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.

EASTER DAY

Sunday 17 April 2022

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

 

 

Several years back, at a party given by a couple in my parish, I had a mildly awkward encounter with one of the other guests. Knowing that I was the rector of our hosts’ parish, this gentleman told me that he belonged to a church of another denomination down the street. Then he triumphantly announced: “They’ve made me completely welcome, even though they know I don’t believe in the Resurrection!” From the way he said it, his implied accusation was clearly that he wouldn’t be made nearly so welcome at my church.

 

Over the course of my ministry, I’ve occasionally found that people who’ve recently started attending church will uneasily ask, reluctantly and after much hesitation, some such question as: “I really like coming here, but to be a member, do I really need to believe X? Or am I really expected to accept Y?” Often, these questions have to do with doctrines of the Christian faith such as the Virgin Birth or the bodily Resurrection of Christ.

 

So, to take the question on its own terms, what are we expected to believe as members of the Episcopal Church? The traditional Anglican answer to this question is summed up in the Latin tag, lex orandi, lex credendi—which translates roughly as “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” It means that the best way to learn the Church’s beliefs and teachings is to read and study the texts we use in worship. We become members of the Church in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. And we continue our membership in good standing by regular participation in the Church’s worship and Sacraments, particularly the Holy Eucharist. 

 

Associated with these two Sacraments are the two ancient professions of faith known as the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. These are the Church’s definitive summaries of all things necessary to salvation as revealed by God in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. 

 

When we’re baptized, we recite the Apostles Creed, or else it’s recited on our behalf by our parents and godparents in the hope that we’ll eventually make it our own. On Sundays and major Holy Days, we receive Holy Communion having recited the Nicene Creed together first. So, the best answer is that to continue as Church members in good standing we’re expected to be able in good conscience to profess the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. And it’s worth noting that both Creeds unambiguously affirm Christ’s Resurrection from the dead.

 

While I don’t have a problem with that answer, however, I do find the question a bit odd. It presupposes a view of the Church as an authoritarian and repressive institution that tells people what to believe, and further tells them that they’re not welcome to belong unless they can sign on the dotted line at the bottom of a detailed laundry list of authoritative teachings. But while such denominations may exist, they’re not the Church that I know.

 

Now, I’m not saying that dogmas and doctrines are unimportant—on the contrary, they’re crucially important—but they don’t function as the criterion of eligibility for membership in quite that way. The traditional, premodern, Catholic concept of the Church is much more that of an organic community comprising all sorts and conditions of people, whose life together arises from common participation in worship, fellowship, and mission grounded in a common faith, to be sure, but whose individual grasp of that faith may not always be complete or perfect.

 

Consider: We baptize infants and consider them full members of the church even though they haven’t yet attained the ability to give intellectual assent to any coherent system of doctrinal teachings and beliefs. Then consider individuals who suffer from severe mental disabilities, who can have only the simplest and most childlike understanding of the Christian teachings: nonetheless, we baptize, confirm, and communicate them, considering them just as fully members of the Body of Christ as the most learned and orthodox theologians.

 

The point is that all without exception are welcome, regardless of their beliefs, doubts, questions, and confusions. Certain types of behavior are indeed unwelcome in the Church’s life—and how to define the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate behavior is an ongoing challenge that merits the most serious attention. But again, while certain ways of acting may need to be checked at the door, nonetheless, all people are invited in; everyone is welcome.

 

So, to return to our original question. What does the Church require us to believe to remain members-in-good-standing? Phrased that way, it’s clearly the wrong question. Assent to the articles of Christian faith cannot legitimately be required of anyone. People can and do believe all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons, but few of us ever believe anything just because some external authority commands us to do so.

 

Our business, then, is not to require acceptance of the Church’s teachings, but rather to proclaim them joyfully and to invite people to hear, consider, and assent to them insofar as it’s given them to do so. A favorite maxim of Pope Saint John Paul II was “the Church imposes nothing, she only proposes.” The point is that faith is a gift; and it goes against the very nature of a gift to be compelled or coerced. On the contrary, it retains its nature as a gift only insofar as it’s accepted and received in the fullness of human freedom.

 

Some years ago, a well-known Eastern Orthodox bishop and theologian visited a prestigious Methodist seminary in the South to lecture on the Nicene Creed. During the question period at the end of the lecture, one of the students rose and earnestly protested: “But I just can’t bring myself to believe the part about Christ rising from the dead.” Without missing a beat, the bishop replied, “Well, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re still very young. Just keep saying the Creed, and eventually you’ll get it.” 

 

Utterly confused, the student asked, “But wouldn’t it be dishonest and hypocritical of me to profess publicly what I don’t believe in my heart?” “Oh,” said the bishop, “Now I see your problem! But you misunderstand! What the Nicene Creed professes isn’t your own personal faith, but the faith of the Holy Catholic Church! None of us can expect to get it all at once. Just keep saying the Creed, and eventually the Holy Spirit will grant you the faith and understanding you seek.” 

 

Today, then, we joyfully proclaim the Church’s faith in Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. This Easter proclamation is not an oppressive dogma to be required of anyone as a precondition of anything, but a gift of great good news to be treasured and shared: God’s pledge to us of our own resurrection and his offer of eternal life in Christ. Our mission is not to require or demand this faith of anyone, but rather to invite all people everywhere to make it their own as and when God grants them the grace to do so. And then we go forward together, rejoicing in the risen life that is ours in Christ Jesus our Savior.

 

EASTER VIGIL

April 16, 2022

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N. J.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, Christ’s Resurrection is a principal subject of Christian art. In the Western Church, paintings and statues often depict the Risen Jesus emerging triumphant from the tomb, perhaps with the soldiers sleeping on either side of the rolled back stone. Another frequent theme is that of his appearing to Mary Magdalene.

 

In the Eastern Church, however, the artistic tradition is very different. On the cover of this evening’s bulletin is a typical Eastern Orthodox icon of the Resurrection or Anastasis. It depicts Christ standing astride a great set of fallen gates—which in many versions of the icon have landed in the figure of a cross. With the nail-prints visible in his hands and feet, Jesus reaches down with one hand to grasp the hand of a man rising from a tomb. The man is Adam. With the other hand he reaches down to grasp the hand of Eve, rising from her tomb. Other figures stand by, also having risen from their graves, often including King David, John the Baptist, and other great kings and prophets of Israel.

 

This rather strange image depicts symbolically what happened during the interval between our Lord’s death on the cross on Good Friday, and his rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday: namely, his descent into hell. The Apostles’ Creed states that after Jesus died and was buried, “he descended into hell, and on the third day he rose again.” Yet during Holy Week it’s all too easy to go straight from the death and burial on Friday afternoon to the Resurrection on Sunday morning, without pausing to consider anything in between. 

 

The Great Vigil of Easter as we now celebrate it has been revived within living memory. Over the years, people have occasionally asked me the same question about the Easter Vigil: Why are we celebrating Easter when it’s not yet Easter Sunday? Beyond explaining that in Jewish tradition the next day begins at sunset, a substantive part of the answer is that on Easter Day we celebrate what happens during the daylight: the finding of the empty tomb and the Risen Lord’s appearances to the women and the disciples; while during the Great Vigil we focus instead on the deep mystery of what happens in the dark solitude of Christ’s tomb before dawn. Indeed, at the beginning of the liturgy the church is darkened precisely to resemble the interior of a tomb. On this most holy night, then, it seems appropriate to say something about what our tradition calls the harrowing of hell.

 

The New Testament briefly mentions Christ’s descent into hell in several places. Perhaps the best-known reference occurs in the First Letter of Peter. The apostle writes that Jesus was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison” (3:18-19). A bit later, he adds: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God” (4:6).

 

Paul writes in his Letter to the Ephesians, that Christ “descended into the lower parts of the earth,” and then that later he “ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things” (4:9-10).

 

In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter, in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, quotes Psalm 16, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption,” and then says that in the psalm David “foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption” (2:31). These words suggest that while Christ’s body rested incorrupt in the tomb, his soul went to the place called Hades, the abode of the dead, even though he did not remain there.

 

One final point of importance is that in the many places where the New Testament writers speak of Christ being raised from the dead, the phrase “from the dead” in the original Greek means not “from the state of death,” but rather, literally, “from among the dead ones.”

 

Based on this scriptural evidence, the Church’s tradition came to understand that when Jesus died and his body was placed in the tomb, his soul left his body and descended into the place known in Hebrew as Sheol, and in Greek as Hades: not the hell of eternal punishment prepared for the unrepentant after the Last Judgment, but rather that shadowy realm where the spirits of the dead were awaiting their Redeemer. 

 

Here, rather than becoming a prisoner himself, Christ trampled down the gates, crushed the power of the devil, proclaimed the Good News, and set free the imprisoned souls awaiting their redeemer. Finally, his soul ascended and rejoined his body, which was lying incorrupt in the tomb awaiting its resurrection.

 

This doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell points to at least three truths of importance for us today. 

 

First, Jesus truly experienced death. From his conception, he passed through all the stages of human existence, both on this side of the grave and beyond. And this means that he’s present for us in every stage of our life and death. Even as we go down into the grave, he’s already there waiting for us. Not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Second, by descending into hell, Christ has made his presence known in every part of creation, from the highest heaven to the lowest depths of the earth. Specifically, by preaching the Gospel to those who died before him, he shows that his offer of eternal salvation extends to all people in all times and in all places, both the living and the dead.

 

And third, by ascending from hell after descending there, he manifests his victory over death and the grave: a victory which will become known when he appears to the women and the disciples on Easter Sunday; and a victory in which we share by being baptized into his Body, the Church. 

 

Tomorrow, we shall celebrate the empty tomb’s discovery and the Risen Lord’s appearances in the full light of day. But this evening, we rejoice, give thanks, and celebrate—for, in the words of the Exsultet that we heard so beautifully chanted earlier in this service: “This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.”