SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 22, 2022

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

 

Acts 16:9-15

Psalm 67

Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

John 14:23-29

 

Let’s begin by listening again to the Collect of the Day. As I think I’ve remarked before, it’s all too easy to breeze through these Collects without pausing to pay attention to the often profound and sublime prayers they express. 

 

O God, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding: Pour into our hearts such love toward thee, that we, loving thee in all things and above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord …

 

This Collect teaches us that God has prepared for those who love him joys beyond anything we can even yet begin to conceive. It invites us to join in the Church’s prayer that God would pour this love into our hearts, so that, loving him both in all created things and above all created things, we may ultimately receive everything that he’s promised us, which infinitely surpasses all our greatest hopes, longings, and desires. Each of these phrases is so pregnant with meaning that one could easily spend, say, half an hour or more fruitfully meditating on this one compact prayer!

 

Moreover, the love which this Collect asks God to pour into our hearts is none other than the Holy Spirit, who is himself the Spirit of love proceeding from the Father through the Son. So, this prayer is especially appropriate today, when we’re beginning to look forward to the Feast of Pentecost in two weeks’ time. 

 

[We receive this gift of God’s love in the Holy Spirit initially in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. So, we can say that God has prepared for Cora Morgan such good things that pass her understanding; and we pray that this day is for her the beginning of her life’s journey towards obtaining God’s promises that exceed all that she can desire. So may it be for the rest of us as well.]

 

Today’s appointed Scripture readings offer us a cumulative picture of what this love of God poured into our hearts looks like in practice. A theme running through these readings is that of the Church’s mission to the nations. By the way, the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words commonly rendered as nations—goyim, ethnē, and gentes—can each be accurately rendered in English either as nations, gentiles, or peoples.

 

The point is that the Holy Spirit transforms us into agents of the Church’s mission to proclaim Christ’s Resurrection to all peoples everywhere. As Psalm 67 puts it: “Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations … May God give us his blessing, and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of him.” Again, in the reading from Revelation, we see in John’s wonderful vision of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven with the Tree of Life bearing twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month of the year, whose leaves are for “the healing of the nations.”

 

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles exemplifies this same theme. Saint Paul receives a vision in the night of a man from Macedonia in Greece entreating him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Up to this point, Paul has been pursuing his missionary journeys only in Asia Minor, what is today Turkey. 

 

After this vision, Paul and his companions conclude that God is calling them to sail over the Aegean Sea to Macedonia (which we may remember from history as the birthplace of Alexander the Great some four centuries earlier). This decision is a momentous milestone marking the point at which the Christian Gospel crosses from Asia into Europe, where it will engage with and ultimately transform the classical world of Greco-Roman civilization.

 

The subsequent conversion and baptism of Lydia of Thyatira, clearly a woman of means who’s able to provide hospitality and support for Paul’s mission, confirms God’s blessing on this decision. And all because Paul and his companions are attentive and obedient enough to discern and respond to God’s call in a vision in the night: Come over to Macedonia and help us.

 

Now, the last thing I want to do is compare myself with the Apostle Paul; and I certainly cannot say that a year and half ago I literally had a night vision of a man from New Jersey saying, “Come over to Sea Girt and help us.” But my conversations at that time with the Wardens and Vestry had a similar effect of convincing me that God was indeed calling me to come to St. Uriel’s and preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments here. 

 

I’m similarly persuaded that God is now calling me to Christ Church, Woodbury. Yesterday I was thrilled to watch the livestream broadcast of Christ Church’s former Rector Brian Burgess being consecrated Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, where I know he had an overwhelming sense of call to go. And it’s clear that your Rector-Elect, Father Jesse Lassiter, has also experienced such a call from God to leave what appeared to be a settled life in Southern Virginia to come here and continue his exercise of Christ’s priesthood in this beautiful part of the world.

