The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 If you’ve never read Jeremiah, let me warn you, he’s a downer. Known as the weeping prophet, the books that bear his name, Jeremiah and Lamentations are dire warnings of what Israel’s choice to live without God will mean--sorrow, death, and destruction. And yet...there is always that and yet. Though God may let us live into the freedom of our choices, and thus their consequences, God is always ready to redeem and restore. In our reading from Jeremiah today, a selection from the readings from Morning Prayer meant to prepare us for Pentecost, Jeremiah envisions a time when God will restore Israel and Judah. What’s interesting, though, is that this vision of restoration gets at the heart of their obedience. When all is finally right in the world the people of God will respond with right relationship to God in their freedom. It is a common pattern of any human life. We are taught by some authority the way to address a certain reality in the world. It may be the reality that if you don’t make your bed cascading chaos will ensue. It may be that if you don’t forgive then you will live with the burden of that hate. Whether small or large, we are taught by parents and pastors, teachers and mentors to do things that help us live into the fullness of our lives. But at first, such lessons often conflict with our own desires. We don’t want to make our beds, we don’t want to love our neighbors or forgive. For a while, from respect or fear we may do the thing taught us, but soon it will fall away, our freedom will lead us toward beds unmade and neighbors unloved. This is what happened repeatedly in the history of Israel, it is a pattern that continues with us today. But the hope lies in the real possibility that we can be changed, we can become the sorts of people who desire to make our beds, love our neighbors, and forgive those who wrong us. Then, the law will be inside of us, then we will answer the call not from fear or obligation but because our very wants have been aligned with the goodness and love of God that are at the basis of all reality. Jeremiah saw a day when this reality would come to bear, when a prophet could speak truth and the people wouldn’t try to kill him (as they did with Jeremiah). Jesus also taught and lived and made possible this way. This law of the heart is foundational to his Sermon on the Mount and it is made possible for his students through his sacrificial life and resurrection. In us the Spirit dwells, enabling our prayers, forming our desires. Through the Spirit whose coming we celebrate on Pentecost, the Law’s life in our hearts was made possible. Still we must work to welcome that Spirit, still we must listen to her guiding voice, but if we listen we will be comforted, if we listen we will find our way. Prayer for Today God who came among us give us the life of your Spirit that we may have your ways written into our every thought and action. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today The Holy Spirit is often forgotten in our prayers, but the Spirit, too, is part of the whole of God. Spend time today praying in and from the Spirit. Recognize her divine presence within you and invite God to transform you through the Spirit’s abiding presence in your life. Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer live as the Gentiles live, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart. They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:17-42 We don’t like to make decisions. That may come as a surprise in a culture that celebrates choice, but there is a wealth of research that shows that human beings are better off when the choices are few and the routines many. To have to constantly decide, constantly make choices, can be stressful and anxiety producing. It can raise our tempers, it can make us act out in absurd ways. When choice breaks down it is our character that comes through. I’ve been thinking about this lately in the midst of the pandemic. It was helpful, in the beginning to have clear public guidance. Our options were made for us and they were few. But now in this time of “re-opening” we are each burdened with more and more choices and lacking any coherent guidance most of us are left to our own discernments. Stress can increase, tempers can flare. In its most juvenile expressions people act out in a restaurant because they refuse to wear a mask. But behind that acting out is, I think, an anxiety and fear that just wants to reassert the normal rather than face the decisions of the present. In the end, as I said, character comes through. That is why it is so important that we pay attention to our formation. When the moment of decision comes, its usually too late to deal with character; when the stress arrives, our path is often already determined by the habits we formed long before. Its for these reasons that the Pauline author of Ephesians calls for the development of what we might call holy habits--speaking truth, understanding our connection in a common body, working honestly, giving charity, using our language to be life giving. Notice how the author says “This is not the way you learned Christ.” The sense seems almost like saying, “That is not how you learned to play the piano” or “this is not the way you learned woodworking.” Christ here seems to be as much a practice and way of living as it is a person. To live into Christ is, as the author says, to be “clothed with a new self,” to be re-created into the image of God whose likeness we were supposed to bear all along. I see no end to our need to be wise in our living, to have to discern each day how we will act in this moment. The potential for stress and anxiety will most likely only rise as the issues of public health are further politicized in this election year and the economic realities born of our fragile systems begin to show themselves even more. We people of faith should heed the call of Ephesians, we should watch ourselves and ask, “is this the way we learned Christ?” Now is the time to pay attention to our formation, to deepen our practices of prayer, study of scripture, worship, charity, fasting, simplicity, and the other historic ways that Christians have worked to welcome the habits of holiness into their lives. Prayer for Today God of peace you called us to live free from fear and worry. Help us to live the habits of a holy life so that we can live in your liberty, loving our neighbors as ourselves. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today Reflecting on the passage from Ephesians today, spend some time either reviewing or creating your rule of life. This “Rule” is a guide for your practices and therefore the way that your habits are being formed. For guidance on how to create a rule of life see this guide from Society of Saint John the Evangelist: https://www.ssje.org/pdf/GrowRule_Workbook.pdf On that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and glory of the survivors of Israel. Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning. Then the Lord will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over its places of assembly a cloud by day and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night. Indeed, over all the glory there will be a canopy. It will serve as a pavilion, a shade by day from the heat, and a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain.
