PENTECOST - A REFLECTION

These reflections are written for the Parish of Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota by this blogger.

THE  DAY  OF  PENTECOST

“All  of  them  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit “

THE FIRST LESSON

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

`In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit;

and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.

Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' “

THE PSALM

Psalm 104:25-35, 37

Benedic, anima mea

25 O Lord, how manifold are your works! *

in wisdom you have made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

26 Yonder is the great and wide sea

with its living things too many to number, *

creatures both small and great.

27 There move the ships,

and there is that Leviathan, *

which you have made for the sport of it.

28 All of them look to you *

to give them their food in due season.

29 You give it to them; they gather it; *

you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.

30 You hide your face, and they are terrified; *

you take away their breath,

and they die and return to their dust.

31 You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *

and so you renew the face of the earth.

32 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever; *

may the Lord rejoice in all his works.

33 He looks at the earth and it trembles; *

he touches the mountains and they smoke.

34 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; *

I will praise my God while I have my being.

35 May these words of mine please him; *

I will rejoice in the Lord.

37 Bless the Lord, O my soul. *

Hallelujah!

THE EPISTLE LESSON

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

THE GOSPEL

John 7:37-39

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who has faith (nw) in me drink.  As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the faithful (nw) heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which the faithful (nw) in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

REFLECTION

by

Norm Wright

+In the Name of the Creating Spirit of God+

“When the day of Pentecost had come…” is a good place to start when talking about the Feast of Pentecost.  The day that “had come” which Luke, the author of Acts, is referring to is the Jewish feast of Pentecost, Shavuot, or the “Festival of Weeks” which is described in Deuteronomy 16:9-12.  Shavuot is a harvest festival marking the end of the then seven week grain harvest which began after the Feast of Passover.  It is also celebrated as a feast commemorating God giving the Torah to the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai.  It is one of the festivals when Jews from all over the known world at the time would have traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate it at the Temple.  

That the Jewish feast of Pentecost was the day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, including women and children, who gathered together to celebrate it gives the Christian feast of Pentecost a deeper meaning.    

Just as a harvest sets the stage for new life to emerge on the earth, the ascension of Jesus, as the taken-in first fruit of new creation, set the stage for a new creation to emerge which was being inaugurated by the Holy Spirit on that day of Jewish Pentecost. 

Just as the giving of the law guided the people of Israel, the the Holy Spirit is present to guide and empower us to proclaim the good news that a new creation in Christ Jesus has begun.

With that said, I would like to draw some of the threads together that we have been looking at during the Lenten and Easter seasons:  

The first is my personal creed, “What’s true for Jesus is true for us.”  Jesus is our exemplar.  Jesus’ teachings show us what it means to be truly human, and Jesus’ ministry demonstrates what it means to live into being God’s child.  

The second is that living into being a child of God begins with the recognition that we, all of us, are children of God, but rarely act like it.  Jesus lived into being the beloved son God declared him to be at his baptism, which culminated in the kenotic act of pouring himself out and opening himself to the world on the cross.   

The third is what I call the grace of doubt.  Doubt, in this sense, is not selfish skepticism, but rather is a doubt that pushes one’s selfish certitude aside to allow for second sight, the sight of faith.  It is expressed in Jesus’ Eloi, Elioi… moment; that momentary doubtful cry on the cross that led him to see the world as our Father sees it.   Seeing the world through the eyes of our loving Father, gave Jesus the faith to look out on those who crucified him and completely empty himself in order to allow them and the whole world into his wounded body and forgiving all.   

This grace of doubt opens one to that perennial longing residing at the core every heart, which is to experience the love of God.  The grace of doubt motivates one to take a second, deeper look like Mary Magdalene who returned to the tomb and like Thomas who at the approach of Jesus pushed aside certitude to enter the wounds of Jesus.

Lastly, Jesus being taken into that mysterious cloud allows the risen Christ to be present through the agency of the Holy Spirit.  It is through the Holy Spirit that the Risen Christ approaches each longing heart.  

The Holy Spirit is the primal breath and the energizing power of God that brought us to life and breathed in us the creative image of God.  The Pentecost event is the baptism of fire that inaugurates a new creation conformed to the likeness of the risen and rising Christ.  Its symbol is the fire that cannot be quenched and does not destroy, but rather enlivens, enlightens, and sanctifies.  

The paradox of the risen and rising Christ is the situation we find ourselves in; a state of being that is both complete and yet to be completed.  

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s final judgment on the world God and in this “becoming” life, we are freed to proclaim a new creation in Christ.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to free others and invite them to join us as member of Christ’s body and put aside selfish certitude that leads to degradation, hatred, violence, and war.  