 

The point, again, is that when we open ourselves to the love of God poured into our hearts, we often find ourselves called, whether literally or figuratively, to go places that we never imagined ourselves going. Those “new places” may or may not be geographical locations; or they may instead represent the call to do something new, unimagined, and unheard-of right where we are. All this is just as true for the laity as for the ordained. As baptized members of the Body of Christ, we’re all in this together. God calls each of us without exception to serve him and share in the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and peoples, to the ends of the earth, and to the end of time.

 

Hearing this call is often scary. I can certainly attest to that. But we have the Lord’s promise in today’s Gospel that the Father will send us the Holy Spirit in his name to be our Counselor. Here "Counselor" translates the somewhat mysterious Greek word paraclete, which originally meant something like the counsel for the defense in a court proceeding, and can be translated equally well as advocate, advisor, guide, or comforter.

 

The crucial reassurance is that as we respond to God’s call to take our place in the Church’s mission, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and teaches us all we need to know, recalling to our minds all that the Lord Jesus taught us while he was among us here on earth. However inadequate we may feel to the task, if we trust God, he’ll give us the right words to say in the right place at the right time. In this way, we prepare ourselves to receive all the good things that God has prepared for those who love him—good things surpassing all human understanding and exceeding all human desires.

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 15, 2022

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

 

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."

 

At this point in the liturgical year, we’re traversing the forty days between our Lord’s Resurrection and his Ascension into heaven. Today’s Gospel takes us back, however, to Maundy Thursday, the night before the Crucifixion, when Jesus and his disciples are gathered for their last supper together. This part of John’s Gospel is called the “Farewell Discourse,” because Jesus is giving his disciples instructions on how to carry on after he’s physically departed from them. So, it makes a certain amount of sense that the Church appoints readings from the Farewell Discourse on these Sundays leading up to the Feast of the Ascension when the risen Jesus finally is taken up into heaven.

 

It’s easy to overlook the point that at the Last Supper we’re hearing from someone who’s to all outward appearances a defeated and doomed man. His enemies are closing in. In John’s narrative, since the stir caused by the raising of Lazarus, the Jewish authorities have been taking counsel how to put Jesus to death, and Jesus has gone into hiding. 

 

Gathered for supper in Jerusalem on the eve of the Passover, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. Troubled in spirit, he predicts that one of those present will betray him. When the traitor Judas Iscariot departs, the disciples think that he’s gone out on an errand to buy something for the feast or to give something to the poor. It’s at this point that today’s Gospel reading begins: “Now when [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified …”

 

In the language of John’s Gospel, these words are a prediction of the Passion—since Jesus routinely refers to his coming death as his glorification. Then he adds: “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’” Immediately following today’s Gospel passage, Peter asks, “Lord, why cannot I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus responds by predicting Peter’s threefold denial: “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly I say to you, the cock will not crow until you have denied me three times.” Once again, these are words of one who is to all outward appearances a defeated man, matter-of-factly anticipating his death the next day.

 

What’s remarkable in this context is what Jesus does not say. Even as he predicts Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial, Jesus does not behave as we might expect a defeated man to behave.

 

Consider the contrast with actor Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of Adolf Hitler in the 2004 German film Downfall. As the Soviet forces enter Berlin, Ganz delivers an epic tantrum blaming Germany’s defeat on its military commanders, the SS, the rank-and-file German soldiers, and finally the German people themselves. Whatever its historical accuracy, Ganz’s performance is riveting not only because it channels an evil madman’s rage, but also because it exemplifies in extreme form the all-too typical behavior of defeated leaders: fault-finding, vindictiveness, recriminations, blame, self-pity, and self-exoneration.

 

At the Last Supper, we might expect a messianic figure like Jesus to voice disappointment or regret, to lash out at his disciples for their disloyalty and cowardice, or even to attempt to rally them with calls to avenge his death. But instead, he speaks to them of love. At the moment of his apparent downfall, he commands them love one another as he’s loved them.