Isaiah 4:2-6 There are two important images of God dwelling with the people of Israel that are at the center of the biblical imagination. One is God’s visible presence throughout the Exodus in the form of a cloud by day and a flaming fire by night. The people of God came to embody their worship in a tent made for worship, but the divine presence there was marked by these two meteorological signs. When the wilderness was behind them and Israel turned from being a loose confederation linked by a common faith to a state with a central authority, God’s presence was marked by the temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. At first this temple was seen as a problem, but with time God accepted it as a place to mark his presence with the people. Isaiah in our passage today brings together both images--Zion’s temple and the cloud of the wilderness--in a promise of God’s presence with the people. God’s presence in fact will make the whole mountain a manifestation of God’s glory, a place of refuge from all the vagaries of life, represented by the weather. What might this reality say to those of us who are facing the vagaries of life in the form of a virus? I’ve recently been re-reading Francis Spufford’s wonderful book Unapologetic. It is an explanation of Christianity that is so clear and artful that it is both good for those unfamiliar with Christian faith and for those of us who forgotten just how extraordinary it all is. At the end of the chapter where Spufford slyly retails the story of Jesus through a picture about a man named Yeshua (which is what Jesus would have been called by his contemporaries), Spufford writes through the voice of Yeshua, “Far more can be mended than you know.” It’s a profound statement, one that echoes throughout the scriptures from Isaiah through Revelation, it is a word of truth that we should hear now as well. Whatever wrongs are done in the world, whatever damage is done, whatever oppression and violence and chaos--God’s healing, sheltering glory is going to come upon us. It may be a painful, overwhelming glory at first, like sunlight after a matinee movie, but with time it will be a welcome, reconciling reality. This reality won’t do away with the fact of the damage, the hard truths of the world’s wounds, but it will overwhelm the harm so that it doesn’t matter as much any more. Far more can be mended than we know. Prayer for Today God of glory overwhelm our wounded world with the radiance of your beauty so that we may find shelter under the pavilion of your presence. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today The fact of beauty and glory overwhelming harm is something that happens throughout the world every day. Think, for example, of an empty lot where a house was burned down that now serves as a wooded haven to birds and wildflowers. Go on a search for healing glory. Where can you see this reality of God already at work in your neighborhood? So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 COVID19 will change everything, we hear. It will change how we do church, how we carry out education, how we will conduct elections. Maybe, maybe not. There are some things we can hope will change, but the pull of the normal is strong and long ingrained habits are hard to break, even with something as extreme as corona. There are many things that have changed over time, technology for instance. There are other things that have not changed all that much, human nature for example. In Christ, though, change came for the very cosmos. In him the world was brought back in the harmony with God, it was reconciled. The word for reconciled in the Greek of Paul was katallassó. It means literally to “change down to a precise point” or “decisively change.” When Paul talks of Christ reconciling the world, which in Greek is the entire existing cosmos, then Paul is saying that Christ has fundamentally changed all things. This is a powerful message we often miss in the familiar religious language of reconciliation. The term reconciliation gets thrown around a lot these days. We talk about racial reconciliation, we talk about being reconciled to our neighbor, etc. But if we are to take reconciliation seriously in this New Testament sense then it will have to mean that everything must change. We cannot say, for instance, that we want racial reconciliation without changing the systems that ensure racial oppression. Often when we say we want reconciliation we really just want to get along or for our problem to just go away. Reconciliation of the kind Christ brings, however, demands a complete change in how we live. This radical reconciliation that Christ invites us into is much more far reaching than the blip on the cosmic scale that COVID19 represents. In participating in the change that Christ’s love brings we are joining in an event that has implications for the whole of the universe and all time. That is a powerful reality to live and pray and move through, but it the change we are called to enter through Christ, the God-man who humbled himself so that we might join in the cosmic work of changing all things so that everything and everyone can now live in right relationship with God and neighbor. Prayer for Today Reconciling God you have changed us so that we may join you in changing the world. Enable us in all the aspects of our lives to become outposts of your world transforming love. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today It is sometimes helpful to think about what we do now that we will continue to do in the fullness of God’s kingdom. I imagine, for instance, that a walk in the woods will not disappear when God’s reconciliation comes in fullness. If anything, I will walk more. But driving a car at inhuman speeds down a concrete interstate that has obliterated its landscape doesn’t seem like something that will be sustained in God’s kingdom come. After spending some time reflecting on this question, think about what aspects of “heaven on earth” you can begin to live into more and what aspects of life that will not continue into God’s kingdom you can diminish. Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.
The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd. Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 Last week, with some cool weather and no chance of rain for the night, my family decided to head to a spot near Flatside pinnacle in the Ouachita mountains to camp. Somewhere after our tires left the pavement and we began our path along dirt roads and low water bridges, we lost cell phone coverage. And so began a 24 hour period in which we had no access to news. After we’d returned and I’d checked my favorite sites I discovered that I’d missed nothing. If we’d been gone for a week instead of a day, that reality would have been essentially the same. I say this because this time of pandemic has driven many of us to seek more and more news. I’ve found my normally digital minimalist self, drawn down many a rabbit hole, saved only by the timers I’ve installed on my computer to save me from myself. The draw of news is strong because we are in need of knowledge and understanding, and ours is a culture that often mistakes information for both. This of course is not a new problem. The “Teacher,” of Ecclesiastes notes that beyond wisdom, there is still much that is said, many books published, and wearing study to be engaged. But such words are fruitless. They do not contain what we really need which is a guide to how to live in this moment. Wisdom in the biblical sense is practical in this way. It isn’t abstract knowledge or disconnected information. Biblical wisdom is close to what the Greeks called phronesis: practical reason, reason that guides how we live. In my reading of the news I recently came across a helpful antidote to it. Mark Lilla, a philosopher at Columbia University, wrote a piece in the New York Times about the problem with so much prognosticating about the future of our life with COVID and beyond. At base, he said, “We should ask only what we want to happen, and how to make it happen, given the constraints of the moment.” We simply don’t know what will come, but we do have some idea of the consequences of what we might do now. So worry less about the future and more about the actions of the presence that will determine it. This doesn’t alleviate the reality of our uncertain time. “A dose of humility would do us good in the present moment,” writes Lilla. “It might also help reconcile us to the radical uncertainty in which we are always living.” I think the “Teacher” of Ecclesiastes would agree. He says in effect, you don’t need to read more or study more or keep up with the news to know what you should do. Those things may be helpful to a point, but don’t let it distract you from the call of all our lives: keep God’s commandments, live in cautious reverence before the divine, stay humble and remember that we are finite creatures who cannot know the future whether we consult Tarot cards or today’s pundits. Prayer for Today God of all wisdom our future remains always in your hands. Protect us from our prognostications and help us to be satisfied with the humble path of following your pattern for life’s fullness, Jesus Christ, your son, our savior. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today The news can be tempting, but we often put too much value in what it says. Today, whenever you are tempted to look at the news of the moment or the predictions of the pundits, turn instead to real guidance you need for how to live. One of the best statements of this can be found in Romans chapter 12. Print off a copy of the passage or open your bible to it and place it by your computer, television, or wherever you consume news. At the end of the day, reflect on what difference this practice made for how you feel. ‘There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God. Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. 1 Samuel 2:2-8 Our God is a chaotic God. Or if not chaotic, then one that revels in the opportunities chaos brings. Just look at this song of Hannah (above), or the Magnificat, or Job 38 (God in the whirlwind), or Jesus turning over the tables in the temple. If you want to defend God as one who loves order, whose spirit dwells with the Bourgeois and law abiding, then look elsewhere. It is not that God is some trickster who revels in the chaos itself. When all is good and beautiful, just and loving then God is happy in the harmony. But so often the world is not those things, so often the world of the way-things-are makes billionaires of those who exploit people and the earth; so often the world of the way-things-are is just fine with the crater that was once a village of ordinary people in Yemen because a) some industries made money by selling the bomb and b) a subject Yemen serves the interest of some far off nation’s interests. Often it is the world of the way-thing-are that causes the chaos, but God enters into it and uses the opportunity to turn things upside down, to raise “up the poor from the dust” or break the “bows of the mighty.” When things are unsettled it is an opportunity for something new, and the God who created it all is ready to create new life and beauty and harmony once more. COVID19 has created a moment of unsettling, it has turned over the tables of the world and made our stable systems tremble. Much work is now being done to just return it all to the way things were, to re-establish the old systems. But this moment is an opportunity for the world of the way-things-are to give way to the reign of God, the