PROPER 8, YEAR C

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21

Luke 9:51-62

 

In the Gospel reading that we’ve just heard, a certain Greek verb meaning “to follow” occurs three times. This verb occurs first when a man says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” It occurs second when Jesus says to someone else, “Follow me.” And third when still another person says, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

 

In the ancient translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek known as the Septuagint, this same verb is used in today’s Old Testament reading when Elisha says to Elijah, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.”

 

The verb’s literal meaning is something like “to take to the road” or “to undertake a journey” with someone. And in today’s readings, it has the sense not merely of following someone somewhere, but also of making the total commitment of becoming that person’s disciple. 

 

In the reading from First Kings, the prophet Elijah has received God’s command to anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat to be his successor. Elisha appears as a wealthy young farmer, plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Elijah casts his mantle upon Elisha—a  clear sign of calling him to follow in his footsteps and take up the prophetic office.

 

Elisha’s response expresses his acceptance of the call and his total commitment to following Elijah. Destroying his livelihood, he slays the oxen and uses the wooden yokes to make the fire on which he roasts the oxen to make a great feast for the people. Then he departs to follow and serve Elijah.

 

Today’s Gospel clearly harks back to this Old Testament episode. Saint Luke tells us of Jesus setting his face to go to Jerusalem: making the decision to undertake the journey that will result in his crucifixion and death. And filled with this single-minded determination to complete his mission, Jesus begins instructing the disciples on the level of commitment required of them if they’re to follow him on the journey.

 

Three encounters with would-be followers on the road illustrate the point. One individual enthusiastically declares, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.” The Lord’s response is sobering: Birds have nests, foxes have holes, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Those who follow him must be willing to give up even the basic security of having somewhere to call home.

 

A second person says yes to the invitation to follow Jesus, but with a condition: “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” This person is seeking to fulfill two of the highest and most compelling moral and religious obligations imaginable: to honor his parents and to bury the dead. The Lord’s response, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead,” may seem callous and insensitive, but his point is that his call transcends all other claims of duty, no matter how worthy.

 

A third person spontaneously offers to follow Jesus, but again with a condition: “let me first say farewell to those at my home.” These words are almost the same what Elisha says to Elijah. But unlike Elijah, Jesus doesn’t give the man leave. “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” In other words, Jesus demands a level of allegiance that takes precedence even over ties of familial affection.

 

Taken together, these three responses make clear that following Jesus calls for total and unreserved commitment. The call to follow is absolute, even when it entails leaving behind all other loyalties and commitments.

 

Now what does this mean for us today? Few of us are called literally to drop everything and leave behind home, families, and workplaces to follow Jesus on the road. On the contrary, most of us follow Jesus precisely by staying put and fulfilling our familial, social, occupational, and religious obligations in those stations of life into which it has pleased God to call us. 

 

But the real issue in the second and third encounters—I will follow, but let me first do this or that—involves the attempt to set conditions and put limitations upon discipleship. Occasionally, I’ve encountered parishioners who’ve said things like, “I don’t mind coming to church on Sundays, so long as I don’t become too religious.” In a previous parish, one lady told me that the practice of Christianity is fine in small doses, provided that it doesn’t interfere with one’s ability to enjoy the rest of one’s life. 

 

My initial impression of Christ Church is that such attitudes are not a major problem here. On the contrary, since my arrival at the beginning of this month, I’ve encountered a level of commitment and enthusiasm that would be the envy of many of my priestly colleagues if only they knew about it! Most of you display a passion for the well being of this parish and its people that is entirely commendable.

 

Any parish’s transition from one rector to another does, however, raise in acute form the issue of what it means to leave behind past forms of life to follow Jesus on the road. We’re all embarked upon this journey together. There’s no turning back. And in the coming months, we may well be called to engage deeply with the question of what aspects of the past need to be let go of into order to embrace more fully that future into which God is now calling us.

 

Such letting go, incidentally, does not mean forgetting or dishonoring the past. We do well to remember and be grateful for the many gifts and blessings that have made us who we are. For example, it was wonderful, right, and fitting that so many parishioners went out to Illinois to participate in Fr. Burgess’s consecration as Bishop of Springfield, while others gathered in the parish hall to watch the livestream. It was, however, not only a wonderful moment of celebration but also a valuable opportunity for closure—like Elisha kissing his father and his mother before taking to the road to follow Elijah. 

 

Bishop Burgess will rightly hold a place in many hearts for years to come as a rector who brought great blessings on this parish and profoundly informed its sense of identity and mission. But I know that he would be the first to agree that it’s now time for Christ Church to be open to a future in which a new rector may well want to move in new directions and do some things differently. Such openness does no dishonor to Bishop Burgess’s legacy; it simply recognizes that for us, as for him, the journey continues—and “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

 CORPUS CHRISTI:  

THE BODY AND BLOOD OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

Sunday, June 19, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

 

Until the pandemic, it was perhaps easy to receive Holy Communion every Sunday without giving it too much thought. One unintended blessing of the lockdown, horrible as it was in so many ways, was that it cured us of any tendency we might have had to take this great privilege for granted. Still, at every church where I served before March 2020, the Holy Eucharist was the principal service on Sunday, with almost all the congregation coming to the altar rail and receiving Communion as a matter of course.

 

It was not always so. Within living memory, the principal Sunday service in many Episcopal churches was not the Holy Eucharist but Morning Prayer with hymns and sermon. To this day, by canon law, to be considered a communicant in the Episcopal Church one need only receive Communion three times a year: the traditional days being Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, and in some places All Saints, for good measure. In Morning Prayer parishes, those who desired to receive Communion more often than that would go to the early service.

 

Meanwhile, in Anglo-Catholic parishes, the Solemn High Mass at 11 am was often a “non-communicating” Mass at which only the priest would receive. For example, growing up in the Church of England, my wife would receive Communion with her parents at the 8 am Low Mass. Then, after going home for breakfast, they would return to church to sing in the choir at the non-communicating High Mass at 11. But many more people attended the High Mass than the early service. In other words, in both high and low church parishes, the majority of the faithful might attend the principal service every Sunday and still receive Communion only monthly or even just three or four times a year. 

 

This pattern of infrequent Communion began to change as early as the 1930s, under the influence of what was known as the Parish Communion Movement. Its aim was to promote the people’s full participation in the Church’s worship. Above all, it sought to make the principal Sunday service a parish Eucharist at which all the people would have the opportunity to receive Holy Communion. 

 

One of the parish Communion Movement’s advocates in England, A. G. Hebert, wrote in 1937 that the ideal time for the Parish Eucharist was around 9 or 9:30 in the morning. 8 am was too early for many people; and 11 am was too late for most people to keep the traditional fast before Communion.

 

Four decades later, the Episcopal Church’s 1979 Prayer Book fulfilled the Parish Communion Movement’s key goals by designating the Holy Eucharist as “the principal act of worship on the Lord’s Day and other major Feasts” (that’s on page 13), and by directing that at every Eucharist the Sacrament must be delivered to the people (that’s on pages 338 and 365).

 

So, we’ve come a long way. And I certainly have no desire to go back to the days of monthly or quarterly Communion! The real question now, however, is whether we’ve perhaps come too far and grown too casual in our approach to the Blessed Sacrament. And here is where today’s Feast of Corpus Christi can assist us.

 

Through its history the Church has tended to see-saw between periods when Christians felt free to receive Communion weekly or even daily, as in the early Church, and periods when Christians were so afraid of receiving unworthily, and thus eating and drinking damnation upon themselves, that they tended to refrain from receiving at all.  In 1215, for example, the Fourth Lateran Council required lay people to receive at least once a year, usually at Easter, after making their Confession to a priest. The goal was to try to overcome people’s great fear of approaching the altar. 

 

Against this background, the Feast of Corpus Christi originated in the thirteenth century as part of a movement of devotion whose aims included a return to more frequent Communion. The feast’s message for us is twofold. On one hand, we should certainly avail ourselves of the opportunity to receive Holy Communion at least weekly. But, on the other hand, we still need to approach the Sacrament with the utmost care and preparation. 

 

In other words, we need to steer a middle course between a rigorism that would keep us from Communion out of fear, and a laxity that would lead us to become careless and irreverent. And I would submit that the latter rather than the former is the greater spiritual danger to us in today’s world.

 

Providentially, our Catholic Christian tradition offers us some practices that can help us increase the reverence and devotion with which we approach the Blessed Sacrament. Most important of all is spiritual preparation for Mass by saying our prayers and examining our consciences. For what sins and shortcomings do we want to seek God’s forgiveness and help? For what people and situations do we want to ask God’s grace and blessings?

At the very least, we can try to get to church on time so that we can settle down and get recollected in the few minutes before Mass begins. The traditional guideline is that we normally receive Communion at any Mass only if we’ve been present for the Gospel.

 

One useful form of preparation, to which I’ve already alluded, is the traditional Communion Fast. For some of us, health concerns make this impossible, and we certainly don’t want anyone passing out in the pews! But even if we can’t go without food from the night before, we can keep breakfast to a minimum, and if possible, observe the rule of eating nothing for an hour before Mass. It’s difficult to maintain the proper spiritual dispositions for receiving Communion when weighed down by a breakfast of pancakes, hash browns, eggs, and bacon.

 

The Church’s best wisdom, also, is that it’s difficult to prepare ourselves adequately for Communion any more often than once a day. If we find ourselves attending more than one Eucharist in the same day, it’s no longer forbidden to receive twice, but it’s also perfectly acceptable to attend Mass and not receive. (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!) Sometimes, indeed, we best express our reverence for the Blessed Sacrament by refraining from receiving when we’re spiritually unprepared to do so.

 

Finally, no less important than preparation before Communion is thanksgiving after Communion. When we return to the pew from the altar rail, or after the closing hymn, we take a moment to say “thank you” to God for his gift of himself to us in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood, and to recommit ourselves to the tasks he’s given us to do in the world.

 

On this Feast of Corpus Christi, then, we render thanks for all those before us who worked so hard for so many years to establish the Communion of the Faithful as the norm for every Sunday and Holy Day. But we honor their memory best by receiving this great gift with all the reverence and devotion that it deserves.

 

 TRINITY SUNDAY

June 12, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

 

The Trinity is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Before we can begin to make sense of it, however, we need a clear understanding of the role that dogmas and doctrines themselves play in the Christian life. A key point is that doctrines aren’t what need to be explained—because they are the explanation. The late Fr. Homer Rogers of Dallas, Texas, made this point at the beginning of his course of adult confirmation class lectures:

“Let me say by way of preface that I am not here to ‘explain’ Christianity, for that isn’t the problem. A person coming to this planet from Mars and landing among us wouldn’t ask, ‘Why do you believe in the Trinity?’ or ‘What do you mean by transubstantiation?’ He would ask, ‘Why do the good die young? Why is there many a slip twixt the cup and the lip? Why do the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley? Why is it that the best puppy in the litter is the one that gets run over? Why does a man’s reach exceed his grasp? Why is there so much pain, sorrow, grief, misery, and ugliness in human life and human society? Why is everybody homesick, even when he’s at home? …’

 

“Let me carry the matter a bit further. Why should there be people on earth in the first place? Or, for that matter, why should there be an earth? Why should there be anything? These are the things that need explaining. The Christian religion seeks to explain them. Sooner or later you will make up your mind, if you haven’t already, that the Christian religion is true or false, not in terms of how persuasively I explain to you the doctrine of the Trinity, and not even in terms of whether or not the Christian religion makes sense, but whether or not the Christian religion can answer any of these questions.”

So, what we’re likely to find most helpful is not any explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity itself but a prior understanding of the questions it answers, the problems it solves, the contradictions it reconciles, the confusions it clears up. For again, the doctrine is not what requires explaining because it is itself the explanation.

 

In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis suggests that as the first Christians reflected on their new relationship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, they gradually formulated the doctrine of the Trinity as the only way of giving a comprehensive and coherent account of their religious experience. He writes this:

 

“People already knew about God in a vague way. Then came a man who claimed to be God; and yet He was not the sort of man you could dismiss as a lunatic. He made them believe Him. They met Him again after they had seen Him killed. And then, after they had been formed into a little society or community, they found God somehow inside them as well: directing them, making them able to do things they could not do before. And when they worked it all out they found that they had arrived at the Christian definition of the three-personal God.”

But there’s more. Doctrines provide not only an explanation but also a kind of roadmap. A bit earlier in the same book, Lewis describes an encounter with hard bitten old RAF Officer who stood up after one of his lectures on Christian doctrine and declared, “I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”

 

Lewis immediately agrees. That RAF man probably had a real encounter with God out in the desert. When he turned from his experience to the Christian creeds, he was turning from something real to something less real. In the same way, if we look at the Atlantic Ocean from the beach and then turn to a map of the Atlantic, we are turning from something real to something less real: from real waves, wind, surf, and sand to a sheet of colored paper. 

But, says Lewis, the map pieces together the cumulative experience of thousands of people who’ve actually sailed the Atlantic. Only, while our view from the beach affords but a single glimpse, the map fits all those partial perspectives together into a comprehensive whole. And, if we want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. Walking on the beach is much more satisfying than looking at a map. But the map is much more use if we want to sail from England to America.

 

So, Christian doctrines are like maps. They fall far short of the reality they describe. Merely learning a doctrine is like reading a map without going anywhere. But once we do embark upon the voyage of the Christian life, the map becomes indispensable. We don’t get anywhere by looking at maps without going out to sea. But neither are we safe if we go to sea without a map—and an accurate and reliable map at that.

Lewis goes on to relate the Trinity to the life of Christian prayer. He writes: 

 

“An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers.  He is trying to get in touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening: God is the thing to which he is praying, the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing which is pushing him on, the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of that three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers.”

If we regard the doctrine of the Trinity merely as an intellectual puzzle to be solved, we won’t make any real progress in understanding it. But as we grow in the Christian life, cultivating our relationship with God the Father through our union with Christ, stirring up the Holy Spirit’s gifts within us, the doctrine will more and more make sense as the only adequate guide to the vast ocean of reality on which we’ve set sail. 

 

Today’s celebration lays before us an invitation: not merely to understand the Trinity conceptually, but to enter a living relationship with the triune God towards whom the doctrine points. In that way, we participate in the eternal mystery of God’s own life as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and his life becomes our life as well.

THE DAY OF PENTECOST: WHITSUNDAY

June 5, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

 

In my first year of seminary, my classmates and I were all required to take a course in homiletics – that is, preaching. The course followed a strict format. When we met, 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 one wanted nothing more than to jump up and 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 the preacher said and what the listeners heard. As the semester progressed, however, this gap between what was said and what was heard narrowed considerably. 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 can often be difficult to hear what others are saying. At certain times, we may sense that no matter how insistently we speak out, we’re not being heard, listened to, or understood. Our different backgrounds engender different mindsets and worldviews. Sometimes we use the same words and 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 if 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, the speaker is most likely expressing frustration with a punctured tire.

 

A feature of postmodernity 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 nonetheless effectively speaking different languages. I notice 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 and phrases, its own narratives, its own interpretive frameworks. The same is true in the wider culture. Add in the difficulties in communication that result 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 hearing and understanding. When the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles in the upper room, two things happen. First, the apostles are empowered to speak out and proclaim the Gospel. Second, pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem from every nation in the known world miraculously hear the apostles speaking to them in their own native languages.

 

Some biblical commentators regard 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. Then they attempt to build a tower that will reach heaven. Because of the presumption of this project, 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 and peoples 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 profound alienation. Suddenly, they all hear. Suddenly, they all understand.

Such a miracle is necessary if the Church is to fulfill its mission to preach 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. The truth of the Gospel is unchanging and universal, for all peoples and nations, and yet it must always be translated anew into idioms that its hearers can understand in the places where they live. This process of translation is sometimes 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 musical, liturgical, artistic, architectural, and literary forms of the diverse cultures where the Gospel is preached and received. 

 

Pentecost remains an ever-present possibility for us today. The Holy Spirit descending enables us to overcome our insularity and 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 when they’ve finished summarizing back to you the point you’ve been trying to make, you can only respond, “Yes, that’s it! I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

 

As Christians we believe that such grace-filled moments are much more than human achievements reflecting effective communication skills. Rather, they signal the presence and work among us of the same Holy Spirit who enabled people of every nation to hear the apostles proclaiming the Gospel in their own native languages. It follows that one mark of the Spirit’s presence is the ability of all the Church’s members to engage in grace-filled conversation and dialogue: to speak and be heard, to listen and to understand. 

 

It gives me great joy that my first Sunday here at Christ Church should be the Day of Pentecost. In the coming year or so, we’ll be engaged together in a great task of discernment. This work entails listening carefully to one another, so that everyone knows that their voices are being heard, and their perspectives understood; and, even more importantly, listening carefully together to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches—and to this church in particular. I’m sure that I’ll have much to say to you in the coming weeks and months. Which is meet and right, given my role as your priest and pastor during this interim period. But my pledge to you this morning is that before I speak, I’ll always do my best, with God’s help, to hear and understand what you’re saying first.

 

This morning, then, we take advantage of 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 what others are saying, in the confidence that we’re being heard and understood as well. We pray the Holy Spirit, then, to continue to form this parish community into a people with ears to hear, minds to understand, hearts to love, and wills to enact the truth that comes from God.

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.