. (A wise priest of my acquaintance once said that the classical Christian doctrines are not what require explanation because they are the explanation.)

 

In any case, a good clue as to what we’re really about today comes in the Collect of the Day. If we listen carefully, we hear four words repeated. Each is said not once but twice. And these four words are: faith, worship, eternal, glory. So let’s listen up for these four words as I read the Collect again:

 

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

To paraphrase, we praise God for having revealed himself as one God in three Persons, and we ask him to keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, that we may share with him in his eternal glory. So, today’s feast calls us to faith, worship, and eternal glory!

 

Our calling to eternal glory comes from our creation in God’s image and likeness. Today’s reading of the Seven Days of Creation in the Book of Genesis includes these verses: “Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness … So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

 

Notice how the text switches back and forth between the singular and the plural. On one hand, the text speaks of one God who speaks and creates. But, on the other hand, this one God doesn’t say, “Let me make humankind in my image,” but rather, “Let us make humankind in our image.” 

 

Here, the Christian tradition understands the “us” and the “our” as expressing the three divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But again, it’s not “the gods” who speak and act, but God. So, right there, the Genesis text’s grammar is consistent with the Trinitarian doctrine of one God in three Persons.

 

Furthermore, the human race, created in God’s image, is likewise both singular and plural. On the one hand, the noun translated as “humankind” is in the singular. It’s the Hebrew Adam, which earlier translations rendered as “man” but could also be translated as “humanity” or “the human being.” But then the pronouns shift immediately to the plural: In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 

 

The point is that we human beings are simultaneously one and many. We’re many individual persons; still, we’re one in our common humanity, our shared human nature. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity teaches us not only who God is, but also who we are, as human beings created in God’s image. It provides the underlying basis of both our unity and our diversity.

 

The three Persons of the Holy Trinity are traditionally described as having three attributes: coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial. (Consubstantial simply means sharing the same nature, essence, or being. So, we might instead list the three attributes as coequal, coeternal, and of one nature.)

 

We human beings are similarly coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial. Coequal: we all share in equal dignity as bearers of the same divine image. Coeternal: we’re all called to the same eternal life. Consubstantial: we all share in the same human nature. 

 

It follows that racism and other ideologies promoting human inequality and domination of one group by another are not only sinful but blasphemous. Such ideologies disregard and dishonor the divine image in our fellow human beings. For Christians, then, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a powerful weapon in the struggle against injustice and oppression. And this vision of human beings created in the divine image may be the unique contribution that Christians can make to public discourse at this challenging time in the history of our nation and the world.

 

Today’s Gospel reminds us that just as in the beginning we were created in the image of the Trinity, so in Holy Baptism we’ve been recreated in the name of the Trinity. The risen Lord appears to the eleven in Galilee and commissions them: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

 

And so we live confidently in the present and look with joyful hope to the future. As baptized members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we have his promise that he is with us “always, to the end of the age.” 

 

In today’s Epistle from Second Corinthians, Saint Paul bids us, “agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” And then he gives a trinitarian blessing: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you.” That is, by the way, the traditional concluding sentence of the Anglican Prayer Book offices of daily Morning and Evening prayer.

 

A basic tenet of the Christian faith is that it’s precisely as the Holy Trinity that God is the God of love and peace, or more simply, as St. John puts it, that God is love. The perfect love that the three divine Persons eternally share among themselves, in total mutuality and total self‑giving, is the very same love with which God loves us, and which God invites us to share with one another, both now and in eternity.

 

And so, to end where we began, we pray that God will keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, so that we may share in eternal glory. For he is one God in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to whom be all worship, praise, dominion, and power, now and to the ages of ages. Amen.

 

 

THE DAY OF PENTECOST: WHITSUNDAY

May 24, 2026

Sts. Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

 

In my first year of seminary, my classmates and I all took a course in homiletics—that is, preparing and preaching sermons. The course followed a strict format. One of us would give a sermon, and the rest would listen. While the preacher was speaking, we weren’t allowed to take notes. When the sermon was over, we’d sit in silence for five minutes and write down everything we remembered. Then we’d each read back to the preacher what we’d heard. During this time, the preacher wasn’t allowed to say anything—even though there were plenty of moments when we wanted to shout, “No! That’s not what I said! You got it wrong! That’s not what I meant!”

 

It was excellent training. We discovered how great the discrepancy could be between what was said and what was heard, between what was meant and what was understood. As the semester progressed, however, this gap narrowed. It was good practice in learning how to get our message across clearly. And it was even better practice in learning how to listen carefully.

In our world today, it’s often difficult to hear what others are saying. Sometimes, we may sense that no matter how insistently we speak out, we’re not being heard or understood. Our different backgrounds engender different mindsets and worldviews. Sometimes we use the same words and phrases to mean completely different things. The New Testament scholar G.B. Caird once remarked on the difficulties of translating ancient biblical languages: so much depends on context and frameworks of meaning. He observed that when someone says, “I’m mad about my flat,” it helps to know whether the speaker is British or American. If British, the speaker is most likely expressing enthusiasm about an apartment; if American, most likely frustration with a punctured tire.

 

A feature of today’s world that many commentators have discussed at length is that even when we’re formally speaking the same language, we often fail to understand one another because we’re effectively speaking different languages. I’ve noticed this phenomenon a lot in the Church: when liberals and conservatives, progressives and traditionalists, try to debate the hot-button issues of the day, the result is often miscommunication and misunderstanding because each subculture has its own code-words, its own narratives, its own interpretive frameworks. The same is even more true in the wider culture. Add in communication difficulties resulting from differences in upbringing, geography, ethnicity, education, race, and class, and we may well despair of ever truly hearing and understanding one another.

Against this background, the story of Pentecost describes a miracle of understanding. When the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles in the upper room, two things happen. First, the apostles are empowered to proclaim the Gospel in the city streets, whereas before they'd remained silent and kept a low profile. Second, pilgrims from every nation in the known world miraculously hear the apostles speaking to them in their own native languages.

 

Some biblical commentators describe Pentecost as a symbolic reversal of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. In the early chapters of the Book of Genesis, we may remember, all human beings speak the same language. When they attempt to build a tower that will reach heaven, God confuses their speech so that they no longer understand one another, and they subsequently scatter over the face of the earth to form different nations speaking different languages. On the Day of Pentecost, however, the Holy Spirit descends in a rush of wind and tongues of fire to overcome this mutual alienation and estrangement. Suddenly, they all hear. Suddenly, they all understand.

 

Such a miracle is necessary if the Church is to fulfill its mission of preaching the Gospel to the ends of the earth. From the day of Pentecost until today, and indeed until the end of time, the spread of Christianity requires a continual work of translation. God’s truth is unchanging and universal, yet it needs to be rendered into new idioms that its hearers can understand in the places where they live. This process is called “enculturation,” and it applies not only to translating the Scriptures into new languages but also to finding new ways to express the truth of the Christian faith in the diverse musical, liturgical, artistic, architectural, and literary forms of the cultures where the Gospel is preached, accepted, and received. 

 

Pentecost remains an ever-present possibility for us today. The Holy Spirit enables us to overcome our deafness to one another. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of working hard to express yourself, to get another person to understand what you’re trying to say, and your frustration is building, and you’re on the verge of giving up—and then suddenly the other person exclaims, “Oh, I get it. What you’re saying is …” And then they summarize back to you the point you’ve been trying to make so well that you can only respond, “Yes, that’s it! I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

 

As Christians, we believe that such moments are much more than human achievements. They reflect not only effective communication skills—important as such skills are— but also the presence and work of the same Holy Spirit who enabled people of every nation to hear the apostles proclaiming the Gospel in their own native languages. One mark of the Spirit’s presence is the ability to engage in grace-filled conversation: to hear and be heard, to listen and understand, to recognize and respond to God’s truth. 

 

Today, then, we take the opportunity to call upon the Holy Spirit to manifest his presence among us, so that we may be empowered not only to speak the truth, but also to hear and understand one another, in the confidence that we’re being heard and understood as well. May the Holy Spirit continue to form this parish into a community of people with ears to hear, minds to understand, hearts to love, and wills to enact the truth that comes from God.

SAINT HELENA

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

Friday, May 22, 2026

 

 

St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine the Great, was born in Asia Minor in about the year 250. She was of humble origins. Saint Ambrose describes her as having started out as an innkeeper or “stable maid.” 

 

She eventually married Constantius Chlorus, and their son Constantine was born sometime around 274. In 293, Constantius became one of the two co-Emperors who each ruled half of the Roman Empire.

 

Constantius then divorced Helena in 294 to marry a woman of noble rank. Helena and Constantine were sent to the court of the other emperor, Diocletian. Helena never remarried and remained close to her son for the rest of her life. 

 

Following the death of Constantius in 306, Constantine was proclaimed Emperor of the Western half of the Roman Empire. He brought his mother back to public life, honoring her with the imperial title “Augusta.” As a devout Christian, Helena encouraged Constantine to end the persecution of the Church, and he did so with the Edict of Milan in 313. Constantine subsequently became Emperor of both halves of the Empire in 324.

 

In 326, Constantine sent Helena on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There, she supervised the construction of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives. She is also credited with ordering the construction of the chapel at the site of the Burning Bush at Mount Sinai, later enclosed by Saint Catherine’s Monastery.

 

After the Bar Kokhba revolt 190 years earlier, the Emperor Hadrian built a Temple of Venus on the site traditionally identified as Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher. Helena now ordered the temple demolished. Sure enough, the ensuing excavations uncovered a rocky hill with a burial chamber carved into a nearby cave. Then, paydirt: relics of the crucifixion were found at the bottom of a cistern, including three crosses, the placard bearing the inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” and assorted nails. 

 

To determine which cross was the true cross on which Jesus had died, Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem had a woman near death brought to touch the three crosses. Nothing happened when she touched the first two, but when she touched the third, she suddenly recovered. Constantine subsequently had the Church of the Holy Sepulcher built on the site. 

 

In 327, Helena returned to Rome, bringing with her portions of the True Cross and other relics, which were stored in her palace’s private chapel. The palace was later converted into the Basilica of the Holy Cross, where most of the relics remain to this day. Part of the true cross was later taken to Saint Peter’s Basilica and enclosed in a reliquary near the statue of Saint Helena holding the Cross, which stands in the crossing under the great dome.

 

(By the way: if you’ve heard the old canard that all the supposed relics of the True Cross in churches and shrines throughout the world would be enough to build a sailing ship, don’t believe it! That is anti-Church propaganda. Scientific studies conducted during the twentieth century showed that their combined volume amounts to only about half a cross. Virtually all properly certified relics of the True Cross can be shown to have come from the Cross that Helena unearthed in Jerusalem in 326. Whether that was the actual Cross on which our Lord died is, of course, a question for faith rather than history.) 

 

In any case, having completed her mission, Helena died around 330, with her son Constantine at her side. Fittingly enough, she is considered the patron saint of archeologists. The work of biblical archeology continues in the Holy Land to this day. I was just reading the other day about new discoveries at Bethsaida, the fishing village on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee that was the hometown of the apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip. So, on today’s feast, it is perhaps fitting to pray for biblical archeologists and their ongoing work to illuminate the New Testament world for us.

EASTER 7  

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

May 17, 2026

 

Acts 1:6-14

 

“Then they returned to Jerusalem … When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying …”

 

When I went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land four years ago, one of the places we visited was the Cenacle or Upper Room on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Over the centuries, at least three different churches have stood on the site. The present Gothic building dates from the twelfth century. But there’s no reason to suppose that it may not be the location mentioned in today’s reading from Acts, where the apostles stayed in Jerusalem during the days of our Lord’s death, Resurrection, and Ascension.

 

Christian tradition identifies this Upper Room as the location of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, at least two of our Lord’s Resurrection appearances, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, which we shall celebrate a week from today.  What sort of place, then, was this Upper Room?

In biblical Palestine, houses were generally built one story high, with flat roofs accessible by exterior staircases. The roof was the location of many and varied activities. During the heat of summer, people might sleep on the roof where it was cooler than in the enclosed spaces below. Sometimes people also pitched tents on their roofs; those with larger houses might even erect makeshift shelters. Eventually, these light structures became, in effect, second stories. When guests came to stay, they might literally be “put up” in one of these dwellings, where the outside staircase allowed them free access. And hosting a meal or party, one might seat one’s guests upstairs in one of these rooftop pavilions.

 

It seems likely, then, that when our Lord and his disciples came to Jerusalem, they received guest accommodation in just such a space. The room must have been large enough to accommodate them all and to serve as the setting for the Last Supper. According to tradition, the upper room or cenacle became, in effect, the first Christian Church. 

 

(By the way, the word “cenacle” comes from the Latin cenaculum, which means something like “dining room” or “banquet hall.” In ancient Rome, such rooms were usually also located in the buildings’ upper floors.)

In our reading from Acts, St. Luke records that after our Lord’s Ascension, the eleven apostles returned to the upper room; and, after listing them by name, he adds: “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.” (By the way, the Greek word translated here as “brothers” can be translated equally accurately as “male relatives” or “kinsmen.”)

 

In any case, before his Ascension, Jesus told the apostles that they’d be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. But first, they must remain in the city until the Holy Spirit descends and they’re clothed with power from on high. 

 

Thus, the interval between the Ascension and Pentecost becomes a time of waiting and prayer. The apostles have just completed one phase of formation and preparation—of being with the risen Lord and of receiving his teaching and instruction for the forty days after his Resurrection. Now, they’re about to embark upon a whole new phase, namely their mission as the Church to the world, impelled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. But Pentecost doesn’t happen right away. There’s an in-between time, an interim period, a breathing space, to begin to absorb all that’s happened, and to get ready as far as humanly possible for what comes next.

Notice also the presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the apostles during this time of waiting. Yesterday, the Saturday after the Ascension, is observed in some Catholic churches as the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of Apostles. This title invokes the image of Mary praying together with the apostles in the upper room. According to an ancient tradition, Mary’s prayers during this period were instrumental in obtaining for the apostles the graces that they would receive from the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

 

The apostles gather in the upper room to watch, wait, prepare, and pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The upper room thus symbolizes all the interim periods in our lives, the times of waiting and preparation. 

 

This week, Elizabeth and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary, and in just over two weeks, I’ll be marking the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. Before ordination, bishops, priests, and deacons often undertake an extended silent retreat—a time to reflect and pray in preparation for receiving the Holy Spirit’s empowerment for ordained ministry through the bishop’s laying on of hands. The Church’s spiritual tradition similarly recommends such a time apart for those about to receive the other sacraments of initiation and vocation: namely, Baptism, Confirmation, and Matrimony. 

By extension of the same principle, it’s not a bad idea at times of transition in our lives, such as preparing to move, graduate, take on a new job, or retire. In all these ways, we follow the example of the apostles who retreated to the upper room for a season before commencing their mission as the Church.

 

Just as the Upper Room became the first Christian church, so this Church of Saints Matthew and Mark is an Upper Room for all of us who gather here: the place where we share the sacrificial meal that Christ instituted at the Last Supper; the place where we meet the risen Lord in his Word and Sacraments; the place where the Holy Spirit empowers us for Christ’s mission in the world. 

 

As one of my favorite hymns puts it: “We meet as in that upper room they met ...” (That’s hymn number 305: “Come risen Lord, and deign to be our guest.”) We do well, then, to remain faithful in returning to this upper room. Here, together with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the apostles, and all the angels and saints, we pray for and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

 

THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD

Friday 15 May 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

 

A standard interpretation of Christ’s Ascension tries to fit it into the wider narrative of his life, death, resurrection, and return. God the Son came down from heaven, took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, his mother, was born as a human child, grew up, and embarked upon his ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing. At length, he was betrayed, arrested, put on trial, sentenced to death, and executed. Everyone thought that was the end of him, but no, on the third day, he rose from the dead and spent another forty days mysteriously appearing to his disciples, manifesting a new and glorious humanity that still bore the scars of the crucifixion and yet was wondrously renewed and transformed. 

 

Then, at the end of forty days, he really did have to leave for good. Returning to his Father in heaven, he sent his disciples to carry on his mission on earth. At the end of time as we know it, he will return to judge the living and the dead. But in the meantime, he’s up there, and we’re down here.

The problem is that this telling of the story misses one crucial point. Whatever happened at the Ascension—whether the Risen Jesus physically lifted off the ground and ascended into the clouds, or whether this imagery is visual symbolism written down to express a profound theological truth—our Lord has entered the direct presence of God, his Father, in heaven. Having united our human nature to his divine person at his conception, he does not leave his humanity behind at his Ascension but takes it with him into the inner life of the Holy Trinity. Henceforth, his human nature lives in God’s presence and sees God face to face.

 

The implications are astounding. The Church’s liturgy speaks of dying and rising with Christ in Holy Baptism. But if we participate in Christ’s death and resurrection, we also participate in his Ascension. This is not merely a future promise but a present reality. If baptism has united us to Christ and made us members of his Body, then, in a mysterious sense, we stand with him at God’s right hand. If he’s entered heaven on our behalf, we’ve also entered heaven in him. Being “in Christ” implies not only that he’s still with us “down here” but also that we’re already with him “up there.”

Most of the time, we’re not consciously aware of this mutual indwelling. But occasionally, perhaps in moments of deep prayer, we receive intimations of our Ascension in Christ. Sometimes people speak of experiences in the Church’s liturgy and music when they feel lifted out of themselves and transported into the celestial realms. Such experiences may be visions opened to us by our participation in Christ’s Ascension. As members of his body, we receive momentary glimpses of the beatific vision, which is his in eternity. And these glimpses stand as pledges of the glory in which we shall one day share, provided we remain united to him.

 

It’s a mistake, then, to think of Christ’s Ascension as his leaving us behind. Rather, in a virtual sense, he’s taken us with him. True, we remain here to continue his mission on earth until he returns at the end of time. But the larger point is that after Christ’s Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, everything is changed. In Christ, human nature itself has ascended into the heavenly Father’s presence. And, in a reciprocal exchange, the Holy Spirit descends upon humanity on earth. The Ascension thus opens the way for Pentecost. They are two sides of the same coin: humanity lifted up into heaven and divinity poured down upon earth. And so, the union of divine and human natures begun in Christ’s Incarnation does not end in the Ascension but continues to grow and spread until that day when all creation will be caught up into his eternal kingdom. 

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A

May 10, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Acts 17:22-31

I Peter 3:13-22

John 14:15-21

 

A theme running through today’s lessons is that of bearing witness to our faith. In the epistle reading from First Peter, the apostle writes: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” Those words amount to quite a challenge for us today.

 

We live in a time in which the Christian faith has become the target of much vilification and abuse. Atheist writers such as Richard Dawkins find a ready market for books attacking all forms of religious belief as not only irrational and superstitious but also as positively dangerous to the public good.

 

So, we need to ask ourselves: How prepared are we to make our defense before those who would call us to account for our hope? Suppose someone were to confront us: “Why do you go to church? I thought you were more sophisticated and better educated than that. How can you possibly believe all that stuff?”

 

How would we respond? What would we say? Would we be up to Saint Peter’s challenge to give an account of our faith, not angrily or defensively, but gently and lovingly?  