The Holy Spirit comes as a burning desire that inspires and purifies us to become who we truly are; the offspring of that Being in which we live, move, and have our being. 

The Holy Spirit comes to give us the sight of faith to see Christ in all things.  

The Holy Spirit comes to open our faith-filled hearts from which rivers of living water flow into a world thirsty to know the love of God.   

        

The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the NationalCouncil of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

THE ASCENSION - A REFLECTION

From a devotion written for Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota

The  Seventh  Sunday  of  Easter

“Why do you stand looking upward toward heaven?”

                                               

THE FIRST LESSON

Acts 1:[1-5] 6-14

[In the first book, Theophilus, I (Luke) wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”]

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

THE SECOND LESSON

John 17:1-11[12-24]

Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”

“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” [While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.  I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”] 

REFLECTION

By

Norm Wright

+In the Name of the Ascended Christ+

When I was growing up in the small town of Kaylor, S.D. Ascension Day was a holiday: no school, no bank, no bars, not even the two gas stations were open.  My dad would close the family-owned grocery store and cafe for the day and, after we all went to church in the morning, we would spend the rest of the day fishing at Pickstown or Lake Andes.  

Ascension Day gets little attention nowadays.  It seems to have lost its luster and relevance in today's world.  Because it isn’t given much serious attention, it has been reduced to a story about Jesus’ exit from the scene after his resurrection.   In fact, if one reads about the ascension of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, one might conclude that Jesus ascended into heaven on Easter or no later than a day or two after.  There is no distinct timeline given in the Gospels as to when this occurred, and the Gospel of John offers no description of it.

The Acts of the Apostles is the only place where there is a detailed discussion about it as an event worth taking note of.  In fact there is a lot to unpack in Luke’s brief but masterful account of it.  What we find is that it is anything but an exit story.  In fact, the ascension story in Acts brings us back to the resurrection, to consider its meaning in the light of Jesus’ ascension.  The ascension underscores that Jesus’ resurrection was not an ending, but rather the start of a new creation that began with the resurrection.    

What is intriguing, among many other things, is Luke’s description of Jesus  talking to his disciples about the Kingdom of God. We don’t know what was said, but apparently what wasn’t discussed was anything about Jesus re-establishing the Kingdom of Israel; something the disciples and Jesus’ Jewish followers anticipated as an immediate followup to Jesus’ resurrection.    

There was a sense that Jesus was leaving before the job, they believed the Messiah was supposed to do, was done, so they ask (and here I am paraphrasing), “Jesus, now that you’re back, aren’t you going to establish the Kingdom of Israel?  Isn’t that what being the Messiah is all about?  You beat death. How about beating the Romans?  Why leave now when nothing about the world we know has changed?”    

This is an important question.  It’s a question (at least an unconscious one) many Christians continue to have today.   It is the reason Luke is addressing it upfront, at the beginning of Acts, because Jesus’ resurrection didn’t result in that happening.  

So what is Jesus’ resurrection about?

Here I will offer two personal views that may appear incongruent with general understanding and a number of church teachings.

The first is that Jesus’s resurrection is God’s final judgement on humankind. Exploring that view will require a whole set of homilies - so stay tuned.

The second view is built on the first; that as the final judgment, Jesus’ resurrection serves as the reset point to get us back on the path of taking care of things, which, by the way, is our original job description according to Genesis.  

In other words, God’s way of setting things straight begins by setting us straight and putting us on a path established by Jesus - as a trajectory through history - to collectively live into role of caretakers and do the job we were originally intended to do.  Unfortunately, some of the Church’s teachings and practices over the past two thousand years have distracted us from that path.

Jesus does not debate the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel simply because it is caught up in the establishment of God’s Kingdom.  If for the past forty days Jesus had been talking about God’s Kingdom, why was there a need to ask about the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel?   

The simple answer is the disciples were incapable of letting go of an entrenched mindset at that point.  In fact, that mindset is traceable throughout the New Testament.  

Many Christians continue to insist or at least harbor the idea that Jesus must return or could return as a militant Messiah and that there will be a militant end to the world (a catastrophic Armageddon-moment); an idea that is deeply rooted in Christian fundamentalism and in some evangelical denominations. To be honest, there is a lot of scripture in the New Testament to back that idea, but there is also a lot of scripture that dispels a literal interpretation of its more militant passages.   

This idea of a militant return of Jesus begs the question that if Jesus, as the Messiah, didn’t come as a militant messiah the first time around which resulted in God forgiving our bellicose behavior, what makes us think Jesus would come back as a militant messiah a second time around as if to imply the first time around did’t get it right? 

Jesus basically tells his disciples and us, “Don’t worry about it. This is God’s issue.  What is important for you now is to be my witnesses and continue the work that I started.”  At that point, Jesus ascends and lets the question about such things go unanswered.

As the disciples are looking up trying to see Jesus in the obscurity of a cloud, two men in white mysteriously appear and ask,  "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”  In other words, these two mysterious men were pointing the disciples' gaze and ours back to earth in order to keep us grounded in the reset of creation that is taking place in the here and now.

The description of a cloud taking him up; as in, receiving Jesus and being described as the means by which Jesus returns is worth paying attention to because it’s not so much about the cloud being the means by which Jesus goes and comes that is important. Rather, it is the meaning of the cloud that is significant.  The cloud that took Jesus up and received Jesus is a familiar symbol used throughout scripture in various ways.  It is the cloud mentioned in the Transfiguration.  It’s the cloud that led Israel in the wilderness by day during the exodus. 

Clouds are used throughout scripture as a metaphor for hidden things. They also are used as a metaphor for dispensing goodness, life, and justice just as clouds dispense life-giving rain. The cloud represents the hiddenness; the ineffability of God.  Jesus is absorbed into the paradoxical cloud of that Being in which we live, move, and have our being; that Being which is expressed in our being.  

The cloud is also a symbol of the faithful - the cloud of witnesses - us and all who came before and who will come after.  That is why Jesus’ ministry continues through us, his witnesses in the here and now.  The cloud remains until all are one and all are caught up into its mysterious splendor. 

It was and is necessary that Jesus Christ is hidden from our physical sight, because that sight has never been reliable, as we have seen demonstrated throughout our lessons in Gospel of John during Lent and Easter. What reveals the truth of Jesus to us is the sight of faith.

The risen and ascended Christ is experienced as the cosmic nexus between God and humankind, as the path (the way of Jesus) between heaven and earth. Like the rain that falls from clouds, Christ has rained down on all creation and is experienced in all things by the means of God’s grace and expressed through our acts of faith.   

The ascension of Jesus reminds us that we are called to live into our roles as the caretakers of life on this planet until we are gathered into that cloud of witnesses and enter into the splendor of that Light in which God is hidden.

O Comforter, draw near, within our hearts appear, and kindle them, your holy flame bestowing.  Amen

           

  

The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

The Collects, Psalms and Canticles are from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979.

BEING - A REFLECTION

The  Sixth  Sunday  of  Easter 

      ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’
          

THE PSALM

Psalm 66:7-18

7 Bless our God, you peoples; *

make the voice of his praise to be heard;

8 Who holds our souls in life, *

and will not allow our feet to slip.

9 For you, O God, have proved us; *

you have tried us just as silver is tried.

10 You brought us into the snare; *

you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.

11 You let enemies ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water; *

but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

12 I will enter your house with burnt-offerings

and will pay you my vows, *

which I promised with my lips

and spoke with my mouth when I was in trouble.

13 I will offer you sacrifices of fat beasts

with the smoke of rams; *

I will give you oxen and goats.

14 Come and listen, all you who fear God, *

and I will tell you what he has done for me.

15 I called out to him with my mouth, *

and his praise was on my tongue.

16 If I had found evil in my heart, *

the Lord would not have heard me;

17 But in truth God has heard me; *

he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

18 Blessed be God, who has not rejected my prayer, *

nor withheld his love from me.

THE FIRST LESSON

Acts 17:22-31

Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

THE SECOND LESSON

John 14:15-21

Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

A HOMILY

By 

Norm Wright

This is a portion of a homily I delivered on May 21, 2017 at Christ Episcopal Church. 

+In the Name of that Being in which we live, move and have our being+

It’s not every Sunday one can give a homily based on Greek legend, Geek mythology, and the New Testament. So I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to do so.

In order to fully appreciate our first lesson from Acts 17, we need to know why Paul addressed the Athenians at the Areopagus and why he quotes two poems about the Greek god, Zeus.  The author of Acts, Luke, likely assumed that everybody of his day, two thousand years ago, would have known why, but knowledge can get lost in two thousand years.  So let’s take a moment to review:

The Areopagus is a rock outcropping in Athens that was used in Paul’s time for conducting public trials.  Here the Athenians wanted to discern if Paul was introducing a new religion into their city, as Paul’s preaching about Jesus and his resurrection seemed to indicate.  Introducing a new religion was considered corruption and treated as a serious crime in ancient Athens; a charge that resulted in the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. 

On his way to the Areopagus, Paul passes an altar to “The Unknown God,” the history of which Paul uses, along with the two early Greek poems, to build his defense that he was not introducing a new religion in Athens.

The first poet quoted is Epimenides, who wrote a poem called, “Cretica.”  In "Cretica," Epimenides makes the case to his fellow Cretans that the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, was very much alive as evident in their being alive, in spite of their having built a symbolic tomb declaring Zeus dead:

                        They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,

                        Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies. 

                        But you (Zeus) are not dead: you live and abide forever,

                        For in you we live and move and have our being[1]

As a side note, the line about Cretans being liars is quoted, verbatim,  in Paul’s letter to Titus (1:12) and is the basis for what is known as Epimenides’ Paradox which states that, if being a Cretan himself, Epimenides, in calling Cretans liars, is also a liar by telling a truth applicable to himself.

In fact, the altar to The Unknown God has a close connection to Epimenides.   According to legend, during the time of the great Athenian law giver, Solon, the Athenians suffered a horrendous plague attributed to an act of treachery they committed on people they granted asylum to and then killed. To rid themselves of the resulting plague, they tried appeasing their gods through sacrifice, but nothing was working. 

So they approached the Oracle at Delphi who informed them that there was a god they failed to appease.  When they asked which one, she said she didn’t know, but they should send for Epimenides, a prophet in Crete, who would help them.  So they did.

When Epimenides arrives in Athens he comments that they must be very religious because of the many gods and goddesses they have.  He told them there is a good and great unknown god who was smiling on their ignorance but was willing to be appeased. When they perform the proper rituals throughout the city, the plague is ended and they erected altars to this unknown god throughout Athens. [2]

The second “poet” Paul quotes is the philosopher Aratus, from his work Phenomenon:

… always we all have need of Zeus. For we are also his offspring…[3]

Avoiding the name Zeus, Paul infers, via his reference to the Unknown God, the philosophical idea of a Superior God whose nominal identity is simply “God” which we monotheists have adopted.   In my opinion, this is the best definition of God and our relationship to God found anywhere. God is the active force of all that is, has been, and will be, and we are the incarnate manifestations of that activity. We live because God is living, we move because God is moving, we are because God is.  This concept of everything existing in God – panentheism – is found in Paul’s understanding of the Risen Christ.  Jesus as the Risen Christ is, in Paul’s theology,  the cosmic nexus between God and humankind.

Paul’s personal encounters with Jesus occurred in his visions of the Risen Christ.  For Paul, the Resurrection was the reset point of God’s original relationship with us. The risen Jesus Christ is declared by Paul to be the first born of a new creation who, as a man was sown a physical body and, as the Christ was raised a spiritual body as stated in his first letter to the Corinthians (15).

* * * * * * * * * *

REFLECTION

Paul’s use of Epimenides’ definition of Zeus and Aratus’ conclusion that we are Zeus’ offspring found a place in Christianity where it became a definition for God.  It has remained there ever since.  We find it expressed in our prayers and in our hymns.  There is an egalitarianism in that definition which resonates with the teachings of Jesus and the whole of Scripture.  

Paul’s understanding of Epimenides’ definition worked its way into what he described as the Body of Christ.   This egalitarian understanding of the Body of Christ is expressed in Paul’s letter to the Galatians where he wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28).  

This truth-based fact that is supported in all of Jesus’ teaching is currently finding expression in TV commercials during this pandemic that remind us,  “We’re all in this together.”    This is the truth inherent in the poetry of Epimenides and Arastus.  It is a truth that allowed the Athenians to accept Paul’s message and allowed Paul to walk away from the Areopagus a free man.

If we can fully embrace this truth and act accordingly, we will be set free in enumerable ways.  We will be free to work with others in meeting the needs of all.  If we fully embrace this truth we will be free to put aside self interest on both a personal and a national level, and seek solutions with others around the world to the benefit of all.  

In all things, God’s will is to engage us in the reset that began with the risen Christ; to be one in God and to be caught up in that Love which pervades all things. 

O Love Divine, reset our hearts and minds in the risen Christ, that in you we may truly live, that in you we may truly move, and that in you we may truly find our being.   

AMEN

[1] Translated by Prof. J. Rendel Harris in a series of articles in the Expositor (Oct. 1906, 305–17; Apr. 1907, 332–37; Apr. 1912, 348–353;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides

[2] “To An Unknown God,” Christians in Crete, Connecting God’s Family http://christiansincrete.org/news/to-an-unknown-god/

[3] “Phenomenon” translated by G.R. Mair; http://www.theoi.com/Text/AratusPhaenomena.htm

The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

The Collects, Psalms and Canticles are from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979.