world of reconciling love and justice. How might we in God’s community of love, the church, be called to enter this moment, not as an assurance that all will go back to normal, but in an embrace of God’s work of reconciliation and renewal in the midst of this unsettled time? This is a question we must ask, a question we must not let pass us by through a reassertion of the way-its-always been. May we join in Hannah’s song and give glory to the God who is a God of knowledge, the God who is working, even now, to create the world anew in love and justice. Prayer for Today Unsatisfied God we give thanks that you are not content to let the world as it is remain as it is. Give us a vision for your love and justice so that we too may remain unsatisfied in the contentments of the way things are. Let us instead be filled by your goodness and content in your mercy. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today As a meditation, take time to think of one aspect of the world that has been unsettled by COVID19. Imagine what God might do with it. How could God take that unsettled reality and turn it into something new, something more righteous and loving than it was before. Pray from your imagination that God’s reign will come into that reality can turn it toward God’s goodness. Today is the Feast of the Ascension. I couldn’t do better today than to offer a sermon I preached on this feast last year. It’s a bit longer than a normal post, but I hope it will shed some light on the meaning of this day.
Jesus said to his disciples, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God. Luke 24:44-53 When I was a child, few movies captured my imagination like the Indiana Jones series. Indy was everything I wanted to be--an adventuring scholar, at home equally in a library or a jungle; a good guy with a gruff edge. I saved my money, bought myself a felt fedora and set off into the woods in search of adventure. I didn’t discover the Ark of the Covenant or escape ancient booby traps, but I did find a few old bottles and a cobbled leather shoe-- exciting enough fare for a ten-year-old. Perhaps it was a sense of nostalgia for that excitement that recently led me, on a night when my family was away, to sit down to dinner and watch my favorite film in the series: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. For those who don’t remember or have had the misfortune of never seeing it, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade traces Dr. Jones’s adventures in search of the Holy Grail, all the while battling Nazis and encountering the supernatural despite his skepticism. In one of the early scenes of the film, Jones is discussing the Grail with his colleague Marcus Brody. Jones is skeptical about the Grail legend which he takes to be little more than a Medieval fairytale. Brody responds that, "The search for the cup of Christ is the search for the divine in all of us. But if you want facts I have none to give you. At my age I'm willing to take a few things on faith.” Brody’s response is a wise one, one that names, perhaps, the reason for the long and flourishing tradition of Holy Grail stories, from L’morte de Arthur to Monty Python. We all want to understand our relationship to the divine and so the grail legend has been a vehicle for us to explore this mystery in the best way human beings know how: through stories. With the grail on my mind, then, I began to work through a problem I’ve been pondering, the problem of the Ascension. Creation, incarnation, resurrection--these are essentials for our understanding of God in Christ and each has a great resonance for me. Part of the reason Christianity has remained my faith and practice is because of our profound belief that God created the world and redeemed it by becoming a part of creation, suffering inside of it, and opening the way for new life within it through resurrection. But the Ascension has always been a hard reality for me because it seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The Ascension appears to say that Christ was simply a visitor to earth, like some alien from a spaceship, who doesn’t belong here and so has left us for a better place, like a big shot who gets stuck in coach on an airplane and is quickly ushered to first class by an apologetic flight attendant. To put it more theologically, how do we make sense of Christ’s promise in the Gospel of Matthew to be with us always, even until the end of the age, when it seems that in the ascension Christ has clearly abandoned us, albeit under the divine care of Holy Spirit? How is it, as our reading in Ephesians puts it, that Christ who is seated at the Father’s “right hand in the heavenly places” is also the one “who fills all in all”? I found help for my questions in a wonderful essay by the exiled Russian theologian Sergei Bulgakov. Bulgakov takes up the quandary of the Ascension and solves it by drawing on the tradition of the Holy Grail with a brilliant twist. The Holy Grail tradition, of course, is that the cup Christ drank from at the last supper was then given to Joseph of Arimathea who used it to catch the blood and water that spilled from Christ’s side when he was pierced on the cross. Legend has it that Joseph then took the Grail to England where it was hidden and became sought after by such great knights as Sir Galahad of the King Arthur’s round table. These are legends of course, but Bulgakov draws on these legends to say something