 

A new commandment I give to you. Notice, first, that Jesus calls this saying a commandment: not a suggestion, recommendation, invitation, good advice, or exhortation, but a commandment. Here’s what you must do if you’re to continue as my disciples after I’m gone.

 

Notice, also, that Jesus calls this saying not merely a commandment but a new commandment: something that the disciples presumably haven’t heard before. And that raises the question: In what sense is this commandment to love one another something new?

 

In the Old Testament, God gave Israel the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” But our Lord’s commandment to love one another is new and unprecedented on account of what comes next: “as I have loved you.” To love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to be willing to do for them whatever we hope that they’d do for us in similar circumstances. If I hope that you’d be willing to go grocery shopping for me when I’m quarantined at home, then I’d better be willing to do the same for you.

 

But our Lord’s love surpasses even that kind of love. For us, he dies on the cross. That’s not something we’d ever ask anyone to do for us. On the cross, Jesus offers up everything for us, with no thought for himself. His love is self-sacrificial: love that literally dies to self for the sake of the other.

 

It’s this quality of self-denying love that he commands us to exhibit in our life together as Christians. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be called to suffer literal martyrdom – although in many parts of the world giving one’s life for Christ remains a very real possibility. But it does mean that life in the Church involves offering ourselves as servants of one another and putting the collective good of the community before our own individual good. In this way, we begin to love one another as Christ has loved us.

 

We already see this quality of love exhibited in the life of this parish community. Here at S. Uriel’s, I’ve often been moved by the ways in which parishioners reach out to express concern for one another in times of loss, and to lend a helping hand in time of need. One of the blessings of the time I’ve spent with you is that it’s taught me that something approximating genuine Christian community really is still possible in today’s Church. 

 

As you prepare to welcome your new Rector, this quality of love for one another will be more important than ever. It will entail some basic commitments, beginning with simply being here: coming to Mass faithfully on Sundays throughout the year; and attending parish activities and events as you are able. Such simple sacrifices are not always easy, not always convenient, and not always what we’d most rather be doing in the moment. But they school us in the art of loving as Christ has loved us, so that the world will know that we’re his disciples.

 

Beyond that, keep your Rector-Elect, Wardens, and Vestry in constant prayer, and support them, mindful of the tremendous weight of responsibility they carry. Pray for the bishop, and for all the clergy and people of this diocese. But most of all, take the arrival of your new Rector as another opportunity to continue drawing closer to one another in love. 

 FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR C

May 8, 2022

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

 

John 10:22-30

 

Strangely enough, today’s Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, takes us back from spring into the dark cold of winter: “It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the Temple, in the portico of Solomon.”

 

The Feast of the Dedication is what we commonly call Hanukkah: the Jewish winter festival. In our Lord’s time, it was one of the great pilgrimage festivals, like Passover, when Jews from all over the Holy Land and around the Diaspora would go up to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple.

 

The Feast of the Dedication was specifically associated with the Temple itself. And, unlike the other great pilgrimage festivals, it was of comparatively recent origin. Almost two centuries earlier, in 167 BC, the Hellenistic Greek rulers of Palestine desecrated the Temple, setting up a statue of Zeus in its precincts. After a two-year rebellion led by Judas Maccabeus, the Jews liberated Jerusalem and re-consecrated the Temple to the worship of Israel’s God. It was this restoration that was annually commemorated during the Feast of the Dedication.

To this day, the Hanukkah service includes a lengthy reading from Chapter 7 of the Book of Numbers, which describes Moses dedicating the Tent of Meeting – which housed the Ark of the Covenant before the Temple was built. At the conclusion of this elaborate ritual dedication, a miracle occurred:

 

And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and it spoke to him.

 

Some New Testament scholars conjecture that when Jesus declares during this Feast of the Dedication that “my sheep hear my voice,” he’s intentionally evoking this memory of God speaking to Moses in the Tent of Meeting. His voice as the Incarnate Word of God is the same divine voice that spoke to patriarchs and prophets throughout Old Testament history.