 

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul offers an example of faithful witness to Christ as he speaks to an audience of Greek philosophers in Athens. What’s fascinating about this speech is how different it is from the speeches Paul gives to Jewish audiences in the synagogues.

 

On those occasions, he uses scriptural arguments from the Old Testament to prove that the Messiah must suffer, die, and rise again, and that Jesus is the Messiah. But here, before a Gentile audience, Paul appeals instead to their experience of the created world to point to the existence of one God, Lord of heaven and earth. And how appropriate to have this reading on this Rogation Sunday, when we give thanks for the natural world and the fruits of the earth in their seasons.

 

To bear witness effectively, we must first establish some common ground with our hearers. When Paul preaches to Jews, he begins with the scriptures that both he and they accept as authoritative. But when he preaches to Gentiles, he begins with the natural creation and even quotes pagan poets. Paul thus exemplifies the art of understanding our audience and meeting them where they are before proceeding to the good news of Jesus Christ.

 

Yet gifted and talented as Paul undoubtedly is in adapting his message in this way, he’d be the first to admit that his effectiveness in witnessing to Christ comes not solely from his own natural abilities. He makes use of all his learning and cleverness, yes, but he first relies on the Holy Spirit for guidance and inspiration.

 

And that brings us to today’s Gospel. At the Last Supper, on the eve of his death, our Lord promises his disciples another Advocate to be with them forever, even the Spirit of truth.

 

The word advocate here translates the Greek word paraklētos, or in anglicized form, paraclete. An equally good translation is counselor. Advocate and counselor are both common courtroom terms for a lawyer. And, in the ancient world, the word paraclete had pretty much the same meaning: a learned and eloquent person who could speak up for you and persuasively present your case in a legal proceeding.

 

What would you think if you came into my office to explain a problem you were having, and my first response was, “I think you need a lawyer”? (In over 34 years of parish ministry, I think I’ve only ever said that twice.)

 

When we reach the point of saying, “I think I need a lawyer,” we’re really saying that the situation is sufficiently serious, complex, and dangerous that we cannot prudently handle it on our own. We need help. We need an advocate and a counselor.

 

Well, Jesus is telling his disciples something similar in today’s Gospel. Up to now, he’s been their teacher, guide, spokesman, and defender.

 

But now, two things are about to happen. First, he’s about to leave them—at least in his bodily incarnate presence. Second, they’ll be sent into the world to preach the Gospel to all nations. They’ll encounter opposition. They’ll come under attack. They’ll undergo persecution. Many will suffer martyrdom. They cannot possibly undertake this mission on their own. They need an advocate and a counselor.

 

And so, Our Lord promises his disciples that he won’t leave them orphaned. He will pray to his Father, who’ll send them the Holy Spirit to be their advocate and counselor. The Holy Spirit will give them the power, strength, courage, and eloquence they need to bear witness to Christ. When they speak, the Holy Spirit will guide and inspire them to make their case before an unbelieving and often hostile world. 

 

The same promise holds good for us today. The best way that we can rise to St. Peter’s challenge—always to be prepared to give an accounting for the hope that is in us—is to ask the Holy Spirit to assist us.

 

But that’s really only half the story. It’s a bit presumptuous to ask the Holy Spirit to be our advocate without acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is God’s advocate first. In other words, before the Holy Spirit will guide us in pleading our case before the world, we need the Holy Spirit to plead God’s case before us. In our fallen human condition, we’re often hard-hearted and slow to listen to what God is saying. But it’s the movement of the Holy Spirit within that opens our hearts and minds to God’s word.

 

So, when we ask the Holy Spirit to come to our aid, we need to listen first of all. We may need to face up to uncomfortable truths about ourselves that we’d rather avoid. The Holy Spirit will indeed empower us to bear witness to Christ in a way that will change the minds and hearts of others—but only if we’ve allowed our own minds and hearts to be changed first.