profound. “The image of the Holy Grail, in which the holy blood of Christ is kept,” he writes, “expresses precisely the idea that, even though the Lord ascended in His honorable flesh to heaven, the world received His holy relic in the blood and water that flowed out of his side...And the whole world is the chalice of the Holy Grail.” The world is the Holy Grail! This means that though Christ has ascended in body, his life blood is also still here. In the incarnation and his sacrificial death, Christ became so mixed with the creation that the world is now infused with Christ, filled like a cup with his life. “Through the precious streams of Christ’ blood and water that flowed out of His side,” writes Bulgakov, “all creation was sanctified--heaven and earth, our earthly world, and all the stellar worlds.” This means, he writes, that “The world has become Christ.” And if the world has become Christ this changes everything about how we understand the Ascension. We can begin to make sense of how Christ can be seated at the right hand of the Father and still be embodied in the church and the world, filling all in all. In the Ascension Christ does not leave us, but instead, just as he is the “first fruits” of the resurrection, he has Ascended to begin the motion that all of his body will join and follow, until earth becomes heaven and heaven earth. We all have the opportunity, then, to become like the nights of the round table or Indiana Jones. We too can go on a quest for the grail. To begin our search we do not need chain mail or a fedora. We only need the eyes to see the sacred reality of Christ all around us--this sacred world in which Christ is present and also drawing us to our fullness. When we drink from this grail its miracle will be our own transfiguration, our bodies becoming his body, earth becoming heaven, his descent becoming our Ascension into the divine. This Feast of the Ascension then becomes a day on which we glory in what Christ has become and seek to welcome that becoming into the world, saying to all the powers of Death, all the pretended rulers of the earth, that Christ is not only resurrected but also ascended, abiding on earth and ruling in heaven until both are joined through his love. Amen. Prayer for Today Collect for the Feast of the Ascension Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today Use the scripture above as a source for Lectio Divina. Read it first, slowly and carefully. Pay attention to a word or phrase that catches you attention. Let that word or phrase then lead you into prayer. From that prayer simply sit in thanksgiving to God for the blessing of God’s redemptive work in the world. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. Matthew 24:42-47 The New Testament is full of reminders to stay awake, to be ready. But what, exactly, are we preparing for? Here Jesus tells us that it is an arrival, the coming of the Son of Man. That title is an eschatological reference--the name of the messiah who will come into the world and put all things right, reconciling the whole of creation. It is the title given, of course, to Jesus himself. He is telling his disciples that he will come again and that when he does so he will finish the establishment of the kingdom of reconciliation and love that he began with them. The failure to be prepared for God’s kingdom coming into the world are of two kinds. The first is to simply not be awake and ready, to be too wrapped up in the cares and concerns of the everyday to be expectant of the arrival of God’s love in its fullness. The second possibility is to be actively working in the opposite direction, like an employ actively working against the boss until the boss shows up. We are called to be neither apathetic nor opposed to the reign of God that is coming into the world. Instead, Jesus is teaching his disciples (which includes us) to be ready for its coming. This readiness means, I think, that our lives now and our lives then will not be all that different. In fact, it will mean that our lives will be easier in the kingdom to come than they are now. In this world there is much resistance to God’s love and mercy, while in the world to come it will be so complete that those living into it will exist without friction. As the world continues to struggle with COVID19 and so many are working to prepare, in whatever ways they can, to a return to some aspects of “normal life,” we should be thinking of an even more altered future. The world has been changed, but not by COVID. The world has been changed by Jesus coming and it will be completely undone by love in his coming again. We should prepare our hearts and our lives so that we will welcome that change. Let us stay alert to the spirit, let us be prepared for the kingdom of God that will arrive without warning. Prayer for Today God of surprise enable us to welcome your kingdom even when it unsettles us, so that we may join in your overcoming and overwhelming love. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today Fasting has long been a practice for preparation, a way that we can discipline our desires for something more. Today is a traditional fast day in preparation for the Feast of the Ascension. Give up some normal activity whether eating, watching television, etc. in order to prepare for celebrating Christ’s Ascension into heaven and his coming return when we least expect it. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.
1 Peter 5:6-10 Humility is an often misunderstood concept. So often the image that comes to mind is a cowering person who thinks little of themselves and lives without boldness. Aquinas, however, understood humility to be an aspect of those who displayed a magnanimous or “great soul.” A humble person is actually someone who displays a kind of verve for life because they are no longer interested in protecting their own ego. They have let go of themselves so that they can live their lives in God, embracing their dependence. By joining their lives with God’s power they can face the challenges of life with more confidence than those who are constantly worried about covering over their own inadequacies. In this time of fear and uncertainty with its myriad paths and questions, we need the practice of humility more than ever. It is by admitting our dependence, by casting our anxieties upon the God who cares for us in our weakness, that we will be able to live boldly in the world. This does not mean that we will be reckless, but it does mean that death and the fear of death will no longer be our determining reality. Our values will become based in the life God calls us toward: the love of neighbor and the risk of hospitality. The coming weeks will be an important time of discernment for faithful people to find a way to live into love and community in the midst of this pandemic. It will require patience but also risk, wisdom but also a stepping out of our comfort. In it all we should take our anxieties and give them over to God so that we can step from the egocentric circles of our worry and be alert and awake to where God is leading. We are called to glory in Christ. May we receive the restoration, strength and support we need in order to be the people of God through this time. Prayer for Today Humble God give us your boldness so that we may live without fear and embrace the life you have called us to in Christ. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today Peter calls us to “cast our anxieties” upon God. Take time today to write your anxieties on little slips of paper. When you feel like you have written them all down, place them before a cross (one you have or an image you make for this exercise). Imagine each one of those anxieties dying with Christ and your life being restored in boldness through the power of the resurrection. You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops.
2 Timothy 2:1-6 The author of Second Timothy, whether Paul or some later disciple of Paul, here uses a common theme found in many of the epistles of the great apostle: Christianity is about practice and training. The early Christians writers called this askesis--a Greek expression used for athletics. In their society, much like our own, two of the classes of people who were holistically committed to training for a cause were soldiers and athletes. Both classes of people put aside their own immediate needs and desires for something greater than themselves. In early Christianity there were groups of people who went out to the desert to train their bodies, minds, and spirits so that they would live into the way of Christ. At first they were hermits, one or two monks or nuns living mostly alone in caves, but then some began to gather into groups. These groups of people training into the way of Jesus became monastics. There is much good and much bad in the history of the monastic movement, but one of the great errors that has come down to us is the idea that monastics, and monastics alone, are those with a special vocation to really train in the way of Jesus. It is as though those in the monasteries are the Olympic athletes and the rest of us are just the “weekend warriors.” Instead, as Second Timothy and much of the rest of the New Testament shows, serious training in Christlikeness is for all of us. We are all called to be like spiritual athletes whose lives are formed around becoming more than what the defaults of our life would have us be. This is not to say that we must be perfectionists or that our lives are not lived by grace, but rather that the call of our faith is a call to serious practice, a kind of practice that should change the way we live in the world. It is through this practice of prayer, and reading scripture, and loving our neighbors that we begin to find the fullness of our faith. It doesn’t come in a flash, but grows over time through what one writer called “a long obedience in the same direction.” The call for that obedience is for all of us, but we can’t live into that call unless we train ourselves in it. That is our task, a life like Christ is our hope. Prayer for Today God of creation you formed us from the ground and shape us through all of the activities of our lives. Help our ways follow your ways so that our bodies, minds, and souls, will be shaped into the image of your eternal Son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Spiritual Practice for Today Many athletes do not haphazardly go about exercising. Instead, often with the help of a coach, they set about to develop a training plan. The Christian monastic tradition created a training plan that is called a Rule of Life. Spend some time today thinking about the activities that have given you the greatest spiritual growth. Then map out how you will practice them over the coming week. Don’t over do it, but try to follow it consistently. See how you feel about it after the end of the week, make any adjustments that are necessary, and then create a plan for the next week and so on. |
About this series
COVID19 created an unprecedented situation for all of us. These reflections, originally written for the people of Christ Episcopal Church, were meant to help people of faith learn how to navigate this time and find the threads of God's goodness in the midst of the pandemic. The series has ended but the Pandemic has not. I hope they continue to offer help and hope to all that read them. |