 

One of the distinguishing features of our Judeo-Christian tradition is that we worship a God who speaks, a God who has a voice. The biblical God is not just some sort of ineffable abyss of silence beyond all words and images. He’s much more than that: a personal, active, dynamic, and loving God who reveals himself and his saving purposes for creation through his Word. He has a voice that can be heard, and a Word that can be understood.

 

To take just two favorite Old Testament stories: when the boy Samuel is lying in bed at night in the Temple at Shiloh, he hears a voice calling his name, “Samuel, Samuel.” He thinks it’s his mentor the priest Eli calling him, so he goes to Eli and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” After this happens several times, Eli realizes that it’s the voice of the Lord, and instructs Samuel to respond, “Speak Lord, for thy servant hears.”

 

Centuries later, the prophet Elijah flees forty days into the wilderness to escape his enemies who are trying to kill him. He arrives at Mount Horeb and takes refuge in a cave. A series of spectacular natural phenomena shake and rend the mountain: earthquake, wind, and fire. But the Lord is not in any of these. Then, in the silence following, there comes a “still, small voice,” by which the Lord tells Elijah what he must do next.

 

Sometimes, God speaks not in a “still small voice” but much more dramatically. In the Acts of the Apostles, Saul is on the road to Damascus to arrest any Christians he finds and bring them in chains back to Jerusalem. Suddenly a light from heaven flashes around him; as he falls to the ground, he hears a voice asking, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” When he replies, “Who are you, Lord?” the voice answers, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” This moment marks the turning point in Saul’s life: the beginning of his conversion from persecutor of the Church to Apostle to the Gentiles.

 

When Jesus declares in today’s Gospel that his sheep know his voice and follow him, he’s most likely alluding to the shepherding practices of the time. Apparently, Middle Eastern shepherds each have a distinctive call. When their flocks intermingle, either in grazing pastures or in overnight enclosures, each shepherd gives his distinctive call when it’s time to move on, to which only the sheep belonging to his flock respond by following where he leads.

 

The question for us, then, is whether we’re listening for the voice of our shepherd: an especially appropriate question in Eastertide when we proclaim his resurrection from the dead. Because he lives, he still speaks, and we can still hear his voice.

 

The challenge for us is to cultivate attentiveness to God’s voice in our own daily lives. Down through the centuries, the Church has commended spiritual practices of prayer, meditation, and scripture reading with precisely this end in view. 

 

The popular misconception of prayer is that it’s all about talking to God. It does include that, but the most important moments occur when we finish telling God whatever’s on our minds, and then shut up and start listening. Sometimes we hear him saying something and sometimes we don’t. It’s okay either way. Sometimes he allows just to bask silently in his presence, and that’s fine. 

 

On other occasions, we may hear a word of comfort, reassurance, calling, or even warning. If we believe we’re hearing such a word, we do need to be careful. The Church’s tradition counsels us to test everything by the Scriptures—and, if it seems that God is giving some specific direction, to test it by talking it out with trusted spiritual friends and advisors. 

 

In other words, the task of discerning God’s Word is best done in community, among fellow members of the Body of Christ, and never individually on our own. Indeed, God often speaks to us not in the solitary silence of our hearts, but in the living voices of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

During this past year and a half of transition, we’ve all heard many voices saying many different things, and I know we’ve all done our best to exercise discernment. We’ve spent much time in prayer, and we’ve tested the words that we’ve heard in prayerful conversation with one another. I’ve done my best to be a good shepherd to this flock, just as Father Russ was before me and as I’m confident Fr. Jesse will be after he arrives.

 

Whatever the future holds, we take comfort in Our Lord’s promise: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no-one shall snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus the Good Shepherd will never forsake us. So, my word for today is simply this: Always listen for the voice of the Shepherd. Always listen to the voice of the Shepherd.