Spread the Word

Spread the Word

Mtr. Nora Johnson

Elijah is a great, old-school, brand-name prophet. His raising of the son of the Widow of Zarephath is one of the really compelling biblical stories. There he is in the upper room, mysteriously battling with God and death to revive the boy. He stretches out upon the corpse—imagine!--and cries out to God. He asks God the big questions: Why did you do this? Why would you bring tragedy upon a house to which you have specifically sent me?

And God certainly did send him, in true prophetic style. Elijah had been living in a ravine and was being fed by ravens, and when the water in that area dried up (as a result of his own prophetic declaration), God told him to go to Zarephath because there was a woman in that town who would feed him.

Ever the obedient servant, Elijah arrives in that town to find that the widow in question is in such dire distress that she has almost nothing to give him. “I am just gathering sticks,” she says, “to take home so I can cook the small amount of food we have left, and feed it to my son before we die.” It’s a mark of Elijah’s vast confidence in God that he can tell her not to be afraid, to give him some part of what she has, for her jar of flour and her jug of oil will never run out. And Elijah’s astonishing prophetic word is true. Elijah is a great prophet.

So when the woman’s son then dies later of an unrelated illness, Elijah is truly put to the test as a prophet. The widow confronts him directly: “What do you have against me, man of God?” And Elijah too confronts God: “Why have you brought tragedy even on this widow with whom I am staying?” His revival of the widow’s son is mysterious and dramatic. He carries the boy upstairs and puts him on his own bed and stretches out on top of him three times, and the boy comes back to life. And the woman sees that he is a man of God and his word it true.

Who doesn’t want to be like Elijah? He is larger than life, epic, legendary. This story is so powerful that Elijah’s protégé, the prophet Elisha, also enacts a version of it, raising a woman’s son from the dead by stretching himself out on top of the body three times. That mysterious gesture, so powerful and visceral, lets us know that these are no ordinary holy men.

By comparison, Jesus’s version of this story is almost understated. He sees the widow of Nain, is moved with compassion for her, touches the funeral bier, and brings her son back to life. I don’t mean to downplay our Lord’s revival of the widow’s son, but this story, which only Luke tells, doesn’t have the wealth of detail and drama that even John’s story about raising Lazarus gives us. There aren’t really any pyrotechnics. It’s just a touching story. Literally a touching story. Jesus is touched by the woman’s suffering and he touches back, stretching his hand out to make contact with her loss. It’s impressive but it’s very simple.

There is one other difference between the story of Jesus and the stories of Elijah and Elisha. Did you notice it? Jesus is surrounded by a crowd. In fact, there is an interesting clash of crowds in this story. Jesus and his disciples and a great crowd of people come to the entrance of the town and they are met by the widow and the body of her son and a crowd of mourners in a funeral procession. And what happens in that crowd feels subtle but it’s really important.

Some of the people there that day think they are part of a funeral, some think they are following a prophet, but nobody is prepared for what actually happens. Nobody is quite ready for new life. We hear that fear seizes all of them and they are amazed by Jesus. And they spread the word “throughout Judea and all of the surrounding country.” Even the son who is raised from the dead sits up and begins talking. It’s what happens in that crowd that grabs my imagination this morning.

You see, I’ve been worrying about crowds lately. I’ve been worrying about what happens when we gather together at, say, political rallies. I’ve been worrying about how crowds clash with one another, worrying about what our political conventions are going to be like in Cleveland and here in Philadelphia this summer. I’ve been looking at crowds and wondering where they are going. Looking and wondering about whether we can hold together as a group. We’ve been feeling the power of crowds a lot, and it hasn’t been good.

And I’m grateful that in this story from Luke there is more than just a compelling performance by a lone prophetic figure. I’m grateful that Jesus is doing more than establishing himself as a holy man. I’m grateful beyond words that in Jesus God is touching us, individually and in groups. And I’m humbled by the sense of a call that comes with this story of new life.

Those crowds outside the town of Nain had come for sharply different reasons. Some thought they were at a funeral and some thought they were following a holy man, but none of them were prepared to be so radically changed by what they saw that day. Nobody knew that at the end of that day they would themselves be evangelists. But they were. They spread that story all around the surrounding country. That story spread to you and me, and it still has the power to catch us up and change us and call us to witness.

How many of us are willing to spread the word that there is a kingdom of heaven forming here on earth, and that in that kingdom it’s possible to know peace and forgiveness and new life? How many of us are prepared to live in the truth of the Resurrection? How many of us are willing to admit that in Christ, even in times like these, it’s still possible to come together and be changed by the touch of God? That it’s possible to reach out and be moved by compassion instead of being deadlocked and polarized and fearful and obsessed with our divisions? How many of us are really ready to see death replaced by life?

Do you want that? Do you really want it with your whole being? Because right now is a really good time for us to be putting the focus on the witness we bear. Right now is a really good time for us to feel that touch and hear that call and see that rebirth happening in our midst. Right now we need Jesus. We may feel that we are in a funeral procession or we may feel comforted that we are following a holy man, but neither stance is enough for Jesus. Jesus needs us to be touched and healed and ready to bear witness. Jesus needs us to be the kind of crowd that can stay with him. Did you notice that about this crowd? They are unusually good. They don’t question Jesus or ask him by what authority he raises the young man. They don’t try to drive him off a cliff or ask him to keep quiet. They don’t question his pedigree or his logic or his timing. They are afraid but they let themselves be expanded by the power of God working among them. And then they come to life and they tell everybody what they’ve experienced.

Maybe you aren’t the prophet Elijah. But you are part of a crowd that has seen Jesus. You’ve seen him time and time again, haven’t you, raising someone to a life that never seemed possible? You’ve known hope in improbable moments, right? You’ve felt yourself moved by something joyful even on the darkest of days. You’ve kept coming back here in spite of suffering and in spite of yourself and in spite of all of us and our woeful inadequacies. You’ve been made into a disciple and given a call and a vision. And now Jesus needs you to tell all the surrounding country. You’ve had that experience of faith for them as well as for yourself, and now they—that world out there, that city, that country, that democracy—they need you to spread the word.

One final thought: we in the Episcopal Church have been asked to bear witness to gun violence this Sunday. We were asked to wear orange to show our solidarity with the victims of shootings in this city and throughout our nation. Our particular liturgical tradition doesn’t lend itself well to orange stoles or other shocking liturgical innovations, but please don’t think for a moment that this “ordinary” green isn’t a statement of compassion and profound solidarity. Gun violence, and our polarization as a country around gun violence, and our despair and our fear and our passivity, are sure signs that we are in need of conversion and new life and the touch of Jesus. Our call is clear, and our prophet is Christ himself. 

So let me say it again: Jesus needs you to tell all the surrounding country about the new life you’ve witnessed. That world out there, that city, that country, that democracy, that worrisome crowd: they need you to spread the word.

Preached by Mother Nora Johnson

5 June 2016

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Known and Unknown

The Israelites in the wilderness knew a great deal. They knew what it was to be a slave, and they knew what it was to be free. They knew what it was to eat lamb standing up with sandals on their feet and their hearts beating hard inside their chests. They knew what it was to walk through a sea on dry ground while the water rose up like walls. They knew what it was to see themselves saved, and they knew what it was to watch men die.

They also knew what it was to walk. And walk. And walk. They knew the feel of sand between their toes, the itch of fresh sunburn on bald scalps. They knew the sound the wind makes just before a storm and the clean, metallic taste of water streaming from a rock. They knew joy and fear, they knew hunger and frustration, they knew the barren, bleached sky of noonday and the brilliant dance of stars at night.

What they did not know was manna. They knew bread of all shapes and sizes – bread for mealtime, bread for the sacrifice, bread for the Sabbath, even bread with no yeast. But until that first morning when the soft seeds of manna appeared on the ground, they did not know this bread. Later, years later, when their journey was ended, Moses reminded them of this, that, in the words of one translation, this manna was something they had not known and which their fathers had not known, given to them by God in order to make them know that not by bread alone do humans stay-alive.*

For the Israelites, the appearance of manna was something entirely new. We know the manna is coming, because we know the story. We know that when the Israelites are complaining about the pangs in their belly and bemoaning the lost flesh-pots of Egypt, God will send them manna from heaven to cover the ground like frost. We know that this manna can be crushed up to make flour for bread. We know that the manna lasts only one day, except on the Sabbath, when it miraculously lasts two.

We know all of this, but to the Israelites, all of this was new. Who knows what they had been expecting. Maybe they thought that God would provide a random barley field in the desert. Maybe they thought that each morning God would send a flock of slow, fat birds over their camps. Maybe they thought that in this wonderful wilderness, God would make bread or cheese or lambs grow on trees. But God did none of these things. While the Israelites may have been looking for magical pop-up gardens and herds of slow-witted and slower-footed animals, God was preparing something.. …else. Something new, something no one had ever seen before, because God had never made it before. Bread from heaven. Manna from the mind of God, little seeds of divine imagination right there on the ground, given to God’s people so that they would now know – know that their food, and their drink, and their bodies, and their hearts, and their love and their longings and their very lives came only from God’s own hand.

Later, much later, in the heart of the Promised Land, a son of those wandering Israelites tells a crowd of curious onlookers and faithful followers that God is not finished with holy surprises. There are more in store, more things that they had not known which were about to be made known. I am the bread of life, he says. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. And to the Israelites, all of this was, again, new. They knew bread, of course – the bread of the sacrifice and the bread of the Sabbath, the flat, cracked bread of the Passover. And now they even knew the bread of the exile and the manna made in heaven. But this bread – living bread, flesh that offers them eternal life? This is bread that they did not know.

And so they ask Jesus – what in the Lord God’s little green earth are you talking about? How can you give us your flesh to eat in any way that isn’t incredibly disgusting and, frankly, pretty un-kosher? We know bread, we even know some miraculous bread, and your flesh is not it. So what, pray tell, are you going on about?

But Jesus, as he so often does, chooses to answer not the how of their questions but the why. Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in you. The one who eats this bread will live forever. In other words, I don’t know what you were expecting, but I am what you’ve got. You may have been expecting bread that would grow your children tall and strong so that they could overcome the might of any Roman soldier, but I am not that bread. You may have been expecting bread that would make your wives bear twins and more twins so that your people would swarm this land and squeeze out your occupiers, but I am not that bread. You may have been expecting bread that would give you long years and great wisdom so that you could outlast anyone else who lays claim to this land, but I am not that bread.

I am this bread, and this bread is something…else. Something new, something no one has ever seen before, because God has never made it before. Bread that is the very Son of God, God’s own self, made flesh, right here on the ground. Bread that is offered and broken so that you will now know – know that your food, and your drink, and your bodies, and your hearts, and your salvation come from God’s own hand.

So today, I’m struck by the question – why do I think I’m so special? Why do we think that I know what this bread is all about? Today, on this great feast of Corpus Christi, why do I we sometimes imagine that I we understand all of this – that I know everything there is to know about this bread? Why do I speak about the real presence of Christ in this bread as if it’s something w I e could map out in a Venn diagram? Christ, bread, the middle part. Why do I expect that we know all that there is to know?

And we do, don’t we? It’s all too easy for us to come to this altar rail thinking that we know what’s coming. A little wafer, dry, without much flavor, sometimes round, sometimes, when it’s broken off from the priest host, oblong and angular – a rhombus of holiness. We know what it feels like in our hands, we know what it tastes like on our tongues. We even know what it feels like in our hearts. We know that we will feel comfort, or awe. We know that we will feel relief, or strength. We know that we will feel strangely warmed or righteously stirred. It’s easy to think we will know the thing that is going to happen to us when we kneel here, to know what God is going to do for us here.

But the great and glorious fact is that we do not know. We do not know what God is up to in this moment, in this church, at this altar, within this bread. And if Holy Scripture shows us anything, it is that we should expect to be surprised. We should expect that God is going to give us something holy and new, something wholly unanticipated. We might come expecting peace and instead find a restlessness that leads us to seek our rest deeper within the heart of God. We might come expecting to have a deeply personal experience of the risen Christ and instead find ourselves drawn to serve Christ’s body in the neighbor who kneels beside us at the rail. We might come seeking nothing and yet find ourselves filled with a sense of God’s nearness.

We do not know what we will find here, but we can know that whatever we find will be absolutely real – not something easy that will flop down on our plate like a bird already browned in butter, but something that provides just what we need, for just the time we need it. We can know that here will find something that requires something of us – a response, a gentle kneading and shaping of the heart. We can know that here God provides not something that meets all of our expectations so that we can close the book on our journeys, but something that demands openness, an open mouth, an open heart, a life open to the workings of Christ.

You and I know a great deal. We know that this bread is offered for us. We know that this bread is given to us by God’s own hand to feed us in ways only God can truly imagine. And we know that Christ is present in this bread in a magnificent, unfathomable way. What we do not know is the height and depth and breadth of the love that lives within this bread. What we do not know is everything that this love has in store for us. What we do not know is wonderful.

*Translation paraphrased from Everett Fox

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

29 May 2016, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Worshipping the Same God

Worshipping the Same God

Fr. David Cobb

If we are religious and live in a pluralist society, at least one question we have to answer is this: Do we all worship the same god? Of course, if God had created a simpler world with less complexity in the ways people think and experience reality, if God had not placed us within the movement of time—not only unfolding seasons of our own lives but successive cultures and changing language—there would be many more simple answers to all sorts of questions. But God has created this world and we have struggled for countless centuries to hear God speak and to see God at work and to express something of what we have found.

There is only one God, the one true and living God. If anyone stands in awe, thanksgiving, intercession, repentance, when any response is made to the mystery that is at the heart and source of things: there is only one God. And so we turn in the same direction, no matter what point of the compass we face. There is a reality that our words seek to reflect and there is a movement that begins outside our self when we pray, and so we all worship the same God because it is God moving within us who gives us the mind and the words and the desire to pray. 

Prayer does not begin in us. It begins in the God who awakens in us a longing, a delight, a wonder that turns beyond ourselves and our world. We all worship the same God because there is only the one God. Any human who seeks or strives towards God is moved by God. We don’t hear it often enough, but the prologue to John’s Gospel tells us that “the light which enlightens all people was coming into the world” and Augustine included the entire human family when he said, “Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” There is one reality towards which all our words point and one God who gives us mind and words and calls us out in awe, fear, love, and delight to worship.

And yet we will speak of that God in different ways and we will have encountered God in different circumstances. Language is different from one culture and from one time to another. The movement of God is not instantaneous, even in the sweep of the biblical story. The apostles knew more than the prophet’s had seen and the patriarchs did not see what the generation that came out of Egypt saw. The earliest Christians continued in the Temple and were rooted in the faith of their birth, and yet Paul argued for a place that Gentiles could occupy within the Church. Jesus knows that there is only so much the disciples can hear, and so he leaves the moment open and teaches them to expect that as he is and carries the Father’s Word, so the Holy Spirit will continually lead disciples into Truth; a threefold movement, from God’s eternity a single movement, in our experience the work of a lifetime and of many generations. 

We all worship the same God, but we grow in our lives from childish to mature, in the movements of fear to hope and joy to sorrow and back, and in each movement we know and we reach for something particular. And in every age there is a way of knowing God that is both continuity yet new. We worship the same God, but we know that mystery in our own time and in each passing moment and changing situation of our own life we can know it more fully.

This Sunday, like the Creeds that we say daily in the office and weekly in the Eucharist, gives shape and definition to the experience that we have had of God, recognizing that at whatever point we stand and in every age of the Church’s history, there has been an encounter with God that can only adequately be described if a great deal is taken into account. And here, the creeds say, is what Christians have to take into account.

Paul, centuries before the Church clarified and shaped an understanding of the Trinity, draws out the work that God accomplishes. Christ, who in himself reconciles heaven and earth and then reconciles each one of us, and the Spirit are at work within us so that hope for nothing less than God’s own glory sustains, strengthens, and enlivens us. The Trinity is not only how we speak the truth about God but it is our experience. Through Christ we are brought into a new relationship with the Source of all and the Spirit works in us drawing us closer to God and to the people around us.

The mystery of God lies in the reality beyond our knowing, but it is found in the way our lives are drawn into that mystery. When we speak of God the holy and undivided Trinity, we are simply acknowledging the fullness of our experience of God, who is both more than our minds can contain yet known in the face of Jesus, and who is both the power to know and the desire to know. 

This day’s collect speaks of us being given grace to acknowledge what we experience and to worship the God we encounter. We don’t celebrate a puzzle or an equation today; we give thanks for the Church’s witness to the fullness of God’s being and to the grace that gives peace in Christ and hope for this life and for more. We worship a God who exists in the eternal joy of knowing and being known, of mutual love. God was never an isolated thing, always this abounding life that is Love, and now that God has spoken to us, dwelt among us and carried our burdens, and forever more that God engages our hearts and minds and fires our imagination, working in us more than we can imagine. 

So do we all worship the same God? Maybe the question to ask myself is, do I always worship this God? Sometimes I will hold a much smaller bit of the truth in mind and let my own false designs become all I know of God, or I let too much ill-formed or untested theology cloud my mind, or I just do not pay attention to the movement of God within that leads me to Jesus and reconciles me to the Father. Forgetting the truth, I will cringe before a god who is an ugly projection of my fear or I will imagine a god who shares my angers or resentments or who blesses my greed. And if my relationship with god is not so markedly demonic, it can be just as destructive if it is simply a wary or cautious avoidance. Without thinking, I can fall into a relationship with God that is not unlike the relationship of a teenager with his parent’s friends: you don’t want to annoy them, but you don’t think much about them either. Sometimes, that’s about how we acknowledge and worship. Nod, say something polite and keep moving.  I can worship such small gods and I can create such very ugly idols.

The God we acknowledge and worship is transcendent and beyond the reach of words or images, and the God we worship is ready to hear and soothe the sorrows and fears that choke our breath. The God we worship is holy and righteous and will not look on cruelty or wickedness, and yet rejoices when the worst of us makes the first step towards holiness. The God we acknowledge and worship inhabits eternity holding in love the entire story from before the big bang until the whole creation is made new. And yet this God hears a child’s prayers as an ordinary day ends.

So do we all worship the same God? It’s probably not fair to the real convictions and insights (and it might miss the truths that can be contained in different approaches to God) to say we all worship the same God if that is simply an way to avoid thinking seriously about what I believe, to avoid listening to what the Church has taught and to ignore what my neighbors and strangers might say about God. There are somethings that I can believe about God that are flat wrong and there are things someone can believe about God that are dangerous. There is no virtue in not paying attention or not thinking clearly. There is a virtue in listening and treating with respect different conceptions about God and, since there is only one true and living God, there is no reason to assume that the “light that enlightens all” sheds no light in other places at other times. And if we ask why the Christian gospel isn’t heard and received, we might need to ask what sort of Christian witness the Church has given. If others don’t believe what we say, it might be because they have watched how we live.

Within a world full of many conceptions of God and across the endless centuries, this is what we believe and this is the God we worship. We stand within this relationship–through Christ, in the Spirit, reconciled to the Father–we live and pray, we acknowledge and worship the mystery of the Trinity. There is only the one God, and as we acknowledge with gratitude what we have seen of God in Christ and the work that the Spirit does within our lives, we live in hope for the day when all questions are answered, when faith is resolved in sight, and when what we can forget or confuse is obvious: God’s eternal love that overflows into creation and that brings creation and each of us to glory.

Preached by Father David Cobb

Trinity Sunday, 22 May 2016

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia