APOCALYPSE - A REFLECTION ON THE TRINITY

 This reflection was delivered on May 30th at Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, South Dakota.

REVELATIONS. 3:6

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

Apocalypse

by 

Norm Wright

We are living in an apocalyptic age.  No, I’m not talking about the end of the world or fire and brimstone raining down from heaven.  The word apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning to uncover; pulling the curtain back to reveal the truth.  In an apocalyptic age we encounter truths that will make us feel uncomfortable and there are a lot of uncomfortable truths we are dealing with in today’s world, but I’m not going to delve into them.  

Rather on this Trinity Sunday, I want to pull back the curtain on the doctrine of the Trinity itself; specifically, the concept of a triune god as expressed in our creeds and doxologies. 

God being understood as our Father, Jesus as God’s Son (our brother), and God as Spirit are not in question here, such referential terms are found throughout the New Testament, but the concept of three distinct persons in one god is not found in our scriptures. 

I’m not going to try to explain the complex, meandering theology behind the doctrine of a triune god, but rather talk about the events that led to it and the creeds that express it.

Our church’s eclectic collection of stained glass windows will aid us, as we have two windows that have a connection going back to the Roman Empire and the emperor, Constantine.  The two windows I’m referring to is the DeMolay window in the back of the nave on the south side and the Trinity window located on the east wall of the South Transept.

Starting with the DeMolay window, we find an inscription attributed to Constantine, “In hoc signo vinces.”  “In this sign you will conquer”. 

In the year 312, Constantine was at war with his rival for the imperial throne of the Rome, Maxentius. On the eve of battle, legend has it that Constantine had a vision or a dream in which he saw within the blinding light of the Sun a cross and heard the words, “In this sign you will conquer.”  Perhaps his “vision” was more a stroke of genius than the anything else.

By the 4th century, Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire including the ranks of the Roman legions.  There are stories about Christians in those legions who refused to fight an opposing army if there were Christians in it.  I suspect Constantine took advantage of this knowledge to consolidate the large number of Christians in his ranks and to weaken the resolve of any Christians in Maxentius’s ranks by placing a cross on his legions’ shields, and a Chi-Rho on his banners.  Constantine wins the day, legalizes Christianity, and with legalization came imperial patronage (money).

The other window in our church connected to Constantine is the Trinity window which contains a quote from the Athanasian Creed as seen on on the front of today’s bulletin. 

Within thirteen years of Constantine legalizing and patronizing Christianity, violent disputes between various bishop and their communities broke out over the nature of Jesus and who was or wasn’t a true Christian, threatening Pax Romana.  In 325 Constantine ordered these quarrelsome bishops to attend the first church council at his palace on the island of Nicea to settle their difference. The result is our Nicean Creed.

What we don’t talk about is the bloodshed and mayhem that ensued after believing the creeds became the criteria for being a Christian and after Christianity becomes the only religion of the Roman Empire in 381; how the once persecuted Christians became the persecutors, exiling and even executing heretical Christians, among others for their opposition to the creeds.

We are living in an apocalyptic age.  In 1946 in a place called Nag Hammadi, Egypt, two brothers came across clay jars containing a number of leather-bound codices.  Archeologist were able to identify these codices as writings of the early church, some that Athanasius had ordered to be burned in 367. Included in these codices where some unknown gospels, The Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and much, much more that are giving us a window into early Christianity.

Since that and other discoveries about the Church have emerged, almost every mainline Christian leader today have come to a realization, the Church needs to change.  Bishop Folts echoed that realization when he met with the Vestry and Search Committee on Palm Sunday. 

What does that mean?  Where do we begin?   

Prompting the need for change is the vast numbers of people who have left and are leaving the Church, and when that happens the Spirit of God is telling us something.  Of course, no one has given us any definitive answers as to what change means or where to begin, but I think our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, is on to something with his emphasis on following the way of love, on following the teachings of Jesus.   

Love is a word that is manifestly missing from our creeds and its absence reveals a blatant neglect for what Jesus taught. 

In the Book of Revelation, the Book of Apocalypse, its author John has a vision of Jesus addressing seven churches.  At the end of Jesus’ revealing message to each church, Jesus says, “ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”  

In this apocalyptic age, God’s Spirit is speaking to us through discoveries like Nag Hammadi and through discoveries in the fields of science, history, and other disciplines.   While they take to task some of the Church’s long held doctrines about the world and about Jesus, they don’t challenge the teachings of Jesus and God’s love. 

In this apocalyptic age, God’s Spirit is on the move, helping us to understand ourselves by pulling back the curtain on the world of our making and helping us to understand who we are and whose we are.

In this apocalyptic age, we need to wake up and listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

* * * * * * * * * *

Until next time,  stay faithful.

Norm

THE SPIRIT OF GOD - A REFLECTION ON PENTECOST

 

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

Romans 8:22-27

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (body in the the original Gk text). For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

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 SPIRIT OF GOD

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Gen.1:1-2)

“God is a Spirit” say Jesus in the Gospel of John and “those who worship God must do so in spirit and in truth.” [John 4:24].  The spiritual essence of God is prevalent throughout scripture from Genesis onward.

The Christian celebration of the Feast of Pentecost often treats the Spirit of God as something that came about at that time, serving to fill out what is known as the Holy Trinity, but as we see in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the Spirit of God was present at the moment of beginning. The Spirit of God is associated and with the creative power of God and it is that creative power that gives relevancy to the experience of the disciples during their celebration of the barley harvest, Judaism’s Pentecost, which in Hebrew is called “Shavuot.”

The Spirit of God’s presence during the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, Shavuot, some two thousand years ago which settled upon the small gathering of the Jewish followers of Jesus while they were celebrating the beginning of the wheat harvest is both symbolic and significant.  It is symbolic in that it calls to mind the creative power that brought about all of creation and appeared as a pillar of light that guided the Israelites in darkness of the wilderness.  It is significant, in that, the Spirit of God is individualized and shown residing on (within) each of Jesus’ followers, a light to guide them, to enlighten them, and inspire them, marking them as the “harvest,” among the first fruits of  God’s new creation, the reclamation and reset of God’s original creative script.   

On this Pentecost, our attention is drawn to Paul’s letter to the Romans and his commentary on the Spirit of God which encompasses the entire eighth chapter of Paul’s letter.  I invite all who are reading this reflection to read the entire chapter.  Paul talks about the Spirit of God in conjunction with the whole of God’s creation coming into full bloom, and being ripe for harvest. 

In today’s lesson, Paul says creation is experiencing a pregnancy, referencing its labor pains in the process of giving birth to a new creation.  In the original Greek  of Paul’s letter this fullness is about a transformation or as Paul puts it, “we wait for adoption, the redemption of our body.”  Paul is not talking about a physical resurrection, but a reclamation  or a transformation of creation to what it is and who we are according to God’s original script of love.  Unfortunately, many modern translations translate Paul’s use of “our body” as "our bodies,” which is incorrect.  The Greek word Paul used was the singular “soma” not the plural “somata.”  Paul doesn’t subscribe to the resurrection of the physical body but rather to the resurrection of  the spiritual body. [See 1 Corinthians 15:42-44]  The “our body” being referred to here is a collective sense of the body as the entirety of all creation or what we might refer to as the Body of Christ, which takes in the entire reset of creation.

Early in the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter, he references the Spirit giving life to our mortal bodies; enlivening us as incarnations of God’s presence, to be the collective Body of Christ in the world or as John said in his first letter, to present God’s love in this world.  In contemporary lingo Paul says that those who don’t have the Spirit of God in them are like zombies who only appear alive but are in truth dead.  Perhaps that’s a bit extreme and I’m not sure God sees anyone that way, but it certainly appeared that way to Paul.

There is a deep sense of intimacy when Paul talks about the Spirit of God.  Paul’s intimate depiction of the Spirit of God is that of a communicator between the human heart and the heart of God.  Paul’s depiction of God’s Spirit is similar to the description Jesus gave in the Gospel of John;  that God’s Spirit serves as our advocate.  As such, the Spirit of God acts like translator for the things that are too deep for words; things that are expressed through our groans and sighing.  In fact, Paul says that the Spirit groans and sighs on our behalf, suggesting that our sighs and groans is a language God understands even when we don’t.

There are times when we feel more than we can adequately express in words.  Paul is saying that such moments are treated by God’s Spirt as prayerful moments; moments in which the Spirt of God intercedes or intercepts our experiences; taking them on as God’s experience, acting as a sort of spiritual neurotransmitter.   As mentioned in the reflections on John’s first letter, God’s love makes God vulnerable to the experiences of God’s creation, to what we experience.  

This doesn’t mean we have no need for prayer.  On the contrary, prayer is a form of Holy Communion or Holy Communication that brings us into an intentional awareness of God’s sympathetic presence in our lives.  We do not need to worry about getting our prayers “right;” saying the right things in the right way.  Prayer is not about trying to make things sound appealing to God but rather about being honest with God and being honest with ourselves by saying what’s on our minds and in our hearts; opening our gut-wrenching and heart-felt feelings to God.  It is in prayer that we enter the Holy of Holies, the heart of God; the love of God.

It is in our brother Jesus’ dying forgiveness that we find our redemption and what it means to redeem others through following his example.  Being in communion with him as the risen Christ and one with him in the rising Christ, we have and experience that same Spirit which descended on him like a dove at his baptism and appeared on the disciples as tongues of fire. 

The Spirit of God dwells with us, in us, and around us. The Spirit of God is boundless.  It is not subject to our will but rather conforms our will to the will of God.  The Spirit of God is the force of God’s love, the invisible gravity that binds us together as one with God.  The Spirit of God is the driving force of God’s will; shaping the course of our being and our lives.

On this day we invite the God’s Spirit into our awareness, to be mindful of the Spirit’s presence in all that we do and in all that we encounter.  God’s Spirit enables us to live in hope when all appears hopeless,  comforts us when there is little to be comfortable about, and guides us through the flow of life; inspiring us to be the creative children God intended us to be.   

Amen. 

HYMN

                Come, Holy Spirit, our souls inspire, and lighten

                with celestial fire.  Thou the anointing Spirit art,

                who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart

                Thy blessed unction from above is comfort, life

                and fire of love.  Enable with perpetual light

                the dullness of our blinded sight.

                        (Latin 9th century)

* * * * * * * * * * 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

CHILDREN BORN BY LIGHT AND BY LOVE - A REFLECTION ON 1 JOHN

These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

During this Easter Season, we have reflected on the First Letter of John.  On this last Sunday of the Easter Season we reflect on a few of the insights John’s letter offers regarding God and what it means to be a child of God.

GOD IS LIGHT [1 John 1:5} 

The resurrection of Jesus was not only a reset of creation according to God’s original script of love, but it was a reset of our understanding of God.  God is light is more than a metaphorical reference to God being like light, but rather that God is consistently active in creating life and sustaining life.  Physically speaking, we would not exist long without light; as such, we would not exist at all without God.  Spiritually speaking, light enlightens our understanding.  Ever since we humans have pursued knowing the difference between good and evil and attempting to be gods unto ourselves, our attention has been drawn towards the shadowy, dark side of such knowledge; drawn to what we fear in ourselves and what we see in others.  The light of God, however, bestows wisdom granting us discerning insight into the knowledge we possess.

GOD IS LOVE [1John 4:8}

God’s love for the world, a love displayed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is immeasurable.  Why God loves us so much is hard to fathom, but the experience of it leads us to understand that God is love.  Love is God’s nature.  Just as God is always life-giving, God is also constantly loving. It is love that nurtures life in all of its shapes and forms.  It is love that gives our lives meaning and direction.  It has always been God’s intent that we who are created in the image of God to be as loving as God is loving and to return God’s love by loving and caring for that which God loves.  

CHILDREN OF GOD [1 John 3:2}

Love does not exist in a vacuum.  God’ s love requires love returned.  That is why we are here.  That is why we are made in the image of God.  Since Adam and Eve where made the first children of God, all of their descendants are children of God, made in the image of God.  This central truth of our existence was re-introduced to those of us who follow Jesus. As a result of Jesus’ forgiveness of all while a victim of human injustice, Jesus was raised to new life, the first fruit of a new creation.  Just as we  proceeded from our first parents as God’s children, all of God’s children are raised to new life in Christ Jesus.  

LOVE IN ACTION [1John 3:18]

Love is more than a sentiment and an ideological belief.  Love is meant to be an act of faith and put into action.  Jesus commands us to love one another as he loves us.  Such love requires that we are wiling to put our own agendas aside for the sake of those in need of love’s nourishment.  We cannot merely say we love, we must actively love. We must be willing to let love guide us in our daily activities.  Love in action casts out fear and puts aside hatred, giving us the ability to continue with Jesus’ healing ministry on earth; to forgive, to redeem, and to restore in tangible and meaningful ways. 

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL [1 John 5:4]

In last Sunday’s reflection,  I inserted a verse from Peter’s first letter to mitigate the language of conquest. The somewhat militant language as if we’re at war is understandable given the nature of our bellicose world, but I find it distracting from the overall perspective of scripture.  Overriding the “either this or that” language found in our scriptures is a sense that all is in God; that “there is no darkness in God at all” [1John 1:5 that both day and night are alike in God’s view [Psalm 139:12].  Where God is concerned, all is light and all is loved; all is covered by the purity of God’s love. The problem we face is living in a world that has yet to embrace this truth.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Reflecting on the first letter of John reveals that God journeys with us; helping us navigate through the world of our making.  In the teachings and redeeming actions of Jesus we are graced with a new understanding, a new vision, that all of God creation is covered by the love of God. It is God’s love that  brought us into being and will see us through this life until we find ourselves in the presence of that light which gave us life and that love which has nurtured us to new life in Christ.  That is our hope and that is our faith.  

Amen

* * * * * * * * * * 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL - A Mother's Day Reflection

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

PURE LOVE COVERS ALL

Love is at the center of all of Jesus’ teachings.  If love nurtures and casts out fear, love also heals and protects. While not a quote from the first letter of John, another apostolic letter from Peter gives us another reason to constantly love, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”  [1 Peter 4:8 NRSV].   Peter’s depiction of love covering a multitude of sins fits well with what John is trying to convey in his first letter. 

The constant, nourishing love of God is experienced in the love we have for one another.   It is the love of Jesus that covers the sins of the world; that protects us from the effects of our selfishness.  Jesus likened Godly love to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings to protect them. [Matthew 23:37]. 

On this Mother’s Day, our attention is drawn to the nurturing and protective love associated with motherhood.  A mother’s love can be both fierce and gentle.  In many ways a mother’s love  exemplifies God’s love.  

Perhaps this is why Jesus’ mother, Mary, receives so much attention in the gospels. Mary embodied the heartfelt mothering love God intended Jesus to grow up with and grow into.  Mary exemplifies the quiet concern and watchful eye that clues a mother into sensing when things are not right or who takes quiet, unspoken delight in watching her child prosper because whatever her child does always remains a part of her. 

God’s love is like a mother’s love.  God’s love is both fierce in its determination and gentle in its application. God is quietly patient and takes delight in watching us, God’s children, grow and prosper.  It is that love which Jesus grew into and exemplified.  It is that love we are called to present to the world. 

All of us, men and women alike, are capable of taking on the nurturing role of mothers and exhibiting motherly love.  Consider the father in Jesus parable of The Prodigal Son and the Samaritan who nurtured a victimized Judean in the parable of The Good Samaritan. We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who, in many ways, have mothered us along life’s journey.

God’s determined and gentle love is as prevalent and as freely given as the air we breathe, but like the air we breathe, it can become occluded by the pollution of distrust, exploitation, fear, and the hatred of others we produce, promote, and perpetuate.  

We were made by the pure love of God and made to love God purely and that which God love.  The purity of God’s love cleanses us from all the impurities we encounter.  The purity of  God’s love heals and refreshes us.  Pure love always forgives, always redeems, and always restores.   Pure love covers all.

Amen. 

Now Thank We All Our God

  Now thank we all our God, with heart, and hands, and voices,

            who wondrous things hath done, in whom his world rejoices;

            who from our mother’s arms hath blessed us on our way

            with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

            O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us!

            with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

            and keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed, 

            and free us from all ills in this world and the next.

                        (Martin Luther 1586-1649)

* * * * * * * * * * 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

GOD IS LOVE - A REFLECTION ON 1 JOHN

 These reflections are written as devotions for my parish church, Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton South Dakota.

1 John 4:16-21

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

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.

GOD IS LOVE

This selection from John’s first letter is one of the finest descriptions of how our relationship with God and our relationship with on another and the world works:   Because God is Love, we are to be love in this world.  

In this reading we find that the pervasiveness of God’s love does not allow for anything else but loving that which God loves, and God loves all.  We know God, not through our intellect, but through the experience of love. “We love God because God first loved us” is precisely how we know and acknowledge God.  

If God as light brought about life, God as love nurtures it and makes it meaningful.  We all thrive when we feel loved.  

Part of what we identify in our liturgies as Mystery of Faith is that God is love.  That God deeply cares about life, your life, my life, on this small speck of dust has been demonstrated through the life, death, and resurrection of our brother Jesus.  The intense intentionality of God’s love as seen in Jesus begs the question, why?  

Why does God love us so much? 

Love does not exist in a vacuum.  Love requires love returned. Love is the reason God made us in God’s image and breathed us to life to become the living souls we are today.  God needs us to need God.  God loves us so that we love God.  

Love makes God sound so vulnerable.  Indeed, love makes God vulnerable to our cares and our pain, just as love makes us vulnerable to same. Love like faith and hope is not about certainty, but rather about the willingness to engage and cope with uncertainties of life.  The strength of love is not in its being rigid or tough. The strength of love is its endurance, its flexibility to spring back when pushed back, and its immense patience.  The strength of love is also in its vulnerability.  In fact, love cannot exist unless there is a sense of being susceptible to the feelings and needs of others.

While God’s love is immeasurable, God doesn’t require much to feel loved.  In the Ten Commandments, God only asks for one day out of a week to take a break and take some time to express our love of God as a worshipping community.  Taking our personal and communal needs to God is an act of loving God, but what expresses our love for God best is when we love what God loves or as John says loving our brothers and sisters.     

What John’s letter clarifies is that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather fear.  Hate is the result of fear; in that, we tend to hate what we fear.  Fear and hatred are not attributes of God.  Our fears and our hatreds are not obstacles to God, but they are to us.  As the children of God, we need to ask ourselves what is the point of our fears and hatreds?

Fear abounds in our world and where fear abounds hatred abounds.  Everything we struggle with in our world is rooted in fear.   Perceptively, John writes that our fears are connected to our fear of punishment.  John is not talking about fearing God’s punishment, but the fact that we punish ourselves by punishing those we fear and then fear being punished in return. Fear begets fear in the one feared and hatred begets hatred in the one being hated.  It is a vicious cycle evident in all our struggles of the past and the present.

John points out that perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love is that love which abides in God, and if we abide in God love is being perfected in us. The antidote to our fears is to love what God loves.  It has always been love and will it always be love.  

We can’t change the fears and hatreds of the past, but we don’t have to perpetuate them.  We have within us the creative power of God’s love by which to write a different history moving forward; a power that allows us to move the needle of history from systemic fear to systemic love by abandoning the of script our making in which the plot line always ends in death in order to follow God’s original script of love which always leads to life.

Doing so requires a willingness to walk by faith, a willingness to allow room for hope, and a willingness to exercise love for all, not with words but by deeds.

God is love and so let us love God by actively loving all that God loves.  

Amen.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm